Transition Metal Catalysts Could Be Key To Origin of Life 145
An anonymous reader writes "One of the big, unsolved problems in explaining how life arose on Earth is a chicken-and-egg paradox: How could the basic biochemicals — such as amino acids and nucleotides — have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation? In a paper appearing in the current issue of The Biological Bulletin, scientists propose that a third type of catalyst could have jumpstarted metabolism and life itself, deep in hydrothermal ocean vents."
Ah Mercury (Score:3, Funny)
Sweetest of the transition metals.
Re:Ah Mercury (Score:5, Funny)
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And there's many in the sea
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Sealab 2021 reference [tehphil.com]
Probably (Score:1)
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Philosophy is the love (and by implication, study) of wisdom. I think you mean theory, or perhaps supposition.
Re: Probably (Score:2)
do you mean a hypothesis ?
No, he means that science that doesn't jibe with what he believes should be treated as arbitrary opinions.
The Missing Ingredients! (Score:2)
Ah! So now I know what the missing ingredients in my Miller-Urey experiments are! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment [wikipedia.org]
I just need to add a dash of Transition Metal Catalysts.
The stuff has been cooking for the last thirty years, and no life has crawled out yet . . .
Re:The Missing Ingredients! (Score:5, Informative)
The stuff has been cooking for the last thirty years, and no life has crawled out yet . . .
Hardly a surprise, since the real thing took as much as a billion years in a planet-sized beaker.
FWIW, I'm not sure the U-M experiments properly reflect our current understanding of the chemistry of the early earth, either.
Medical Daily (Score:1)
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[Begin Outpouring of Righteous Nerd Rage]
How dare you take advantage of people's propensity to not RTFA by casting false aspersions on the authors in this way. In reply
1) The article is more fact-laden and longer than most articles we publish here
2) The well-established authors and institutions names are there for all to see - no PR, just science!
3) You are a Republican sock-puppet and you and your kind have been holding back the whole of humanity since the Enlightenment just so you and your families can ma
Wasn't this answered long ago? (Score:3, Interesting)
How could the basic biochemicals - such as amino acids and nucleotides - have arisen before the biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes) existed to carry out their formation
Didn't the Miller-Urey Experiment [wikipedia.org] answer how amino acids could show up?
Re: Wasn't this answered long ago? (Score:2)
Didn't the Miller-Urey Experiment answer how amino acids could show up?
They have been spotted even in interstellar gas. Seems that they're not so hard to form in our universe.
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I think the journalist invented the amino acid thing. The rest of the article sounds like it's talking about proteins - how do you turn amino acids into proteins without proteins to do the assembly?
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Amino Acids? Yes. Nucleotides? No.
In case you are curious, Amino Acids are the building blocks of proteins. Nucleotides are the building blocks of RNA and DNA. Also ATP (the fuel of life)
So Miller-Urey Experiment was able to make Amino Acids of both chiralities equally (only L is used by all life)
But Nucleotides? No.
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The problem is, the experiments showed that amino acids were much easier to get than was originally thought. But when that result was announced, the general opinion was that getting from there to protein and nucleic acid synthesis was comparatively simpler, and would happen using much the same experimental setup. People confidently predicted the full synthesis of life within a year, or at most a few. Such predictions flew about, in major places such as Life magazine, the New York Times, and official U.S. Go
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There have been resent experiments that show the self assembly of amino acids into complex chains that are needed to produce neucliotides. The experiments were discussed on an early episode of Futures in BioTech. I believe it is one of the shows that Susan Linquist was on: http://futuresinbiotech.com/display/Search?searchQuery=Lindquist&moduleId=5706204&moduleFilter=&categoryFilter=&startAt=0 [futuresinbiotech.com]
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Re: Wasn't this answered long ago? (Score:2)
If you then go onto say God does not exist and start claiming so to other people, then you need to, at the very least, give supporting evidence for such claims. This is actually an impossible position to be in (you can't prove a negative) therefore most Atheists quickly fall back to the Agnostic position and argue that the burden of proof is on the Theists while trying to argue that God does not exist.
And the same applies to people who believe in one god but say that the other 9,999 don't exist, right? Or is there some kind of double standard in all this hair-splitting?
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Methinks that atheism is effectively just another religion and that overzealousness and exclusiveness in all of them is a problem.
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I do not believe in things that have no proof of their existence.
Take the example of Russel's Teapot. Somebody could propose that there's a teapot in orbit around the Sun, though telescopes can't detect it, and there's no evidence of its existence.
Well, my take on things like that if that if we can't see it on a telescope, it doesn't affect anything else's orbit, it's not crashing into any satellites, and has no observable effect on anything, its existence or inexistence effectively doesn't matter.
Same with
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Stop spreading the lies! (Score:2)
Fe/Ni-S World Hypothesis? (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't this old news? (pun not entirely intended)... A couple of the more prominent abiogenesis hypotheses have been based on this for most of the decade of not more. Here's a paper from 2003 that, while it has its flaws (some of which have been rectified, some of which have been completely rethought over the last 7 years) offers a fairly complete and very compelling hypothesis for how life may have originated at warm, alkaline thermal vents like those found at the Lost City thermal vent fields:
Martin, W. & Russell, M.J., 2003. On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 358(1429), 59-83; discussion 83-5. Available at: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/358/1429/59.abstract [royalsocie...ishing.org].
And here's a similar but competing hypothesis (still based on Fe/Ni-S, but with a different idea on the origins of membranes and cells):
Wächtershäuser, G., 2006. From volcanic origins of chemoautotrophic life to Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 361(1474), 1787-806; discussion 1806-8. Available at: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1474/1787.abstract [royalsocie...ishing.org]
The latter author has been writing papers about this hypothesis since 1992 (though I haven't read his first paper on the subject).
Point being, this doesn't seem to be a new thing, especially as summarized in the summary here and in the linked article. The original paper on which the article is based [biolbull.org] offers a bit more fundamental chemical details regarding the transition metals involved, and suggests good directions for experimental confirmation or refutation, but the overall idea remains pretty much the same, it seems. Still, it will be interesting to see what, if any, research and experiments result from this.
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Urey-Miller (Score:1)
May the lord have mercy on us (Score:1)
Ribonucleotides & RNA (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I know everybody's just joking around here, but...
One of the more exciting papers I've read in this area appeared in Nature a little while back (14 May 2009). It shows not only that activated ribonucleotides could have been formed directly from simple molecules that were plausibly present on the early earth, but that the necessary reactions are of high yield, are catalyzed by inorganic phosphates, and take place under mild conditions. Because the ribonucleotides are formed as the phosphates ("activated"), they're suitable for polymerization to RNA under similarly mild conditions.
To me, this seals the deal for RNA the same way that Miller-Urey did for amino acids, and maybe even more so (because the reactions take place under ambient conditions, no lightning bolts needed). It's widely thought that early forms of life were based on RNA rather than DNA, so there you go. Now we just need to figure out how to make a ribosome.
See Powner et.al., "Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions," Nature 459, 239-242 (2009).
Sorry for the geekiness here, but of you know a little organic chemistry you'll find this really cool...
Re:Ribonucleotides & RNA (Score:5, Informative)
You really shouldn't need to apologize for "geekiness" on Slashdot. If we can't reference and/or link to actual scientific research without apology, then something must be very wrong with this site. ;)
That said, the paper you mentioned looks really interesting. AND, a Google Scholar search [google.com] offers a link to a freely downloadable PDF for those of you, like myself, that don't have access to Nature.
I'm looking forward to reading this. :)
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It's widely thought that early forms of life were based on RNA rather than DNA, so there you go.
In particular, TFA (at least as characterized by the slashdot article) seems to be hunting for a "missing link" programmable catalyst bridging a perceived gap between DNA/RNA and proteins for chemical synthesis, and proposing transition element complexes to fill this gap. But RNA works just fine as self-folding charge/shape/leverage-based molecular machinery, as well as self-copying genetic information "tapes".
My bet is on molybdenum (Score:1, Funny)
It is a good choice and happens to be atomic number 42. Google 42 if this number doen't meaning anything special to you.
