gilly54

When I told someone that I was an atheist, she countered with, "Well, why are we here?" I said "WHY we are here is a philosophic question. The more important question is HOW we got here."

What is the reigning theory on how inorganic matter became organic--able to consume, excrete and replicate? I'm sure this subject has been discussed at length on this forum. Can someone expound on this or point me to an archive where this is discussed?

Thanks.

Vorkosigan

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org" target="_blank">www.talkorigins.org</a>

They have an extensive archive with many discussions. Search "abiogenesis" and several articles will fall out

gilly54

Thank you!

eh

Perhaps there is NO why in this universe. You could highlight this point by simply asking if God is our reason for being, WHY does God exist?

Oolon Colluphid

The simple answer, Gilly, is: evolution. This covers the 'how/why' back to the first replicating molecules, at which point biology turns into chemistry.

Personally, theists can have their god light this blue touchpaper and retire, if they want, because such a god is so far removed from most usual conceptions of god. Minor tweaking of chemicals is not what I'd call creation -- if you've got a supreme deity, I'd expect him to do more than that! But there is plenty of research indicating that supernatural intervention is not required for this either.

If you want to follow up on some hypotheses about the OOL, here's some links:

<a href="http://www.resa.net/nasa/origins_life.htm" target="_blank">NASA’s Origins of Life site</a>

<a href="http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA03/RNA_origins_life.html" target="_blank">RNA and the Origins of Life</a>

<a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/projects/originoflife/html/2001/menu.htm" target="_blank">Origins of Life (University of Glasgow)</a>

<a href="http://www.origins.rpi.edu/chem.html#rna" target="_blank">Formation of the RNA World</a>

<a href="http://www.syslab.ceu.hu/corliss/Nature.html" target="_blank">The Emergence of Living Systems
in Archaean Submarine Hot Springs</a>

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubme d&from_uid=11539076" target="_blank">Here’s 130 PubMed articles</a>

And these two are interesting too:

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=115394 67&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">Hydrogen cyanide polymerization</a>

<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=115413 37&dopt=Abstract" target="_blank">Hydrogen cyanide polymers</a>

Cheers, Oolon

gilly54

Thank you, Oolon, for the links. The more I can understand the science, the better I can refute theism. I'm pretty good at punching holes in the Bible, but occasionally I come across someone who acknowledges evolution, but insists that God started it all.

Science will prevail.

Gillian

seebs

And how, exactly, does science propose to disprove any explanation of "why the system works the way it does", in the abstract?

That issue, unlike the evolution one, is really outside the scope of testable science.

elwoodblues

Reading your question, I THINK you mean to ask, "Why do we work the way we do, and not some other way?" That is, why are we bipedal symmetric oxygen breathers? That kind of thing. Why don't we have three legs? Or twelve?

If that's what you're asking... Well, most of it is environment, obviously. Evolution on this planet wouldn't treat a methane-breather very well in most terrestrial environments. Predators wouldn't be very merciful to a tasty, defenseless, solitary side of beef on legs. Those kind of designs just don't fit on this planet, in this environment, so we don't see them.

Now, deeper in, this is a bit more interesting. Is evolution predetermined? If we 'ran' it again, from the start, would we get apes and tigers and clams and goats and lillys? Or even things that vaguely resembled them? That's a much more interesting question. Most scientists would be very surprised if evolution took EXACTLY the same path; mutation, a vital factor of evolution, contains randomness.

If we ran evolution again, it'd almost certainly be at least somewhat different. Maybe the earliest life-forms would create a slightly different kind of atmosphere, which let in different wavelengths of light than we're used to. Creatures would then have eyes geared towards that environment, possibly much different from ours (or, possibly, very similar, just with different chemical detectors).

Before I get any further into this, was that really the question you were asking?

seebs

No, more basic. Whatever we find out... Why is it that way? We can always go down another level, and say "oh, atoms weigh this much because protons and neutrons have weight", and so on... but at some point, there's the question of "why does gravity vary with inverse square of distance"... And I don't think you can ever really usefully make the leap from "how this happens" to "why this happens".

Agreed. I'd be very surprised, too.

Not really. I was pointing out one of my beliefs about the philosophy of science, which is that it can tell you how things happen, and how those explanations came to be... but it can never say *WHY* it has to be that way, except to say "here's a mechanism".

This is why I don't think any amount of science can ever "disprove" any of the varieties of theism, and so on... I think that trying to do so is just silly. Science is a wonderful tool for explaining the world, but shouldn't be treated as though it goes beyond that.

...

That said, your question is a fascinating one. I was told that someone once did a simulation and ended up with an eye with a lens and everything after trying to evolve an "effective" eye, but I don't know how true it is, or how meaningful the simulation would be.

I've been told before that there are many different ways in which amino acids could be formed, and we've never seen any others, and this is generally considered evidence for common descent... But, never having seen the others, how do we know?

It's often very confusing to me trying to figure out which improbable things are improbable the way *ANY* hand of cards is rare, and which ones are improbable the way a bridge hand sweep of one suit is improbable.

elwoodblues

Then how are you supposed to arrive at 'why this happens'? What additional data is needed to answer that question? Or do you just mean to say that such a question is necessarily in the domain of philosophy and not science?

Myself, I find the question almost null. I think, at a fundamental enough level, the 'how' IS the 'why'. That certainly seems to be the direction fundamental science (physics) is moving in. I have a shaky/fair grasp on physics, semantics, philosophy and cognition, and that seems to be the case.

To postulate some 'why' that is divorced from the 'how' is to postulate a god, I think. It's difficult for me to imagine otherwise.