A Question on Abiogenesis

[Schneibster]

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

Gee, hammy, you get bit? I noticed you didn't respond on that last thread. Looks like it stung pretty good, too. You are now one post closer to the big mute button.

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.

I am profoundly uninterested in your confusion of assertion with argument. If you have some proof, bring it- your suspicions are useless, and completely beside the point.

 

[Schneibster]

But now that we can rather confidently state that the universe began as a single dimensionless point of infinity density, its creation seems much more consistent with the idea of a non-random miraculous event.

Actually, this is incorrect. It's no more reasonable to postulate a miraculous event now than it was in the 1950s; in fact, it's less reasonable now, since we actually have a proposed, hypothesized and not refuted, plausible non-miraculous explanation for the existence of the universe. In other words, what you're saying is that your miracle is more probable now that the evidence against it is stronger. Oops.

 

[69dodge]

I think older and now discredited cosmological models are much more consistent with a random universe than the now accepted model. For example, if we could not specify a beginning of the universe, it might be the case that it gradually came into existence over countless eons of time via countless random events. But now that we can rather confidently state that the universe began as a single dimensionless point of infinity density, its creation seems much more consistent with the idea of a non-random miraculous event.

I don't think I know what you mean by "a random universe" or "a non-random miraculous event".

Much about the universe is not random; that's why we can formulate brief scientific theories that cover a greal variety of observed phenomena. Should we call the existence of laws of nature miraculous too? We could, I suppose, but what difference does it make what we call it?

Science is just our attempt to describe what we observe, as accurately as we can. One thing we observe is that the universe is here. If its creation can't be explained in terms of already known laws of nature---I don't know whether this is actually the case or not, but supposing it is---I don't see what difference it makes whether we call its creation miraculous or just a new law of nature that we've discovered. Everything else is the same either way: whatever has been observed to happen still has been observed to happen, and whatever hasn't been observed to happen still hasn't been observed to happen.

 

[Dancing David]

I believe they are too short-lived to show up in particle chamber photos.


What do you mean by direct evidence? You do not see the particles in particle chambers, only their effects. I do not think you have anything else than indirect evidence for stuff smaller than atoms.

As I said I thought they had been observed. There is indirect evidence of quarks. And as a sceptic I try to be a little careful about what I might argue about.

 

[Dancing David]

I think older and now discredited cosmological models are much more consistent with a random universe than the now accepted model. For example, if we could not specify a beginning of the universe, it might be the case that it gradually came into existence over countless eons of time via countless random events. But now that we can rather confidently state that the universe began as a single dimensionless point of infinity density, its creation seems much more consistent with the idea of a non-random miraculous event.

And that might be based upon the idea that the universe is all that is, we can not know what might or might not be outside the universe at this time. Black holes are actualy very similar to single dimensionless points of very high density.

If the universe is bounded why would the potential singularity of "infinity density", there isa limit on the density, just as there is potentialy for a black hole. Although I understand that it is all smaller than the Plank limit and often described as 'space time foam' or some other concept I don't grasp.

Why should the beggining of the universe be different in analogy from a black hole?

 

[hammegk]

Gee, hammy, you get bit? I noticed you didn't respond on that last thread. Looks like it stung pretty good, too. You are now one post closer to the big mute button.

I am profoundly uninterested in your confusion of assertion with argument. If you have some proof, bring it- your suspicions are useless, and completely beside the point.

There there, little fella. Don't work yourself into an aneurism. If you were to take your toys and go home, few would cry.

And I agree you will be better served conversing with articulett etal. TTFN.

<plonk>

 

[Rodney]

Why should the beggining of the universe be different in analogy from a black hole?

Okay, let's assume that's a proper analogy. How does that help your argument? It seems to me that anytime there is a singularity, there is no known explanation because the laws of physics don't apply.

 

[Dancing David]

Okay, let's assume that's a proper analogy. How does that help your argument? It seems to me that anytime there is a singularity, there is no known explanation because the laws of physics don't apply.

Uh, I guess I don't follow your argument, TLOP still apply but they are set to the parameters of the plank limit and the gravitational field. Not that we can exactly map TLOP, but such as they are they apply to a black hole.

So TLOP apply, I am pointing out that the conditions that might have existed at the start of the BBE the are possibly comparable to a singularity.

 

[Rodney]

Uh, I guess I don't follow your argument, TLOP still apply but they are set to the parameters of the plank limit and the gravitational field. Not that we can exactly map TLOP, but such as they are they apply to a black hole.

So TLOP apply, I am pointing out that the conditions that might have existed at the start of the BBE the are possibly comparable to a singularity.

I don't see how the laws of physics apply if there is a single dimensionless point of infinite density. And how do singularities develop in the first place?

 

[hammegk]

TLOP applies to our universe. What did TLOP apply to pre-big-bang?