No need for futher experimentation ... (Score:2)
This was at the very end of TFA, so no one may have read it:
Wha?! Are they kidding? This has been published by an apparently respected research organization. It became 'fact' less than 24 hou
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And religion has some intense dogmas as well. Often, the most vocal religious folk are also the most dogmatic. Any time one side or the other cannot, at the very least, a
Problem Solved (Score:2)
In fact it has been solved for some time. The basic process involved are well understood. But most people can't or don't think large enough to consider the entire contents of the solar system, or the huge number of different processes and resultants involved. Harold Morowitz has been doing so for years. His Energy Flow In Biology is a deceptively small book describing how life could have arisen (in fact probably had to) from the elements and energy available in this region of the solar system, which became
Life is just energy capture... (Score:2)
The thought makes sense.
Proteins and Ribozymes: Fruits and Cucumbers (Score:1)
Samzenpus wrote:
"biological catalysts (proteins or ribozymes)"
Shorter sentence would be correct: "biological catalysts (enzymes)".
There are protein enzymes or RNA enzymes, and not all proteins are enzymes.
How is this surprising? (Score:1)
We have fundamental molecules like hemoglobin (Fe), and an analog in arthropods(Cu). (may be Hemoglobin is the analog :) ) These are fundamental to oxygen transportation, and are based on transitional metals. These are not really complex molecules... and the transitional metals are fairly prominent in key structures within living organisms. Is it really that big of a surprise that these forms may have appeared first?
The fossil/geologic record would indicate that some prototypical form of chlorophyll a
nice summary in Robert Hazen's "Origin of Life" (Score:2)
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Hazen's dead-tree books are worth a read too. Without digging mine off the shelf in the other room, I think that he's shared lab space or mind-space with Morowitz as well.
I didn't see much in the summary that was new to me, but I know that I've been an interested follower of origin-of-life studies for a lot longer than most people I've heard of, and almost everyone that I know. (For example, Dad, who was a professional chemist, acknowledges the importance of the subject but doesn't really get excited about
Re:ok but how does this explain (Score:4, Funny)
you wouldn't start with citric acid and some simple metal, like iron or copper, you'd have to use something more serious. I imagine AsO(OH)3 (arsenic acid) mixed in some proportion with Strontium and Tin. I think that's how you get Beck.
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too late for that, but you can watch the cloud of poisonous gas spreading during his Fox segment
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I was figuring that most of us wanna-be Cylons are based on silicon (maybe germanium for some that grew up with 8-track tapes), but I figure Beck to be selenium based. The clue is the scent of a failing selenium rectifier, something a hidden few here have been specially trained to spot. Beware of selenium critters among us, their logic can be dangerously fuzzy. Suggested treatment is lithium.
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...the scent of a failing selenium rectifier...
Oh my goodness, that _smell_! Distinctly different than most any other electrical smell for sure.
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That's a non sequitur, and you know it! Beck is one of the undead, so you can't apply the same rules to him.
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Why hasn't Glen Beck denied being a zombie yet? Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations? We're not accusing Glenn Beck of eating brains and feasting on the dead - in fact, we think he didn't! But we can't help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations. Why won't he deny that he is a zombie and that he feasts on human beings?
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*chuckle* You certainly have THAT meme nailed down tight.
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Too far to the left or to the right assumes there is an absolute right and absolute left in terms of politics. Besides, in many ways, the US government and policies is considerably farther to the right now than it was in the 70's, we had a lot of price controls and similar regulations even as recently as the 70's that people forget about.
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You can't punctuate properly and you're calling someone else an idiot? Also, it sounds like the person you responded to you might agree politically too.
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Glen Beck and his chalk board can be explained by A Beautiful Mind [imdb.com].
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What kind of rank idiot fucks up something like that?!?!
Me, actually. With quotes that get thrown around a lot, it's really easy to misattribute them. Martin Luther King did say it, after all, and sometimes it's hard to trace back to the original source. It is possible Theodore Parker even heard it from somewhere else, you don't know.
