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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (9781)	11/12/2010 2:46:03 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

Common ancestry is likely for currently surviving phyla. However the argument against spontaneous generation is much less likely. The living structures reifying the genetic code must operate within the rules of chemistry while satisfying an irreducible set of functional requirements. Such molecular machinery doesn't just spring into being in a week ... unless one considers scripture to be science. As soon as one working genetic code was in place, any others would be suppressed from emerging, even if they are chemically possible. The first successful code would allow organisms to reproduce ... and to eat. Other coding schemes would be rendered moot as their incomplete embodiments would get eaten. The energetic and entropic barriers to the emergence of a second coding scheme are way too high. Regarding the evolution of genetic core chemistry - most biochemists currrently hypothesize that the earliest lifeforms used RNA for everything - process as well as storage. Modern cells use the much more robust DNA for storage of genomic information. The same cells use RNA as the processors - the molecules which, together with the right proteins, constitute the machinery for transcription, translation and repair of the genetic "tape". cheers js

To: Brumar89 who wrote (9781)	11/12/2010 2:56:43 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

>So much for the idea that evolution isn't used to explain the origin of life btw.< In the cited material, the actual origin of life was not a subject of discussion. The timespan between the first living thing(s) and the emergence of the complete genetic scheme was the subject. Also, the panspermia hypothesis mentioned in connection with F. H. C. Crick doesn't posit alien civilizations. Microbial spores are the usual suspect.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (9781)	11/12/2010 5:08:27 PM
From: Solon	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 69300

"We don't have the slightest idea but it must have been evolution cause we believe there's nothing else" You miss the point. Science cannot experiment or comment upon the supernatural. It exists only in the natural world and for the purpose of understanding Nature and her laws. Fabulous explanations are for the superstitious and they are welcome to their "beliefs". The genetic code has already proven beyond all doubt exactly what the fossil record and all the combined sciences have said for years. Evey step and kind of who lived where, when, and what is now being clarified by leaps and bounds. There is no rational way to pretend that any "revealed" text of nonsense wholly contradictory to these facts has any value whatsoever. At a later post I will explain how this code was thought to come about and why one code covers most (not all) of life. But right now I am going out for some poker which is far more interesting. I will quote from the NAS. "Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. These claims subordinate observed data to statements based on authority, revelation, or religious belief. Documentation offered in support of these claims is typically limited to the special publications of their advocates. These publications do not offer hypotheses subject to change in light of new data, new interpretations, or demonstration of error. This contrasts with science, where any hypothesis or theory always remains subject to the possibility of rejection or modification in the light of new knowledge."