A discovery by scientists at Scripps Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology could shed light on the evolution of life on Earth and pave the way for more efficient biofuel production.
Early Earth was a volatile and inhospitable place, marked by extreme temperatures, widespread volcanic activity, and a thin, primitive atmosphere. Yet somehow, the basic molecular components of life, such as sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides, emerged from this chaos. One long-standing theory among chemists holds that ribose, a sugar that forms the structural backbone of RNA, arose spontaneously through a chemical process. However, new research challenges this idea.
In a study published in Chem, scientists from Scripps Research and the Georgia Institute of Technology question the validity of the “formose reaction” hypothesis. This hypothesis proposes that simple formaldehyde molecules reacted under early Earth conditions to form ribose. But the new findings reveal a key limitation: under controlled experimental conditions, the formose reaction does not yield linear sugars like ribose. Instead, it predominantly produces branched sugar structures, which are incompatible with the formation of RNA.
These results not only reshape our understanding of how life’s essential molecules may have originated, but also offer insights that could influence synthetic biology and biofuel production strategies.
“The concept of the formose reaction as a prebiotic source of ribose needs serious reconsideration,” says corresponding author Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy, professor of chemistry at Scripps Research. “Other models and options should be explored if we want to understand how these sugar molecules arose on early Earth.”
The formose reaction was serendipitously discovered in 1861 and has been a leading hypothesis for prebiotic sugar formation ever since. During the reaction, formaldehyde molecules spontaneously and repeatedly react with each other to create larger molecules: first two formaldehydes react to create a two-carbon molecule, which then reacts with another formaldehyde to create a three-carbon molecule, and so on and so on, until all the formaldehyde has been used up.
The reaction is slow to begin but then accelerates uncontrollably. As more and more complex sugars are made, the reaction mixture turns from colorless, to yellow, to brown, to black. “It’s almost like caramelization,” says Krishnamurthy.
Exploring Controlled Conditions
“The problem is it’s a very messy reaction, and if ribose is formed at all, it’s a minuscule part and only one among hundreds and thousands of compounds that will be formed,” says Krishnamurthy. “We wanted to understand why this reaction is so complex, and whether it can be controlled.”
Usually, the formose reaction is conducted at high temperatures and in a very basic environment (at a high pH of 12 or 13). In this case, the researchers decided to test the reaction under milder conditions: at room temperature and at a pH of around 8, which they say is likely to be closer to the conditions present on prebiotic early Earth. To monitor the abundance and types of sugars produced, they used a high-powered analytical technique known as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and labeled the starting molecules. The mixture was monitored over several days.
They showed that the reaction is possible even under mild conditions, but that the results are just as complex and uncontrollable as usual.
“The reactivity of formaldehyde doesn’t allow you to stop at a particular stage,” says Krishnamurthy. “Even with very mild reaction conditions it goes on until all of the formaldehyde is consumed, which means it’s very difficult to control or stop the reaction in order to form intermediate sugars.”
Implications for the Origin of Life and Industry
The NMR data revealed that all of the larger sugars produced had branched structures. Since almost all of the sugars that are used as molecular building blocks in living organisms are linear and unbranched, this suggests that the formose reaction cannot explain the origins of biotic sugars.
“Our results cast doubt on the formose reaction as the basis for the formation of linear sugars,” says co-senior author Charles Liotta, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Though the study’s mild reaction conditions failed to create the linear sugars necessary to explain the origins of RNA, the methods could be useful for the biofuel industry, where branched sugars are a desirable commodity.
“Our work might be helpful for biofuel production, since we found that with milder conditions, we can more cleanly produce branched sugars that can be used for green fuel,” says Krishnamurthy.
This isn’t necessarily the end for origins of life research on the formose reaction, but the researchers hope to spur different lines of thinking.
“Our goal was to point out all the problems that you will face if you are thinking about the formose reaction in the context of the prebiotic sugar synthesis, but we aren’t saying this is the endpoint; our results might inspire somebody to come up with a better way to somehow overcome these issues,” says Krishnamurthy. “We encourage the community to think differently and search for alternative solutions to explain how sugar molecules arose on early Earth.”
Reference: “Abiotic aldol reactions of formaldehyde with ketoses and aldoses—Implications for the prebiotic synthesis of sugars by the formose reaction” by Scot M. Sutton, Sunil Pulletikurti, Huacan Lin, Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy and Charles L. Liotta, 23 April 2025, Chem.
DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2025.102553
This work was supported by the NASA Exobiology Program NNH20ZA001N-EXO Grant 20-EXO-0006.
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117 Comments
First,
Mankind will never fully understand life. That’s God’s plan all along. He will allow you to go right up to the ledge, before adding the blindfold.
We are not meant to understand this complex system we call life.
We are meant to cherish and celebrate it, nothing more.
God and science don’t mix, because science is evidence based and God is faith based. No need to read science if you follow God, it’s apples and oranges, oil and water. If you truly have faith you don’t need science. Or if you understand science you should be questioning the magic sky daddy. Just FYI
You could call dark matter/energy the hand of God, since it binds everything together and science still cannot identify it. Or maybe it’s the force Darth Vader. Lol.
What dark stuff? It doesn’t exist except as a constant to make up for the 10^114;math error.
This is not so. I am a science teacher and a strong Christian. Several 100 years ago, people used science to prove there is God. The evidence we have is historical, confirming some parts of the Bible. Just because you hold one truth that does not mean you can’t hold both truths.
Charlie, you’re a strong Christian and a weak science teacher. When did science prove God, or even try to do so?
Jesus is historically documented before and after crucifixion. He was seen by over 500 people after he had risen from the dead. All historically accounted for, and it was also mentioned in the Old Testament hundreds of years before his existence. It was prophesied that he would be born and die by crucifixion. How much more do you need to BELIEVE??!!
