Etiology is the study of the causes of things (usually diseases). In my own personal lexicon, etiobiology is the study of the causes and origins of biological processes. Usually, the search term is "origins of life", and recently some new papers have reinvigorated the field.
One is the rerunning of the Miller-Urey experiment done in the 1950s by Stanley Miller. Miller had assumed, based on the work of his advisory, Harold Urey, that the early earth had a reducing atmosphere, in which there is little or no oxygen. This is now thought to be wrong, so some (creationists, OK?) said that prebiotic organic chemistry was wrong, yadda yadda. A reworking of the experiment in the 1980s failed to generate amino acids from a more realistic atmosphere (more creationist crowing!).
But a simplified atmosphere is not a realistic atmosphere, and one researcher, Jeffrey Bada, realised that adding some iron and carbonates (such as is found in limestone) would change the reactions dramatically. Running the experiment, he found that these elements prevented the degradation of amino acids by nitrites.
Another missing step is the production of nucleosides, the precursor molecules of nucleotides from which RNA and DNA is constructed. But they appear to be possible to produce via some plausible reactions and the involvement of hydrogen sulphide and/or titanium oxide have been argued for. So while we certainly do not know the actual and complete pathway, the gaps into which God is being stuffed by those who deny that life arose naturally are getting smaller.
Recently another paper, based on studies of prokaryotes in ice cores, has proposed also that high energy environments like UV-irradiated pools or volcanic vents are not even necessary, and that life might arise through ice-based redox relations. Smaller and smaller. But it also implies that life, or some of the precursor reactions might occur in deep space or on cold bodies like Saturn's moons.
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Any fule no that if darwinism was right then you would get life in a jar of peanut butter.
Look into any bachelor's fridge, to discover that Darwin was right...
John, the "some plausible reactions" link just goes to a blank white page.
Thanks for the post.
John wrote:
Not true. It now appears to have been mildly reducing.
Please see:
Calculations favor reducing atmosphere for early Earth
Was Miller-Urey experiment correct?
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-09/wuis-cfr090705.php
Astrobiology Magazine: Reducing Early Earth
Sep 11, 2005
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=arti…
Outgassing of Ordinary Chondritic Material and Some of its Implications for the Chemistry of Asteroids, Planets, and Satellites
By Laura Schaefer and Bruce Fegley, Jr.
Submitted to Icarus 27 June 2006
http://arxiv.org/ftp/astro-ph/papers/0606/0606671.pdf
John wrote
If chemistry is the basis of life on earth (though I think it must be a team player), I am impressed more by the idea that chemistry must happen than by the idea that chemistry happens against incalculable odds. This is the result of having rules. Atoms combine not into random aggregations but into specific combinations. And they do so with differing degrees of vigor. Some combinations are preferred simply because others are not, by virtue of the rules.
Something about covalent bonding in Mrs. Miliken's ninth grade science class tickles my brain.
Fact is, evolutionists as a whole have little time to be concerned about ultimate origins. Their bailiwick has increasingly been *how* these resultant clots of matter one day came to study themselves. The historical evidence seems to me to indicate that we (us humans, that is) came upon this course of study through our own curiosity, delight, outrage and flabbergastedness (!) of finding ourselves able to do so.
Creationists seem to interpret this experience as transcendental. I find it primarily entertaining.
Hear, hear...
Chris, that link works fine for me - it's a Masters thesis. Try it again.
Works like a charm now John. It was probably just my computer in the first place.