LIFE; What is it?

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The question being 'did life form only once and if so, why?'

Here are some possibilities:

did life form only once or several times?

Categorized like so:
1)life formed only once
1A)and then environmental conditions changed, no longer favoring it but existing life was "in before the lock"

2)life formed multiple times
2A)it formed multiple times but only one cell line survived to become our ancestor, sort of like how we are the only surviving hominids (but unlike single cells, the hominids that didn't make it left bones we found)
2B)it formed multiple times and there were multiple survivors but later convergence makes it seem like we all branched off from a single line

3)life formed once or multiple times but not here on earth and was brought to earth by crashed asteroids




Evolution has different schools of thought. One school of thought is 'gradual change', another school of thought is 'gradual change except when it's not'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

An extinction leading to a burst of life radiating into new forms isn't a challenge to the theory of evolution, it is recognized as an important factor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

Evolution does not exist leading up to the formation of life, it could not evolve into existence.

While some chemical reactions happen without life, the same that life uses, there is no material evolution, matter becoming more bio complex on its own. There are no fragments of DNA like things, that could form more complex systems.

Creation by sea floor vents, radioactive beaches, a bolt of lightning, fail to show a means where an effect produces complex order.

evidence please.

If you want to see examples of pre biological replication and possible evolution have a look into the work of Graham Cairns-Smith, as to energy producing complex order, what the heck do you think animo acids are. Miller Urey was a long time ago, many more varied experiments have been done since then, with a variety of early earth scenarios all producing ever more complex molecules. Have a look at this, it is a very concise article, but it does give an idea of where to look[url=<a class="vglnk" href="http://thelivingcosmos.com/TheOriginofLifeOnEarth/PreRnaWorld_12May06.html]Pre" rel="nofollow"><span>http</span><span>://</span><span>thelivingcosmos</span><span>.</span><span>com</span><span>/</span><span>TheOriginofLifeOnEarth</span><span>/</span><span>PreRnaWorld</span><span>_</span><span>12May06</span><span>.</span><span>html</span><span>]</span><span>Pre</span></a> RNA world[/url]

You've made several far-fetched claims in this thread, but that one tops the lot.

You don't understand why oxygen deprivation kills. You do not know more about biology than Janissy. Have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect?

There is no evidence whatsoever (empirical or otherwise) that inanimate chemistry of any sort can transform itself into animate (living) metabolic processes.

There is, on the other hand, plenty of evidence (empirical and otherwise) that live things revert to inanimate chemistry as soon as they're not live anymore.

Fantastic ideological speculations cannot change that fact.

It rather reminds me of a fella called Julian Huxley (roughly an equivalent of Richard Dawkins of about 100 years ago) who said in one of his speeches selling Darwinism, having given the probability of even one simple protein forming by random accident as 10 to some thousandth power to one against... " it's impossible, yet it has happened because here we are!" "Science" at its best!!

Another time in a foreword to someone else's book selling Darwinism he said evolution is true because the alternative is unthinkable. Brilliant!!... more "science"! ! !

Then there is your esteemed Richard Dawkins who shot both his legs off with his own cannon. If there is an omnipotent deity it could have created the whole Universe just as it is 5 seconds ago.

Anyhow, I just hope that there is at least one honest and functional mind reading this thread.

Oh! and by the way, in my tumultuous and wasted youth I used to write lots and lots of "poetry" that could rival our 'Ghogsy by any evaluation. One excerpt from an epic that went on for dozens of pages that may be of interest is:

And the World is what I see
And the World is only what I see
And the World is because I see it

Good ole Aristotle didn't believe any of that.