Robert on May 11, 2025 5:44 pm
You say: “He was seen by over 500 people” – nope. You don’t even know your Bible. Different parts of the Bible have different records of who actually saw his resurrection – and the number isn’t 500 in any of them.
BTW: A person named Jesus may have existed. Nothing says he had any supernatural powers. Historical documents of the era other than the Bible doesn’t mention him – given his aura, he should have been all over the place in all sorts of other documents. Other cultures would have mentioned him also.
That way, a few years ago, millions Sai Baba’s devotees would have sworn that they have seen Sai Baba do supernatural things. Thousands of those eye witnesses exist even today. The evidence of his divinity is more recent and has been revealed to way more people, who can give first hand accounts even today. So, why aren’t you a Sai Baba devotee?
Robert – there are no historical records. Zero. The completely off guard and in different phrasing than the rest Josepheus’ work, is like a serious biography on the mobile phone only mentioning that some guy named Jobs also made a device some people liked.
You honestly think serious works like these wouldn’t make a massive deal of “The King of the Jews” if he ever existed? If anything, it’s historical proof he didn’t exist. It just makes absolutely no sense to have no credible contemporary account at all of a guy who walked on water.
And you know this how?
Mankind created faith, the concept of believing in something with no evidence. It was and is designed to allow God to exist and persist each time religious dogma is disproven. Earth is not in the center of the solar system or universe, Noah’s ark is a myth, evolution, etc.
Faith is believing that the universe expanded at ludicrous speed from a theoretical singularity. That ‘event’ is unproven and unproveable.
Robert Welch on May 16, 2025: “Faith is believing that the universe expanded at ludicrous speed…”
Except that that hypothesis predicts something that can be checked out right now, right here on earth.
AG3 May 16 2025 An Earth-centric model of the universe will accurately predict where the sun, moon, and planets will be one thousand years from now. Should we go back to using that as our prime hypothesis?
Robert Welch on May 17, 2025:
AG3 May 16 2025 An Earth-centric model of the universe will accurately predict where the sun, moon, and planets will be one thousand years from now.
No, it doesn’t. Mistakes start propping up. Mars’ retrograde motion is one such example.
But, there’s a subtle point here. The daily rising and setting of the sun can actually be explained by two different hypotheses – that the sun is moving around the earth OR that the earth is spinning. Then you will have to look at subtler signs to break the tie. Mars’ retrograde motion is one such.
Theory caught up after Newton discovered his laws of motion and gravitation. Then you can theoretically predict that earth cannot sit still when the sun does all the running around.
AG3 on May 17
The first millisecond of the Universe must involve hyper-expansion, which includes conditions physics show aren’t possible or repeatable. Also, the results of the DESI observations show that ‘dark energy’ is a variable, not a constant, which gives the Standard Model a Purple Nurple. There’s a better way ( and no, we’re not in a black hole, ‘tho a singularity is involved ). T.L. always gives me grief on this.
Robert Welch,
So, this is the situation in our local thread.
First, you said: Faith is believing that the universe expanded at ludicrous speed. When I pointed out that there is evidence that suggests such an expansion did occur, you didn’t follow-up on that topic.
Instead, you jumped to the next idea: you tried to say that all is well with the earth-centric model. I gave an example of where it is not … then you didn’t follow-up on that topic.
Instead, you jumped to a third topic. Now you seem to be saying that science cannot explain the initial expansion / inflation, and that science doesn’t know dark matter.
My question is why are you jumping about? Why aren’t you able to stay on a single topic? Or is it in the two cases above, my response is the final word that shut you up?
As for your last comment – no, science doesn’t fully know why expansion or inflation happened. Science doesn’t know what dark matter is. That is the very nature of science – it thinks about the unknown because it is trying to make discoveries. A topic that is already fully understood isn’t worthy of scientific research.
But what are you trying to get at here? What is it that you want to prove? What is the “better way” you are talking about? Be clear. From what I can see – even in this little thread – is that while science doesn’t know everything, it sure knows way more than the alternatives on offer.
Regarding AG3 May 17
I mentioned ‘ dark energy ‘, not ‘ dark matter ‘; the DESI results show that the effects of this force ( whatever it is ) weaken over time, and thus, it is not a constant.
There is no observable evidence of hyperexpansion, since non-ionized hydrogen blocks any chance of observing it, and it has obviously not happened since.
My comments on an Earth-centric model were pretty basic, but this model held up well enough to block Copernican views of the universe for quite some time.
The ‘ better way ‘ has been sent to NASA and Yale; it is radical, it involves a high-velocity singularity, and there is observational evidence supporting it ( Google ‘ runaway black hole ‘ regarding Pieter van Dokkum’s discovery in 2023.
Is there another platform/site we might continue this thread? This one is getting a little long in the tooth.
Robert Welch,
“Is there another platform/site we might continue this thread? This one is getting a little long in the tooth.”
Not sure. I don’t know of any.
But I have posted a new post responding to very first comment. Search “Robert Welch, May 18” on this page to find that comment. You should be able to Reply to that comment.
True
Hopeful P. Brain, when push comes to shove, everyone abandons faith and takes refuge in science. Even the pope went to the hospital when he got pneumonia. Which really was the smart thing to do. The point is that he knew the extent to which faith can heal.
