Steve:
Here's a question that I've been pondering, and I was wondering what kind
of answers are given to it:
>In today's environments, there is a rich and ready source of biochemical
>and genetic raw materials. As organisms die and decay, carbohydrates,
>lipids, amino acids, and even nucleic acids are filtered into the
>surrounding environs. These may not remain intact for long, but at least
>fragments of them are constantly being spread around. Even the floors of
>our homes and work areas are literally covered with a biochemical film,
>due to our continual shedding of dead skin cells.
>So, then, why is it apparently true that no one is looking for or
>expecting abiogenesis to occur today? With such a rich diversity of
>ambient biomolecules, why is it seemingly unreasonable for us to go into,
>say, a swamp and see if lifeforms or proto-lifeforms are developing?
>This strikes me as a paradox that in the most biochemically rich
>evironments we don't even think life can form. Yet, in relatively
>impoverished settings such as ancient oceans, meteors & comets,
>primordial hydrothermal vents, etc., many of us are absolutely convinced
>that life's generation did occur.
Hi Steve,
Darwinists conceive of life developing in isolated pieces, each piece
struggling to survive and grow more complex in competition with all the other
pieces. An organism with a superior kidney is supposedly competing with one
with a superior immune system. Even parasites are supposedly competing with
other parasites, at the same time their hosts are pursuing "survival of the
fittest". Dawkins has reduced the concept to competition between individual
genes.
I don't know how the Darwinists explain the lack of ongoing Abiogenesis.
However ID might regard each piece of life developing only as a related and
meaningful piece of the whole. The simplest forms of life might conceivably
be observed developing elsewhere, but Earth's biosphere has already reached
its present stage of development, which isn't going to be repeated on Earth.
A parasite isn't going to appear (suddenly or gradually) without a host. New
organs and life forms and do not appear (suddenly or gradually) except as a
functional part of the whole. ID might envision the earth evolving, not as
competition between its bits and pieces, but as a complex, functioning whole.
Bertvan
http://member.aol.com/bertvan
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