Existence of Life

[zinilium]

Hi all, I'm interested to start a topic about the Existence of Life and I couldn't find a proper website to post this so i decided to do it here.
I get confused every time i think of how Life first started. Some people believe that God created everything, Life, The Universe, ETC. Some people believe that Life evolved from Single Celled Microorganisms, but till this day, no one has proven how Life was created.
This is why I have started a post on this topic here to start a discussion and hopefully find out the TRUTH.

[Ricky]

I think you meant to post this on the debate part of the forum

[bombmaniac]

i dont think you WILL get an absolute resolution...what you probably WILL get from this thread is probably a bunch of people explaining the different ideas, i dont think we can definitively say we KNOW how we started, i dont think we can say that we know for an absolute fact that we know how life started, all we can do is present the different ideas, and theories.

[Jake]

So is this thread to discuss Creationism?
Well I don't think we can possibly come to a definite answer because everyone is getting their information from different places. But I'm sure we can discuss it!

[darkless]

No one has proven it because no one knows.

Science has solid theories based on experiments and testing.

Religion has a story based on belief and faith.

Either way you wont get a definite answer until one is proven to be 100% right or wrong.

/thread

[Ryan]

Even if you could travel back in time to the point where life first began (be it by creationist theories, or evolutionary theories) the mere presence of observation would alter the initial conditions and screw everything up, so we can never know for sure. Believe what you will (creationism, evolution, random chance) but there is no solid answer.

[Philosoraptor]

First of all, we should clarify that evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Evolution is just the mechanism by which life changes over time.

You can't be 100% sure of anything, but that's no reason to be pedantic. We can't be 100% sure the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids at Giza. There's an incredibly small chance that all of our evidence and records are false. Again, though, that's no reason to claim we'll never really know and it's open to debate.

Science doesn't have a definite, absolute answer as of yet. But that certainly doesn't mean we never will.

[erin132]

well I studied a module on Evolution this year in college and part of it was on how life first began. We went through two different scientific explanations that deal with the origin of life. The first was that life began on Earth itself, that for some reason RNA came to be nd the world went on from there. The second theory is the Pan Spermia theory that life actually came from somewhere else in space, perhaps on a meteorite or something like that and deposited the first genetic information here. But yeah as Philosoraptor said there is no definitive answer but there will hopefully be one in the future Personally I like the Pan Spermia theory more lol

[FranticProdigy]

Mar 18, 2010 6:52:04 GMT -5 zinilium said:

Hi all, I'm interested to start a topic about the Existence of Life and I couldn't find a proper website to post this so i decided to do it here.
I get confused every time i think of how Life first started. Some people believe that God created everything, Life, The Universe, ETC. Some people believe that Life evolved from Single Celled Microorganisms, but till this day, no one has proven how Life was created.
This is why I have started a post on this topic here to start a discussion and hopefully find out the TRUTH.

Creationists believe in god, but who created god.
Atheists believe in a singularity causing the big bang, but who created the singularity. Maybe we are asking the wrong questions, not who or what, but why.

[bathanie]

I do not believe in creationism because science has proved soooo much wrong. But, I do believe in God, or, "higher power". I also agree with the theory regarding the first form of life on Earth was bacteria. Now, it's how THAT got there that confuses me..

[Benyamin]

One thing i have never understood about evolution is that how would we have evolved eyes without knowing there is light in the first place, ears without knowing there's sound, etc. etc.

[mashuga31]

I like a little bit of middleground every now and then so here's my theory that I believe in 110%. I would really really love to get the churches and scientists to agree on this one cause it makes perfect sense by asking the question: why not?

God created the universe. Past that life formed (amoebas and stuff), created indirectly by god. Life evolved into us. Thus, God created life, and evolution is a fact. Why can't people just accept 'that' and be done with the topic, learn to meet in the middle, and go on with life?

/casual indifference

[koralth]

That's a great idea to hold, friend, but in a scientific theory, otherwise known as an empirical theory, ideas must be testable. Plus, those of us who don't believe in God might want a little... More than a theory that we only half believe. Does this JUSTIFY the insane costs that go into researching these things? Well, I don't know what kind of medical understandings we've gained from evolution research, and I'm unfamiliar with any practical use for results from origin of the universe research... So... Until I find out more, I have to hold my tongue in that regard... But my guess is no, no it really doesn't justify the costs.

[D.S. Tucker]

Life? Purpose?

These questions plague me almost daily.

Eat, drink, be merry.

And... I don't know. Who knows? I think we're all just making educated guesses.

[Silverrida]

Abiogenesis is the study of the beginning of life, not evolution. the conditions of the early Earth have changed drastically and are hard to recreate. We have specific theories of how the 4 nucleic acids that make up RNA came to be based on the conditions of early life, but they are very hard to test. It is through logical reasoning that we come up with many of the theories of abiogensis, but I have not studied it enough to have the credibility to explain it. You have to research it yourself.

[krzych32]

Most people believe that a single cellural bacteria was a first life form, I respectfully have to disagree.
In my opinion a first life form was actually a virus (you should also know that viruses are not considered life forms, as they don't have cells). I think that some kind of a pre-historic virus may be the very link that we are looking for between a living organisms and......a rock. Why a virus? Because it is much more simpler creature then a bacteria and therefor it had to come into existance first.

[koralth]

That's fairly solid reasoning, Krzych. I'll need correction if I'm wrong, though, but a virus is incapable of reproduction with another virus, isn't it? They replicate, not reproduce, and in the absence of host cells from which to replicate, how would a virus begin this replication process? Further, there's still heated debate among biologists in regards to whether or not a virus is truly alive or not, isn't there? I think you're likely on the right track, though, and the first life forms were likely EXTREMELY simple single-celled organisms, but I'm not sure they could have been quite so simple as a virus.

[Silverrida]

Apr 21, 2010 16:00:03 GMT -5 krzych32 said:

Most people believe that a single cellural bacteria was a first life form, I respectfully have to disagree.
In my opinion a first life form was actually a virus (you should also know that viruses are not considered life forms, as they don't have cells). I think that some kind of a pre-historic virus may be the very link that we are looking for between a living organisms and......a rock. Why a virus? Because it is much more simpler creature then a bacteria and therefor it had to come into existance first.

I disagree with this as viruses don't reproduce sexually which would mean evolution would be impossible based on the theory of Natural Selection.

Also, if I may correct you, viruses are not considered life-forms as they don't have similar characteristics to lifeforms in any way. there are lifeforms that are not composed of multiple cells, the cellular slime mold coming to the forefront of my mind. Part of why it is technically cell theory.

[krzych32]

koralth, thank you for pointing out the replication process, I might have to look into that. You know how it is, with those theories created in less then 15min, most of them are just wrong.

Silverrida,
"I disagree with this as viruses don't reproduce sexually which would mean evolution would be impossible based on the theory of Natural Selection."

I am pritty sure that evolution accurs in viruses just like in any other living organism. When they copy the RNA into a host cell mutation is still possible. This is how the viruses become more deadly.

"Also, if I may correct you, viruses are not considered life-forms as they don't have similar characteristics to lifeforms in any way. there are lifeforms that are not composed of multiple cells, the cellular slime mold coming to the forefront of my mind. Part of why it is technically cell theory."

Thank you for poining that out, but I pointed that in my previous post.
"(you should also know that viruses are not considered life forms, as they don't have cells). "
This is actually under a constant debate, and there is many scientists that point out that since viruses carry RNA/DNA and replicate themselves they should be considered alive.

[Camoon]

Mar 18, 2010 13:35:08 GMT -5 bombmaniac said:

i dont think you WILL get an absolute resolution...what you probably WILL get from this thread is probably a bunch of people explaining the different ideas, i dont think we can definitively say we KNOW how we started, i dont think we can say that we know for an absolute fact that we know how life started, all we can do is present the different ideas, and theories.

Just like we can't be certain whether jumping from a plane at 30,000ft will kill us, we can't be certain that evolution happened.