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From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (beth d. christy)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: What is this thing called life?
Message-ID: <365@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 10:34:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.365
Posted: Thu Apr 25 10:34:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Apr-85 05:14:03 EDT
References: cybvax0.453 <519@syteka.UUCP>, <799@mhuxt.UUCP>
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
Lines: 33


> Open question here. Everyone can have a shot at it. Leif de HP's
> sci-fi case for creationism opened with the assertion that 
> the evolution paradigm demands that life arise from non-life.
> Now I've never seen this anywhere and I've scarfed down more
> than my share of text on evolution. In fact, I don't recall that
> theorists discussing evolution even touch the subject of life
> versus rocks except as personal opinion footnotes. 
>
> If I'm wrong about this and evolution does accept as a premise
> that life emerged from non-living stuff, then someone please
> straighten me out. (Is non-life dead? Or UNDEAD!!!? Aaaoooooo!!)
> 
> Jim McCrae / Sytek / Mountain View CA {hplabs,decvax}!sytek!jtm

I believe it's the case that even creationists believe that life on earth
came from non-life.  The issue is *how* it did it.  Did non-living things
rearrange themselves randomly until they were able to get up and go to
the refrigerator during commercial breaks?  Or did some really unique
form of life rearrange the non-living stuff into living stuff?  (The
fact that something "living" was involved in this latter scenario is
not saying that life "came from" life - the raw materials used were
still not living.)  Creationists don't usually deal with the issue of
where that really unique form of life came from, and when they do they
usually make wierd faces and say something like it "always existed".  But
they do seem to believe that life on earth came from non-life, especially if
they buy the Genesis account of God creating Adam from dust (and, of course,
the old dust-to-dust stuff).

Comments?

--JB  (not Elizabeth, not Beth Ann, not Mary Beth...Just Beth)