AG3, you told a guy named Robert that the number isn’t 500 in any of them in reference to Jesus resurrection appearances. A simple Google search about Jesus’ appearance to the 500 would have brought up 1 Cir 15:6, which does indeed have Paul stating that Jesus appeared to 500 people. The verse prior mentions that there were a couple of other instances when Jesus appeared to people as well, giving support to the idea that the different instances mentioned in different books of the New Testament were different instances rather than the same instance recorded differently. Here’s the actual verses:
1 Corinthians 15:5-6 ESV
[5] and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. [6] Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
I therefore don’t see that you have any grounds to claim that Robert doesn’t know his Bible when he correctly states that it’s mentioned that Jesus was seen by over 500 people and you incorrectly stated that the number 500 isn’t in any of the accounts within the Bible of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
Even in your account it was AFTER the resurrection, not AT that time.
And in any event, just because a book says that resurrection happened doesn’t mean that it did. People have been known to lie when writing books.
Nothing against the Bible but you can’t prove the validity of Jesus using verses from Scripture. You should be testing what’s written in the Bible with other historical texts
AG3, regarding Jesus performing miracles:
According to Origen, Celsus, a philosopher who lived in the 2nd century CE, accused Jesus of being a magician and sorcerer.
Aspects of the Talmud also suggest people saw Jesus as being able to work miracles or do magic.
So, there are non-biblical early sources that do mention Jesus having something asking the lines of supernatural abilities.
Way more than that exists for Sai Baba.
And, look at what you wrote. Someone “accused” Jesus – do you understand the implications? Not a ringing endorsement, is it? Celsus is suggesting that Jesus was a fraud.
As for Talmud (what is the date), the word “suggest” that the author has heard and didn’t himself witness.
Your sources are undermining your case.
The science I observe tells me that everything reproduces after its kind, I don’t know anyone who was around at the start (whatever timescale you use) so while I understand that a world view that rejects any idea of God needs to believe in life somehow forming by chance there is no evidence available that is incompatible with the creation model described in Genesis.
“everything reproduces after its kind”
But you don’t mind God being at the start! With that kind of logical ability, no wonder you find Genesis flawless.
And do you think Mama Himalaya begat the Himalaya we see? How do you think that happens?
Genesis is vague in most places – those places cannot be falsified, but those places are also useless. Where Genesis is not vague, it is completely in error. For example, when it says that the earth was created 6000 years ago. Many other pre-Genesis civilizations guessed that earth is older than 6000 years. Most modern Christians do not believe in that BS story.
AG3, of course we don’t mind Good being at the start. Why would we? When talking about everything reproducing after it’s kind, that’s in the context of being within the material universe. The universe is causal; it operates on a set of rules where a cause leads to one of more effects, and those effects become the cause(s) of yet other effects, and so on and so forth. Now, the problem causality presents is that, if there is nothing the material universe that could have started it, you have an infinite regression of causes, which is irrational as it logically means the existence of an infinite past. Explaining how an infinite amount of time in the past was crossed to reach the point we are currently at. Rationally, our rational universe needs a starting point. To consider that the starting point of the universe is the result of some infinite regression of non-natural causes is just as irrational.
Now, when we dream, we are capable of creating a universe that is only limited in scope by our mental capacity. Theoretically, it could be infinitely large if we had an infinite mental capacity. We exist apart from our dreams and we are not bound by whatever rules we establish for our dreams. We are limited beings and as such our dreams have limitations as well, but however limited we may be, our dreams are even more limited for they cannot continue to exist without us.
The relationship God would have with this universe is similar to the relationship we have with our dreams. The difference is, God, on the assumption He exists, is not a limited being, therefore the universe we are part of is more rich, more intricate in detail, more vast than our dreams. But, like how our existence is showing separate from our dreams, and how we are not bound by the rules of our dreams, God exists separate from this universe and is not bound by the same rules as us within this universe. So, while this universe and the things within it require a cause for their existence, God need not necessarily have a cause for His existence. In fact, it’s logical to conclude that there must be something which is outside our universe capable of causing our universe which doesn’t, itself, have a cause.
The universe and everything within it are, simply put, a different category from what God is, assuming God exists. And because of that it’s irrational to assume that God, being of a different category, has the limitations that our universe has.
Also, Genesis probably doesn’t actually say the earth is 6,000 years or so old. We get that date by applying our historical sensibilities to the text. Our historical sensibilities include listing time frames in a mathematically objective manner. So, when we say something happened 22 years ago, we mean 22 actual years. Cultures at the time Genesis was written appear to have a tendency to use idealized numbers. They also had a tendency to not include all the names in a genealogy, meaning that s genealogical list would have skipped over a few generations here and there. Furthermore, we interpret the days mentioned for creation to be 6 consecutive 24 hour periods plus a day of rest equivalent to our 7 day week. But why should we assume that’s how the initial audience regarded it? I mean, the days of creation plus the day of rest was used to establish the idea of a 6 day work week with a day of rest. So, it could be there were simply 6 instances where God specifically intervened in His creation to guide us direction the way a chemist intervenes in his chemical process to guide the chemistry. A chemist, to achieve a particular result, will set up some initial conditions to get things started. If the chemist just let’s it progress without doing anything, the reaction will proceed down a particular path until all of at least one of the starting chemicals is exhausted. Typically, to get sleeping more interesting and useful, at some point the chemist will introduce new chemistry, change the conditions understood the reaction is occurring, such as increasing it decreasing the temperature, it other such interference to cause a change in the reaction that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise in order to produce a result that would not have come about by simply leaving the reaction alone once started. Why do we assume that God didn’t do the same sort of thing, and why can’t the days mentioned in Genesis simply be those instances where God intervened to change the direction of what was going on within the universe? I mean, while that may be thousands of years or more by our reckoning, it’s no time whatsoever by God’s reckoning as our past present and future are all now to God. From God’s perspective, He actually would have done those 6 separate things simultaneously even if they spanned billions of years by our reckoning. So, it could be that God communicated what He did in terms of days as a way of demonstrating to us the concept of working so many days and then resting. God would simply be taking what He actually did and presenting it to us in a manner that’s similar and more useful to us.
