is non-living stuff turning into living stuff from scratch even today?

J Moreno wrote:
tension_on_the_wire wrote:

Many people, mostly those who haven't actually read his work, mistakenly
believe that Darwin explained how life originated on earth. Darwin only
explained how species could perpetuate and change into other species, but
he did not try to explain how living things came into existence in the
first place, as he admitted directly. Since his whole theory cannot even
come into play until there is functioning, duplicating, and dividing DNA
in the first place, again it comes down to the first ever cell to come
into existence, and how it got there.

At least in theory, evolution doesn't require DNA -- simply some way of
passing along characteristics that are reproductively helpful/harmful.
What that characteristic is or how it's passed along, isn't really
important to the basic theory.

That "some way of passing along characteristics" *is* DNA in life on
this earth, so that, perforce, is the method we are constrained to
explain. We cannot propose that there was once some *other* way at the
beginning of life, and then we switched horses in the middle of the
stream and went with DNA.

Of course, it is theoretically possible to imagine some other way, but
not at a practical level. No one has ever come close to proposing some
unique other way of passing on characteristics, so in sense, we are
dealing with a set of one.

JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg

OT .......Marvin of Borg!! Poor Borg!! The collective would surely
instantly commit suicide, as did the great big ship of the Galactic
Police that came to arrest Zaphod et al, if I am not mistaken, when
Marvin plugged himself into it! Marvin would have been a great weapon
on S.T. come to think of it. He could make a Vulcan cash in his chips!
Imagine what he would have done to the Klingons.......Only humans,
with their perpetual level of chronic depression, would have the
resilience to withstand the Marvin Effect, I think, heheh.

------tension

Well, I think I am living and the food I eat is not. The food turns
into me. So I would say yes, non-living stuff does turn into living
stuff. And living stuff also turns into non-living stuff.

Regs
Barath

tension_on_the_wire wrote:

J Moreno wrote:
-snip-
At least in theory, evolution doesn't require DNA -- simply some way of
passing along characteristics that are reproductively helpful/harmful.
What that characteristic is or how it's passed along, isn't really
important to the basic theory.

That "some way of passing along characteristics" *is* DNA in life on
this earth, so that, perforce, is the method we are constrained to
explain. We cannot propose that there was once some *other* way at the
beginning of life, and then we switched horses in the middle of the
stream and went with DNA.

Well, not at the beginning of life, but we can find other methods of
passing on behavior now -- learned behavior.

As for proposing another method at the beginning of life -- sure we can.
It might be hard to verify, but proposing it is easy...

Of course, it is theoretically possible to imagine some other way, but
not at a practical level. No one has ever come close to proposing some
unique other way of passing on characteristics, so in sense, we are
dealing with a set of one.

I'm reading this in rasfw (where are you reading it?), I don't like to
limit such comments to just the existing set if the principal is valid
to a larger set.

(There was someone here some time ago that was complaining that we were
applying evolutionary logic to a situation and saying that just because
that type of thing applies on earth is no reason for it to apply on
other worlds).

JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg

OT .......Marvin of Borg!! Poor Borg!! The collective would surely
instantly commit suicide, as did the great big ship of the Galactic
Police that came to arrest Zaphod et al, if I am not mistaken, when
Marvin plugged himself into it! Marvin would have been a great weapon
on S.T. come to think of it. He could make a Vulcan cash in his chips!
Imagine what he would have done to the Klingons.......Only humans,
with their perpetual level of chronic depression, would have the
resilience to withstand the Marvin Effect, I think, heheh.

Glad you like it.

--
JM
"Everything is futile." -- Marvin of Borg

Barath wrote:

Well, I think I am living and the food I eat is not. The food turns
into me. So I would say yes, non-living stuff does turn into living
stuff. And living stuff also turns into non-living stuff.

Regs
Barath

Wow! What food do you eat that did not originate in a living plant or
animal? Hey, wait . . . are you talking about that new 'water & sand' diet?

J Moreno wrote:
tension_on_the_wire wrote:

J Moreno wrote:
-snip-
At least in theory, evolution doesn't require DNA -- simply some way of
passing along characteristics that are reproductively helpful/harmful.
What that characteristic is or how it's passed along, isn't really
important to the basic theory.

tension_on_the_wire wrote:
That "some way of passing along characteristics" *is* DNA in life on
this earth, so that, perforce, is the method we are constrained to
explain. We cannot propose that there was once some *other* way at the
beginning of life, and then we switched horses in the middle of the
stream and went with DNA.

J Moreno wrote:
Well, not at the beginning of life, but we can find other methods of
passing on behavior now -- learned behavior.

As for proposing another method at the beginning of life -- sure we can.
It might be hard to verify, but proposing it is easy...

**************
I am in sci.astro, though I read both. But for the record, I have no
objection to the application of the hypothetical, including for the use
of imaginitive speculation, either for research *or* for fiction. My
only thing is that if it is for science *fiction*, and not science
fantasy, then there needs to be a solid basis in science, therefore,
here is what I meant in the above:

If we are talking about a "possible" or hypothetical means to transmit
characteristics down generations, we must produce a proposed mechanism.
So far to date, none has been proposed that fits all requirements.
Learned behaviour is not something that is transmitted down the
generations, it is taught (an extremely high-functioning process that
requires many millions of generations of genetics before such a
information-processing system can be developed, requiring evolution and
DNA both) and then it is learned (an even more high-functioning process
that requires.....etc). So in a way, what I am saying is that an
alternative or parallel mechanism to DNA is not only hard to verify,
but damn near impossible to propose unless you are willing to have it
sound like Star Trek technobabble. Good science fiction is based on
good science. Now maybe I am wrong, and you are aware of some
mechanism that was proposed? Don't read that as sarcasm, I mean it as
a serious question. I'll even accept a science fiction novel's
hypothesis, if you can find one that actually makes sense.


J Moreno wrote:
(There was someone here some time ago that was complaining that we were
applying evolutionary logic to a situation and saying that just because
that type of thing applies on earth is no reason for it to apply on
other worlds).


Well, I guess you can see my take on this....if you want science on
earth to not apply to some other world, there has to be a good
scientific reason why not. Whatever alternative you want to propose
for other worlds is fine as long as it makes sense. I have no problem
applying a new or non-existent idea to other worlds, as long as it fits
a reasonable proposal for the physics and chemistry of that fictional
world. Silicon-based chemistry, versus carbon-based, for example, is
quite a reasonable hypothesis. They would still need to make something
just like DNA using silicon-based sugars, though. There still isn't a
good science fictional alternative for that.

Another good idea came from HG Wells in War of the Worlds when he had
an alien species come down and get wiped out by earth-born viruses
(implicitly assuming, however, that the virus had compatible DNA with
the DNA of the Martians, otherwise how could the virus have induced
replication within the Martian cells?)

I don't say that there absolutely is no other way, I would not be so
presumptuous. But, so far, I don't think anyone has ever really
convincingly imagined any other way. The requirements are so precise,
for genetic variability, and equivalent distribution to daughter cells,
and random mutation to provide a substrate for natural selection and
evolution of characteristics that I guess what I'm proposing is that
DNA is kind of like a "Planck's Constant" of Biology, in a way. 8-P
---tension

In article ,
Andy Resnick wrote:

Matthias Warkus wrote:

Am Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:37:33 -0400 schrieb Andy Resnick:

Freidrich Wohler


ITYM Friedrich Wöhler.

mawa
Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how to do the umlaut thing on my keyboard.

In that case, you could write "Woehler", as was the convention when
using a typewriter without diacritical marks.

--
Odysseus