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But materialists have just as much of an agenda as the creationists, which is why we're subjected to this crap about life emerging from a chemical soup.
If by "materialists" you mean "scientists", then your claim is true.
But the two agendas are very different: scientists are trying to figure out what has happened and how stuff works, and creationists are trying to defend an ancient tradition about what has happened and how stuff works.
As for the L-Field... are you suggesting that electromagnetism has a non-material cause?
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It's dangerous to make such absolute categorical statements regarding anything involving human beings. [plosone.org]
And, I should note, most "creationists" are looking for synthesis of science and their theological views.
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Ah, but there is a difference.
If even the most stubborn supporter of some theory that will be proven wrong were to taken to future and shown the evidence, he'd readily agree, and praise the future scientists for coming up with the proof to overturn his false belief.
But if the most stubborn believer of some religious dogma were taken to the future, where the church allowed what he thought was a grave sin, he'd be appalled and disgusted, and claim his future "brothers in faith" were doing the work of the devi
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Scientists are still looking for that fundamental material building block, but they haven't found it yet. Why assume that matter is the basis of all that is, when the latest scientific evidence is heavily in favor of Energy being the first cause?
Do scientists think matter is more fundamental than energy?
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Why assume that matter is the basis of all that is, when the latest scientific evidence is heavily in favor of Energy being the first cause?
Eh? I'd say that modern science clearly says that matter is a form of energy. E=mc^2, but E=[lot of other things] too.
And in the "beginning" of the Big Bang (meaning the earliest time we have theories about), there indeed was no matter as we know it, no "baryonic matter", because it was way too hot for baryons to exist.
So what do you mean by "assume that matter is the basis of all that is"?
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Well then what came first, the electromagnetic field or the electrochemical reaction? I'll wager on the chemical react
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And what's this nonsense about biochemists and physicists having an "agenda" like creationists.
I said "materialists". For example, James Randi (the magician) is a materialist with an religious agenda.
I don't see how anything that is arguably scientific in origin could be in any way equated with that.
Sometimes even the best scientists fall in love with their guiding philosophy.
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And what's this nonsense about biochemists and physicists having an "agenda" like creationists.
I said "materialists". For example, James Randi (the magician) is a materialist with an religious agenda.
So Randi doesn't believe in energy???
You're sending a very confused message.
Sometimes even the best scientists fall in love with their guiding philosophy.
Pray tell, what is scientists' guiding philosophy?
For me, evidence trumps tradition. Is that a philosophy?
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You need to learn what materialism is. The way you are trying to use the word is nothing like the way any educated person uses it. Talk about sending a confused message. Alternately, you are trying to create a strawman argument. If not, learn to high school physics, learn to freshman college philosophy, or at least read something as modern as Locke or Berkeley. Then spend ten years on Quantum Mechanics and Information Physics, and you might be able to add something constructive to this discussion.
And the a
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You need to learn what materialism is. The way you are trying to use the word is nothing like the way any educated person uses it.
Never mind educated people; I have trouble guessing what apologists for this or that mean by it in on-line forums. Today I've been on the verge of asking several posters what they mean by it.
Regarding the rest of your post, you're a fucking idiot.
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If anyone was hoping for a less hot-headed response to the GP, it might have gone something like this:
a) Popper et al. don't speak for me.
b) Letting evidence guide your beliefs isn't a philosophy; it's the foundation of sanity.
c) Whenever "philosophy" and "materialism" are brought up in an on-line discussion, it's almost always by a creationist or some other flavor of reality-denying kook who wants to paint a veneer of erudition on their rejection of well-established facts.[*]
d) Those same people don't have
Re:The electro-dynamic field came first, of course (Score:4, Informative)
Philosophy of science classes just teach the ideas behind the scientific method, how it came to be, and how the early scientists worked. I don't see what relevance that class has to anything you're talking about, this is not a philosophy that scientists are pushing on people, it is the history of scientific pursuit and tools to be used for future work. There is no agenda, scientists aren't trying to push the ideology on you. The evidence says that is what happened, so they report it. Because you feel persecuted by it because it doesn't jive with your beliefs doesn't make it wrong. It doesn't make it right either, it is simply the best idea we have given the evidence presented thus far. That is all science is.
