Life's Rocky Start

[Patrick]

I hate auto-correct.

[Sy_Garte]

@Patrick

Doesn’t Morris’ book qualify under the latest results in evolutionary theory?

Indeed it does. But I wouldnt say it was better than Wagner’s, in fact I believe (and I happen to know that Morris agrees) that the two are quite complementary.

[Patrick]

I agree. Morris’ book is harder (slower) to read but very good.

[beaglelady]

Papers are the most important way that scientists communicate with each other. Additionally, they are peer-reviewed.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

But to my mind, only someone with very poor scientific judgment would say that an individual paper that Wagner wrote on one gene is “more important” than his broad synthesis in his newest book.

I wasn’t talking about pitting individual books against individual papers.

[GJDS]

The discussions on origins of life in reputable journals (I have examined a number but have not gone through an exhaustive list) are very, very, poor in content and a joke in proposing any hypothesis that is scientific. In all cases, exact conditions are selected in laboratory apparatus, using starting chemicals that are carefully synthesised (and some required considerable skill to synthesise), purified, and then mixed in calculated proportion, in selected media. My point is to show that these conditions are far removed from anything found on earth, or nature. Even when attempts such as these are made, I cannot find any results which come close to creating any life, no matter how we define it, or how primitive we may consider such so called life.

On a humorous note, these attempts, if they were to ever succeed (unlikely), would support ID more than any other hypothesis that is the bagful of wild speculation by evolutionary biologists .

[Sy_Garte]

[quote=“GJDS, post:28, topic:4155”]
bagful of wild speculation by evolutionary biologists
[/quote]GJDS
The only thing I would criticize about your comment is the last two words. Most evolutionary biologists do not attempt to even think about the origin of life. That is a separate field, which has now been closely linked to astrobiology. The huge number of planets that are now thought to exist, has stimulated a great deal of interest in the topic, since while its easy to assume that billions of planets means lots of life must be out there, there is still that pesky minor problem of how life can get started. And it is very annoying that this is not at all a question for astrophysics but for biology and chemistry. And we know how messy those sciences are compared to the elegant mathematical purity of physics. (sorry for the ironic tone, here). Astrobiology has become a new field with some very smart, and optimistic folks working in it. Best of luck to them.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

Papers are certainly the most frequent means that scientists use to communicate with each other, and if that is what you mean by “most important,” then so be it.

No, I didn’t say most frequent. I said it was the most important. Working scientists do research, and they share their findings in peer-reviewed journals. Working scientists are supposed to do research. Besides, a journal allows discussion.

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

You imply that scientists share their research only in journals. This is not true. They sometimes share it in books. Darwin shared much of his research in books. And even today, scientists who share their research mainly in journals may from time to time include new material in their books.

No, I never implied that. Actually I have read books by scientists and attended their lectures intended for scientifically literate non-professionals. One time I even saw a fossil being prepared that hadn’t been shared with the outside world. But the most important way for research scientists to communicate their research to each other is by papers in professional journals.

[GJDS]

@Sy_Garte

You are right in that people from many areas of science indulge in what I consider wild speculation and I should not focus only on evolutionary biologists.

[Patrick]

@Eddie

Journal articles are more important for the small stuff.

That’s a ridiculous statement. Penzias and Wilson wrote a one page paper about nine months of measurements of “noise” and won the Nobel Prize. It is arguably the most important paper in all of human history.

[Patrick]

@Eddie

The point here is that evolutionary theory is currently in great flux

Eddie,
Another ridiculous statement. Evolutionary knowledge is exploding. Genetic sequencing technology is tracing the evolution of everything from bacteria in the stomach of 5300 year old humans to the proteins in dinosaur blood.

[GJDS]

@Patrick

This is a typical nonsensical statement from those who are so committed to this ideology that even when some of the most prominent workers question the very foundations of neo-Darwinian thinking (I hesitate using the term ‘evolutionary theory’ as it seems to mean everything to some and nebulous to others), the extremists loudly proclaim greater truth with the ridiculous outlook. Darwinian theory (for those who need to be educated) was rescued from the dust-bins by genetics (now it is Neo-Darwinism), and this branch is now under attack by those who do not accept a direct link between the genotype and phenotype (just to name one area). This means the area is in great flux - it is pathetic to read such extreme views such as regarding ‘tracing everything’.

For anyone who takes a serious view, it is wise to undertake an exercise in which the basics (variation and natural selection) are examined within the scientific data available, and then see why genetics does not provide that proof that ND adherents claim - but rather suggests a great deal of additional work is needed before we can claim any theory in this area.

[Patrick]

@Eddie

In any case, Penzias and Wilson did not invent the theory which their observations confirmed. They merely showed that their observations were exactly what the theory predicted.

They didn’t even do that. All they did was to measure noise. The same noise that we saw on our analog TV’s in the 1950’s when you turned on the TV before broadcast started in the morning. Remember that?