@djprocess 335356 wrote:

maddness i never knew that! crazy stuff :weee:

yeah that bit of mars rock they found buried in the antartic had evidence of fossilised microbes from mars. It’s pretty tenuous to be honest as the fossils that imply ancient microbial activity could potentially be caused by non organic processes, hard to tell but scientists are optimistic. The never found hard evidence of microbes when the voyager landed unfortunately though. Implying either the microbes no longer live in the top soil, or the methods used to test for life are totally not appropriate for martian life. If we could get a bit of mars rock back we could look again as we did with the fragment that journeyed back to earth.. unfortuanetly getting rock back from mars is currently a logistical impossibility!

@dougmelv 335390 wrote:

abiogenesis. i don’t think science will never answer this question. it will only provide increasingly complex theories that are wrong in an even more complicated way. the simple answer to origins of life on earth is ‘God put it there’. the more difficult question is What is God?. for all we know seeds of life could have be blasted here in a space craft from a planet in another solar system or our creators could be hidding on venus monitoring their game/experiment (with tech we don’t yet have the ability to detect) as their human creations dominate the planet. he could also be an old man with a beard that appears in the clouds . unfortunately ,or perhaps fortunately given our track record with knowledge, i think humans are too stupid (cognitavely limited) to ever understand the truth about creation of the universe and life. for me science has disproved conventional religious creationist mythology but failed to come up with a decent alternative. intelectual people are saying ‘doh! like i’d ever believe in creationism’ whilst seemingly unwittingly swallowing the dogma of science.
i try not to think about it apart from on special occasions cause i’m not that smart and i like the happy bubble that is my reality.
xx

Actually I’m pretty sure we’ll nail biogenesis one day.. we’re definately making progress. The breakthrough came in understanding that the simplest organism alive today is far more complex than the first life form would have to be. This blew the whole ‘hurricane in a junkyard’ / watchmaker argument out of the water.
Scientists now understand a process of molecular evolution probably took place, with increasing complexity of looping chemical reactions taking place, before this got enclosed in a membrane and considered an organsim. We already know self replicating protein molecules exist (prions, bsc).. early life would be closer to this.(see RNA world theories on biogenesis). We just need more time to study the organic chemisry and run computer simulations and we’ll find a probably path life took.

The question is, why does life (or anything) move towards greater complexity? Is there a force in the universe pushing things towards sentient life (ie a god force), was there just a lot of chemical accidents, or does complexy increase by iteself due to the laws of mathematics the universe is built on?
Complexity theory is currently being developed along with lots of computer simulations on the subject, I’m pretty sure it’s going to have profound implications when it’s developed further.
However opinion is divided. ‘Complex’ life forms like mammals/reptiles are actually just the very tail end of a massive distrobution of life, with signle celled organisms being the vast majority in both biomass, numbers, and evolutionary success (it is argued). Judging progression of life by our tiny proportion just because it’s us and we only really deal with ‘big’ life, and considering ourselves supieror is not necessarily a correct attitude to have when judging what direction life has been taking. Random perambulation of life would still allow for greater complexity in the minory of species without some mystic drive towards intelligence.

Personally I think there isnt a god force meddling in the laws of physics constantly to create life (that would be an inelagant way to create life if you were omnipotent), but the universe is set up such that systems automatically increase in complexity if energy is put into a closed system. If there is a god then it is not a meddling individual, but an individual who created a world that automatically tends towards sentience if left to its own devices from the beginning.

The alien in a city argument is actually an argument for evolution, not creationism! Cities are the product of society, not 1 man. They are not planned from scratch right down to the last building, the form over time through interacting systems of smaller units. Society is the next phase of evolution and cities are a product of society.

Also do you not think a universe that required constant meddling to create life would be poorly constructed?

