McCollom, T. M. (2013). Miller-Urey and beyond: What have learned about prebiotic organic synthesis reactions in the past 60 years? Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 41_, 207-229.

http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/1 ... 133457#_i2

I prefer not to pay for the article ...


Ferris, J. P. (2006). Montmorillonite-catalysed formation of RNA oligomers: The possible role of catalysis in the origins of life. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. Bio.l Sci., 361(1474), 1777–1786. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2006.1903.

I took the comment about "once a process is known" as being more of a historical commentary on how many things that humans have said "That's impossible!" about... Not as a scientific principle or law.


"Religious people like to look at atheists as "faithless, lost"... I disagree. "
That wasn't aimed at you Murray. It was a gross generalization, and in my experience holds water well.
That sentiment extends well past "faithless and lost" all the way to heresy and shunning. The psychological pressure placed on apostates is incredible... So much so, that the feeling of being kicked off a team convinces a lot of people to stick around and pretend to be devoted church members.


Agreed... I read through some of the earlier posts including my own, and I certainly would have said some things differently even, so how well can personal viewpoints ever be expressed?


That was my point.
Here comes personal anecdotes, which I consider at least as valid as quotes by other humans.
The worst hypocrites who I have ever met have been religious... The worst humans who I have had to deal with in life have all been religious.
The other side of that- The best humans who I have had dealings with in life have been religious or atheist, seemingly without any difference in my perception of "goodness."
I am not picking on religion at all- I am pointing out that in my life's experience there doesn't seem to be any correlation between religiosity and goodness.

After I typed that about not picking on religion I typed out a few things that were specific to a few religions... But deleted them because we all know about them and I really do not want to offend my brethren. The actions go on all over the world, every day.


Same same. I have strong opinions, but I readily admit that I also have a strong belief "system" now. My belief system leans strongly to science, and strongly against the supernatural.


There was never a question in my mind.
I like when people disagree without being disagreeable. I think we've all posted a few things that we find to be convincing... Yet miraculously, our discussion partner remains unconvinced and of a different opinion.


Same same! I was surprised at the characterization of some of the experiments, their results and interpretations. I am not a professional, just an enthusiast, so I am pumped to hear from someone who knows more about it. Quantum physics is right up at there at the top of my list of most interesting subjects along with cosmology.
Bring it on Spork! Help us out.


I get a slight buzz after a sip or two of beer... When I bring a bottle of hard alcohol up it'll be a gift, not to share with me.

I still think the glass of water is neither half full, nor half empty. It's just half a glass of water.

Thanks for the elaboration. That actually made more sense than the squirrel chasing his nuts.

So what is the explanation (for non-physics majors) of the Wave/particle duality? I have read about light acting as a wave yet also a particle from experimentation depending on the setup. This has always been hard to grasp, even after reading Heisenberg, Einstein, etc.

Thanks for the link. I’ll see if I can find the paper in full without paying but may just bite the bullet. I agree with the abstract statement “Questions remain, however, concerning whether the conditions that allow synthesis of these compounds in the laboratory accurately simulate those that might have been present on the early Earth, and a closer convergence between plausible prebiotic conditions and laboratory simulations remains a challenge for experimentalists.”, Since I work and do research in Biology (as opposed to trying to read Physics), I should have no problem with the paper. I feel more comfortable reading papers in my areas than that odd quantum field. I can see why Eiinstein’s hair was so funky. I recalled Miller-Urey from years ago and there are various issues but no sense beating a horse into glue since my take would be similar to other posts.

If you have more than one scientist analyzing data from an experiment, there is more likely to be differing conclusions but the probability may not easily be calculated. Three scientists walk into a bar...

My hope is that I am not too old and live long enough to see more breakthroughs in my field of Molecular with DNA and genetic therapy. I always tell people they should get their DNA tested and work with a good doctor. I have found many issues going through my data that I would have never known to treat until it a disease state set in.

To Mike: wow, on that last post I agreed with all you said. Although I had forgotten you do not drink much (more for me). I also wanted to clear up when I referred to mocking I meant a few of the closed threads that got out of hand. Luckily this never got off the rails even with our disagreements.

