Comments on: Comments on Zimmer's "Can A Scientist Define Life?

By: Karo Michaelian

Karo Michaelian — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 22:00:31 +0000

I believe that life is predominantly about dissipating solar photons into heat. Please have a view and comment on my book;
https://www.createspace.com/Preview/1208045

By: Vin Creek

Vin Creek — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:31:43 +0000

Interesting discussion. I don’t think self-replication is the baseline for the definition of life. Let’s take a simple example – bees. Neuters are not involved in self-replication. However, they live an active life. I think it’s more about the ability to grow by the means of absorbing and actively changing substances. What do you think?

By: Marc Tessera

Marc Tessera — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:59:28 +0000

“‘Self-reproduction with variations’ is a great definition of life”: a great definition or just a n+1 definition?

By: Lexx

Lexx — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:53:19 +0000

“Self-reproduction with variations” is a great definition of life, probably the most correct one I’ve ever read. As to determining if the origin on life and humans in particular actually comes from “primordial soup”, we will need an entire planet (or a smaller independent micro-biosphere and a technical possibility to speed up processes so that we could observe in, say, 10 years what actually tool billions years. That would answer many questions.

By: Marc Tessera

Marc Tessera — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:54:22 +0000

Dear P.A. Wahid,
I agree with people who are saying that â??We can know nothing about the origin of lifeâ?. The same when it is said that â??We can know nothing about the origin of the soul” or “â??We can know nothing about the origin of Godâ? etc.
This is clearly because these entities belong to metaphysics. By contrast it is not true that we can know nothing about the origin of the primordial ancestor on Earth, actually on the origin of all the terrestrial systems, extant and past, which stemmed from Darwinian evolution. In fact, we can know a lot about the origin of Darwinian evolution, scientifically speaking.

By: P.A. Wahid

P.A. Wahid — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:55:23 +0000

Marc Tessera may call it metaphysical, creationism, mixing science with metaphysics, etc. Everybody else also views any Scriptural revelation-based similarly. The basis of my theory is Quranic revelation of nonphysical basis of life. Current scientific view that a material (DNA) constitutes biological program responsible for life activities of organism is wrong because the genome is intact in a dead cell. Why it cannot show sign of life? Life is irreversibly lost from the system. Quranic assertion that deletion of nafs (biosoftware or soul) causes death explains the phenomenon. This is Quranic challenge. Can anybody restore life to a dead cell or create a living cell through chemical synthesis without involving a living cell?
Dozens of theories of origin of life have been advanced in biology. But none of them suggests how life originated. Yet they all go by the name “theories of origin of life”. Further, none of these theories is testable or falsifiable. They also do not leave any prediction for testing or falsifying. These are the criteria generally adopted for distinguishing a scientific theory from pseudoscience. In spite of that all these theories are accepted as scientific! It is impossible to define life on the basis of material genome. Life and death can only be defined in the light of the Quranic revelations. This is a challenge I put up to biologists and atheists.

By: Marc Tessera

Marc Tessera — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:43:18 +0000

â??If intellect is a product of evolution the whole mechanistic concept of the nature and origin of life is absurd, and the principle which science has adopted must clearly be revised. We have only to state it to see the self-contradiction. How can the intellect, a mode of apprehending reality, be itself an evolution of something which only exists as an abstraction of that mode of apprehending, which is the intellect?â?
From my point of view such sentences have nothing to do with science. Those are clearly metaphysical thoughts. Besides, according to the text cited by Shafiq Khan, Wildon Carr clearly confirmed this point of view: â??Clearly the biological sciences necessitate a reconsideration of the scientific principleâ?.
I would like just to add that Dr. Wildon Carr was the advocate of Bergson’s philosophy in England and that Henri Bergson defended the concept of â??vitalismâ?.

By: Mohammad Shafiq Khan

Mohammad Shafiq Khan — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:30:36 +0000

Wildon Carr has described logical aspect of evolution in a passage which is quoted as follows;
â??If intellect is a product of evolution the whole mechanistic concept of the nature and origin of life is absurd, and the principle which science has adopted must clearly be revised. We have only to state it to see the self-contradiction. How can the intellect, a mode of apprehending reality, be itself an evolution of something which only exists as an abstraction of that mode of apprehending, which is the intellect? If intellect is an evolution of life, then the concept of the life which can evolve intellect as a particular mode of apprehending reality must be the concept of a more concrete activity than that of any abstract mechanical movement which the intellect can present to itself by analyzing its apprehended content. And yet further, if the intellect be a product of the evolution of life, it is not absolute but relative to the activity of the life which has evolved it; how then, in such case, can science exclude the subjective aspect of the knowing and build on the objective presentation as an absolute? Clearly the biological sciences necessitate a reconsideration of the scientific principle.â??
I wonder how evolutionists would answer Wildon Carr. In an article titled ‘Theory of Origin & Phenomenon of Life’ published in Indian Journal of Science & Technology and available free on http://www.indjst.org (Augst 2010)the author has tried to explain what is life.

By: Marc Tessera

Marc Tessera — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 13:48:40 +0000

From P.A. Wahidâ??s responses evolutionists have a new illustration of the problem with the creationistâ??s arguments.
Considering the concept of life as belonging to the physical/material world puts evolutionists in a very weak position, actually an impossible position, when facing creationistâ??s arguments (such as P.A. Wahidâ??s) in the debate on the origin of life. It is too easy for creationists to say: â??Evolutionists claim they will be able to find how life began while nobody can define life, physically or materially speakingâ?.
In this impossible position evolutionists are actually dealing with a metaphysical concept (without realizing it is) and thus mixing science and metaphysics, as P.A. Wahid does in his comments.
On the contrary evolutionists must realize that the hypothetic boundary between living and nonliving systems and the miraculous moment when nonliving systems would have become living are totally arbitrary. They must realize that the statement that such boundary and moment exist is not falsifiable because no experiment can be envisaged to prove it to be false.
Moreover evolutionists must consider the hypothesis that the existence of all terrestrial systems, extant and past, stemming from Darwinian evolution can be explained only by the emergence of Darwinian evolution in the inorganic world on earth about 4 billion years ago.

By: P.A. Wahid

P.A. Wahid — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:15:38 +0000

Phenomenon of life is definable, understandable and scientifically explainable in the light of Quranic revelations based on computer model of organism, as given above in my previous comment above. Life is nonmaterial phenomenon. We have to accept that. This would imply that our present concept of molecular gene (genome) as encoding biological program is wrong. The failure of experiments to create life from nonlife materials without involving living cell or organism is the proof of nonmaterial nature of biological program (biosoftware). Once we accept this, phenomenon of life will be explainable. The failure of the experiments prove the validity of the Quranic revelation and hence the existence of God scientifically. We should be prepared to accept this truth. The divine revelations predict failure of experiments to create life from nonlife in future also. To create life from nonlife by chemical synthesis without in anyway involving living materials is an impossible proposition. The failure indicates the prediction is correct. Thus it is scientifically proved.