Also, a major aspect of the creation account is simply establishing that the universe and everything in it we created by a singular deity, that the sun, moon, and stars are not gods to be worshipped by objects created by God, who some should be worshipped. Also, plants and animals weren’t too be revered either, as they too are creations of God.
So, there’s a question of what was actually being communicated by Genesis verses what we read into Genesis and therefore assume Genesis is telling us.
Furthermore, I can make a case that matter is merely a perception of a specific type of information performed by our consciousness. This would be along the lines of simulation theory. Now, Genesis has God soaking things into existence. Well, speech is nothing more than the conveyance of information. So, the statements of God speaking things into existence could be understood as God providing the information that makes up our universe for our consciousness to interact with and make sense of. Attempting to explain such a thing to a the average person today would sound like nonsense to the average person, so anyone attempting to explain that concept would explain it in a simplified, metaphorical manner that the average person can more easily grasp and make use of. It follows that God, if He were to tell us about the creation of our universe, would do so on a similar simplified, metaphorical manner. Because of this, it seems reasonable to me that Manny of us are missing the point of Genesis by trying to understand it in a literalistic way rather than in more of a conceptual way.
For you to conclude that Genesis is completely in error is for you to uncharitably apply your sensibilities to the interpretation of Genesis in a manner that has no justification for doing so. For your claim about Genesis being in error on any point to be valid, you need some very good justification for why your understanding is the correct understanding of Genesis. Good luck providing such a justification that doesn’t reflect your bias and doesn’t have any reasonable alternatives for people like me to conclude that your conclusion is s matter of fact rather than an opinion.
The point, CanonSniper, is that if a complicated being like God could exist without cause, then so can smaller objects like molecules of life. By saying that God always existed, but everything else needs to have a creator, you are defying common sense and logic.
Steve, Let’s talk about the creation model described in Genesis.
Adam and Eve only got knowledge to differentiate between right and wrong after eating the forbidden fruit! So what sin did they commit if in the first place they didn’t know it was wrong to defy their creator?
I’ve been feeling electricity through out my body what does that mean
A completely disingenuous statement. Who are you to dictate to Chtistians being interested in science that we shouldn’t be. And in addition calling our God the magic fairy! The articles entire statement and research centers on how much Science doesn’t “know ” and brings into questions early models of evolution.
Guy, so science doesn’t know, but does faith/religion know more than science does?
Did I say that?
But at least you are agreeing that science doesn’t have all the answers to the theory of evolution.
Saying God and science mix is to misunderstand God. Assuming God exists, He plays the role of chemist, computer programmer, etc. The existence of a chemistry doesn’t conflict with science, neither does the existence of a computer programmer. A being who sets up a system to operate according to specific rules doesn’t conflict with the methodology used to discover those rules, which is what science is. Having faith means putting trust in God, which doesn’t mean we can’t also attempt to figure out the rules that God put in place. Faith in God is not mutually exclusive with understanding the universe He created. In fact, trusting in Him gives us a reason to think the universe has roots that we can figure out such that when we run across an instance that doesn’t seem to fit the rules as we known them, we conclude that there’s something we missed and that we need to look a bit harder to account for the discrepancy. So, trusting in God, which is what faith in God is, gives us a reason to think science can provide answers to how the universe operates.
CanonSniper, the thing is simple…
If you define faith and knowledge, you’ll get the answer to what is bothering you.
You have faith in what you don’t know and knowledge in what you know.
My question is, even whoever started the religion story didn’t know, that’s why they based everything on faith, so who will ever give them the knowledge they should have about their mystery?
God is all things, not a standalone entity. This is taught of Buddhism.
Buddhism is consistent in that the God you mention doesn’t interfere in ordinary affairs and definitely doesn’t keep a close eye on what you do in the bedroom. Such a God is more pantheistic than supernatural.
Also an FYI. Science is the voice of our Creator. As God speaks, Creation is born.
Poetic, yes. Now prove all that you said.
“I don’t have enough faith to be an Atheist.” You can Google that and take the red pill. I work with plenty of Scientists who have PhDs in Physics, etc. Very many of them believe God created life and the universe, just based upon probability , if nothing else. I think evidence is not the problem of many. It is the heart. What do you WANT to believe?
GOD is mystery and science is discovery… religion is simply an attempt to explain that mystery and the relationship…both are attempts and incomplete and evolving and likely in their teens in terms of evolutionary tine… both travel on different dimensions and have different purposes…
If god creates everyone, who creates god? Spontaneous birth? Buddha is right. We all are made out of nothing and will return to nothing.
My friend their is enough evidence of Jesus pass n message don’t believe me ok it will happen again n also enough evidence from for second coming.
Carlos, when is the second coming? Got a firm date? If that is your justification, why do you withhold belief till then?
G.S, if you really work with scientists like you say, you’d simply be knowing that the heart has nothing to do with what you believe. You mentioning the heart amidst all this makes me question your statement a lot.
G.S. – what you saw has no bearing on what is the truth. Your data could be skewed, you may be mistaken, or you may be lying. At the very least you could have Googled for some data about this topic. Such data exists – and that is that “93% of elite scientists reject God”. Source: Religion Vs Science: Can The Two Coexist? Time: 3:20 min.
I do agree that it is ultimately God belief comes down to what you want to belief. But then, how does it relate to the truth. Or, is it that you don’t care about the truth?
Good thing you love to live in ignorance and waste that brain God gave you to use….
