Can a pallet pusher ask a daft question?

Is it true to say that life only began billions of years ago in a murky swamp or at the bottom of an ocean?

And that all life we now see, including ourselves, has evolved from those ancient beginnings?

Or is it possible that new life is being created all the time? That right now, out in your garden, deep in the soil, chemicals are combining and re-combining to form simple new lifeforms, some of which will die off, others of which will add to the life already on the planet and will move forward and evolve?

I don't know because I'm educationally challenged.

What say you bright boys and girls?

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You cannot create a truth by believing in a falsehood.

That's actually a really interesting question. Unfortunately, for the time being, it's unanswerable partly because, from a scientific point of view, we don't yet fully understand how life was created at all. On the one hand, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for new life to arise today if the conditions are right. On the other hand, we don't know if conditions are right and we don't know exactly what conditions are needed.

Do we know enough about the conditions on the earth that life started in so we could recreate them in a lab to see what happens?

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http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats...630/prj:6/.png

Actually, we do have a fairly decent idea of what ancient Earth was like, hence the Miller-Urey experiment.

The Miller-Urey experiment:

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise...gy/miller.html

It's likely that the changes to the Earth's atmosphere caused by life (the oxygen released by photosynthesis) blocks enough radiation that whatever happened when the show got started can't happen now. Of course, not everyone accepts this hypothesis.

Some people think life started in hydrothermal vents:

http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise...ogy/sites.html

If that hypothesis is correct, then I supposed new stuff could be forming, sure. But keep in mind that everything it's competing with has billions of years of evolution that it won't. I think it would be eaten pretty quickly.

By the way, I'm looking to study hydrothermal vents, so if it is correct I probably have a job again! \/

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Anyone who believes in the warning of the bible (prophecies concerning the end time which is now) shall be benefited from my invention. Because they won't be stupid enough to pass this! -Alex Chiu

I don't think so. Life can evolve from the most primitive combinations in a lifeless environment. Once life is established in one place, a new inefficient primitive form of life has hardly any chance to compete for resources with many hundred million years of evolution. First life to spread conquers all.

That really depends. Once could say that new life is being formed and surviving BECAUSE it's metabolism prevents competition. For example new life could form (not mutate) that specializes in metabolizing chemicals that are toxic to potential competition.

The real issue would be, would we RECOGNIZE a new life form. It could be completely defficient in DNA as we know it and use other methods of encoding. This is something we may have to face if Life is discovered off Earth.

There is potential that we may discover a new life form without realizing it on say Mars or Europa. once we determine that it IS a life form, it may open our eyes here on earth and we might find the same thing here, that has been here all the time without us realizing it.

I do not know the answer, However I would like to think that life is still being created. But then I am an optimist.

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After a couple of billion years of natural selection, life has worked its way into just about all the available niches, and has got pretty efficient at making a living. Any "new" life form would have to successfully compete immediately, and I can't see that happening unless it was extremely exotic (silicon) and not competing for any of the same resources.

If there's an energetic chemical or physical process, life is there making use of it, with the sole caveat that if it's extremely hostile towards proteins or lipid membranes, life might not be very active there.
The creation of life requires large concentrations of energetic, complex chemicals. To say that life originated at the bottom of the ocean is a bit misleading: the oceans were very shallow at the time, because the crust had just formed and there wasn't a whole lot in the way of plate tectonics and uplift. The complex molecules therefore concentrated in these shallow seas and, surprisingly quickly (from a geologic time scale), formed rudimentary cells.
If anything similar existed these days, a stray bacteria would float into it and stuff hisself silly, then proceed to divide and make a bunch more bacteria that would stuff themselves silly.

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Contrary to the opinion of the press, the public, and their mothers, most scientists are dull and uninteresting people.
- James Watson

Criteria for life

1) Living things need energy
2) Living things grow and develop
3) Living things respond to their surroundings
4) Living things reproduce

Hypothetically lets take a 3rd grade science experiement, Growing Crystals

Growing Crystals respond to Criteria 2 and 3 (alter the liquid medium and you can increase or decrease the rate of growth), possibly 1 (I don't know enough about what happens at the atomic level to say that energy is or isn't involved)

That potentially leaves only 4 out of the loop.

Is it conievable That a crystal saturates to the point where it begins to release its base element back into the medium, therefore allowing the creation newer crystals?

All of this is off the top of my head, and Incredibly simplistic. I am merely saying that Life as we know it here on earth may not be life elsewhere.

Suppose ExtraTerran life is not made of amino acids, or carbon based. Would we recognize it as life?

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I heard you couldn't have new life forming today because of the oxygen in the atmosphere. Because oxygen is such a great oxidant anything forming today would be killed off pretty quickly.
At least that's what we learned in bio class.

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Yes, I have a life. It's quite different from yours.

That is a possibility Andromeda321, However we cannot get fixated on what life is.

There could be several types of "life" as we know it. If it meets the Criteria for life, then it is life, regardless of whether or not is is carbon based, Silcon based, Hydrogen based etc.

All life on earth has DNA. That does not mean that all life in the universe has DNA.

I firmly believe that if we find Life elsewhere, It very well may not be Carbon based and may have a completely different encoding mechanism than DNA.

I also think that we may not recognize it as life unless we consider ALL the possibilities and remain open to an infinite number of Combinations

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Actually, this is a myth called "abiogenesis" or "spontaneous generation" or "life from non-life". It was debunked by Louis Pasteur in the 1800's.

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"Survival of the fittest" or "Love your neighbor as yourself"?

It's more likely that existing life adapts to these conditions before new life could spring up there.

