What did scientist used to believe contained the blueprint for life?
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Before Avery et al. discovered that DNA was the genetic material, the forerunner was protein, as scientists believed that there was enough variability in protein structures to create all the unique individuals that you see every day.
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1) Based on current observations of an accelerating expansion of the universe, there is no way of telling where the limit may be. Also, it does not wrap around onto itself. \n\n2) Saying what "existed" before time existed and before everything was created is too philisophical of a question to get any reasonable answer.\n\n3) Life beginning is probably more suited in the Biology section. It's not an easy explanation easier because it took many complex and improbable reactions to occur so you're looking at a fairly large time-table as to when life probably began. The thing is that the reactions can happen, but it just takes a long time for it all to come together correctly especially considering the probabilistic nature of things at such small scales.\n\nedit: What your teacher is talking about is Entropy, the measurement of chaos. This is a common misconception. Our current laws of physics say that TOTAL entropy must increase. If you look at a protein forming or any other complex molecule, you'll notice that the protein has become more complex and less chaotic. What our laws tell us is that the WHOLE system must increase in chaos. So when the complex system forms, its surroundings must increase in entropy that is more then the decrease in entropy associated with creating the complex/less chaotic molecule. So basically, the total entropy of a system will increase but within the system, processes can undergo entropy reductions as long as there is a corrosponding and greater increase in entropy somewhere else in the system.
851153
In Bill Brysons book 'a short history of nearly everything' the likelihood of us coming to earth as protein chains from other planets is discussed.  There is a wealth of evidence to support this theory.  The question that this brings up however, is who or where did the protein come from in the first place.  This is discussed as well, but even having read it twice, I'm still not sure what to think.
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Already been done.\n\nBased on current observable evidence, there is increasing perenctages of certainty regarding the timeline and history of the development of life on our planet.\n\nIt doesn't exclude G-d. It just outlines the observable and measurable properties of the phyiscal evidence.
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The origin of the first life form is actually indeed unclear.  What makes this so difficult is not that one cannot envision molecules that replicate themselves by having certain enzymatic activities.  Rather, if all recent life forms go back to one ancestral species, how did all those parts shared by recent species come together?   (For example, cell membranes, organalles, the nucleic acids etc.)\n\nNow, you are absolutely right that there is an assumed parent species, an ancestor to all other species on the planet.  But science does not show at all that life cannot derive from non-life.  Quite on the contrary, science would suggest, since all the individual parts of which living cells are composed are by themselves not alive, life must emerge from the higher-level organization.  The idea is the following: the properties of the parts of a system do not predict the properties of the whole.  Take water, which is composed of two gases.  Nothing in the properties of either gas suggests or makes predictable that H20 is a translucent liquid with a density anomaly.  The same holds true for biological systems.  Life seems to emerge at one point of complexity as a property of the union of non-living parts in complex systems such as cells.  How that happens is unclear.\n\nNow, I am not familiar with the theory you mention.  As a biologist who has focused much of his work time on evolution, I cannot say that this is a commonly held opinion.  But your question is a very good one:  If that indeed were the case, don't we just push the point of origin one level backwards?  Some scientists opt for the pansperm theory, according to which life came from out of space.  Not to wory, I am not talking UFO's etc.  Rather, amino acids and nucleic acids have been found in space.  The idea comes in two major flavors, namely one, that life originated on earth from these parts that were brought to the surface of the planet by means of meteors and then came together to form life.  The other flavor is that this happened on another planet and that the living cells were transported by meteroites to earth, which likewise would push the problem of the origin of life backwards, just as the "other dimension idea" (which to me seem rather strange and unscientific).
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The answer is 42, the "answer to life, the universe and everything".  This is the question revealed in Douglas Adams' famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series of novels.\n\nThe answer, as the story goes, was given by the computer "Deep Thought"; when the answer was given (hundreds of generations later) it was determined they needed to know the "real question".  It was inferred that the earth and everything in it was the special 'computer' that was built to determine the nature of that question.
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One of the earliest Greek philosophers, Thales of Miletus (c. 7th century BC), maintained that the universe contained a creative force that he called physis, an early progenitor of the term physics; he also postulated that the world and all living things in it were made from water.\n\nwant proof....see ths site.http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-48831
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"Until the second half of the nineteenth century, it was generally believed that life could arise spontaneously from nonliving matter, a process known as spontaneous generation. An early opponent of spontaneous generation, Francesco Redi, demonstrated in 1668 that maggots, the larvae of flies, do not arise spontaneously from decaying meat." (see source) In other words, life comes from life, cells come from cells, and it is generally thought that living matter cannot come from unliving matter.
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An interesting point you make, and it is, indeed, true. During the scientific revolution, most of the scientists that participated in it were Christians. Isaac Newton, for example, had believed that his discoveries concerning light and universal gravitation had to do with God. Many scientists were Christians, and did not perceive science as simply an endeavour in which one attempts to legitimately answer a question. Many of these scientists were those who had viewed science as a way of understanding the mind of God. It was thought by many of these prominent scientists (Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, and many others) that, if one were to better understand the universe through science, they could see God in all creations and discoveries. In fact, during the scientific revolution, one scientist said that "Science is thinking God's thought's after him." This quote really embodies the basic reason for scientists' devotion to science during the revolution. God was the driving force for many of the scientists, along with interest and the spirit of inquiry.
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None really - science is a methodology.  The scientists might have faith in all sorts of things -but science itself does not.
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Phytagoras HIMSELF! the man!\n\nI think he did it while trying to find a scientific explanation on why did theif folks gave him that name.
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This is from the book "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.  \n\n     The people of some planet wanted to find the answer to the question "what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything?".  So they built a giant computer called 'Deep Thought'.  And this computer thought about this for about 10 Billion years, and then announced that it had found an answer.  When everyone was gathered around, the computer announced that the answer to life, the universe, and everything was '42'.  It then announced that what really needed to be found was not an answer but a question.  So another bigger computer was built, and for the rest of the story I suggest reading the books.  They are very funny, and just about anybody will laugh at them.\n\n     Well thats my answer.  Hope you like it.\nTed
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Here is a better story that you should let the children know about. There is enough evidence and similar argumenet on the links provided down below with translations in most languages:\nIf one believes that a living cell can come into existence by coincidence, then there is nothing to prevent one from believing a similar story that we will relate below. It is the story of a town: \n One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storm, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form. \n When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions", with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.\n Of course, a building does not only consist of foundations, bricks, and cement. How, then, are the other missing materials to be obtained? The answer is simple: all kinds of materials that are needed for the construction of the building exist in the earth on which it is erected. Silicon for the glass, copper for the electric cables, iron for the columns, beams, water pipes, etc. all exist under the ground in abundant quantities. It takes only the skill of "natural conditions" to shape and place these materials inside the building. All the installations, carpentry, and accessories are placed among the bricks with the help of the blowing wind, rain, and earthquakes. Everything has gone so well that the bricks are arranged so as to leave the necessary window spaces as if they knew that something called glass would be formed later on by natural conditions. Moreover, they have not forgotten to leave some space to allow the installation of water, electricity and heating systems, which are also later to be formed by coincidence. Everything has gone so well that "coincidences" and "natural conditions" produce a perfect design. \n If you have managed to sustain your belief in this story so far, then you should have no trouble surmising how the town's other buildings, plants, highways, sidewalks, substructures, communications, and transportation systems came about. If you possess technical knowledge and are fairly conversant with the subject, you can even write an extremely "scientific" book of a few volumes stating your theories about "the evolutionary process of a sewage system and its uniformity with the present structures". You may well be honoured with academic awards for your clever studies, and may consider yourself a genius, shedding light on the nature of humanity. \n The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is
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Some believe that before DNA and protein, life existed in the form of RNA, evidenced by catalytic RNA in existence today (forming part of the ribosome: a protein building cellular machine) \n\nLess philosophically, amino acids (of which there are 20 types) are put together in sequences predetermined by DNA sequences. These DNA sequences are transcribed (copied) into an intermediary molecule of RNA, which is "read" by the ribosome (which gathers the correct amino acids to build the protein)
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The cosmozoic theory speculates that life arrived on Earth as bacterial spores, perhaps enclosed in a comet. It is possible that such spores could survive a journey through space, but this theory leaves us with no source for the spores and no  mechanism by which life formed in the other location. The chemical evidence that life was present on Earth very soon after it cooled gives the Cosmozoic Theory some support.
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Evolution doesn't happen, one species doesn't evolve into another species.\nIn Darwin's time, scientists thought cells were just blobs of protoplasm. Since that time the advance of science has uncovered ever more powerful evidence that what Christians believe is true on all levels, including the natural world. And that is becoming even clearer today as scientists learn more about what is inside the cell-and especially the structure of DNA.\n\nAccording to cell biologist Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, "The entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines."\n\nEven the simplest cells are bristling with high-tech machinery. On the outside, their surfaces are studded with sensors, gates, pumps and identification markers.\n\nInside, cells are jam-packed with power plants, automated workshops and recycling units. Miniature monorails whisk materials from one location to another. No such system could arise in a blind, step-by-step Darwinian process.\n\nThe most advanced, automated modern factory, with its computers and robots all coordinated on a precisely timed schedule, is less complex than the inner workings of a single cell.\n\n"A bacterium is far more complex than any inanimate system known to man. There is not a laboratory in the world which can compete with the biochemical activity of the smallest living organism. One cell is more complicated than the largest computer that man has ever made." - Sir James Gray, from Cambridge University\n\nDNA is like a language in the heart of the cell, a molecular message, a set of instructions telling the cell how to construct proteins-much like the software needed to run a computer. Moreover, the amount of information DNA includes is staggering: A single cell of the human body contains three or four times more information as all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. As a result, the question of the origin of life must now be redefined as the question of the origin of biological information. Can information arise by natural forces alone? Or does it require an intelligent agent?\n\nDNA is composed of ordinary chemicals (bases, sugars, phosphates that react according to ordinary laws. What makes DNA function as a message is not the chemicals themselves but rather their sequence, their pattern. The chemicals in DNA are grouped into molecules (called nucleotides) that act like letters in a message, and they must be in a particular order if the message is going to be intelligible. If the letters are scrambled, the result is nonsense. So the crucial question is whether the sequence of chemical "letters" arose by natural causes or whether it required an intelligent source. Is it the product of law or design?\n\nSince DNA contains information, the case can be stated even more strongly in terms of information theory, a field of research that investigates the ways information is transmitted. The naturalistic scientist has only two possible ways to explain the origin of life-either chance or natural law. But information theory provides a powerful tool for discounting both of these explanations. Both chance and law lead to structures with low information content, whereas DNA has a very high information content."\n\nThe sequence of basis in DNA can not be explained by natural law because there are no chemical laws that make any sequence more likely than another. At the same time these sequences are so complicated that they can not be explained by chance.\n\n"Based on probability factors any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10. Such a number, if written out, would read: \n\n480,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000. \n\n"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number
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Yet another interesting question, man_id.\n\nAll a theory of abiogenesis can do is give an answer for how life-from-non-life is *possible*.  ... I.e. what ingredients and conditions might result in a replication system that is sufficient for natural selection to take over?  And which ones *may* have been present in the early days of the earth (knowing what we do know about those days)?  There may, in fact, be multiple answers ... many different recipes, all equally possible.  If so, then we may never know which one actually occurred on our planet.\n\nBut it is also possible that we may never find a recipe that works that we know might have been available in the earth's infancy.  We've only started looking.