Did the very first cell evolve?

[Tiapan]

The scientific opinion is that the first viruses came from outer space, as some are still arriving that way. Protocells May have had the same source.

I think this is a diversion.

1. Earth has all the prerequisites to create life without assistance.
2. There is nothing to say other planets scattered around the universe do not have the same capability, in fact it is almost certain.
3. Interplanetary Transspermation(? ) Could occur in theory, but the initial formation of life is probably very similar in all instances across the universe. It is almost certainly always Carbon based, no other element is physically capable of the long stable atomic chains and rings, essential for lifes biochemistry as carbon is.

I doubt we were seeded from outerspace, we were fully capable without it.

Cheers

 

[Sapiens]

Actually, re-phrase that. Did the very first form of life evolve (and I don't mean afterwards)? Opinions please! :shout

I'm speechless. Rarely does one encounter a question so wondrously inane, so deliciously stupid. :clap

I believe what he is really asking is, "did the first life form evolve from chemistry or did it just 'happen'"

This is an old chestnut that creationists like because it relies on "aw shucks, gee wiz" kind of "common sense" that the forces a definition of "first life" that is wholly artificial and thus easy to falsify. The reality is that life was not an "on/off" switch with a first living cell, it was likely a long number of serial processes combined with the joining of a large number of parallel processes. So never thing that such question are inane, the are carefully constructed traps, set by the evolutionarily ignorant, designed to pull the potentially educable down into their ignorant mire.

 

[ScottySatan]

Actually, re-phrase that. Did the very first form of life evolve (and I don't mean afterwards)? Opinions please! :shout

yes to both. The first cell evolved, and there was evolution far before that. The first cell was merely a point in a continuum that started long before it. People here call it abiogenesis and make a big point to say that evolution doesn't deal with it. I don't know why. Those pro-biological molecules were more a slave to natural selection than any animal with a brain is. Not only does evolution consider this, it explains it reasonably well. There are unexplained parts still, but scientists seem to be the only ones ok with that.

 

[shawn001]

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Viruses
The one with its own satellite, the ones that made you, and the Mama of them all


1 Viruses are not alive: They do not have cells, they cannot turn food into energy, and without a host they are just inert packets of chemicals.

2 Viruses are not exactly dead, either: They have genes, they reproduce, and they evolve through natural selection.

14 In fact, scratch the whole concept of “us versus them.” Half of all human DNA originally came from viruses, which infected and embedded themselves in our ancestors’ egg and sperm cells.

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Viruses | DiscoverMagazine.com


Jack Szostak (Harvard/HHMI) Part 1: The Origin of Cellular Life on Earth

Szostak begins his lecture with examples of the extreme environments in which life exists on Earth. He postulates that given the large number of earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars, and the ability of microbial life to exist in a wide range of environments, it is probable that an environment that could support life exists somewhere in our galaxy. However, whether or not life does exist elsewhere, depends on the answer to the question of how difficult it is for life to arise from the chemistry of the early planets. Szostak proceeds to demonstrate that by starting with simple molecules and conditions found on the early earth, it may in fact be possible to generate a primitive, self-replicating protocell.

Jack Szostak (Harvard/HHMI) Part 2: Protocell Membranes

Jack Szostak (Harvard/HHMI) Part 3: Non-enzymatic Copying of Nucleic Acid Templates

Jack William Szostak (born November 9, 1952)[1] is a Canadian American[2]biologist of Polish British descent and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres.

Jack W. Szostak - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia