OpenSeeker

Heyhey
This is my second post. This issue has probably been exhausted beyond belief, but I tried to find it in the archives. If I am an annoying little newbie for asking this question, lock this topic.

For Darwinists, punctuated equilibrium, of any other macroevolution buffs.
What do you guys think about prebiotic soup? Where did the first cell come from?
Some say the chances of a prebiotic soup creating the first cell a good 3-5 billion years ago are infinitesimile. The formation of a cell from random parts seems incredible. If one resorts to the idea of life implanted by another planet, you still have the problem of where the first one came. And (big band assumed) we have less than 14 or so billion years in which to do this.

Also, could someone who knows something about cellular biology explain whether the first plant cell and the first animal cell were related, or if both had to have separate random appearances.

scigirl

Hello Open seeker, and welcome to infidels!

If you want to see past evolution/creation topics, the best thing to do is to click on the "search" button and type in abiogenesis. Good luck!

scigirl

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

Camaban

Until we both know what chemicals, etc could have made the first cell, and what the first cell was like, in all honesty, any "calculations" saying how unlikely a modern cell is are complete crocks, and anyone who represents them as legitimate calculations is at best someone who doesn't really know what he's talking about, and at worst, an outright liar

Oolon Colluphid

Welcome!

Bloody hell, another annoying little newbie

I prefer pea and ham, personally.

Simpler precursors, that were ‘good enough’ at the time to survive and reproduce. Basically, the Darwinian explanation of anything that appears too complex, too improbable, to have come about by chance is that it didn’t do so in a single step, but rather, in a long line of small steps, each a subtle improvement, and each, because the step was small, not all that improbable.

Some say that those saying so don’t understand evolution. The question is whether the first cell was irreducibly complex. As suggested, try a Google for ‘abiogenesis’ and/or ‘origins of life’ and/or ‘RNA world’ and watch the results drop out. Nobody seems to think the first cell was irreducibly complex.

Sure. But that reasoning is no different from saying that an eye (or any other biological structure) is too complex to come about by chance. It’s an argument from personal incredulity, because you’re looking too high up the evolutionary tree. As above, the answer is to work out what the precursors would have been like. Life doesn’t start at a first cell; it starts with something much smaller, simpler, and ultimately abiotic, but which can make faithful copies of itself.

True, but irrelevant really.

Duke Ellington, anyone?

Ah, so you think the time constraint is insuperable too.... Listen, evolution by natural selection is not, repeat not, a theory of chance. Selection is the antithesis of chance, and it is the selection bit that cuts the probabilities down to size. Sure it’d take till the end of many universes for a cell to spontaneously self-assemble. But it didn’t. Richard Dawkins explains the principle rather well in <a href="http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Books/climb.htm#quotes" target="_blank"> these bits of Climbing Mount Improbable</a>. Go read that, then see if you still have any questions.

Well, they both use the DNA-RNA system... what do you think? And what about prokaryotes? Oddly, they do too. Even stuff like viruses use a version. Here’s a bit of news: all life on earth is derived from a common ancestor -- not merely one insignificant little corner of it, the eukaryotes. (I suggest you look up what those two are: if you’re really an open seeker, it’ll be an eye-opener .)

Best wishes, Oolon

[ November 01, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

MOJO-JOJO

OpenSeeker, you may want to take a look at this site regarding <a href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/comet_life_010405.html" target="_blank">panspermia</a>. The theory is gaining much credibility in scientific circles, and it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. If all of the universe's atomic matter was launched into space-time at the big bang, it only stands to reason that those particles and building-blocks of life would continue to rain down upon the planets and stars for quite some time.

(But perhaps all these cosmic seeds were the act of God planting his Garden of Eden with life eh?)

lpetrich

The first cells came from self-reproducing material that lived in hot-spring mud; life did not originate in some all-at-once fashion.

Depends on what means by these. If it is animallike and plantlike protists, then the animallike ones had come first. They eat bacteria by pulling in their cell membranes and making bubbles around those bacteria, a process called phagocytosis. But some bacteria escaped being eaten and became useful as living residents of their host cells; the mitochondria are descendants of rickettsia-like bacteria. Another such permanent inhabitant was some blue-green algae, which became chloroplasts, making its host a plantlike protist or alga.

Multicellular animals and plants started in the late Precambrian or earlier, with the "plants" being multicellular algae.

KC

What does prebiotic soup have to do with Darwin, punk eek, or macroevolution?

Cheers,

KC

MOJO-JOJO

Hmmmmm....I love riddles, how many guesses do I get?

beausoleil

A needless argument because...

1. we wouldn't be here if it hadn't happened.
2. there were and will be a near uncountable multitude of opportunities, given the number of possible habitats in the universe.

So even if it were incredibly unlikely to happen on any one planet, it wouldn't require supernatural intervention.

MOJO-JOJO

Yes, but, I can't tell you how many theists I've heard say, "Well, there's a building, someone must have made it. Here we are, someone MUST have made us."

This IS the entire root of the argument.