Nasa finds new life form

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101203/tsc...23fef.html

Why do these people get excited with finding these new life forms? They need to know how DNA became encoded.

Why would they not get excited? Nature and scientific discovery are wonderful things, it advances our knowlege and often benefits society. Plus the more things we continue to explain in natural terms, is another nail in the coffin of outdated supernatural beliefs, organised religion and the indoctrination of children.

I think it's believed that DNA evolved from earlier RNA and nucleic acids, it's just evolution of biochemistry.

My (very very limited) understanding is that RNA is the only known molecule that can both encode and pass on genetic information, which is why it's in the news. TheWatcher's story is fascinating as it re-writes the rules again - which I think is of interest to most people.

It is quite fascinating. What will they find next?

(04-12-2010 15:05 )lucent-x Wrote:  Why would they not get excited? Nature and scientific discovery are wonderful things, it advances our knowlege and often benefits society. Plus the more things we continue to explain in natural terms, is another nail in the coffin of outdated supernatural beliefs, organised religion and the indoctrination of children.

I think it's believed that DNA evolved from earlier RNA and nucleic acids, it's just evolution of biochemistry.

Has a science graduate in biology and chemistry who's study modules included applied molecular biology, biochemistry and micro biology, all I see is a new bacteria that is capable of fixing Arsenic.

I have not read the original findings nor looked at the theories, other than the brief article, but it says it can substitute phosphorus for arsenic. Put it this way, the misery of encoded DNA (RNA is just a carrier molecule, remember the axiom of science from your school days, 'DNA makes RNA makes protein' ?(unless your a retrovirus and scrap that). DNA has a sugar/phosphate 'back bone', all these people are saying, is that they speculate the original DNA had arsenic in the backbone rather than phosphorus, that being a later adaptation, that is all. Having a sugar/arsenic back bone says no more about the encoding of DNA than the phosphorus does.

Personally, I'm a little sceptical about that, if these organisms are still around now, they must have been round from the very beginning, and you'd expect to see many more examples of Arsenic DNA in nature.

So what we have here is people getting a little over excited out of very little merely because of a few scientist speculation. There is, as far has I can see, no evidence to back this claim up that DNA was originally a sugar/ arsenic structure, it's purely speculation by these scientist who found the organism. If all fossilized DNA (where it to be found) had this structure, they may have a better claim.

There are three types of people who study science, those that know and are objective, those that know and like to get carried away with their findings and quote ologys at the third type, those that have very little knowledge of science and just accept what people tell them as fact when in reality there is nothing there except an interesting idea. You'd be surprised just how many people are very ignorant of even the fundamentals of science.

You mention your 'nail in the coffin.... indoctrination of children' etc, and this is where your jumping to conclusion comes from and getting over excited about nothing. Science says nothing about religion, it's not it's job and never will be. That is the most fundamental error people make regarding science, as some one trained in science, doesn't half irrigate me. It is not a battle against religion vs science, indeed the early pioneer in genetics was a monk, Mendel. If scientific finding has an effect on any given religious dogma (ie the age of the earth) that is up to them to either deny or come to terms with it.

We live in a material world and there are material mechanisms behind it science seeks to understand by empiricle investigation these mechanisms. Whether a God created it or it just happened is an irrelevance to science. Science knows the structure of DNA, it knows the mechanisms, ie the chemical bonds, it knows what DNA is made out (arsenic included now) what it doesn't know, is how atoms and molecules that have nothing more than electromagnetic attraction and a desire to obtain noble gas status not only become encoded, but can also manufacture other molecules. I doubt that science ever will.

There's certainly nothing in this article that's remotely near a step forward.


I would advise you to study much more science in detail, it's cool.

(05-12-2010 21:25 )loulo12 Wrote:  ...Whether a God created it or it just happened is an irrelevance to science...

With you until this point.

This sort of dogma is as flawed as that you were criticising.

(06-12-2010 18:08 )MeTarzan Wrote:  

(05-12-2010 21:25 )loulo12 Wrote:  ...Whether a God created it or it just happened is an irrelevance to science...

With you until this point.

This sort of dogma is as flawed as that you were criticising.

I fail to see why, where is the flaw?



My response was to lucent-x, who used his response to indicate he thought it was 'another nail' in the coffin of religious belief.

I merely was stating that from a day to day science point of view experiments are not being conducted to either falsify or confirm the existence of any creator, merely to explain the mechanisms be which a certain phenomena progress or may occur.

If this obviates the necessity for a creator for some is really neither here nor there to the experiment being undertaken.

Indeed, if an atheist scientist is going out of his/ her way to prove there is no God (one it would never happen) then they are introducing a bias. One only need think of the claim for the missing links early last century.

I think you may have misunderstood me.

ps, why is it a dogma? isn't a dogma strictly held belief/ideology. I'm struggling to see where my saying whether the issue of whether there's a God or not to a scientist conduction a particular experiment is irrelevant is dogma.

