A Question on Abiogenesis

[CapelDodger]

Arthor Chadwick (Professor of Geology and Biology, Southwestern Adventist College)

WTF is an Adventist College? One's bound to wonder what this geologist's views on the age of the Earth are.

eta : http://www.swau.edu/, the website. First thing to hit the eye :

Who do you want to become? Where does God want you to go?

 

[CapelDodger]

Claudia Ginanni (Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases[FONT=&quot]) [/FONT]summed up the current state of RNA origin of life scenarios as follows: “A rare point of agreement about the RNA World is that no amount of research can actually prove that it ever existed: it can only suggest whether such a scenario was possible. And there seems to be no convergence towards agreement on fundamental principles. Molecular biologists who have spent untold hours researching and speculating about the RNA World hold opinions about the origin of life ranging from a solid belief that the evolution of life was the inevitable product of laws of nature to an equally firm conviction that it could not have happened without some kind of outside intervention.”

Schneibster's better than good with the science beat, I'll go for the weasely bits.

I'd like to see this quote in context, but if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak . Of course the RNA precursor-world can't be proved. Science is about evidence, and the evidence is long gone. The wide spectrum of "firm conviction" is seriously weighted towards the "inevitable product" end rather than the much shallower goddidit end, I'd stake my reputation on that. How an emerging consensus is to be defined in such a new field is at best a subjective call, as Ganinni recognises with "seems to be"; I don't know enough about her to weigh her opinion on the matter. Infectious disease arose some time after life. Viruses a long time after, as did the sophisticated parasites that cause most plant and animal diseases. Abiogenesis is not obviously a specialist subject of a disease specialist.

Scientists who utterly reject Darwinism may be one of our fastest growing controversial minorities…Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science - Larry Hatfield in Science Digest

Credentials in science, notice, not credentials in "relevant fields of science". Notice also "may be" and "controversial". Killer stroke it ain't. "Impressive" is pretty subjective as well. I, for instance, am relatively hard to impress. Larry Hatfield may, for all I know, be a journalist. 'Nuff said.

There's certainly a lot of noise being made about scientists abandoning Darwinism, and a parallel effort by a woefully-regulated US academic world to provide apparently impressive scientifc credentials to people who have never subscribed to Darwinism. The Steve Project http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s798387.htm is a positive result.

 

[Rodney]

Generation of our cosmos from a quantum fluctuation in an empty, dimensionless, timeless nothingness has been proposed and shown to be consistent with the development of the cosmos we see around us. The title of the paper was, IIRC, "Is the universe a quantum fluctuation?" and I think Alan Guth might be one of the authors.

So the universe sprung up from "an empty, dimensionless, timeless nothingness"? What was the impetus?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Presumably the same impetus as current production of virtual particles. i.e "none"

 

[Rodney]

Presumably the same impetus as current production of virtual particles. i.e "none"

So an empty, dimensionless, timeless nothingness was transformed into the universe with no impetus?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

That's what I said. Just like the current production of virtual particles. Problem?

 

[switchtech]

Unless there is something about the physical and chemical environment back then that forced all abiogenesis events to produce the same results. That is a more complex explanation, however.

It's also possible that there were multiple lifeforms, but competition knocked off all but one.

~~ Paul

It's like this, all other "first" life forms were very tasty. Our precursor was not. So everybody was muching down on everyone else but left our precursor alone. Eventually only our precursor was left!

 

[Rodney]

That's what I said. Just like the current production of virtual particles. Problem?

Yes. Virtual particles are just a theoretical construct to explain what otherwise cannot be explained -- the same as the theoretical construct that the universe came into existence with no impetus.

 

[Schneibster]

Yes. Virtual particles are just a theoretical construct to explain what otherwise cannot be explained -- the same as the theoretical construct that the universe came into existence with no impetus.

Wrong. Virtual particles are not only the ONLY explanation that anyone has found that works, they also explain a lot more than they were originally come up with to explain. That is the mark of a powerful theory, Rodney- and the difference between your random speculations and real scientific theories that make hard predictions that come true.

 

[Schneibster]

To be clear, Rodney, why don't you tell us about a prediction that the Bible made about science that came true. Other than the obvious "sciensetis are evul" crap.

 

[Dancing David]

So the universe sprung up from "an empty, dimensionless, timeless nothingness"? What was the impetus?

To quote Heradetus and Lao Tze "Not"+"Limit"+"Light".

If you notice a timeless, demensionless, nothingness would indicate that it is beyond our ability to describe. It is also 'outside the universe".

There are many possible scenarios:

Goddidit, which begs the question: Where did god come from?

The Great Crumb Snathcer was eating in the Mighty High Chair and a Bit of Crumb did fall to the Floor.

The Cosmic Coyote ate the Unknowable Burrito and did produce a Mighty Fart.

A Commitee was Formed and did Hire Out a Contract.

The Gods Thought It would be Funny.

Thoth and Nu Got It ON.

Mold Doth Grow in the Strangest of Places.

 

[Dancing David]

Yes. Virtual particles are just a theoretical construct to explain what otherwise cannot be explained -- the same as the theoretical construct that the universe came into existence with no impetus.

Uh, dude. I suppose the fact that they create tracks in 'particle chambers' would be an indication of what? The Ultimate Hottie playing Her Usual Tricks and Decieving Scienetists?

 

[Rodney]

Uh, dude. I suppose the fact that they create tracks in 'particle chambers' would be an indication of what? The Ultimate Hottie playing Her Usual Tricks and Decieving Scienetists?

