Unintelligent Design

[Acriku]

Actually digesting sugars is due to us being carbon based life-forms... so ...uh... there could not have been another way... carbon is the only reasonable building-block for life and therefore we were gonna end up eating sugar no matter what.. Hate to burst your bubble buddy.  ;D

You have no support for this, do you? If you do, I'd be glad to check into how you absolutely know that life can only come through carbon.

About your golfball scenario.... the problem is that in your example... the golfball WAS launched and we knew that due to gravity... IT HAD TO COME DOWN 100%.  So no its not surprise that a golf ball had to come down on a blade of grass.  But life did NOT have to exist...

The fact is that life did happen, just like the fact is that the ball came down on that blade of grass. It's after the fact that we marvel how unbelievably unlikely it was to happen. That's the point I'm making, that you're making a statistical miracle out of something that was possible to happen and did (over billions of years, which you have no way of comprehending, of course).

because scientists can create the "right conditions" in test tubes and in large contraptions.... but life doesnt happen.  Gee i guess there is something more than just having the right conditions.

Yeah... billions of years! Life must've gone through trillions of attempts before success.

[GUNWOUNDS]

You have no support for this, do you? If you do, I'd be glad to check into how you absolutely know that life can only come through carbon.

The fact is that life did happen, just like the fact is that the ball came down on that blade of grass. It's after the fact that we marvel how unbelievably unlikely it was to happen. That's the point I'm making, that you're making a statistical miracle out of something that was possible to happen and did (over billions of years, which you have no way of comprehending, of course).

Yeah... billions of years! Life must've gone through trillions of attempts before success.

I dont understand why you think trillions of attempts equals creation. You always answer with "yea a billion years" as if billions of years are some magical catalyst. You say its incomprehensible.... yet you believe it.  But here's the clincher.... you SHOULDNT need trillions of attempts when  an intelligent being is artificially manipulating it with the perfect circumstances.  ... trillions of attempts should only be necessary if their is no intelligence guiding it.... and in that case it should be literally impossible.

I mean life spawned on some inhospitable planet.... (inhospitable compared to the cozy experiments scientists create) ... and yet in a cozy experiment with all the right goodies......nothing.  Why can scientists not replicate the living cell?  They have reverse engineered it all to hell and know all its intricacies and biochemistry... but they cannot rebuild it?  Its definately not due to technological limitations or knowledge.... it just doesnt work.....Something's fishy. :-

As for carbon.... Carbon is the key elemental building block for all terrestrial life. It's commonly assumed in astrobiology that it will also provide the basis for most life elsewhere in the universe. The reason for this is carbon's ability to form a staggering range of complex, stable molecules with itself and other elements, especially hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. It may be that we find it hard to see viable alternatives to carbon biochemistry because we have no experience of such alternatives. Being carbon-based life-forms ourselves, we may suffer from what's been called carbon chauvinism. On the other hand, scientists have so far discovered nothing in the chemistry of other elements to remotely compare with the millions of organic compounds to which carbon gives rise. Our DNA is based on Carbon (Phosphate Sugar Backbone) as well.  Silicon has been suggested but it is extremely poor and limited in its compound variety and would even STILL need carbon to give it flexibility.  Also carbon based lifeforms would sorely outperform any silicon based lifeforms.

Silicon  is the only thing that comes close and NASA said Silicon doesnt cut it. http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/astrobio/feat_questions/silicon_life.cfm   so yea..... sugar eaters we be......  ;D

[VigilVirus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_chauvinism

But yeah, at this point, the idea of existence of life not based on carbon is rather sketchy. Though it doesn't mean you can claim it with any certainty or support with with any evidence - we haven't even discovered all the elements yet, or perhaps our knowledge of the current ones is incomplete.

[GUNWOUNDS]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_chauvinism

But yeah, at this point, the idea of existence of life not based on carbon is rather sketchy. Though it doesn't mean you can claim it with any certainty or support with with any evidence - we haven't even discovered all the elements yet, or perhaps our knowledge of the current ones is incomplete.