(06-12-2010 19:09 )loulo12 Wrote:  I merely was stating that from a day to day science point of view experiments are not being conducted to either falsify or confirm the existence of any creator, merely to explain the mechanisms be which a certain phenomena progress or may occur.

Thanks for the clarification, Loulo12:

But this still strikes me as a reductionist viewpoint.

After all, experiments are frequently undertaken to prove/disprove a theory - so conducting one to prove/disprove the existance of God (supposing such an experiment could be designed) is perfectly legitimate science is it not?

Mind you, the advocates of a religious explanation for the world around us are used to working in a vacuum, so little would be achieved.

(05-12-2010 21:25 )loulo12 Wrote:  Has a science graduate in biology and chemistry who's study modules included applied molecular biology, biochemistry and micro biology, all I see is a new bacteria that is capable of fixing Arsenic.

I have not read the original findings nor looked at the theories, other than the brief article, but it says it can substitute phosphorus for arsenic. Put it this way, the misery of encoded DNA (RNA is just a carrier molecule, remember the axiom of science from your school days, 'DNA makes RNA makes protein' ?(unless your a retrovirus and scrap that). DNA has a sugar/phosphate 'back bone', all these people are saying, is that they speculate the original DNA had arsenic in the backbone rather than phosphorus, that being a later adaptation, that is all. Having a sugar/arsenic back bone says no more about the encoding of DNA than the phosphorus does.

Personally, I'm a little sceptical about that, if these organisms are still around now, they must have been round from the very beginning, and you'd expect to see many more examples of Arsenic DNA in nature.

So what we have here is people getting a little over excited out of very little merely because of a few scientist speculation. There is, as far has I can see, no evidence to back this claim up that DNA was originally a sugar/ arsenic structure, it's purely speculation by these scientist who found the organism. If all fossilized DNA (where it to be found) had this structure, they may have a better claim.

There are three types of people who study science, those that know and are objective, those that know and like to get carried away with their findings and quote ologys at the third type, those that have very little knowledge of science and just accept what people tell them as fact when in reality there is nothing there except an interesting idea. You'd be surprised just how many people are very ignorant of even the fundamentals of science.

You mention your 'nail in the coffin.... indoctrination of children' etc, and this is where your jumping to conclusion comes from and getting over excited about nothing. Science says nothing about religion, it's not it's job and never will be. That is the most fundamental error people make regarding science, as some one trained in science, doesn't half irrigate me. It is not a battle against religion vs science, indeed the early pioneer in genetics was a monk, Mendel. If scientific finding has an effect on any given religious dogma (ie the age of the earth) that is up to them to either deny or come to terms with it.

We live in a material world and there are material mechanisms behind it science seeks to understand by empiricle investigation these mechanisms. Whether a God created it or it just happened is an irrelevance to science. Science knows the structure of DNA, it knows the mechanisms, ie the chemical bonds, it knows what DNA is made out (arsenic included now) what it doesn't know, is how atoms and molecules that have nothing more than electromagnetic attraction and a desire to obtain noble gas status not only become encoded, but can also manufacture other molecules. I doubt that science ever will.

There's certainly nothing in this article that's remotely near a step forward.


I would advise you to study much more science in detail, it's cool.

Well you seem to have read a lot of things into a 3 sentence post. I never suggested this was anything other than the discovery of bacteria capable of fixing Arsenic. It was you who brought up DNA encoding when the article is about this discovery offering 'new hope in the search for other organisms on Earth and beyond', you bizarrely lament this discovery because it wasn't a different discovery.

There's nothing wrong with a bit of passion and excitement in your work, it's science not accountancy, and it would have been a rather flat article if it was a bunch of dull quotes saying nothing and offering no thoughts or opinions. You object to speculation, why? speculation is important, it's not as if this is being rushed out to the masses as the definitive answer to the emergence of life. Why not speculate and imagine, and allow it to take you into other areas of research and ideas.

I spoke about religion, not god, there's a difference. The entity(s) 'God' is indeed, by most definitions, out of the realm of science, but religion is full of, and to many dependent on, claims, stories and miracles that directly conflict with scientific findings. I was suggesting that scientific discovery in general - not this latest discovery, hence it being added as a plus point after saying 'Nature and scientific discovery are wonderful things' - has, and does, continue indirectly to give religion the near coup de grâce kick in the sacks it deserves. Of course it's not the 'aim' of science to disprove religion, that's the bonus that comes from it as far as I'm concerned. You may not care in the slightest about religion, fine, but I see it as sinister, harmful, abusive and restricting. I'm suprised, given the oft abuse of science by creationists - a young earth, law-violating evolution, intelligent design and irreducible complexity etc. that you aren't in anyway concerned that this misapplication of science, in the name of religion, is being fed as fact to children from birth to deny them their natural choices, opinions and personalities.

As to your final advice, 'I would advise you to study much more science in detail...', firstly, don't be patronising; and secondly,'it's cool', yes I know, that was the sodding reason for my post.