Debate: Are We Clueless About the Origin of Life? [video]

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1 point·maronato··4 comments

For a poorly moderated two hour shout fest this doesn't entirely suck for those that have an interest in the subject; pro-evolutionary science educator and anti-evolutionary chemist talk past each other.

The characters in play here are:

David James Farina: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Professor_Dave

James Mitchell Tour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour

Evolution theory is generally quite coherent and intuitive. But while it can explain how a monkey or ape turned into homo-sapien, it can't explain how an amoeba turned into human. It can't explain the consciousness aspect or how life ever came from the "life-less", or was life always there to begin with?

Of course evolution can explain how an amoeba turned into a human -- a series of steps, each driven by natural selection. Not all the steps are known yet, but there's no reason to think something else is needed. Complexity accumulates progressively.

The origin of life itself is a different matter. This is not well understood. There is a very large complexity gap to the smallest known organism and it's not at all clear how to bridge it. At best we can say we haven't ruled out various kinds of partial theories for how it might have happened.

Monkeys and Apes are human's cousins. We evolved from the same ancestors. https://humanorigins.si.edu/education/frequently-asked-quest....

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