According to Wikipedia: "The term is rather loose and vaguely defined, in the sense that it clings to a rather incorrect view that the world is somehow made up of 'real particles': it is not; rather, 'real particles' are more accurately understood to be excitations of the underlying quantum fields. As such, virtual particles are also excitations of the underlying fields, but are 'temporary' in the sense that they appear in calculations, but never as indexes to the scattering matrix (i.e., they never appear as the observable inputs and outputs of the physical process being modeled). In this sense, virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory, and do not appear in a nonperturbative treatment. As such, their existence is questionable; however, the term is useful in informal, casual conversation, or in rendering concepts into layman's terms." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particles

 

[hammegk]

...
Does the sun shine?

Does it rely on random processes?

Once the 23 or so constants that control physical processes have been set, it's pre-ordained.

 

[steenkh]

Once the 23 or so constants that control physical processes have been set, it's pre-ordained.

That would seem possible.

If ours is the only universe, it might stand to reason that since the constants and laws that govern this universe are so conducive to life, it might be correct that the universe has been made for us (or for life).

But if there are billions of different universes in the megaverse, it might just be a coincidence that one of them have the right conditions for life. Our universe certainly would not occupy any special position other than the universe where the constants and laws have these values.

 

[DeviousB]

According to Wikipedia: "[...] In this sense, virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory, and do not appear in a nonperturbative treatment. As such, their existence is questionable [...]" See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particles

Gordon Kane, director of the Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, provides this answer in Scientific American...

Are virtual particles really constantly popping in and out of existence? Or are they merely a mathematical bookkeeping device for quantum mechanics?

Virtual particles are indeed real particles. Quantum theory predicts that every particle spends some time as a combination of other particles in all possible ways. These predictions are very well understood and tested.

Quantum mechanics allows, and indeed requires, temporary violations of conservation of energy, so one particle can become a pair of heavier particles (the so-called virtual particles), which quickly rejoin into the original particle as if they had never been there. If that were all that occurred we would still be confident that it was a real effect because it is an intrinsic part of quantum mechanics, which is extremely well tested, and is a complete and tightly woven theory--if any part of it were wrong the whole structure would collapse.

But while the virtual particles are briefly part of our world they can interact with other particles, and that leads to a number of tests of the quantum-mechanical predictions about virtual particles. The first test was understood in the late 1940s. In a hydrogen atom an electron and a proton are bound together by photons (the quanta of the electromagnetic field). Every photon will spend some time as a virtual electron plus its antiparticle, the virtual positron, since this is allowed by quantum mechanics as described above. The hydrogen atom has two energy levels that coincidentally seem to have the same energy. But when the atom is in one of those levels it interacts differently with the virtual electron and positron than when it is in the other, so their energies are shifted a tiny bit because of those interactions. That shift was measured by Willis Lamb and the Lamb shift was born, for which a Nobel Prize was eventually awarded.

[More...]

 

[Dancing David]

According to Wikipedia: "The term is rather loose and vaguely defined, in the sense that it clings to a rather incorrect view that the world is somehow made up of 'real particles': it is not; rather, 'real particles' are more accurately understood to be excitations of the underlying quantum fields. As such, virtual particles are also excitations of the underlying fields, but are 'temporary' in the sense that they appear in calculations, but never as indexes to the scattering matrix (i.e., they never appear as the observable inputs and outputs of the physical process being modeled). In this sense, virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory, and do not appear in a nonperturbative treatment. As such, their existence is questionable; however, the term is useful in informal, casual conversation, or in rendering concepts into layman's terms." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_particles

They exist whatever you call them! So what is your beef?

They leave tracks in particle chambers and then they cancel out. So if they are real which they are and we call them vitual because that is the old nomenclature, they exist.

In this sense, virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory, and do not appear in a nonperturbative treatment

Sorry but paired particles have been observed to appear and then disappear so I don't know what this is in reference to.

From the wiki source:

These pairs exist for an extremely short time, and mutually annihilate in short order. In some cases, however, it is possible to boost the pair apart using external energy so that they avoid annihilation and become real particles.

This may occur in one of two ways. In an accelerating frame of reference, the virtual particles may appear to be real to the accelerating observer; this is known as the Unruh effect. In short, the vacuum of a stationary frame appears, to the accelerated observer, to be a warm gas of real particles in thermodynamic equilibrium. The Unruh effect is a toy model for understanding Hawking radiation, the process by which black holes evaporate.

 

[hammegk]

Schneibster's better than good with the science beat...

Perhaps. It's a shame he chooses to display it more often destructively towards post and poster rather than constructively. YMMV.

I hope smaxwell is not a one-post wonder. I suspect the out-gassing was CO2, and free oxygen at 3.5 by ago has some scientific support.

 

[Rodney]

They exist whatever you call them! So what is your beef?

Again, according to the Wikipedia article, the existence of virtual particles is questionable. But let's assume they exist. According to -- http://particleadventure.org/frameless/virtual.html --

"A result of the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is that these high-mass particles may come into being if they are incredibly short-lived. In a sense, they escape reality's notice. Such particles are called virtual particles.

"Virtual particles do not violate the conservation of energy. The kinetic energy plus mass of the initial decaying particle and the final decay products is equal. The virtual particles exist for such a short time that they can never be observed."

So, how is the (presumed) creation of incredibly short-lived virtual particles comparable to the (known) creation of the incredibly long-lived universe?

 

[drkitten]

Again, according to the Wikipedia article, the existence of virtual particles is questionable.

Then the Wikipedia article is wrong. If you get your science from creationist tracts and Wikipedia, you'll never want for nonsense, misinformation, and lies.