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Originally Posted by Punkus
I'd like to point out that no one can literally see thier own brain either. It has to be assumed that one has a brain, too, based upon the empirical evidence of viewing other's brains(dead or alive) or assuming that x-rays, video feed, brain wave detectors, etc. are relaying undoctored results. It has to be deduced.
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Granted, but unlike a brain, which we can observe physically and therefore use that physical evidence as a deduction method, explanations of the origin of life aren't observable physically.
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Originally Posted by Punkus
To dismiss abiogenesis is not to discredit the theory of evolution necessarily either. Abiogenesis is just as much an unproven theory to me as evolution, however the Miller-Urey experiment of 1953 did establish "that natural processes could produce the building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them in the first place." Given enough time & the correct conditions.
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Actually Miller-Urey failed in a few very important ways. First, many of the amino acids produced by Miller-Urey were the "wrong" type of amino acids. All living beings on earth (including plants, single celled organisms, etc.) have only left-handed amino acids. Miller-Urey's experiment produced right-handed proteins as well as left-handed ones. What science has observed is that the introduction of even a single right-handed amino acid (which will bond nicely with left-handed ones) results in a useless chain of amino acids with regards to living beings. The fact that Miller-Urey produced right-handed amino acids at all means that the "natural process" that the experiment was supposed to emulate would have produced completely useless "building blocks of life"
Second, Miller-Urey needed to use a "cold trap" to isolate the resulting amino acids when they were formed. Without the cold trap, the acids immediately broke down as they were being created. In a natural environment, no such "cold trap" would have existed. The environment that created these building blocks would have immeidately destroyed them. Only through intelligent intervention were these amino acids preserved in the experiment. It is significant to note that Miller devised and introduced the cold trap only because the experiment destroyed the acids 100% of the time when the cold trap was not used. Not one single amino acid was created without it.
Third, the environmental conditions that Miller used are considered to be inappropriate given the current scientific beliefs regarding a primordial atmosphere on earth. This is not conclusive, but it is important to note that Miller chose the conditions that would be most conducive to making amino acids and readily admitted that any other conditions wouldn't likely work.
Fourth, the experiment ignores oxygen. The enviroment that Miller used was devoid of oxygen which was necessary to produce the amino acids, however if the real world environment had no oxygen, then it would have no ozone which would mean that the amino acids would have been subject to ultraviolet light and destroyed immediately. On the other hand, if oxygen had existed in quantities necessary to produce a protective ozone layer, it would have also prevented the very results that Miller-Urey produced.
The experiment ultimately proved that only in a controlled laboratory setting could the proper amino acids be produced. Certainly not in a natural setting.
An interesting side note is the left handed amino acid issue. In any "natural" genesis, one would indeed expect an equal number of right handed and left handed amino acids. Yet 100% of life on this planet uses only left handed amino acids. That is the statistically like flipping a coin one billion times and having it always come up heads. In fact it is worse because right handed amino acids destroy the ability for amino acids to form into anything usable in a living organism. The fact is that any "natural" explanation of the origin of life would have to explain this aberration. Miller-Urey doesn't even come close, nor do any other theories of non-intelligent origins. In fact any explanation that includes any element of chance would have to deal with right-handed amino acids. An intelligent origin, on the other hand, makes more sense in this matter because an intelligent creator could easily select the amino acids that would work.
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Originally Posted by Punkus
It is still, to my current knowledge, unknown as to the exact conditions present on the early forming earth approx. 4.6 billion years ago, but it's believed to be much different from how it is today. Though even if these conditions were not adequate enough to form life from abiogenesis during early earth then perhaps they were adequate enough on another planet somewhere else throughout the galaxies and ended up transferring these "buliding blocks of life" via a comet or intervention of an alien civilization. Both of which are of "earthly" origin and thus much more in accordance w/ the simplicity of occums razor as opposed to an immaterial god(s) or force(s). Besides, occums razor may seem tidy & logical, but is infact only a dogmatic rule of indefinite utilty.
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Occam's Razor doesn't even apply because it is only used to differentiate between scientific theories. Evolution doesn't qualify as a scientific theory (it isn't falsifiable) and neither does creation. Neither, for that matter does a comet carrying life's building blocks or alien implantation of life. You are correct however that occam's razor is only a rule which may or may not produce any useful result.
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Originally Posted by Punkus
The current theories concerning the origins of life are just that; theories. And will remain that way until someone get's off thier ass & verifies it reproducibly through scientific method.
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The scientific method, unfortunately, isn't able to verify any single-point past event. At most, someone might come up with an experiment that could produce something living, but that may or may not be what actually happened originally. Science can never prove what happened because of its own limitations. Thus the theories will always be theories and our belief in them will always be faith.
-- Jeff