First off, We have discovered all the elements that can be reasonably used for life.  Hydrogen is obviously the most simplistic Element and anything past the upper 100's on the period chart are just man-made elements that are crazy expensive to produce and which only exist for a fraction of a second once it is made, before radioactively decaying.

Secondly, I doubt that we have incomplete knowledge of the elements on the periodic chart... we have stats, melting points, flash points, reactivty, stoichiometry, redox reactions,..... man the chemists and biochemists have been through it all.  If we find out anything new it will be rare and exotic things, that will only help us get a better understanding of physics and radioactivity..... not biochemistry.

Guns

[Acriku]

In other words, according to you it is highly unlikely that life could form from any other element because you're pretty sure of how much we know now. Precisely the same line of thinking people have had all throughout the history of humankind. Anyway, the entire point of this current discussion is to show that the environment largely plays a factor in the benevolence of a mutation. I've read over some information from TalkOrigins (I can just hear the groans of Christians around the world), and this is what I've come across:

Q: Doesn't evolution depend on mutations and aren't most mutations harmful?

A: No. Most mutations are neither harmful nor helpful.

That's the short answer. The long answer is that mutations can be neutral (neither helpful nor harmful), strictly harmful, strictly helpful, or (and this is important) whether they are harmful or helpful depends on the environment. Most mutations are either neutral or their effect depends on the environment. Let's look at an example of a mutation which may be harmful or helpful, depending upon circumstances.

English peppered moths come in two varieties, light and dark. Before the industrial revolution dark moths were very rare. During the worst years of the industrial revolution when the air was very sooty dark moths became quite common. In recent years, since the major efforts to improve air quality, the light moths are replacing the dark moths. A famous paper by H.B.D. Kettlewell proposed the following explanation for this phenomenon:

    Birds eat the kind of moth they can see the best.

    In England before the Industrial Revolution trees are often covered with light colored lichens. As a result light moths were favored because they were hard to see on the bark of trees whereas the dark moths were easy to see; birds ate the dark moths. During the worst years of the Industrial Revolution the air was very sooty so tree bark was dark because of soot. Dark moths were hard to see whereas the light moths were easy to see; birds ate the light moths. As a result the dark moths became common and the light moths became rare.

From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html

Now that that's settled...I forget what we were talking about before  ???

[Megashrap]

When I saw the title of this thread, I assumed it was about the Fiat Multipla...

Sorry to stray off a bit, but I just caught this post, ROFL damn thats a good one. Unintelligent Design indeed.  ;D

[GUNWOUNDS]

What a beautiful car

[GUNWOUNDS]

In other words, according to you it is highly unlikely that life could form from any other element because you're pretty sure of how much we know now. Precisely the same line of thinking people have had all throughout the history of humankind. Anyway, the entire point of this current discussion is to show that the environment largely plays a factor in the benevolence of a mutation. I've read over some information from TalkOrigins (I can just hear the groans of Christians around the world), and this is what I've come across:

From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html

Now that that's settled...I forget what we were talking about before  ???

Its not settled because some mutations are not as easy as "color" or somesuch thing.  All the examples people are posting are things that support their arguements and in no way represent mutations as a whole.  There are lethal mutations or mutations that keep you from reproducing.  I am talking about molecular mutations within the body, regardless of environment.  Like Lactose Intolerance....which was the post i was expounding upon about how we could only have been carbon based life forms that eat sugars. 

Not all mutations are phenotypic changes like color.  Some mutations occur at the molecular level and affect your chromosomes or your cells or your organs.  These mutations can be degrading, and over time if similar degrading mutations on the molecular level occur due to carcinogens, toxins, UV Radiation, DNA replication errors, etc,  you will see a build up of negative effects on the organism.  Shortened lifespan and sterility may not seem like much at first but if it causes you to fall behind other species you will find yourself extinct.  Especially in a competitve environment.  Or if the mutations are more severe due to being compounded with other dysfunctional mutations the organism could die at birth or introduce unwanted genes into the gene pool.