Meaning if you real have faith, even when sick, you shouldn’t go to hospital for treatment because hospitals are scientific!😂
Before we didn’t have color TV so that being said anything is possible since everything is math just doing the math problem to solve the question.
Excellent! Amen!!!
I think you misunderstand faith, or at least my kind. It’s experienced based. I have faith in my wife having experienced her for 50 years. No formal scientific studies needed. Likewise I have faith in Jesus having experienced him for 50 years after previously being agnostic. This experience is partly subjective similar to being with my wife. It’s also objective having had numerous answers to prayer that simply don’t fit the coincidence/ wishful thinking hypothesis. If you want to test this for yourself just say in your head what I did. “I don’t believe you’re real, but if you are please tell me.” Then be ready for the answer!
Mark Quigley,
I find nothing wrong with your definition of faith, unless you use it to determine reality. Hawking said that even people of faith look both ways before crossing a street. That’s the right thing to do.
Faith becomes dangerous when it is imposed on others. For example, when religious fundamentalists fly planes into buildings, or when countries prosecute people who have different faith, or when religion-based laws determine what consenting adults should behave in the privacy of their bedrooms.
If “your” faith remains your faith, there’s no issue at all. If “your” faith is imposed on others, then there’s a big issue.
Yeah, years ago when I was Christian I always wondered why some believers emplace a catch 22 on certain reasonings in their belief. It’s like a mental mind trap. Don’t question it, even if it doesn’t add up. Anything else is the devil talking, God will show you the way in due time. Even in death, it was just your time to go; God called for you even if you weren’t ready. It’s never ending.
With that being said, knowing what I know now, I realize some things may not be worth knowing and ignorance truly is bliss.
On what truth do you base your opinion?
And how do you know all these? You give no logic. No evidence. Not even referrals to mythological stories in the scriptures.
I KNEW eager creationists would flock to this comment section… The only thing that supercedes their ignorance is their confidence 😂 in the last 200 years, science has disproven claim after claim, prophecy after prophecy, and shed light on so many ignroances that we now have only the final 10 percent of questions to be answered, only the biggest and most confounding mysteries lie beyond our cutting edge- and without fail, the dwindling numbers of the believers move the goalpost of god right to where our answers run out, and as we provide new answers, they will move their god just outside our range or current knowledge. If a god does exist- it certainly isn’t a person, and it certainly didn’t write a book and tell people who they can sleep with and what meat to eat- you are a slave to ancient kings with the power over the press… Possibly whatever scientific answer we end up finding to exain the existence of matter could be labeled as “god” so that may be the only thread of hope you can hold on to- but whatever text of lies you subscribe to is certainly not based in reality, and you all look stupid vouching for it in the context of science.
Excellent!!
Full Marks…!
As good an explanation that I need, we were never meant to understand the most asked question in the history of humanity is,what happens to my soul when I die? What’s your theory??
Did God tell you this? Shallow-minded people will always call it God’s work whenever they don’t understand something!
Richard Foster, so we don’t understand life and probably never will, what gave you the idea that it was God’s plan?
Where do you draw your assumption from?
Caution: the following comments contain graphic descriptions of religion and atheism.
… and, most of the authors probably didn’t bother to read the friggin’ article.
This reply got yanked yesterday. And, now it’s back. Pppppth.
Caution: the following comments contain graphic descriptions of religion an atheism.
…and, the authors probably didn’t bother to read the flippin’ article.
@Robert:
“First”?
What’s “second” in your line of wishful thinking?
And you know this how?
Mankind created faith, the concept of believing in something with no evidence. It was and is designed to allow God to exist and persist each time religious dogma is disproven. Earth is not in the center of the solar system or universe, Noah’s ark is a myth, evolution, etc.
Robert Welch, May 18
I am testing to see if this part of the thread is OK for communication. You are right – the other thread is a bit long in the tooth. I suspect the limitation there is the number of nesting levels of comments. I am hoping that the limitation is not in the number of messages.
“I mentioned ‘ dark energy ‘, not ‘ dark matter ‘; the DESI results show that the effects of this force ( whatever it is ) weaken over time, and thus, it is not a constant.”
Ok, yes. Dark energy is such an unknown that people must wait to get more data before even forming a hypothesis. What is worse is that before DESI it was thought that dark energy as a percentage of the Universe’s mass-energy budget grew over time. DESI, of course, suggests the opposite.
“There is no observable evidence of hyperexpansion, since non-ionized hydrogen blocks any chance of observing it, and it has obviously not happened since.”
By ‘hyperexpansion’, I assume that you mean inflation in the first fraction of a second after big bang. There is one evidence – and that has to do with the polarization of the CMB. But I don’t think it is strong evidence. I know some professionals in the area who don’t even believe that inflation happened. So, yes, there is some evidence of inflation – but no strong evidence.
My comments on an Earth-centric model were pretty basic, but this model held up well enough to block Copernican views of the universe for quite some time.
Sun around earth OR spinning earth: Very hard to tell from sun’s motion. The distant stars are too far away to show any difference. The only thing that can show the difference are the close by planets. And, of course, the theory – after Newton discovered them.
The ‘ better way ‘ has been sent to NASA and Yale; it is radical, it involves a high-velocity singularity, and there is observational evidence supporting it ( Google ‘ runaway black hole ‘ regarding Pieter van Dokkum’s discovery in 2023.
Yes, saw the news about Dokkum. I wasn’t aware of that discovery.
You may also check out Hawking’s idea of primordial black holes that he thinks were formed soon after the Big Bang when the whole universe was dense.
The problem with communicating with professionals is that all scientific fields are so narrow and specialized that only a few people understand the papers written in it. I can only understand and have written papers on a sliver of scientific enterprise. But that is not cosmology – so I am not the best person to judge your idea at that level. You may have to read other people’s work in the area – starting with papers of Dokkum. Maybe Hawking’s paper on primordial black holes.
