posted January 11, 2007 05:05 PM            

Very interesting information.

posted January 11, 2007 06:42 PM            

Final paragraph intriguing, so:

http://www.panspermia.org/intro.htm

which makes me wonder whether we share ancestry with Klingons,
Vogons, Jedi, Time Lords and the like.

posted January 12, 2007 06:18 AM            

It is intriguing that we seem to have ended up with a aingle
encoding system - the instruction set of 22 amino acids.
Does this mean that life had a single point of origin or is this
the only chemically stable system that works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid

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www.pegge.net

posted January 12, 2007 02:10 PM            

quote:

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The probability of the chance formation of a hypothetical functional ‘simple’ cell, given all the ingredients, is acknowledged to be worse than 1 in 10^57800. This is a chance of 1 in a number with 57,800 zeros. It would take 11 full pages of magazine type to print this number. To try to put this in perspective, there are about 10^80 (a number with 80 zeros) electrons in the universe. Even if every electron in our universe were another universe the same size as ours that would ‘only’ amount to 10^160 electrons.

These numbers defy our ability to comprehend their size. Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer, has used analogies to try to convey the immensity of the problem. For example, Hoyle said the probability of the formation of just one of the many proteins on which life depends is comparable to that of the solar system packed full of blind people randomly shuffling Rubik’s cubes all arriving at the solution at the same time —and this is the chance of getting only one of the 400 or more proteins of the hypothetical minimum cell proposed by the evolutionists (real world ‘simple’ bacteria have about 2,000 proteins and are incredibly complex). As Hoyle points out, the program of the cell, encoded on the DNA, is also needed. In other words, life could not form by natural (random) processes.

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regards, Ian Cairns

posted January 12, 2007 02:51 PM            

There are a many high probability biochemical events starting with the
polymerisation of nucleic acids and the growth of organic
crystalline forms, before you get to a truly self replicating
organism.

posted January 12, 2007 05:12 PM            

But your figure is based on serial probabilities.

posted January 12, 2007 08:03 PM            

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IRC

posted January 12, 2007 08:12 PM            

Back in the day, scientist felt there was a possibility, although extremely large, life could have happened by chance under perfect conditions.
There were a lot of mathematical models demonstrating the whole process.

That’s all out the window.
Recent advancements of our understandings of the complexity of the simplest cell have proven those propositions impossible.

There are currently no known locations on earth where it would be possible for the simplest known form of life to have happened.

Then came 'prebiotic soup'.
“heterotrophic organism which could obtain energy from compounds in the soup and lead eventually through Darwinian evolution” (1)
(This refers to those stories of scientist claiming to have created a precursor to life in a test tube. - Miller-Urey experiment)

That’s all out the window now.
“Research in recent years has challenged all aspects of this paradigm as well as the assumptions on which it is based.” (1)

That’s NOT to say that Prebiotic Chemistry is out the window of consideration.

Prebiotic Chemistry is the current focus.

Prebiodites (made the word up) are RNA molecules that many evolutionary scientists believe may have been the precursor to the first cell.

It’s only speculation that these guys ever existed. (3)
‘’’ This process can retrieve molecules present in as few as one in 1 x 1015 sequences, which suggests that careful design may allow 'resuscitation' of active RNA molecules that have been 'extinct' for over three billion years, if they ever 'lived' at all. ’’’(2)

There are no known Prebiodites; it’s believed that the first forms of life on earth destroyed them. (food source, I guess)

That’s what NASA’s”Origin of Life” mission is about, Prebiodites.
(They’re also looking for spores and other possibilities, spores considered more remote than Prebiotic Chemistry)

Why Mars?
Mars is similar to Earth in many regards.
If the process of Life ever got started on Mars, it would be in a far more retarded state than Earth.
Because it’s believed that the first forms of life on Earth destroyed all Prebiodites, they hope to find a representation of Prebiotic Chemistry on Mars.

Harvard’s ''Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative" seems also centered around Prebiotic Chemistry.

The current correct formula; 1/0.

(1) Prepared by the Exobiology Program Office, NASA HQ “An Exobiological Strategy For Mars Exploration” (paper written by 18 NASA scientist) http://cmex.ihmc.us/Exo_Strat/exo_strat.html
(2) Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
(3) Scientist don’t move it beyond a hypothesis, however it’s presented to the general public as a fact. “These experiments now provide a wonderful setting for exploring the basic process of evolution at its most fundamental level - a single molecule - as well as providing a window onto the set of building blocks and constraints that would have defined many events in prebiotic evolution.”

posted January 12, 2007 10:09 PM            

He didn't have to.

posted January 12, 2007 11:41 PM            

HIV
MRSA
TB

Given its algorithmic nature, evolution also applies to other
systems:

Integrated circuits
Computer Software ( evolution doesnt have to be totally random )
Scientific Ideas and Concepts
Religions!