 

[John Hewitt]

Several published trees do just this. (Build a phylogenetic tree for prokaryptes)

Starting from LUCA, the (hypothetical) ancestor of eubacteria and archaea, with archaea later branching to produce the eukaryotes (Stetter and Huet?).

It is referring back to almost the first part of this thread but readers may like to know about this relevant report in "Nature."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/edsumm/e070125-04.html

It seems that bacteria are very good at swapping genes with one another which says much about the difficulty of building a sngle clear tree and leaving open the possibility that there never was a single common ancestor.

 

[Schneibster]

I don't see how the laws of physics apply if there is a single dimensionless point of infinite density. And how do singularities develop in the first place?

The singularity is seen only if you take the naive laws of physics and run time backward; this makes no allowance for:
1. The quantum mechanics of the electroweak unification, or that force's unification with the color (aka strong) force; note as well that this second unification has not been worked out in any detail, so extrapolations from known LOP may or may not accurately represent reality;
2. quantum gravity, which we have no consistent description of in physics at this time;
3. other unquantifiable effects which may or may not include the Higgs and Goldstone bosons created by the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak force, and probably will be needed to properly explain color/electroweak and GUT force symmetry breakings, any or all of which may yield new particles, new pseudo-forces, and new mathematics to describe them.

Without any allowance for these things- at least some of which are known to exist- one has a very naive view of physics that produces impossible things like singularities. To claim that "it couldn't have been that way because how can you have a singularity" is a classical straw-man; neither physicists nor cosmologists believe there was any singularity (which is the negation of the straw man), they instead believe that the fact that the fact that using naive physics gives a singularity means that naive physics does not accurately describe what happened.

The entire point of science is to abandon explanations like, "a miracle occurred," or "it's supernatural and can't ever be explained," and instead to have faith that there is a rational, natural explanation for every event, capable of being discovered and understood by the human mind, and not requiring any supernatural or miraculous intervention to make it occur.

 

[Rodney]

To claim that "it couldn't have been that way because how can you have a singularity" is a classical straw-man; neither physicists nor cosmologists believe there was any singularity (which is the negation of the straw man), they instead believe that the fact that the fact that using naive physics gives a singularity means that naive physics does not accurately describe what happened.

Your argument would be more convincing if someone could inform us what DID happen, as opposed to stating that "naive physics does not accurately describe what happened."

 

[69dodge]

Your argument would be more convincing if someone could inform us what DID happen, as opposed to stating that "naive physics does not accurately describe what happened."

What do you think he is trying to convince you of?

And, what are you trying to convince us of?

 

[DeviousB]

It seems that bacteria are very good at swapping genes with one another which says much about the difficulty of building a sngle clear tree and leaving open the possibility that there never was a single common ancestor.

Although presumeably these genes could be swapped because of commonalities in their genetic codes, which might be taken as evidence of a common origin.


Beyond a certain point, it's fairly clear that we are very unlikely to ever be able to prove any particular cladogram, and as you rightly say, horizontal gene flow will mess up our neat hierarchies anyway.

If we go back to the very early world, it is not inconceivable that there were many 'first replicators', all with very different codes. If it became advantageous to be more like another's code (perhaps because it is catalysing its own building blocks, perhaps because it's a plentiful 'food source'), variants that are might come to dominate.

Of course, whether living things share a common code because of common descent, or because they were selected for it, are both Darwinian explanations.

 

[Cuddles]

Your argument would be more convincing if someone could inform us what DID happen, as opposed to stating that "naive physics does not accurately describe what happened."

Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe we still have scientists because we don't know the answer to everything. We know that the high school physics that you (possibly) understand don't explain everything we can see, and we have theories that improve on it, but aren't complete yet. Yes, it would be great if we knew how everything worked, and that is why so many of us are trying to find out.

 

[Dancing David]

TLOP applies to our universe. What did TLOP apply to pre-big-bang?

Can't say, can't see, can't do.

Moo said the Cow as it licked the Ylegm?

 

[Dancing David]

Your argument would be more convincing if someone could inform us what DID happen, as opposed to stating that "naive physics does not accurately describe what happened."

Such is not the case, again we can only approximate the behavior of reality, we can not map reality.

You don't really think that history happened the way that a book writes it. Even Tuchman and Manchester can only give thier impression of what happened. Reality is much more complex.

There are no ultimate ccauses that can be determined. Such reduces to tail chasing.

 

[Rodney]

What do you think he is trying to convince you of?

And, what are you trying to convince us of?

I think he's trying to convince me that there is a rational explanation for the creation of the universe, and I'm saying that I don't see what that explanation is.

 

[Cuddles]

I think he's trying to convince me that there is a rational explanation for the creation of the universe, and I'm saying that I don't see what that explanation is.

And because you can't see it, it doesn't exist?