Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Kimpatsu · 04-24-2003, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
...The question, then, is how did we get from the first point to the second, and why can't we duplicate the process artificiallly?

This question should read, "Why can't we duplicate the process artificially yet?"
Give us time.

Gracchus · 04-24-2003, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by yguy
Then how can you say that YOU are alive? Or that a rock is not?

Context makes the difference. You are positing some qualitative difference between reactions that you call "alive" and reactions that you think are "not alive", and you're hanging your argument on it. I am alive, but how about a virus? Is a prion alive? Is a molecule that catalyzes its own formation alive?

Quote:

You're just playing semantic games.

If you are going to use "fuzzy" terms, it is not unreasonable for me to ask for clear definitions.

Quote:

At some point in time, there was no life on earth. At some subsequent time, single celled organisms appeared which no modern biologist would call anything but alive.

Then is a microsphere containing molecules that catalyze their own formation alive? Is it alive only when the membrane differentially allows the entrance of those molecules necessary for the autocatalysis of the enclosed molecules?

Quote:

The question, then, is how did we get from the first point to the second,�

We may never know for sure.

Quote:

�and why can't we duplicate the process artificiallly?

The polio virus has already been synthesized.

I suspect that some time in the next hundred years we may be able to make life from "scratch". And I strongly suspect we will find more than one way to do so.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.