The important point is probabilities: Life will most likely evolve in the most likely place in the most likely form. Once it's there, it expands into all possible niches in time. Again, it's less likely that life evolves in the more difficult niches, life mutated from likely places will probably arrive there first. Less likely forms of life would probably only have a chance in a totally isolated environment (like a separate planet where there are no sufficient amounts of water and carbon for the common life solution).

We can look at ourselves and reasonably assume that water/carbon/RNA/DNA based life is the most likely. Maybe there are different forms, but it's unlikely that we would be one the unlikely ones. Yes, it's circular, but that kinda works here. If we ever find other intelligent life out there, they would probably be found in a system eerily similar to our sun-earth-moon.

If it grows, metabolizes and reproduces it's probably a good candidate for life. You don't search for DNA when you search for life, you search for the more obvious traces.

Today, scientists doubt that the “primitive” terrestrial atmosphere had the highly reducing factor used by Miller, a point favoring the recent creation of earth.

The Miller results led to the “primordial soup” theory, which assumes
life arose in such a mixture of gasses and chemicals as Miller
used, called a “primordial soup,” but now called a “prebiotic soup.”
The alternative is the “unthinkable:” God created life!

But as long as atheistic scientists can find a way to get out from
under that conclusion, they will, no matter how extreme. For instance,
if life can’t form on the surface of the earth because the temperature
was too high, or too wet, or too oxidizing, why not suppose that life
arose in hot springs and undersea thermal vents, where the temperature
is a boiling? After all, certain bacteria do live there. Closest to the
earth, and in the oceans whence evolutionists presume life began, these
obviously “must” be the ancestors of man, even though they eat sulphur
and hydrogen sulphide. Evolutionists have dubbed those bacteria a
new biological domain called Archaea. Is there any intelligent life left
on Earth?!

I am not a scientist, But I am A Christian. That being said, I cannot look at the universe without increasing my sense of a Creator. The complexity and the vastness of space, the unanswered holes in physics, even down to the smallest biological component. These things just don't happen.

I just accept that they are and that they will be. Every discovery I make I consider a gift. I wonder about these discoveries, mull them over and if I cannot find an answer to the question, I try to accept it.

Here is what I beleive though. When we encounter sentient life, I believe that through a culture comparison between Terran belief and the exraterran beliefes, we will find many things in common. They will have Multi-Diety groups, Monotheistc groups, Atheistic groups much like we have. I also believe that the monotheistic sects will have startiling similar life principles as terran monotheistic sects.

I do not for an instant believe we are the sole oasis in the universe. I think that Fundamentalist Biblical Scolars have a fairly serious case of tunnel vision. We have permission to explore all that we are exposed to and and to limit ourselves is to remain no better than the ants that get food and bring it back only to do it again until they die. The God I serve gave me everything. All the light, all the matter, a sky full of wonders, all mine to explore.

Fear is the only reason not to explore. Fear that we may find something out that will cause a HUGE shift in human perception about our seeming importance in the overall scheme of things. Fear that Today I am human, top of the food chain, and that tomorrow I may be just the ant. I'm ok with being an ant.

Open your mind to the possibilities. Unwavering belief in something without opening your mind to other possibilities is the number one Crippling factor of the human race.

Oh and I do apologize for the philisophal rant, it didn't start out that way and probably veered off topic.

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The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

Even if that's true, which I doubt, a lot has been learned since the 1800s, but you are apparently happy to ignore such information. However, please do not misinform others due to your self-imposed ignorance. There are enough ignorant people in the world already.

Edit: Phrase in blue added.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

Not hardly. Please take a course in simple logic. Haven't you heard of the null hypothesis? You're trying to foist a simple logical fallacy. Your reasoning is pathetic.
Incorrect.
What God? Where is this God now? Where did God come from? What's the exact mechanism that God used to do this "creation" you're claiming? If you had ANY empirical support for this claim, I'm sure science would be interested. Unfortunately, none has EVER been supplied. Why not?
"Out from under that conclusion"? You can't have a conclusion without any evidence, observational support... Conclusions are based on something. God is a hope, a dream, a subjective feeling, a myth based on historical morality tales. You could use a course in comparative religions, too. Man, you are falling behind!
"Extreme"? Don't you think the wholly unsupported hypothesis of a "supreme being" directing the actions on our little planet isn't just a little "extreme"?
This is an extremely funny question coming from someone who shuns intelligence, buries his head in the sand, and attempts to mislead everyone he meets into burying their heads in the sand, too.

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

As you say, this is your sense. Your subjective feeling. Subjective feelings are fine, but of course they are outside the realm of science.
Again, this is your belief, and you're certainly entitled to it. But since there is no empirical foundation for it, you should not be too surprised to find out that it is wrong, which is a good possibility. Read Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe and you'll have some mathematical foundation to start thinking, "Hmm... It's possible that these things do just happen."

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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

[quote="Cougar"]As you say, this is your sense. Your subjective feeling. Subjective feelings are fine, but of course they are outside the realm of science.
Again, this is your belief, and you're certainly entitled to it. But since there is no empirical foundation for it, you should not be too surprised to find out that it is wrong, which is a good possibility. Read Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe and you'll have some mathematical foundation to start thinking, "Hmm... It's possible that these things do just happen."[/quot}

You are correct these are my opinions. in any debate, both sides can be proven or disproven ad nauseum. I query, observe, and draw conclusions. I just happen to believe there are far greater beings than us. One of them being a Creator.

I do however respect all beliefes. Your entitled to them, and I cannot bring myself to disprove or convince you otherwise, because I would be taking a core part of who you are and attempt destroy it. That would be against who I am.

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The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory