The origin of life and the origin of the universe are similar in that scientists have many theories but no provable answers for either origin.
What is life?It is carbon and water based, has a capacity to grow and reproduce.The great mystery in science is the process by which life originated on Earth from non-living matter.
The earliest evidence for life on Earth are fossilized mats of bacteria, that have been analyzed to be about 3.4 billion years old.This type of bacteria is still around now and have survived and thrived for 3.4 billion years and have the same basic structure and chemistry.Even though this bacteria are single cell, while we have billions, their structure,chemistry and reproductive process are so complex,scientist say they could not be possibly be first life.Scientist theorize an intermittent process between non-living matter and bacteria. So far, none have been found.
There are many theories for the origin of life.One of the oldest and since discredited is Spontaneous generation. Their premise was that life could be produced from decaying organic matter. For example:maggots would magically appear on dead meat. This was disproven when it was demonstrated that flies laid eggs in the meat which gave birth to maggots.Scientists have tried everything to produce life from non-living matter. They have tried to duplicate the chemistry that may have existed in pools of water billions of years ago. When that didn't work, they shot electricity through it, they shot micro waves through it. Nothing, during all recorded history, there has never been a case of a living thing produced by anything other than another living thing.
A current theory is organic molecules raining down from outer space, but the one that interest me the most is the quantum theory of life.This theory suggests that quantum mechanics enabled life to emerge directly from the atomic world, without the need for complex chemistry. We have looked at the crazy, magical quantum world,(see"A Smoking Gun).and the answer may lay there in some way.
Next , we will look at DNA,that blueprint for all life and direct evidence of design.
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This is form another forum.
ReplyDeleteYou are looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
When I was younger, I truly believed that once I investigated the vast intricacy of existence. studying human anatomy and how perfectly and logically everything worked together.
Looking at a sugar crystal under a microscope, it HAD to be created or designed by a higher power.
Then I realized slowly that I was viewing this from a distinctly human-centric prism.
I was putting the vast intricacy of nature into terms, I as a human could relate to.
Our very notions of "design" are nothing but a crude model, copied from what we see already in nature and compounded by centuries of accumulated human knowledge.
We, therefore think everything in the universe must have been made or designed the same way.
The natural laws as we perceive them are merely what happened here, at a particular time in a particular place, and that under even slightly different circumstances, an entirely
different set of such laws would have sprung into existence, doubtless leading to beings very different from us, some of whom would nonetheless be absolutely convinced that
their particular set of laws had been specially engineered for them.
You have to get away from the idea of an old man and a beard when imagining design. All we are saying is that science points to intelligence. It can be anything but if we have intelligence then maybe there is a greater intelligence in control of nature's power. If you don't accept that, then you have to believe everything is a lucky chance.
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