How Did Life Begin?

How would you complete the following sentence?

life is a result of _______

A. Evolution
B. Creation

 

Evolution

 

flawed thinking....

Evolution happened after life began.



Could you please read some other books.

 

How does this sound..

 

Sounds great... The OP is trying to play the "Evolution vs. Creation" game though.

 

yep, evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life, but it does not explain how life began.

there are many good scientific theories on how life began but we may never be sure. most scientists agree on evolution, but the theories of how life actually began is not as strong.

 

In a way, it sounds oddly similar to the pro-life debate, like what defines the beginning of life?

 

ohm...

 

Aliens

 

Or just google nowadays, seriously, it aint hard


All life on earth has a Last Universal ancestor, every cell that produces energy relies on the ATP molecule C10H16N5O13P3

A crap load of time and endless probablities for these molecules to form, then the first RNA sequences came from and endless number of mutations of the first probacteria to get to complex cells, another crap load of time

Life began from a billion years of chemical reactions

 

Flawed thinking....

There was chemical evolution before biological evolution.

 

And before evolution there was aliens.

 

It began after my first sex. With someone other than me.

 

Evolution.

 

thats a good point, and i think if you look at evolution, there was no "point" in which humans existed. evolution happens so gradually that there was not one day where there where no humans, and then the next day they finished evolving. humans came gradually so you cant pin point a date where they came into existence, but you can estimate a period of time where there was a gradual change from one species to another.

so the same thing can be said about life. before biology there was chemistry, and there was a gradual change to living organisms. the point where you can call an arrangement of chemicals "life" is really up to the observer.

on a different note, i wonder why the OP isn't taking part in his own discussion.

 

http://youtu.be/5gfU7qXZQhc

 

????

no it isn't.
there are very distinct features that denote a thing as being "alive"

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~klathrop/7characterisitcs_of_life.htm

[SIZE=18pt]The 7 Characteristics of Life:[/SIZE]
1. Living Things are Composed of Cells:

• Single-cell organisms have everything they need to be self-sufficient.
• In multicellular organisms, specialization increases until some cells do only certain things.

2. Living Things Have Different Levels of Organization:

• Both molecular and cellular organization.
• Living things must be able to organize simple substances into complex ones.
• Living things organize cells at several levels:
  
  Tissue - a group of cells that perform a common function.
• Organ - a group of tissues that perform a common function.
• Organ system - a group of organs that perform a common function.
• Organism - any complete living thing.

3. Living Things Use Energy:

• Living things take in energy and use it for maintenance and growth.

4. Living Things Respond To Their Environment:

• Living things will make changes in response to a stimulus in their environment.
• A behavior is a complex set of responses.

5. Living Things Grow:

• Cell division - the orderly formation of new cells.
• Cell enlargement - the increase in size of a cell. Cells grow to a certain size and then divide.
• An organism gets larger as the number of its cells increases.

6. Living Things Reproduce:

• Reproduction is not essential for the survival of individual organisms, but must occur for a species to survive.
• All living things reproduce in one of the following ways:
  Asexual repoduction - Producing offspring without the use of gametes.
• Sexual reproduction - Producing offspring by the joining of sex cells.

7. Living Things Adapt To Their Environment:

• Adaptations are traits giving an organism an advantage in a certain environment.
• Variation of individuals is important for a healthy species.

 

great post, completely agree with you, but i think you misunderstood me.

those are all signs of life, for sure. but if we look at the "primordial soup" theory, chemicals evolved into more complex arrangements gradually. when the first complex chemicals became self-replicating, they did not show all of those 7 signs of life. it would be a long time before simple organisms would show all of those seven signs of life you mentioned.

so if an arrangement of complex chemicals showed 6 out of 7 of those signs, would it be considered alive? if we go by your list, then it would fail, but there is an on going debate right now as to weather dna itself is alive or not.

i think your list defines life pretty well, but some people might just think that something that grows, replicates, and uses energy might be "alive".

 

Not to mention if there is life out in the cosmos, it may exhibit different sets of characteristics.

 

And? Was it: