For the alternative theorists:

This may be of interest .


WHAT IS LIFE?
what is it that turns elementary particles into living matter? When did the chemical transition from lifeless substances to a complex system of interacting molecules, that displays behaviour we call 'life', occur? At what stage does matter reach a state we call 'living'? Its difficult to define 'living'. For this discussion we will consider it to be a form of chemistry that must;
•be able to grow
•be able to reproduce
•be subject to Darwinian evolution
•be able to metabolize - take in energy, use it and release waste products
•respond to stimuli
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http://garvandwane.com/evolution/lifeinthebeg.html#what
 
Write4U said:
WHAT IS LIFE?
Click to expand...
The consensus is (from Wikipedia):

  • 1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
  • 2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells — the basic units of life.
  • 3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
  • 4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
  • 5. Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
  • 6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
  • 7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.
Obviously, this list describes only life on Earth, for the rather good reason that it's the only kind we've been able to study. Life in other solar systems, or in outer space metabolizing cosmic rays, or elsewhere, will most probably not be very similar to ours. We might not even recognize it.

I would suggest that #3, metabolism, is probably the one characteristic that will prove to be universal.

A case can also be made for #6, if only because if a thing does not respond to stimuli, there's probably no way we'll ever realize that it's alive. ;)
 
None of these things listed prevents this so called this 'life' described from ceasing. The seeds of the eventual demise are found in the processes themselves which transition into further processes accelerating decay. These are not what constitutes 'life'. You've listed processes that characterize the state of death on earth. True Life is independent of all such processes.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Obviously, this list describes only life on Earth, for the rather good reason that it's the only kind we've been able to study.
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i believe there is only one or possibly two ways to "create" life.
if there were more, science would have found one by now.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
The consensus is (from Wikipedia):

  • 1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
  • 2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells — the basic units of life.
  • 3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
  • 4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
  • 5. Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
  • 6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
  • 7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.
Obviously, this list describes only life on Earth, for the rather good reason that it's the only kind we've been able to study. Life in other solar systems, or in outer space metabolizing cosmic rays, or elsewhere, will most probably not be very similar to ours. We might not even recognize it.

I would suggest that #3, metabolism, is probably the one characteristic that will prove to be universal.

A case can also be made for #6, if only because if a thing does not respond to stimuli, there's probably no way we'll ever realize that it's alive. ;)
Click to expand...

Do Waterbears (tardigrades) meet all of the above or are they just a very special species?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade

edit; if a tardigrade is dormant for say 10 years and has lost 97% of its water content, can it still be considered to be "alive"? Add a little water and it revives and ambles merrily on its way.
 
leopold said:
i believe there is only one or possibly two ways to "create" life.
if there were more, science would have found one by now.
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Life started from non life....That's the fundamental basic answer to the debate in question. Whether that happened on Earth or by some means entailing Panspermia, we do not know.

But this is interesting.....

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
New evidence has emerged which supports the long-debated theory that life on Earth may have started on Mars.

We may all be Martians: New research supports theory that life started on Mars:

Professor Steven Benner will tell geochemists gathering today (Thursday 29 Aug) at the annual Goldschmidt conference that an oxidized mineral form of the element molybdenum, which may have been crucial to the origin of life, could only have been available on the surface of Mars and not on Earth. "In addition", said Professor Benner "recent studies show that these conditions, suitable for the origin of life, may still exist on Mars."

"It's only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidized that it is able to influence how early life formed," explains Professor Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the USA. "This form of molybdenum couldn't have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did. It's yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-08-martians-theory-life-mars.html#jCp
 
paddoboy said:
Life started from non life....That's the fundamental basic answer to the debate in question. Whether that happened on Earth or by some means entailing Panspermia, we do not know.

But this is interesting.....

""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
New evidence has emerged which supports the long-debated theory that life on Earth may have started on Mars.

We may all be Martians: New research supports theory that life started on Mars:

Professor Steven Benner will tell geochemists gathering today (Thursday 29 Aug) at the annual Goldschmidt conference that an oxidized mineral form of the element molybdenum, which may have been crucial to the origin of life, could only have been available on the surface of Mars and not on Earth. "In addition", said Professor Benner "recent studies show that these conditions, suitable for the origin of life, may still exist on Mars."

"It's only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidized that it is able to influence how early life formed," explains Professor Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the USA. "This form of molybdenum couldn't have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did. It's yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-08-martians-theory-life-mars.html#jCp
Click to expand...

Good stuff. Thanks for the link.
 
This link : http://phys.org/news/2013-08-martian...-mars.html#jCp , and also this link : http://phys.org/news/2013-06-astrobiologists-martian-clay-chemical-implicated.html#inlRlv (referenced at first link!) both seem to be textbook examples of Panspermia!

As an aside, the following quote (color by dmoe):

Stephenson said:
Borates may have been important for the origin of life on Earth because they can stabilize ribose, a crucial component of RNA. In early life RNA is thought to have been the informational precursor to DNA," said James Stephenson, a UHNAI postdoctoral fellow.

RNA may have been the first molecule to store information and pass it on to the next generation, a mechanism crucial for evolution. Although life has now evolved a sophisticated mechanism to synthesize RNA, the first RNA molecules must have been made without such help. One of the most difficult steps in making RNA nonbiologically is the formation of the RNA sugar component, ribose. Previous laboratory tests have shown that without borate the chemicals available on the early Earth fail to build ribose. However, in the presence of borate, ribose is spontaneously produced and stabilized.
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- ^^above quoted^^ from : http://phys.org/news/2013-06-astrobiologists-martian-clay-chemical-implicated.html#inlRlv

The "in the presence of borate, ribose is spontaneously produced and stabilized." would seem to indicate that life may just indeed be a "spontaneously produced and stabilized" natural consequence of the Universe itself!


Thoughts??
 
dumbest man on earth said:
The "in the presence of borate, ribose is spontaneously produced and stabilized." would seem to indicate that life may just indeed be a "spontaneously produced and stabilized" natural consequence of the Universe itself!
Thoughts??
Click to expand...



Thanks dmoe.....
That's what most sensible people are saying...
At it's most basic, life arose from non life:
 
I'm not sure now who or what inferred earlier on that somehow Panspermia, invalidated Life from non life.
I think we can now put that furphy to rest.
 
Fraggle Rocker said:
Indeed. We don't yet have the evidence of how this happened, but we certainly have the evidence that it did happen.

Leopold is no scientist. But I guess everybody already knew that.
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In fact, if the BB/Inflationary theory holds up, [and we have no reason to believe it wont] it's the only conclusion [other then the big fat divine deity creation] that one can reach about life arising from non life.

The very early Universe was absolutely Impossible for life...even impossible for matter!
 
paddoboy said:
In fact, if the BB/Inflationary theory holds up, [and we have no reason to believe it wont] it's the only conclusion [other then the big fat divine deity creation] that one can reach about life arising from non life.

The very early Universe was absolutely Impossible for life...even impossible for matter!
Click to expand...

paddoboy said:
I'm not sure now who or what inferred earlier on that somehow Panspermia, invalidated Life from non life.
I think we can now put that furphy to rest.
Click to expand...

Maybe not just yet.

Panspermia is the proposal that life forms that can survive the effects of space, such as extremophiles, become trapped in debris that is ejected into space after collisions between planets that harbor life and small Solar System bodies (SSSB). Some organisms may travel dormant for an extended amount of time before colliding randomly with other planets or intermingling with protoplanetary disks. If met with ideal conditions on a new planet's surfaces, the organisms become active and the process of evolution begins. Panspermia is not meant to address how life began, just the method that may cause its distribution in the universe.[4]
Click to expand...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia

Seems my earlier question about waterbears (tardigrades) may have been relevant after all. Tardigrades are extremophiles as are several other species on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile

But IMO, if anything, all of it falsifies the notion of divine creation. At least as told in scripture.
It seems a logical assumption that life (as we have defined it) arose from non-living matter.
 
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