I also agree with JB but then I have no clue what life meaning we can derive from that.

STOE The Squirrels it a purposly silly example to illustrate the fallacy of making the infetential leap from model to system.

Quantum theories and general relativity are only the latest in an ongoing effort to greater understanding but they certainly are not the final answer and in either case do not and cannot replace reality. At best they are a description of our state of knowledge of realty and not an actual measure of reality. It's a subtle but not unimportant distinction.

Wave-particle thing. So far our observations cannot be clearly explained without causing confusion - simple as that. The tools we have are simply not up to the task of properly explaining things to our satisfaction. Is the problem reality, our tools or our hubris at expecting to have things comprehensible to our 3% beyond chimps brains? I vote 3% is the real issue - see how humble I am!

Ponder this disconnect. Quantum theory is based on the concept of matter (particles) / energy is quantized but the most common forms of mathematics used involve continuous wave formulation - is there any suprise that one constantly runs into discontinuities and singularities?

Same goes for GR -if we continue the theme of quantized energy but continuous function forms be prepared to find discontinuities and singularities (mathermatics tupes not black hole types - terrible use of labels here).

The real issue here is the choice of tools. We need better tools.

If one is unfamiliar with the mathematics of coordinate transformations then just skip to the next post. Using spherical polar coordinates the equation for a sphere is trivially simple but using Cartesian coordinates the form of the equation is quite messy - the sphere is still a sphere and could care less the forms of your silly equations.

These kinds of transformations are also used in quantum theory but in a much more generalized manner. It is typical to think of particles (electron for example) as discrete things but they are treated mathematically as a continuous field. Not just one particle but all of them.

These fields can be represented by what ever form one likes as one choises the functional form of choice and performs the transformation operation - just like the previous example or sphere, spherical or Cartesian coordinates. If one choises wisely the resulting funtions are simple and easy to comprehend but if one chooses unwisely the resulting forms are messy.

Either way there is still embedded the issue quantization versus continuous formulations. These generally manifest as singularities (values of infinity) that have to be dealt with - physicists use a trick called renormalization and simply divide by a relevant type of infinity - mathematicians find such a practice absurd and indefensable. But, we need to make the tools we have work ...

Generally speaking the entire exercise of Reality, Model and interpretation is exactly the same as coordinate transformation. Propose a model (quantum theory or squirrels), then the crank and get predictions - good results validate the model and if the model is chosen wisely the results are comfortably comprehedable. Choose unwisely (even if it's a good model with excellent results/predictions) and the forms of the solutions are maddeningly confusing and even contadictory.

Basically this concept of wave-particle duality is symptomatic of an unwise choice.

I think I am following your logic, although I have not studied transformations in over 30 years. Theoretically I can see your point but am still stuck somewhat on the experimental results showing wave vs particle data with results on detectors but at least now I can go back and look at the data with this in mind. My work is experimental and theories are not as strange (or mathematical) in biological science.

We just do not seem to understand the quantum arena like we do Newtonian physics and it is not surprising physicists disagree and are hard to pin down, even as Einstein and Bohr debated. My information came from physics professors but I know that even PhD’s of any field will have opposing views. I have dealt with that on occasion when working with chemists who have Doctorates and was told my research approach was impossible and would not yield anything usable only to have them proven wrong.

Although Mike dislikes my prophecy approach, I also use PhD research (ie. scholars of history, biblical, language, etc) to come to conclusions. However, like all fields, you can get many different viewpoints so we end up using our experiences to come to that conclusion and those are not just wierd experiences but things we learn and are taught. Ideas may change with further information and that is why I like to talk with people about their ideas, even if I do not hold the same. We don't learn as much from people we agree with.

In the end, I think we just need to continue with dialogue because otherwise we stagnate and do not move forward in our knowledge. Like Pink Floyd said, all we need to do is keep talking. One of the big problems these days is there is too much division and many people will not even listen (gun/anti-gun, left/right, black/white, etc). Rodney King would not be happy. Thanks again for your take.

I think how many years of math are needed to understand should actually be infinite. With all the interpretations you can find for experimental results, it seems nobody really understands why.