Your last paragraph is nonsensical. Why do we have to give up quantum mechanics? There is nothing magical about it. It may not even be how things work, it just makes very good predictions. What argument are we following to its logical conclusion? You are simply making statements without fully explaining them. What do atheists have to reject about quantum mechanics?
Re:The electro-dynamic field came first, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
The philosophy of science, like any philosophy, impacts how a person understands the subject. You can go really wrong if you try to supplant the philosophy with another (e.g. Creationism), but it is important to understand why science has worked so well. It isn't that science necessarily rejects anything metaphysical (such as causality, at least up to quantum physics), but simply minimizes the metaphysical requirements of any theory, since science is supposed to be experimentally verifiable. This is a good way to work, since no reasonable arguments can arise without some way to resolve them ultimately. It is important, however, to distinguish between the evidence and the interpretation of that evidence (theory!). The evidence never, ever, ever explains itself, since that requires some metaphysical interpolation (e.g., invoking objective reality, objective truth, integrity of the senses, perhaps causality, etc.).
I agree with most of your comments, except that philosophy does not equal history and science is more than a black box model. Indeed, a great temptation in science, especially the venerable physics, is to consider it simply as mathematical modeling. I have found throughout my doctorate the most useful theories are the ones which attempt to give a non-mathematical description of how the universe works in some particular way. In my field, numerical simulations are entirely possible for some complex situations, but one cannot be considered an expert if one simply presses a button to execute a mathematical model. In my opinion (as an engineer), the real test of a scientific theory is whether it can be used for a realistic engineering application. The typical engineering application requires one to assume a vast amount about the problem at hand and therefore becomes a tedious, uninspired exercise if only mathematical models are used to engineer the device. Whether we are ultimately describing epicycles or true orbits can make a really big difference in the difficulty and expense of the engineered device (imagine designing a satellite to keep up with the motions of the planets if they really moved in epicycles!). The closer we are to completely explaining a physical event means that we have a closer mental model of reality, which is the real pursuit of science.
That said, I am unfamiliar with any necessary interpretations which quantum mechanics places on the student that forces a particular metaphysical result on the question of the existence of God. References?
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According to this [wikipedia.org], materialism is just that there is no magic "soul" or "spirit" and everything is simply composed of matter and energy.
Your link actually says that everything is composed of matter:
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter;
hth, hand.
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"Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space."
OK, so old materialists had that view. To be fair, when materialism was created, they had no knowledge of energy or forces. Artifakt is using an ancient, outdated definition.
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Considering that point about "scientifically observable entities"... I suppose materialists hold that science is currently capable of observing all that is, or at least, everything that is important.
If it can't be measured with currently-available tools it doesn't exist, right?
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Considering that point about "scientifically observable entities"... I suppose materialists hold that science is currently capable of observing all that is, or at least, everything that is important.
If it can't be measured with currently-available tools it doesn't exist, right?
I wonder if anyone actually holds the views that you're so keen on disparaging.
Two hundred years ago no one knew how to measure, or even detect x-rays, but they were as real then as they are now. Neutrinos. Continental drift. Expanding universe. Dark matter. It would be folly to think there isn't anything more that we haven't been able to detect yet.
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Wrong. Their existence may be predicted by theory, and tools (such as the Large Hadron Collider) may be developed to test that theory- proving or disproving their existence. This works fine as long as the nature of that which is being measured is understood well enough. In the process, our understanding of the universe grows and new insights emerge.
In contrast- if my 4 year-old kid says he saw an invisible pink unicorn, I'm n
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I think the important point here is that the phenomena be observable ('scientific" is at best redundant). Good science makes no claims on the importance of the phenomena, since that would ascribe a value that is at least anthropocentric. Materialists claim that there are no entities beyond the observable. Everyone else either makes no such claim or actively claims that there are things beyond the physical (i.e. metaphysical). Like causality or God.