Sorry if I tend to jump from subject to subject. I deal with ADHD; it’s just how I think.
Pieter van Dokkum’s discovery of the black hole jump-starting stellar production gave me the final piece I needed; why the ” we’re inside a black hole ” theory is wrong. It also nearly gave me a panic attack… there was the basis for my hypothesis for all the world to see.
The notion of a beyond three dimensional singularity kickstarting the universe is admittedly ” out there ” as theories go, but vanDokkum’s black hole ( I believe it’s numbered vD23 ) models well with the earliest galaxies. Not perfectly, perhaps, but the similarities are there.
Pieter van Dokkum’s discovery of the black hole jump-starting stellar production gave me the final piece I needed; why the ” we’re inside a black hole ” theory is wrong.
Can you connect the dots for me? How is Dokkum inconsistent with “we’re inside a black hole” theory? From my read, Dokkum’s discovery is just about the position of the black hole – such supermassive black holes are generally at the center of galaxies – this one is not.
The issue with the ‘inside a black hole ‘ theory is that the universe should have been gobbled up by now. A rapidly moving singularity generating new stars should outdistance those stars, preventing them from being absorbed.
VanDokkum’s black hole shows the wake of stars developing in what is described as ‘ episodic ‘ efficiency; more, less, more, less… almost wavelike in appearance. The earliest galaxies ( @300-500my ) show what is described as ‘ Bursty ‘ efficiency; more, less, more, less. Not a smoking gun, evidence-wise, but I feel it’s worth looking into.
Here’s a thought experiment for how this might look. We’re both in a gondola slung below a weather balloon @100,000 ft. I step out first, you follow 5 sec. later. For the purpose of the experiment, let’s assume that once we’re out of the gondola, it and the Earth become invisible, and the only points of reference we have are each other. From your viewpoint, I’m blasting away from you at an ever increasing velocity; from my viewpoint, you’re blasting away from me at an ever increasing velocity… this, despite the fact that we’re both hurtling towards invisible Earth. Now imagine that the Earth is moving away from us at an even higher velocity( it ‘ jumped ‘ before I did ). Simplistic, yes… but doable.
Like I said, this is an ‘ out there ‘ theory, but so far the only placeholder it needs is a beyond three-dimensional singularity, and according to the BBB, we’ve already got one of those.
We are again limited by the nesting. Next time search for “connect the do ts” (remove space in the last word) and hit Reply.
As for your comment in May 21:
Are we inside black hole: there is no point talking about this case. Yes, we may be sucked in. But then again, there may be other situations. We simply know too little about this case. The reason why this is even an idea is because the average temperature of the Universe is equal to the temperature predicted by Hawking of a black hole of a similar mass.
Your analogy about people jumping off a balloon: Yes, I understand it. The physics is correct. But let me give you an additional situation. Suppose you have a box of steel ball bearing. And you drop them one ball bearing every second. Then the falling ball bearings will seem continuous – or very nearly so. The “bursty” nature of your example is because of the “bursty” way we jumped out of the balloon.
The question then is why did they see “bursty” stars? This is because, initially the matter clumped together due to gravity. Then the black hole came about and diverted them. But the stars were “bursty” before the black hole. This explains why the stars were “bursty”?
Can’t find the comment you referenced, so this will probably be my last entry for this thread.
The analogy I gave was the best I could come up with. Describing the effects of a >3-d singularity with a 3-d brain isn’t as easy as it sounds ( yep, that was a joke ).
It was refreshing having a discussion without dodging insults and name-calling. You’ll probably see me post comments on other areas of this platform. Ciao.
Yes, this thread has become too onerous. Nice talking to you. Hopefully next in some other black hole thread…
Science & religion go hand in hand, 2 sides of the same.
Back to the article..I think we’ve found Ribose in the solar system so it’s not that big of a mystery, just needs further exploration.
Hannah, the equivalence between science and religion is a false one. Maybe such equivalence would have been reasonable 2000 years ago. But science progressed since then, but religion didn’t. Science stands for knowledge, religion for ignorance.
AG3 ..why are you so belligerent and condescending ? Hanna is honestly trying to think in both categories. Many great scientists of our past held religious presuppositions .
Do you have a doctorate in Science? If you hold to the presupposition of rationalistic materialism , that is not only your philosophical world view but your religion.
No one on the panel is demeaning you for it.
The Bible is full of lies and contradictions. Jesus was basically a bastard who was born out of wedlock. Mary was not a virgin. Joseph and Mary had sex before marriage and was considered a sin. They created this holy conception story to cover for their sins.
Show your proof.
Which part in my comment did you find belligerent? Science is knowledge seeking. Religion has condemned scientists for seeking knowledge. The two are not equivalent.
What’s funny is these scientist be like “some how” this “some how” that ,u don’t fckn know so it’s all theory’s N guess. Since science based on observation u stupid ahh didn’t observe sh#t 😂 n until this day they still be like “some how”.
WE’RE NOT BUYING THAT
Your approach is actually very scientific. Now, apply that same to the Bible. Did you observe any of what is said in that book? Is it possible that a written book can have imaginary stories? I am guessing you are buying the Bible stories. Why?
As for science – yes, you should be skeptical. You should insist on proof – otherwise, you are free to disbelieve a scientific idea. Such ideas are called hypothesis. The ‘origin of life’ ideas are still in the hypothesis stage.
Talking about the comments from:
Richard Foster
Excellent!.
