If you believe life just happened, why can't it be created in controlled conditions?

Question

If life started with a primordial sludge, why can't it be created in a controlled environment? It should be quite easy to do if it was just as the scientists claim. Even if it were just the most rudimentary form of life it would still be life.

We know the chemicals involved and all the details so why can't it be done? Scientists claim that where there is liquid water, there should be life yet they can't make it.

Mageley64: I have looked into the research and have not found a single case of anyone that has created life to date. There was a case many years ago but they couldn't reproduce the results and it was found that the sample was contaminated. All samples MUST be sterile or you are just allowing existing life to flourish and not actually creating it.

Haji G: You are comparing apples to oranges. HIV is a complex LIVING organism and I am talking about the most basic of all life forms. Living COMPLEX organisms adapt to their environment and mutate, rudimentary life doesn't do so easily.

And FYI: I have an M.S. Nice try though.

JP: Nice ad hominem attack.

Answer 1

Excellent !! Good question.

These believers of nonsense have made Science their god and scientists their prophets.

Poor excuse, let us shoot off our mouth, but give us time and billions of dollars. So we can continue to shoot off our mouth.

Scientific Research is a good thing, knowledge. But then to ignore and promote against the evidence of design is blind and evil.

Answer 2

i don't think there is some grand cosmic plan that the universe has crafted for what happens to people. i do however think that things do not happen by accident. i think we are living in a sort of really complicated domino effect, where we are just living out some unavoidable chain reaction. i say this because of the way physics is, every particle interaction and energy transfer that has ever happened has happened according to some concrete rule/physical law. Given a set of initial conditions for a system, these laws can be applied to predict what the final state of the system will be. So, I think that right from the big bang, if we had an (unimaginably powerful) computer, and knew all of the universes laws, we could predict how everything would turn out as time passed. I am aware of the supposed "randomness" of quantum physics, that the outcome of a measurement is based on probability rather than the straightforward certainty of "real life"-scale physics. However, I think that just because our methods of observation create the uncertainty in the outcome of a physical event, it does not mean that in reality there was only ever going to be one outcome of some physical event (dictated by the universe's physical laws). it just means that humans cannot (currently) know the outcome with 100% certainty, and this only applies on tiny length scales. So, here's what I think: if you imagine all the particles and radiation scattered by the big bang behaving in the one and only possible way they could, this means that the formation of stars, planets, life etc. was inevitable. it was inevitable that I would type this stuff at this precise moment. i have tried explaining this to people before but they disliked it because it means no one really has any free will or control over anything and we are not much more than observers... apparently this is a depressing thought. whether or not this is depressing is irrelevant. I think we just have the illusion of free will. every thought we have ever had was triggered by either a previous thought or some external stimulus of the bodily senses from the universe. everything you think and feel can be traced back to some sensory information your brain recieves - information you brain had no real choice in whether or not to accept. Since the person you are and the decisions you make are based on the information your brain has (either consciously or subconsciously), i think even your thoughts are unavoidable - no free will. we don't choose our choices, in any situation our brains are presented with a limited range of options and it chooses on based on memories, sensory input, blood hormone levels, etc. - none of which it has any control over. so yeah, i don't think things that happen to you have any intrinsic meaning or grand intended consequences, it's just that they happen because that's the only way they could have happened. not for better or worse. i could of course be very wrong about all of this but I can't find anything wrong with my reasoning here.

Answer 3

Get real. We figured out that human flight was possible before we could successfully fly. Nuclear theory told us that we should be able to manipulate atomic reactions to generate energy and power, yet it took a concentrated Herculean effort to produce a pair of bombs at Los Alamos (we dropped two on Japan to prove that the first was not a fluke and that, in fact, we had more than just the one) and there was still uncertainty that they would work.

And, we know that that the difference between a “living” and a “non-living” molecule is the result of biochemical reactions based on reasonably well-understood natural process. It would have been more miraculous if life had not appeared on earth.

It is very likely that we will learn to “create” life in your lifetime. Given the nature of your question, I guess we can assume that when that happens you will see that the object of your faith never existed; and then, maybe, you will join the reality-based world.

Answer 4

The way I see it, if scientists could create life from scratch that would support the hypothesis that we were also created...by a being that had the same knowledge we just discovered! You can't create a random event in a controlled environment...that's logically inconsistent...the experiment itself requires a creator. Thus, there is no way to use a laboratory experiment to "prove" the existence of a random event because the presence of human control eliminates the possibility of randomness in the results!

The fact that scientists can't create life in a laboratory isn't evidence of anything except the accepted fact that we don't know everything yet. The lack of empirical evidence doesn't support OR disprove either hypothesis about the existence of God.

Answer 5

Did Dawkins really say this? Is this a direct quote or something made up? Quote---"As Richard Dawkins say in his book God Delusion, "You should believe evolution over everything else, even if there is not proof of evolution" So you should believe in something even if there is no proof? Isn't that what he's arguing against?

No origin of life=no evolution to begin with. Life cannot begin in water because of hydrolysis, life cannot begin in an oxygen atmosphere because of oxidation and it can't begin in a oxygen-free atmosphere because of the need for ozone to protect us from UV rays from the sun.

Answer 6

I love this one. Since scientists can't yet produce life in the lab you discount all of it. You do realize you just made an argument for not believing in god right?

Where is any part of the Christian notion of the creation of life? Scientists can produce a great deal of the process they propose and yet you dismiss it all because they can't as yet reproduce it from beginning to end.

Let me ask you this. When they do will you abandon your religion? Keep in mind that scientists can right now produce strings of DNA from the 4 basic proteins. You and I both know it's coming. And what on earth will you cling to then? Science will have one more piece of evidence and you will still have none.I suspect as someone else mentioned you will back peddle and find another excuse.

You know if you had just said "I believe and don't need proof" no one would question it or care. But everyone who scrambles for a rationale and justification for their belief just ends up looking desperate and weak.

Answer 7

My suspicion is that if it were the first and only funding priority for scientific foundations, it would have already happened. Even an X Prize level would probably garner some results.

But proving that abiogenesis occurred is trivial relative to a number of other paths scientific inquiry could take.

Answer 8

Good question. Some atheist will tell you "well, you dont understand science, take your book. First there was the big bang who came from the universe, the universe was created by a sum of dust and other elements and that is how everything happen, this is an educated guess. As Richard Dawkins say in his book God Delusion, "You should believe evolution over everything else, even if there is not proof of evolution"

Good question, but they will answer out of context.

Answer 9

We don't know all the chemicals involved.

We don't know all the details of the original environment either.

Even if we did, are you volunteering to sit around for a few million years watching the process? Kinda took longer than a human life time, you know.

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It occurs to me to add --

Let us say in twenty years, scientists do it. They throw some stuff together in a sterile container and out pops a living, breathing, intelligent critter.

You know what literal creationists will say in response?

"See, that proves it can only happen with intelligent involvement."

So your question really is entirely non-sequitor, even if the evidence you're asking for was given to you, you have a safe out, and you don't actually have to change your beliefs.

I'd call that pretty disingenuous.

Answer 10

No one is abosolutely sure of which chemicals were there or of the exact conditions. Besides, the first burst if life was not in a controlled environment. It defeats the purpose. And if they did create life in a lab, would that change your beliefs? It wouldn't change mine. It would just go to show to what lengths god will go to show herself to us.

Answer 11

Hundreds of millions of years in the vast and varied aspects of the total volume of the Earth's oceans is not easily replicated in an apparatus that must be absolutely sterile. Further, the first replication time may be on the order of thousands of years.