I brought up the example of lactose Intolerance... and i said that is a mutation in someone's DNA where they dont code for the enzyme to break down lactose sugar.  I said what if they had multiple mutations where they were unable to digest any sugars and the organism died at birth due to starvation.  Then you would have a mutation where the environment would have no say so.

And then you asked for proof that carbon was the only reasonable building block for life and then i posted a ton of stuff .  Flip back to the last page to view what you missed.  Hope that brought you up to speed.  I tihnk the problem is that we may be trying to discuss two different things at once.  ;D  You seem to be pushing Phenotypic Mutations vs Environment ... while i am pushing Molecular mutations vs DNA Fidelity.

Guns 

[GUNWOUNDS]

As i said ... You seem to be pushing Phenotypic Mutations vs Environment ... while i am pushing Molecular mutations vs DNA Fidelity

This is what i am talkinga bout in regards to DNA Fidelity..........

Types of mutations:

Point mutations

The most common type of copying error is the point mutation. In this form of mutation the nucleotide at a site is replaced by a different nucleotide. When people talk about mutation rates they are usually talking about rates of point mutations.

Additions and deletions

During copying a segment of DNA may be deleted or a new segment may be inserted. Typically this happens as a result of chromosome breakage or realignment. (See below.) Additions and deletions can also be produced by certain types of horizontal transfer.

Effects of additions and deletions: If the length of the new or deleted segment is not a multiple of three the translation will be garbled after the point at which the insertion/deletion occurred because the frame reading is now misaligned. This is known as a frameshift mutation. In some genes there are segments that may be duplicated as a block. This is known as tandem duplication.

Frameshift Mutations can prevent a gene from being expressed properly.

Chromosomal duplication

Sometimes one or more chromosomes are duplicated during reproduction; the offspring get extra copies of those chromosomes.

Effects of chromosomal duplication: Duplicating only one chromosome is generally disadvantageous; an example in human beings is Down's syndrome. Having multiple copies of all of the chromosomes is known as polyploidy. Polyploidy is rare in fungi and animals (although it does occur) and is common in plants. It has been estimated that 20-50% of all plant species arise as the result of polyploidy.

Chromosomal breakage and realignment

During reproduction a chromosome may break into two pieces or two chromosomes may be joined together. A section may be moved from one part of the chromosome to another or may be flipped in orientation (inverted). This is the mechanism by which deletions, duplications and transpositions my occur.

Effects of chromosomal breakage and realignment: Quite often these types of changes do not affect the viability of the organism (the genes are still there; they're just in different places) but, in sexually reproducing species, they may make it less likely for the organism to produce viable, fertile offspring.

Retroviruses

Certain viruses have the ability to insert a copy of themselves into the genome of a host. The chemical that make this possible (reverse transcriptase) is widely used in genetic engineering.

Effects of retroviruses: Usually this is a way for the virus to get the host to do the work of reproducing the virus. Sometimes, however, the inserted gene mutates and becomes a permanent part of the host organism's genome. Depending on the position of the viral DNA in the host genome, genes may be disrupted or their expression altered. Plasmids

Bacterial DNA exchange

Bacteria can exchange DNA directly. They often do this in response to environmental stress.

Effects of bacterial DNA exchange: Exchange is often fatal to one or both of the bacteria involved.

Higher level transfer

Transposons

Transposons are genes that can move from one place in the genome to another.

Effects of transposons: Depending on the position of insertion, transposons can disrupt or alter the expression of host genes. In some species most mutations due to transposon insertion. For example, in Drosophila, 50-85% of mutations are due to transposon insertions.

[nemafakei]

That most mutations are not beneficial is not in question: the very point is that poor mutations are removed for those same reasons you highlight.

[Acriku]

Which is what allows natural selection to really act as the mechanism for species to evolve.