I agree that evolution describes how life advances, but given that DNA...

...May have appeared as quickly as 1 billion years after the Earth cooled, and seeing what complicated machinery it takes for a cell to divide, there doesn't seem to be enough time in the universe for DNA to have developed, let alone a measly billion years.

Watch this short video explaining how a cell divides. Marvel at the walking messengers and gigantic strands that determine when a cell is ready to divide!

Chromosome and Kinetochore


It's only 4 minutes long, but if you're in a hurry, skip past part 1, Chromosome, to 1:40 for part 2, Kinetochore.

 

How much time would it "seem" to take?

 

Well, more than a billon years. Given the complexity of the kinetochore alone, let's say 100 trillion years.

How long do you think it would take?

 

I don't know, and neither do you.

What I can say is that if (i) one of the abiogenesis hypotheses is correct (e.g., RNA world or metabolism first) and (ii) the biological theory of evolution is correct, then it took a certain amount of time for DNA to evolve, likely less that 1,000,000,000 years.

 

There comes a point where someone looking at the complexity of DNA could be forgiven for wondering what mechanism of evolution could produce such a wonderful thing. How would RNA evolve into DNA, or did DNA arise on its own? Why aren't there stages of DNA-based life showing the evolutionary path that led to what we know today?

It's like the more I learn about evolution, the more time it should have taken to get where we are now. I like the multiverse theory because the explanation could be that we're in the unlikeliest probability (or luckiest) universe where evolution proceeded quickly and with few missteps.

 

What data are you basing this 100 trillion year estimate from? Humans evolved form apes in only 6 million years.

 

Oh please. There's less than 2% difference between human and chimp DNA. Did you watch that video? Just the process of pulling the strands of DNA into separate cells in incredibly complex and everything has to work or the process fails. I'm not aware of any evidence that shows the progression that led to DNA other than the likelihood that RNA was a precursor. But RNA is pretty darn complex too. So again, where is the progression?

 

2-4% of the entire genetic code is actually really massive and keep in mind that this difference somehow produced an amazing species that went to the moon while apes are still climbing around trees. Again how do you think that its totally fine that humans took only 6 million years but DNA should take 100 trillion?

 

Because the mechanism (as far as we know) that enables humans to run the planet is DNA. And DNA is an ridiculously complicated construction that not only comprises the plans for building humans and chimps and pretty much every other living creature we see, it is itself a complex collection of components that must function as a whole or the process fails. And supposedly it came about from what? Again, what progression led to DNA? Do you know?

I picked 100 trillion years because that's one of the longest periods of time that the universe is estimated to have left to exist. It's just driving home the point that a billion years seems far too short for DNA to have evolved.

 

The evolution of genetic material can be divided into at least three major phases: first, genomes of "nucleic acid-like" molecules; secondly, genomes of RNA; and finally, double-stranded DNA genomes such as those present in all contemporary cells.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02101189

"I picked 100 trillion years because that's one of the longest periods of time that the universe is estimated to have left to exist."
Citation?

 

Evolution of existing genes within existing life forms is a much different process than the random organization of molecules into a macromolecular form that is capable of self replication.

 

I think creationism is nonsense, and my atheism prevents me from believing in deities, but I'd like to have a reasonable theory that explains how structures more complicated than the most powerful supercomputers, yet microscopic in size, just happened to assemble themselves into factories of life that also contain the plans for the life we see around us.

Random chance and survival of the fittest would seem to need more than a billion years.

"I picked 100 trillion years because that's one of the longest periods of time that the universe is estimated to have left to exist."
Citation?[/QUOTE]

Theories about the end of the universe

 

Biochemistry is not chance. It inevitably produces complex products. Amino acids and other complex molecules are even known to form in space.
Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators.

 

We know practically nothing about how this all took place. Who knows, wife may have developed in some other place and then been seeded here on earth via comments or astroids or something like. We just don't know

When you get right down to it there is practically nothing about reality that matches what I would expect. Quantum fluctuations ...nah. Antimatter. Dark matter. Dark energy. It works. Electrons. Nothing about this universe is what we would expect because we don't directly experience it ... just as we have no direct experience of how life develops


Heck, if something can only exist or happen if we expect it to be possible then Trump never would've been elected because I sure as heck didn't expect that that could happen . So I guess in a nutshell my responses is that I think it is as likely that DNA developed in 1 billion years as it is that Trump will get elected OK?

 

But how do you know that the formation of this molecule would have taken 100 trillion years. What if a very simple of this molecule formed and more and more advanced versions of it evolved?

 

So you have no data to back up this 100 trillion estimate and now what evidence is there that 1 billion years is too short but 100 trillion isn't? Just because something is really complicates doesn't mean 1 billion years is too short, in fact it is incredibly long.

 

It can't self replicate without a very advanced protein apparatus and a complex chemical environment all of which needs to be coded by its own nucleric acid chains. A simple rna would code for nothing of functional consequence and would have no way of synthesizing even the most basic chain of amino acids without a complex network in place.

Nucleic acid chains by themselves degrade into nothing

 

The simple fact of the matter is that there is life on this planet, and that something happened to have created it.

Experiments have shown that if you have water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen, and subject them to various sorts of sparks...you can get the various amino acids. Changing the conditions in the experiment a bit (simulating volcanic gases and electrical discharges, sparks through Hydrogen Sulfide), they can get simple chemicals to form into complex amino acids.

So likely 100 trillion years is probably a bit on the long side of how it would take to happen. 100 Trillion years is the estimated life of the universe assuming the heat death (entropy) scenario.

 

I don't know if 100 trillion is enough time, but it's game over when the universe burns out, so that's all the time there is.

As for something being really complicated, keep in mind that DNA is orders of magnitude more complex than the most powerful supercomputer. How long would it take to assemble even that supercomputer if you had to rely on random chance?

 

Your post tracks with my thinking on multiverses. If everything that happens is replicated in slight variations in endless multiverses, it's reasonable to assume that some universes would be luckier than others. We might be in a lucky one where evolution keeps rolling boxcars constantly.

 

Nothing is more efficient at replication than simple viruses. So why would evolution violate the rules of entropy to build needlessly more complex organisms than the virus?

 

Does a supercomputer self-replicate? Is a supercomputer subject to mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, horizontal gene transfer and/or sexual selection?

 

OK, so now you're talking about the difference between living and dead. It's interesting that we know with pretty high precision what chemicals are in living cells, and yet we've failed so far to create anything living from the chemicals of life.

It just gets weirder and weirder.

 

This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible.However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/ab...the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-intermediate

 

A supercomputer is impossible to create by random chance. It is possible that abiogenesis made a very simple life-form that evolved to be more and more complex and evolution involving natural selection not random chance. I don't think we know enough about the environment, the first organisms, and how abiogenesis happened to give it a probability. Its like trying to predict a presidential election without knowing who the candidates are, their positions, the situation of the country, or its beliefs. You are just blindly throwing out numbers with no meaning.