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The point is that we don't know what we'll discover in the future, but we can use our current model to guide us. If the current model turns out to not be accurate, append it or replace it with a better one.
Nido, what it feels like you are driving at is that a supernatural forc
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It would be folly to think there isn't anything more that we haven't been able to detect yet.
This is exactly my point. I'm not a particularly eloquent proponent of the philosophy of Vitalism, and I wish I could explain how quantum entanglement and other newtonian-universe-breaking observations suggest Vitalism is more accurate than strict- or modified-materialism...
There's an old saying, "ask and you will find, search and the door shall be opened to you." If you can't consider the possibility that maybe the ancient Chinese were on to something with their concept of Qi/Chi/Life Force, you'll never h
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Ah. So you have to believe in the supernatural in order to see evidence of it. Classic.
No, you just can't be closed to the idea. "search and the door shall be open to you" means that if you never look, you can't find.
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what it feels like you are driving at is that a supernatural force is required somewhere (if I am wrong with that assumption, please correct me).
There is nothing in the universe that is "supernatural". I maintain that there are influences in the physical world that originate from beyond the physical world.
Energy is all there is. E=MC^2. Every atom is composed of "empty space" and a latticework of force fields. In our usual everyday lives matter seems quite solid and unchanging... But at the same time, impressions can be deceiving. Consider the naval research lab's work on cold fusion [slashdot.org].
However, because this force is supernatural, we by definition have no means by which we can understand it, as our observations are limited to the natural world.
It takes a different kind of observation and research to understan
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Science can accept wild phenomena if they are true, but without data, verification, and appropriate rigor, none of this is shown to be any more than simply talk. As far as I know, all proper studies on "psychic ability" showed that the participants were no better than random at any task they were given. The only ones that have every shown anything are the ones published i
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As far as I know, all proper studies on "psychic ability"
I have made a proper study of people with enhanced perceptive abilities, and I know they can do things that most people cannot. But that's just an anecdote, and you don't care about that because it's not a controlled study done by James Randi himself.
To answer the questions at the start of your post, see Ingo Swann's books, Secrets of Power, Volume I and II. Maybe you can find them on the torrents... Or you can listen to the Art Bell interview. [rapidshare.com] (should be a few downloads left...) Swann says he only ever wor
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There are certainly things about the mind that we don't know. And the
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If the studies are not published, peer reviewed, and tested, ...
There is a fundamental flaw with the process you've outlined: peer review is anonymous. Here's a link about a superior system:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_peer_review [wikipedia.org]
However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Maybe I just don't get who decides for official science what's an extraordinary claim and what's ordinary. Swann says Materialism became the official philosophy of science in the ... 1800's I think. The switch was instituted by 3 guys in their 20's... I don't have a copy of that speech, but it was fascinating. [createspace.com]
Also, please stop throwing James Randi's name around like a pejorative.
As I said before, he's an en
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Wow, so pretty much every scientist on the planet has fallen for an agenda.
You're a moron. Worse, you don't know just how much of a moron you are. The problem here is that you know goddamned well you don't have a testable hypothesis, but because you're pathetic, and want to feel special, you've glommed on to some charlatane's anti-science bullcrap. You're even worse than the kooks, you're an idiot fooled by kooks.
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Who says that life arose from purely chemical reactions?
Electricity has always been a factor in the more modern plausible origin of life theories. Experiments to generate complex organic molecules from base components by simulating early Earth like environment have always involved some sort of electrical component, namely in the form of simulated lightning.
Though your real gripe is against that the randomness, in your view, could not have given the result of life because the chances are so small. However
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Dr. Jack Szostak [youtube.com]
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ok. One guy does not the scientific community make. What papers has this guy published?
What journals has he appeared in?
What books has he written?
What research has he done?
Who is this guy other than a name and cheap youtube link?
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ok. One guy does not the scientific community make. What papers has this guy published?
What journals has he appeared in?
What books has he written?
What research has he done?
Who is this guy other than a name and cheap youtube link?
Uh... quite a lot and quite a bit. He's an accomplished molecular biologist by all accounts. Here's a Google Scholar search for his name [google.com].