Surely if god put humans on the earth with a ‘magic wand’ interference, then he would have done that at the beginning of the universe, not 12 billion years after the earth was created? If you’re going to use an unnatural process to create life, why do it in slow stages? It makes no logical sense. What you’re effectively saying is god did this:

12 billion years ago – kick off big bang.. from this point the universe needs no meddling because stars, second generation stars, and planets containing an adequate range of elements will eventually be created, one being in a suitable location for life. All by iteself with no interference required. This has been shown conclusively by what we know of physics.

4 billion years ago – stick a single celled organism on the planet.
400 million years ago – stick insects on the planet
*god sits there drumming fingers*
160 million years ago – stick dinosours on the planet (why??)
100,000 years ago – stick humans on the planet.

In fact the number of times God would have to turn up and add new species would be millions of events, because the fossil record clearly shows new species emerging constantly. All for no apparent reason then to give us some fossils to dig up, confuse us, and test our faith.

Now does this not seem to you like a massively illogical bodge job of a way to put humans here? Surely either creating humans right from the start (ie not using the big bang method, creating a static universe) or letting humans arise from a natural process (like the natural processes that stars, galaxies and planets to form) are the only ways that make any sense?? It also implies god is lying to us by leaving around evidence that isnt true. Evolution is more or less conclusively proven, suggesting otherwise is like saying the earth is flat. Yeah the fossil record has holes in it but so does our understanding of gravity, it doesnt mean that it doesnt exist. For a start evolution has been mapped backwards for the last 4 billion years using DNA analysis, mitochondrial RNA analysis etc, and many other techniques, all which collaborate with each other and give the same conclusions. Is god lying to us?

If god is indeed omnipotent he wouldnt need to turn up and fiddle with things all along the way, this shows the universe was imperfectly made in the first place and god is a poor workman. A really amazing omnipotent creator would be able to make a universe where sentient life is written into the laws of physics right from the start.

I understand where you’re coming from because I used to think the same way, i come from a very christian family, and letting go of my old beliefs has been a slow difficult process, but if anything science has strengthened my belief in a creator. Science need not take away the wonder and mysticism in the universe, not unless you want it to.

yeah ive been following string theory with interest since my degree. Although it doest really have any impact on the god argument, unless the laws of physics turn out to be completely self explanatory and self contained (ie the way things are is the ONLY way things can be, hence destroying the anthropic principle)

However I find this unlikely, most scientists think string theory will still give rise to infinite possible universes, leaving the question, why this one? what ‘breathed fire’ into this permuation of possible existences? if all perumations of universes exist, why any universes at all? The existence problem remains it just adds another layer of complexity. It needs many years more devlopment before we know the implications of string theory unfortunately, and only a few people in the world are clever enough to work on it which slows progress!

ive never really considered dark matter significant, its an area of particle physics that needs more attention (ie solving) but dont see how it will have any philosophical implications.. Dark energy has had some interesting implications – ie making the universe accelarate instead of slow down, stopping any big crunch scenario. It also means the average energy of the universe is zero (dark energy is negative energy and balances out everything else) meaning the universe didnt need energy to be created from nothing.

anyway i think trying to use science to prove or disprove god is a logical fallacy.. its a concept that exists outside the rules of our universe and whatever logical reasons people use for or against god it still boils down to a matter of faith, with the logic being bent around that

I did physics, but most of this stuff has come out of me reading popular science/philosophy books in the last couple of years and stroking my beard 😀

if you’re interested in this stuff some good reads are:
The goldilocks enigma – paul davies (subject: anthropic principle and mystery of existence, most interesting book ive read for years)
Lila: an inquiry into morals – Robert M. Pirsig (subject: eastern value based philosophies applied to society and morals).. worth reading the prequel ‘zen and the art of motorcycle maintanence’ first.
The origin of life – paul davies (subject: take a guess)
Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination – Gerald M Edelman (clue is in the title again)

There are plenty others but these are the really interesting ones.
if you’re new to physics/astrophysics/evolution stuff a good start is ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson’