has it ever been formally proposed that life can come frome non-life?
914670
Yes, this is assumed to be the case, and much has been written on it, but little is known in detail. The first life form, or the ancestor of life, depending on how you define things, is generally presumed to have been a single molecule or small group of molecules capable of doing two things: 1 Catalyze reactions in its environment that lead to a copy of itself being assembled and 2 be nontrivial enough in structure so that slight changes can result in mutations still capable of performing number 1. 1 has been achieved in highly specialized environments, but not 2. To be a candidate for the first natural life, 1 would have to be possible in the natural environment of the time. Until such is found, there will remain a gap in our understanding that some will prefer to explain by the action of their God of the Gaps.\n\nI've listed one book that discusses such speculations.
1164312
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.
217359
Yes, I fully believe there is life on other planets.  What it took to create life on Earth was not favored to happen.  The odds that Earth would hold any life at all are too small to comprehend.  But we do not know how large the universe is.  We do know that there are trillions of planets, trillions of galaxies, trillions of stars.  The odds that there is not a speck of life on any of those planets is also extremely small.\n\nI must admit that I have seen a UFO, which occurred last year.  I was driving my friends home from a party and I happen to look in the sky to see a bright white diamond-shaped object.  There were four individual diamond lights that made up the overall shape.  I was astounded, and I knew it was not anything that the United States had admitted to having.  I could name every military jet, helicopter, blimp, and passanger aircraft that I see, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it was.  I immediately turned around and drove to follow it.  Within five-ten seconds, the craft had flown so fast that the lights had disappeared (I watched it the entire time).  I'm not saying it was extra-terrestrial, but it was a UFO.  I live in Cleveland, by the way.
333414
Definitely. What are the odds that, among all the gazillions of planets and stars and galaxies, not ONE other life-form has developed? Hell, I don't even care if we can find sentiency, if there's just LIFE somewhere I'll be happy.
306121
I would like to say that there is intelligent life in the universe besides on Earth.  Humans have gone from believing that the Earth was at the centre of all existence and the Sun and all "heavenly bodies" revolved around it, because from our Point of View it seemed that way.  Then we discovered that no, the Earth actually goes around the Sun, and there were other planets...and other suns...and other planets around other suns!! And so on.  \n\nSo why wouldn't this 'decentralising' process extend to the existence of life?  I like to think it gives us an appreciation that life itself is a natural, universal process that, where the conditions are right, would happen throughout the universe.  "Intelligent" life is a bit curlier to argue.  If intelligent life was a natural process, why have we not had communication with aliens?  We could assume they are as curious as humans are to seek life elsewhere, and humans have been sending signals into space for decades.  I cannot answer this; even if it does exist numerous places in the universe, the vastness of space may be just too great.  \n\nThe idea of intelligent life elsewhere appeals to me as it knocks us humans off our high horse, and our presumptuous and arrogant viewpoint that we are privileged with our intelligence (and yes, humans are intelligent, although one wonders sometimes).
746523
As other posters have remarked, life is formed from non-living matter all the time. However, I think you are asking how the first life formed. But it's important to understand that the first life wasn't formed by "biological processes" - because there was no biology at that point. The processes were purely chemical.\n\nThe answer to how life formed, though, is: we don't really know, yet. However we do have some good ideas.\n\nOne of the above posters referred to an experiment - it's actually known as the Miller-Urey experiment. Miller discovered that he could generate small amounts of amino acids - which are the basic building blocks of life - by passing an electric current through a mix of gases which represented the composition of the atmosphere billions of years ago. \n\nNow, there's a big gap between these amino acids and the first cell, which is where creationists will try to mislead you by saying that a cell is too complex to have formed on its own. But, of course, no-one is saying  cell did form straight away. There's probably a gap of millions of years between the amino acids and the first cell .This is where the most active research is going on - scientists now think that before DNA formed, life depended on a simpler structure called RNA, so they refer to this period as the RNA world. It's a very interesting area of research.\n\nThe other way creationists try to mislead you is by dishonestly claiming that scientists believe in "spontaneous generation", which was disproved hundreds of years ago. In fact, one has nothing to do with the other - spontaneous generation was the idea that fully-grown creatures like mice spontaneously formed from piles of grain. Of course this idea isn't accepted by anyone today, and is a long way from the detailed ideas about the formation of amino acids and cells that scientists are really working on.
193508
There could possibly be. Isn't it a little ridiculous to think that in all the galaxies that we are the only humanoid lifeforms? whether or not you believe in God!
1114011
Life in similar forms to how we know it could not exist without water, because water is too vital as a solvent for biologically active molecules. However, there is no requirement that water for life contain salts, that is merely how it happened here.\n\nFurthermore, life as we *don't* know it could conceivably exist anywhere that potential energy can be kept separate from and in disequilibrium with its environment, which opens up the possibility of very different forms of life existing between atmospheric layers on a gas giant, or as plasma on the surfaces of stars. Robert Forward's science fiction (for example) is entirely speculative, however his science is remarkably sound.
363851
Life could be a theory too...how do you prove that you exist? Try reading Descartes' Meditation...
1134366
Good question. Again what is life?
715442
Origin of the first life.
1136179
An interesting question.  \n\n#1 would seem at first glance to be automatically false, as everyone will agree that there is evidence that there was a time when the things we see today in nature, did not exist.  But to get a little deeper, what if these things are the natural products of natural laws that have always existed?  E.g. what if our universe is just one of an endless series of universes that appear, unfold under natural laws that have been in existence for eternity, and then disappear, only to get reborn again as a new universe?\n\n#2 is the *goal* of a scientific explanation.  I.e. to see how much we can explain by the discovery of natural laws.  Science has no way of knowing if such an explanation will always be possible, but it has to try.  And so far we have done remarkably well ... almost everything we see in nature can be explained in terms of the operation of natural laws.  And natural laws can often be shown to derivable from simpler natural laws.  (E.g., that's why physicists are on a quest to unify the four forces of physics ... so that all laws of atomic physics can be derived from a single law.)  However, scientists will always be faced with the question of where these simplest of natural laws came from.  And they may have to settle for the answer "they seem to have always been there", which brings us back to #1.\n\n#3, and #4 need more definitions to distinguish them.  What do you mean by phrases like "beyond nature", and "intelligence."  \n\nHOWEVER, despite being a died-in-the-wool evolutionist, I lean towards #4, (an intelligent, supernatural origin for all things in nature) but not with in the same sense as Intelligent Design.  I *don't* believe some intelligence designed every cell membrane, every flagellum, every eyeball, every bird, bat, or insect wing, every endochrine cycle, etc.  Evolution provides a far more satisfactory explanation for all those things based on such simple natural laws as the law of natural selection.  \n\nBut I do wonder where that force of natural selection, as a natural law, came from.   I believe it will be shown to be derivable from simpler laws of chemistry and thermodynamics, which can be derived from even simpler laws of physics.  But ultimately, we will still be faced with wondering where those primary laws of physics came from.
444169
Kind of.  Biology and chemistry are both based on physics, and since these are used to explain life, physics can explain life in a way.  Of course, nobody really understands what life is, how it evolved, or really any of the fundamental questions about life.\nOn a side note, there is an interesting theory that uses quantum mechanics to explain consciousness, but unfortunately I don't have a source for that.
1024924
Well, there's been much speculation whether another element would be able to be the "base" for a life form. Silicon is indeed one theory. However, I have also heard speculation that life without carbon is impossible. \n\n   Carbon is probably the most versatile element there is. There is an infinite variety and number of life forms that could be made out of it. It's structure allows many shapes of carbon to form, rings, and chains, and more, and it allows lots different molecules and elements to hook on to the structure. Seeing as all life forms i know of are formed out of only Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and sulpher, the ability to make proteins, carbohydrates, nucleic acids and fats out of these elements is essential, and something like silicon probably wouldn't do it.
869471
Is that a Q, or a sedantary Comment...?\nThe basics of life is Creation - such as the 'UNMOVED MOVER'\n\nScience cannot support that, so people can take it and shove it up!!  ooop!! they will have to 'move' for that...\n\nAs was a lot of 'that' when our (pre-birth) sperm was swimming...\n\nIf ur comment is on the side of creation - u in the right direction, but still the Creator is not dividing itself,, it is creating indepedent lifes'...
945352
Then defend it... I say that there is no way that a random chance process could have formed life forming proteins and DNA with their unique chirality. If proteins and DNA were formed by chance  each and every one of the components would be a 50/50 mixture of the two optical isomers. This is not what we see in natural proteins or in natural DNA. How can a random chance natural process create proteins with thousands of "L" molecules, and then also create DNA with billions of "R" molecules? Does this sound like random chance or a product of design? Even if \nthere were a magic process to introduce chirality, it would only create one isomer. If such a process existed, we do not know anything about it or how it would work. If it did exist, how were compounds with the other chirality ever formed? Even if there were two magical processes, one for each isomer, what determined which process  was used and when it was used, if this was a random chance natural process? The idea of two processes requires a controlling mechanism, and this kind of control is not possible in a random chance natural process.\nYou are an intelligent man alot smarter than a mere theist so I don't think I need to explain chirality more thoroughly. You just need to defend your statement... Too bad you can't now that you have this informant ion.....   Jim
922080
Yea i Wonder, but as a man of science I have to consider evidence.\nThere is no evidence of ET life.