There is no evidence whatsoever (empirical or otherwise) that inanimate chemistry of any sort can transform itself into animate (living) metabolic processes.

source
By the 1950s, scientists were in hot pursuit of the origin of life. Around the world, the scientific community was examining what kind of environment would be needed to allow life to begin. In 1953, Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey, working at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment which would change the approach of scientific investigation into the origin of life.
Miller took molecules which were believed to represent the major components of the early Earth's atmosphere and put them into a closed system

The gases they used were methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), hydrogen (H2), and water (H2O). Next, he ran a continuous electric current through the system, to simulate lightning storms believed to be common on the early earth. Analysis of the experiment was done by chromotography. At the end of one week, Miller observed that as much as 10-15% of the carbon was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. Perhaps most importantly, Miller's experiment showed that organic compounds such as amino acids, which are essential to cellular life could be made easily under the conditions that scientists believed to be present on the early earth. This enormous finding inspired a multitude of further experiments.
In 1961, Juan Oro found that amino acids could be made from hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and ammonia in an aqueous solution. He also found that his experiment produced an amazing amount of the nucleotide base, adenine. Adenine is of tremendous biological significance as an organic compound because it is one of the four bases in RNA and DNA. It is also a component of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is a major energy releasing molecule in cells. Experiments conducted later showed that the other RNA and DNA bases could be obtained through simulated prebiotic chemistry with a reducing atmosphere.
These discoveries created a stir within the science community. Scientists became very optimistic that the questions about the origin of life would be solved within a few decades. This has not been the case, however. Instead, the investigation into life's origins seems only to have just begun.
There has been a recent wave of skepticism concerning Miller's experiment because it is now believed that the early earth's atmosphere did not contain predominantly reductant molecules. Another objection is that this experiment required a tremendous amount of energy. While it is believed lightning storms were extremely common on the primitive Earth, they were not continuous as the Miller/Urey experiment portrayed. Thus it has been argued that while amino acids and other organic compounds may have been formed, they would not have been formed in the amounts which this experiment produced.
Many of the compounds made in the Miller/Urey experiment are known to exist in outer space. On September 28, 1969, a meteorite fell over Murchison, Australia. While only 100 kilograms were recovered, analysis of the meteorite has shown that it is rich with amino acids. Over 90 amino acids have been identified by researchers to date. Nineteen of these amino acids are found on Earth. (table showing comparison of Murchison meteorite to Miller/Urey experiment) The early Earth is believed to be similar to many of the asteroids and comets still roaming the galaxy. If amino acids are able to survive in outer space under extreme conditions, then this might suggest that amino acids were present when the Earth was formed. More importantly, the Murchison meteorite has demonstrated that the Earth may have acquired some of its amino acids and other organic compounds by planetary infall.

tl;dr you're wrong about amino acids.

I know about MUX and it has been done to death around here long ago.

It's interesting what can be synthesised in a clever apparatus with the appropriate ingredients and reaction conditions. There are much more clever and successful processes for synthesising organic substances even on an industrial scale.

so you are aware that life can come from inert particles. good that you're finally admitting that you're wrong.

You haven't a clue.

clearly I don't possess anything but a simple reproduceable experiment that can produce amino acids within a week's time. this is obviously inferior to your magical thinking and dogwhistling about creation science, right?

David you still at it. Ok so we have definitively shown that your idea that entropy denies complexity, is complete nonsense. You are now delving into the realm of the speculative. The issue here is how the first replicating molecules came into existence, and in truth we do not yet know. Of course you in your great wisdom will beat your chest, stating that this means "god did it"
However as THIS article shows, science is getting closer and closer to the answer.

In response to your bait, yes life is just "mere chemical reactions" and I challenge you to prove different. However as Janissy has pointed out not all chemical reactions constitute life.

Not even your ideological mates around here persist in claiming that a cleverly contrived apparatus, with carefully selected inputs, that produced a goo with only trace amounts of two of the simplest amino acids, is even close to producing even one simplest protein.

I'm not talking about "creation science"; only genuine science as opposed to nonscience.

You're far too credulous and gullible to be reasonable.

And why the personal vehemence? Had you been explaining thermodynamics to him, or others including myself, so frequently that you were getting a little exasperated?

If you are proposing that chemical reactions are ALL that life is, rather than merely the means by which life as we know it exists, then you must provide an alternative explanation of the difference between living and dead, as provokingly futile as that may sound. Otherwise your definition of life is rather self-referential, as helpful as "life is life".

Not even your ideological mates around here persist in claiming that a cleverly contrived apparatus, with carefully selected inputs, that produced a goo with only trace amounts of two of the simplest amino acids, is even close to producing even one simplest protein.

I'm not talking about "creation science"; only genuine science as opposed to nonscience.

You're far too credulous and gullible to be reasonable.