To name some of the journals and publications he's appeared in...
- Nature
- Science
- Cell
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Annual Review of Biochemistry
It also appears that he has written a few books on the subject.
HOWEVER, it is important to note that the YouTube videos that have appeared are over-simplified and intended for the layman. But, make no mistake
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ok. One guy does not the scientific community make. What papers has this guy published? What journals has he appeared in? What books has he written? What research has he done?
Who is this guy other than a name and cheap youtube link?
I can understand you have never heard of Szostak but have you never heard of google? Dr. Jack Szostak [wikipedia.org] - Biologist, Nobel Laureate and Harvard proffesor. His CV [harvard.edu]. His lab [harvard.edu]
Now that your argument from authority has blown up in your face, why don't you toddle off and actually watch that "cheap youtube video", you might learn something new.
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Also exactly what about electricity makes it more or less "Godlike" than any other part of the physical universe?
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Most everything has an an electromagnetic field of some kind. But if you're insinuating that everythng is animated by the Force, well, then, you're a gullible moron.
Ooh look, I read a book by a guy, and he thinks scientists are a bunch of morons, so I'll go on Slashdot and talk about the evil materialists.
Guess what, guy, science is methodological naturalism. If you have a testable theory, then provide it, otherwise take your book and shove it up your ass.
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I agree with your attack on materialism, and also that Darwinists have an agenda as do Creationists. But instead of focusing on electromagnetic fields, which is itself inside the domain of the material, I think the source of life lies in a domain of organisation and thought ... one which 4-dimensional physics is enfolded in.
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Every living organism has an electromagnetic field. See the work of Harold Burr [wikipedia.org] and the L-Field [wikipedia.org].
WTF... where did you dig up this ancient quack from? His theories are mix of confusion of correlation with causation, and a fundamental misunderstanding of cause and effect. Living things cause electric fields, electric fields do not cause living things.
Note that Harold Burr was coming up with his theories a good 20 years before the function of DNA in heredity was fully understood. Back then, alternative theories would not have been so outlandish, because the real mechanism wasn't known. It is now.
Everybody
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Living things cause electric fields, electric fields do not cause living things.
Citation? I think the only thing we can say for sure is that living things are associated with electric fields, and that non-living things do not have such fields.
Vitalism [wikipedia.org] holds that a non-material field is what "animates" cold matter. Materialism holds that matter is all there is. You statement, "living things cause electric fields", is a philosophical position...
dueling philosophies, what fun! :)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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Wooot! Another insightful post on Slashdot. Maybe I should spend more time here? Yeah I agree completely ... the way we call organisms individuals, separate from their surroundings, is completely arbitrary. If you haven't already read them, you may be interested in 'Autopoiesis and Cognition' by HR Maturana, FJ Varela and 'Web of Life' by Fritjof Capra.
Re: (Score:2)
When are people going to figure out that there is nothing that can't be called life. The vague distinction we make between what we call life and everything else, is a matter of the degree of complexity it has evolved. The question of "how did life start" is moot, because it's all alive and it always was.
I highlighted the part that is the problem. Evolution is not the generation of complexity. It's not the mere passage of time in a physical system. For example, a field of boulders is complex in that it requires a lot of information to describe the boulders and where they're positioned. But we don't expect any of that information to be able to manipulate its environment, say to insure the existence of the field of boulders a million years from now with similar configurations of boulders. However, we do expec
oh 2 know (Score:2)
o2, oxygen was/is poisonous to most early life.
Still I suppose it could still be happening in the deep.
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If what they say is true, then why wouldn't it be a constant ongoing process rather than life just origination a few times?
My theory is that at one point, all railroads and telephone companies grew from one point, and migrated and sprouted in new areas, rather than a dude in the sky dropping them on the earth fully grown as seen now.
Of course, that would imply if railroad and telephone companies were once generated out of primordial ooze, they could be generated now, perhaps as we speak.
But, at least around here, no RR and phone companies have formed out of the ooze in at least decades. Oh sure reorgs and mergers and spinoffs
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No, only some are space-faring in Origin. The rest fare better by moongate.