Full marks
Additionally…
The more we know about science, the more our faith in the Creator should grow… At some point if you want to be the Creator you’re going to have to go get your own “stuff / mud” to Create your own stuff…
Some literary styles are mythical meaning there’s a deeper mystical meaning…
not talking about fantasy…
Or sky Daddy?…Ha. (That’s a good one. I haven’t heard that yet…)
the reason western civilization came back to science in the renaissance was because it was preserved by muslim scholastic monks…religious people…
AG3, religion doesn’t stand for ignorance. Humans set up systems with rules all the time. Consider this, one person can set up a system that operates under a specific set of rules and another person can examine that system in a methodical way to determine what those rules are. When it comes to the universe, God is the one who set up the system, the universe, and established the rules by which it operates, things such as gravity, the string and weak nuclear forces, and so on. We utilize observations of how the universe operates to determine what those rules are. The progression of science just means that we have gotten further in determining what those rules are. What science doesn’t tell us is why those rules exist in the first place. Religion has to do with a belief regarding what the universe has rules that it advise by, that there are established rules that science can discover. The progression of science, therefore, can’t be used to conclude that religion is ignorance. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive. Science is what we do to understand the rules of the universe, religion is about understanding whatever or whoever established those rules in the first place.
CanonSniper, I do not say religion stands for ignorance because science stands for progress. Christianity in particular chose ignorance way before science was any good. Remember the story of the Garden of Eden? Why were Adam and Eve condemned by God? For seeking what? Hopefully, you can see how disastrous that story is for claiming that religion stands for seeking knowledge.
Never, science is based on facts while religion is based on assumptions that can never be proven.
The two can never go hand in hand
Oh, here we go…..
These people go in circles, around, around, around, around. The dog chasing its tail. The reason; they don’t want accountability in the end, they deny The Christ. So they find themselves professing themselves wise, they became fools. In the United States of America 60 million tons of food are thrown away each year, yet my brothers and sisters are starving to death.
We are created to serve however people want to be their own god, little “g”. We are created with a finite mind. People can’t be obedient to God’s simple commands to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and then to love others. All the laws are contained in these two commandments.
You are certain because you are certainly wrong. Finding the truth requires some legwork, and yes, sometimes involves revisiting things.
But then you believe in the divinity Christ with zero evidence to support that. Would you believe anything else with such non-existent evidence? Yet, dedicating the one life you have on this fantasy is a wise course of action.
AG3, do you believe that scientists found the Higgs Boson particle? Were you one of the scientists doing the experiment that found it? Do you understand the science behind a super collider and how we’re able to detect particles that result from smashing atomic sized things together? Or, do you simply trust what you’ve read and heard regarding it? Because the cat majority of people fall into the later category. Most people who trust science trust based on the same sort of evidence that Christians use to trust that Jesus is the Christ, testimonial evidence that’s recorded and circulated.
So, if you want to claim that Christians don’t have any evidence for the things they believe, then, by that logic, you don’t have any evidence to believe the vast majority of what humanity as a while knows via scientific exploration.
And don’t attempt to say it’s not the same, because I’ll simply insist you explain how it’s logically different, and then breakdown the problems of any answer you give.
CanonSniper, we’ve seen evidence of vast things science has done, can you show me any evidence of what religion talks about other than what is only written?
Let’s go by the simplest example..
Why do people die?
Science explains it, but religion can never have an answer to that other than blaming unknown entities!
CanonSniper, your question is an important one. You should also follow up on ElManfred’s question below which is also a good one.
My answer is below … (sorry about the length!)
First, I do not blindly believe any scientific claim. This is an important difference between science and religion. There’s no pope in science. Even Einstein had been wrong in several places, and other scientists called him out on it. Scientists need to prove their claims with evidence and logic.
After that first step, your question becomes relevant. How do I personally verify each claim? Clearly, I won’t have all the data. I am a non-expert in nearly all scientific disciplines. Here, initially I personally make a judgment about motivation of the scientist. Is the scientist from Titanic shipping company giving me advice on floatation of ships? Obviously, there is a conflict of interest. A few years ago a few scientists employed by the oil giants used to sow doubts on climate change. Even today, many scientific papers funded by big pharma push drugs in the US (and in the US you cannot avoid the ads for drugs, which I find troubling). Such possibly biased scientists need to work harder to back up their claims.
What I trust more (more, not absolute trust) are scientists that are reviewed by their peers. See, the peers are constantly trying to prove their colleagues wrong. The incentives in science are set up that way. So, if a scientist makes a false claim, then it is likely that he will be caught. Because other scientists will try to repeat his experiments, and then fail, and then the whole falsehood will blow up. This has happened many times – scientists have been known to lie also. Notice the difference with religion. Religion goes on faith, not evidence. Faith, in fact, is by definition belief without evidence. So, religious people do not ask for evidence. Some religious people will say that their holy book is evidence. It is not. It is a book. Books can contain any collection of words. Evidence is derived from nature. The evidence for a supreme God should be strong and all around us.
A bit of a segue – I am wary of following a recently made claim. One area I am particularly concerned about is about dieting. Newfangled diets may ultimately be proven wrong – but that takes time. I don’t want to believe the one scientists who touts his new diet. I’d wait.
So, now I am left with scientific claims whose logic has been peer reviewed and where other scientists have run experiments to verify such claims. I have good confidence in those claims – because of the multiple confirmations. The next question is the one below from ElManfred – and that is about how useful those claims have been in recent past. Even science – with all its evidence and logic and peer reviews – need to have a long history of successful outcomes. It needs to be useful. And data strongly suggests it does. Scientific techniques work. Electronic gadgets work. Internet works. Cars work. Vaccines work. Drugs work. Planes fly.
