D
Deleted member 688153
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People say life couldn't likely have formed out of chance because the chance is so small.
Not so.
I'm not sure why no-one ever bothers to articulate this.
Life formed because, on some level, it was energetically favourable for it to do so.
We consist solely of chemical compounds and the energy these possess (both the nuclear energy in the atoms themselves, the chemical potential energy (CPE) in the bonds between the atoms, and in the kinetic energy the molecules have as they're vibrating and moving around).
If you disagree, dissect a living organism, find something else, and tell us about it (before then claiming your rightful Nobel Prize).
Some chemical interactions between compounds will occur spontaneously, that is, they will occur all on their own when the two compounds are next to each other. This occurs because the result of them interacting will result in a product which has a lower chemical potential energy that the sum of the energies of the reactants (the extra energy is released, usually as kinetic energy).
An example would be placing a piece of metallic sodium in water - the metallic sodium has a very high amount of chemical potential energy, and it "wants" to lose some of that, so when it touches water a reaction will spontaneously occur where the sodium goes from a metal (Na) to being sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
This process releases an enormous amount of energy and the reaction is quite violent, but it illustrates the point well that compounds always want to exist in lowest possible energetic state, like how a ball will always roll down a hill if you place it at the top of the hill (it "wants" to lose its gravitational potential energy).
Note that a certain amount of "activation energy" is required for most reactions to occur (this can be imparted from places like sunlight, heating the solution, shaking the solution, electrical current etc.)
Read here for more on activation energy, this post is long enough as it is.
So how does this relate to the formation of life?
Same principle.
If you take many basic compounds containing carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, they will undergo spontaneous or near-spontaneous reactions with each other to reach a state of lower energy (the compounds having been originally made by an energetic process - perhaps the addition of sunlight or a volcano's heat).
And guess what - if these compounds meet each other (yes, by chance, but they're not especially rare and they tend to occur in similar places so it's not impossibly unlikely), they naturally react such that some of the building blocks of life (as we know it) form as the activation energy for these reactions is often low enough that simple natural forces can provide it (such as a lightning strike - how many think life first appeared).
Amino acids can form like this.
From there, these more complex molecules further interact with each other (which occurs better in solution, and guess what again - life is thought to have first appeared in water), and they arrange themselves such that they have lower overall chemical potential energy.
They don't self-replicate because they consciously want to, or because some god-like force is giving them a push - it's because that's how chemistry works.
Crystals grow over time, they add more units to their structure - because it's energetically favourable for them to do so, they release energy as they assume the solid state and pack into a lattice.
Phosphate and deoxyribose release energy when they combine, so if they at some point met under the right conditions to overcome the small amount of activation energy (warm water, kinetic energy imparted from waves, sunlight, perhaps electrical current), they would combine.
DNA.
The processes which occur in our body are largely energetically favourable, and the ones which aren't have energy added to them, so that they may occur, allowing the system overall to still lose chemical potential energy.
We breath in - the oxygen (O2) binds to the heme in hemoglobin, this process releases a small amount of energy, which is why it occurs at all.
The oxygen is then used to oxidize carbohydrates in the mitochondria of our cells, this releases a fair bit of energy, which is then used for physical movement and operation (this is your "energy").
It's created because energy is released from the reaction. Not because God pokes your cells.
Where life becomes sufficiently advanced that it gains a desire to continue living (semi-consciousness?), it can then supplement this basic physics and chemistry with its own actions.
Sorry for bursting your bubble folks, but life, as with everything, is the simple product of physics and chemistry.
That doesn't mean it isn't amazing, I think that the above is so amazing I have long wished to dedicate my life to understanding it more.
Far more incredible and intricate than creationist "theories".
Not so.
I'm not sure why no-one ever bothers to articulate this.
Life formed because, on some level, it was energetically favourable for it to do so.
We consist solely of chemical compounds and the energy these possess (both the nuclear energy in the atoms themselves, the chemical potential energy (CPE) in the bonds between the atoms, and in the kinetic energy the molecules have as they're vibrating and moving around).
If you disagree, dissect a living organism, find something else, and tell us about it (before then claiming your rightful Nobel Prize).
Some chemical interactions between compounds will occur spontaneously, that is, they will occur all on their own when the two compounds are next to each other. This occurs because the result of them interacting will result in a product which has a lower chemical potential energy that the sum of the energies of the reactants (the extra energy is released, usually as kinetic energy).
An example would be placing a piece of metallic sodium in water - the metallic sodium has a very high amount of chemical potential energy, and it "wants" to lose some of that, so when it touches water a reaction will spontaneously occur where the sodium goes from a metal (Na) to being sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
This process releases an enormous amount of energy and the reaction is quite violent, but it illustrates the point well that compounds always want to exist in lowest possible energetic state, like how a ball will always roll down a hill if you place it at the top of the hill (it "wants" to lose its gravitational potential energy).
Note that a certain amount of "activation energy" is required for most reactions to occur (this can be imparted from places like sunlight, heating the solution, shaking the solution, electrical current etc.)
Read here for more on activation energy, this post is long enough as it is.
So how does this relate to the formation of life?
Same principle.
If you take many basic compounds containing carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, they will undergo spontaneous or near-spontaneous reactions with each other to reach a state of lower energy (the compounds having been originally made by an energetic process - perhaps the addition of sunlight or a volcano's heat).
And guess what - if these compounds meet each other (yes, by chance, but they're not especially rare and they tend to occur in similar places so it's not impossibly unlikely), they naturally react such that some of the building blocks of life (as we know it) form as the activation energy for these reactions is often low enough that simple natural forces can provide it (such as a lightning strike - how many think life first appeared).
Amino acids can form like this.
From there, these more complex molecules further interact with each other (which occurs better in solution, and guess what again - life is thought to have first appeared in water), and they arrange themselves such that they have lower overall chemical potential energy.
They don't self-replicate because they consciously want to, or because some god-like force is giving them a push - it's because that's how chemistry works.
Crystals grow over time, they add more units to their structure - because it's energetically favourable for them to do so, they release energy as they assume the solid state and pack into a lattice.
Phosphate and deoxyribose release energy when they combine, so if they at some point met under the right conditions to overcome the small amount of activation energy (warm water, kinetic energy imparted from waves, sunlight, perhaps electrical current), they would combine.
DNA.
The processes which occur in our body are largely energetically favourable, and the ones which aren't have energy added to them, so that they may occur, allowing the system overall to still lose chemical potential energy.
We breath in - the oxygen (O2) binds to the heme in hemoglobin, this process releases a small amount of energy, which is why it occurs at all.
The oxygen is then used to oxidize carbohydrates in the mitochondria of our cells, this releases a fair bit of energy, which is then used for physical movement and operation (this is your "energy").
It's created because energy is released from the reaction. Not because God pokes your cells.
Where life becomes sufficiently advanced that it gains a desire to continue living (semi-consciousness?), it can then supplement this basic physics and chemistry with its own actions.
Sorry for bursting your bubble folks, but life, as with everything, is the simple product of physics and chemistry.
That doesn't mean it isn't amazing, I think that the above is so amazing I have long wished to dedicate my life to understanding it more.
Far more incredible and intricate than creationist "theories".
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