Another segue. I also look for the scientist to explain things in simple terms. I do not have expertise in all scientific fields, but I have good background in one or two. A scientist in another field needs to be able to explain things to me in simple terms. I may not understand the math (say, as in your Higgs Boson example) – and for that I am trusting the peer review process and the experiments, but I understand the basics enough that an expert should be able to explain things to me in simple terms. Again, this is not a perfect method, but this filters out those scientists who say that ‘it is too complex for you, you won’t understand.’
Talking about the comments from:
Richard Foster
Excellent!.
Full marks
Additionally…
The more we know about science, the more our faith in the Creator should grow… At some point if you want to be the Creator you’re going to have to go get your own “stuff / mud” to Create your own stuff…
Some literary styles are mythical meaning there’s a deeper mystical meaning…
not talking about fantasy…
Or sky Daddy?…Ha. (That’s a good one. I haven’t heard that yet…)
Rich,
You say: “The more we know about science, the more our faith in the Creator should grow” – why?
This is not obvious at all. If anything, the reverse seems to be true. Zeus was a powerful God before science knew about lightning. Now, he is a forgotten God. How did our scientific knowledge of lightning help with faith in Zeus?
try family meals
Even under wildly generous assumptions—every one of the Universe’s ∼10^80 particles interacting at every Planck time for 13.8 billion years (∼10^140 interactions)—the chance of assembling a 150-amino-acid protein capable of folding into a stable, functional structure is about 1 in 10^164.
Ribose, meanwhile, is just one of at least 114 possible C₅H₁₀O₅ isomers, and prebiotic “formose” chemistry yields ribose in under 1 % of products—placing the probability of randomly producing ribose at well below 1 in 10^4. Random, unguided processes thus cannot mathematically account for the existence of functional proteins or RNA.
The only True God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—made the Universe.
And what do you reckon is the probability that God spontaneously self assembled?
I would like AG3 to explain how body organs evolved. As everyone knows one organ alone can’t survive w/o the presence of others. Now we are talking complexity no?
Skin is our largest organ Was the life sustaining organs exposed to the environment w/o this covering. But then some kind of covering was necessary right?
This simple analogy should be a simple one to explain…I’m waiting.
Actually this is in the textbooks. You seem to think that organs evolved one by one, separately – your skin example seems to suggest that. That is not hw things work. It wasn’t the case that suddenly there was found a human kidney at the bottom of an ancient lake.
At another level – suppose we didn’t know how various species / organs evolved. That was certainly the case before Darwin. But then … How does that prove God?
There was a time when we didn’t know how lightning happened. Does that mean that Zeus existed at that time?
If you want to prove God – then you need to do that without any consideration of the ignorance of science. Science is ignorant of many, many things.
What an answer!! And that is just one component of life, what about the rest!
Those who think life is complex and needs a creator, need to explain why God, who is far more complex than life, doesn’t need one.
We are created to serve however people want to be their own god, little “g”. We are created with a finite mind. People can’t be obedient to God’s simple commands to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and then to love others. All the laws are contained in these two commandments.
Here we go, a basic premise of this research is so far off-base, and already proven to be false. The early Earth, like most planets in formation, had an incredibly thick atmosphere, which geological evidence states was 250 to 300 times as dense as it is today. An 8,000 mile ball of molten lava outgassed an incredible amount of material, and was expected to be well over 400 C in temperature. Just look at Venus if you want a sample of what it probably was like, but loaded with ammonia, nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. It’s essentially the recipe for tholin plus the proper conditions for organic compound formation. These researchers might want to rethink their work.
Peace. Silly Atheists can’t get that they’ll never find anything in the Physical Created universe that’s existed for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Atheist unicorns and ferries and pixie dust right there on the International Date Line. The Only day that’s ever existed on this eartH ( Heart ) is TODAY. 🤔🙃❤️🫵✌️
Atheists have today. Theists may have tomorrow, though from the lack of evidence chances seem slim.
If life is not a miracle, our existence is not important.
Why so? How do you define importance?
I’m waiting AG3
Please explain how the organs of our body evolved independently of each other.
Remember evolution is supposed to be from the simple to complex right. ?
I have answered your question in the original – though a single post cannot make up for a lack of basic schooling. But then – how does your question relate to this particular discussion thread? Don’t ask question without stating the purpose for it.
Guy, you asked your question 1.5 hrs prior to the above comment and got impatient and demanded an answer. I answered 1.5+ days ago, and you seem to be absent.
These forums are visited infrequently – I get that. But then you should apply your own urgency to yourself. You ask for lightning speed responses, and then disappear for days. Realize that that makes you look unreasonable and rude.
I like corresponding with people with different ideas – but I won’t talk with unreasonable people. Goodbye.
Or, are you being poetic with a little help of some fine wine?
Why do scientists believe that lice developed in the direction from simple to complex forms, when all we can witness around us shows that all complex things tend to break down into their components, and these components into their compinents, molecules into atoms… And even the atoms break down into whatever makes them…
Obviously, in the beginning there was the One, and from the breaking of the One all things emerged.
*life
Not just life – almost everything around us evolve from simple to complex. Almost all of the planets have assembled from dust. Stars form from hydrogen atoms. A single human is simpler than a city full of such humans. This happens because when there are many different components then new properties of the assemblage emerge.
Even if none of the above is true, it does not follow that “from the breaking of the One all things emerged.” You have to show the One. You have to describe the One. You have to tell us what happens when the One breaks. You have to show that we are the products when the One breaks.
This is not even what Christianity or any other major preach. So, I am not sure what you are getting at here.
If only there was some scientist who was teaching this to the public for the last ten years by the name of James Tour we wouldn’t have had to wait for the Scripps Institute of all people to catch up on basic chemistry.