Totally artificial life, getting a lot closer:

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
But what ID’s normally mean by “intelligent design” in the context of life is “God’s design” and that means NOT “human design” for they claim that a “God” MUST have designed life.
Therefore, a demonstration that an intelligent designer that is NOT a “god” can produce life is evidence against their claim.

My original post was in jest, but logically this is a demonstration of intelligent design. This is a long way from saying that ID is the cause of all life on the planet. To show that you need to demonstrate the presence of a designer.

Since ID´ers can´t do that they take shots at the weaker parts of the natural abiogenesis natural selection theory. One of their key arguments is the implausibility of simple molecules spontaneously organizing themselves into cells. The experiment demonstrates that it is not hard to polymerize RNA bases in the right conditions. It is also straightforward to synthesize one of the RNA bases; adenine can be made by heating aqueous cyanide. But you need to get from a simple auto-catalysing molecule up to something with 150 genes to have a molecule that could realistically act as cellular RNA.

Since there is a good 500 million year window for life to get from a chemical soup to something recognizable as a cell, being able to parts of it in a laboratory within a human lifetime strengthens the natural origin of life theory. But this is hardly the death-knell for the ID position.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I would think that proof that a non-god can create life would set them off. According to them, only God can create life. I would imagine if it actually came about, they would argue what we created is not really life.

You mean by human design?
Kelly

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
But what ID’s normally mean by “intelligent design” in the context of life is “God’s design” and that means NOT “human design” for they claim that a “God” MUST have designed life.
Therefore, a demonstration that an intelligent designer that is NOT a “god” can produce life is evidence against their claim.

There are two groups of people that look at design, those as you
describe them, 'God did it', and those that just say, 'it was done.'

You and others here always look at design by viewing all people who
look at design as 'God did it' even when the discussion isn't about
that, you turn it towards that as if that was the only discussion on the
table.

I suggest you look at intelligent design as something apart from who
did it, it doesn't matter. If you want to talk about creation and who
did that, that is another topic all together.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I suggest you look at intelligent design as something apart from who did it, it doesn't matter.

You´ve been getting away with this for too long. The identity of the designer is a critical flaw in the theory of Intelligent Design. Either your designer is a supernatural entity, or it is not. Now if you want to have a supernatural designer then it is not clear to me that there is any need for intelligent design beyond choosing the laws of physics, as God is going to create a universe which generates life anyway. If the designer is not supernatural then they are limited by physics constraints. The theory starts to develop some serious problems as it is simply implausible that another species could exist for long enough to guide the development of life on this planet for 4 billion years. Either you have to explain this or abandon the notion of a non-supernatural designer.

Originally posted by KellyJay
You mean by human design?
Kelly

Of course, by human design. IMHO, human design may lead to life forms not known on this planet, there are variations on the regular DNA helix we could use, like instead of the double helix, a triple helix or quad helix or another way to pack genetic material altogether.
When you talk about a non-god Intelligent designer, are you perhaps thinking about the ancient alien visitor theory of how life got stated here, the one that goes the Earth was visited by aliens 4 billion years ago (it would be really interesting to see what the Earth actually looked like then) and they left their picnic garbage which spread into life around the planet. Is that an example of a non-god ID'er?
Doesn't sound too good a designer to me, that theory just puts life developed elsewhere onto our planet so just puts the design question somewhere else and some possibly way earlier time. They would not have designed life, unless it was a deliberate seeding by DNA scientists who had a completely different kind of life, like I said, maybe quad helix dna, and wanted to see if a simpler double strand dna could do the trick. That, if it could ever be proven, would solve one problem about how life formed on this planet but would not do anything to destroy evolution as that would have come about naturally with no help needed from our friendly alien life-givers. So do your non-god ID'ers have to hang around for 4 billion years to 'guide' evolution or do they just throw the dice and let things sort themselves out without further help?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Of course, by human design. IMHO, human design may lead to life forms not known on this planet, there are variations on the regular DNA helix we could use, like instead of the double helix, a triple helix or quad helix or another way to pack genetic material altogether.
When you talk about a non-god Intelligent designer, are you perhaps thinking about th ...[text shortened]... ion or do they just throw the dice and let things sort themselves out without further help?

Why would it matter if DNA is in a double triple or quad helix? When your body reads the information it unrolls the DNA and reads 1 strand at a time anyway?

Is DNA universal, or is ExtraTerrestrial life founded of some other principle?
If we find, sorry, when we find ET-life and find it having DNA like structure, does it say that all life in Universe has a common origin, or that it is a winning principle?

Originally posted by zozozozo
Why would it matter if DNA is in a double triple or quad helix? When your body reads the information it unrolls the DNA and reads 1 strand at a time anyway?

For one thing, if you managed to make a triple helix, you would be able to store more data in a smaller volume so you could have more complex lifeforms. I saw in the nanotec world they are modifying DNA to include more crosslinks and building memory circuits from that, so I was thinking something like that might have occurred naturally somewhere in the galaxy or another galaxy.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Is DNA universal, or is ExtraTerrestrial life founded of some other principle?
If we find, sorry, when we find ET-life and find it having DNA like structure, does it say that all life in Universe has a common origin, or that it is a winning principle?

Sure seems to have won out on Earth, eh! My guess is life was seeded by interstellar clouds that drifted though our solar system and any place in the solar system that could have life and maybe in a couple hundred years we find life on say, Europa, Ceres, or Mars, it might have something like our DNA. That would be a big clue that something outside our solar system kickstarted life here. If we find life on Europa, an ice covered world and probably always was an ice covered world and it doesn't use DNA as we know it then it would say to me life can evolve by itself pretty much anywhere in the universe using whatever resources are at hand, be it underwater volcanic thermal vents or sunlight driven photosynthesis, whatever, that would be evidence of a univerality of life anywhere there is something like a good condition for life, some energy form to allow complex reactions to form at a decent enough rate for life to show up. My guess is if and when we get through the ice layer (maybe 50 Km deep) on Europa, and we find life there, my bet is it will not have DNA like on Earth. I guess our generation won't live long enough to find out. It is doubtful if even our grandkids will hear that news.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Sure seems to have won out on Earth, eh! My guess is life was seeded by interstellar clouds that drifted though our solar system and any place in the solar system that could have life and maybe in a couple hundred years we find life on say, Europa, Ceres, or Mars, it might have something like our DNA. That would be a big clue that something outside our sola ...[text shortened]... won't live long enough to find out. It is doubtful if even our grandkids will hear that news.

My guess is that DNA is unique for Earth. Our life sprung here and nowhere else. I don't believe in the panspermia idea. If evidence shows otherwise, I gladly change my mind.

If the panspermia idea is the correct one, it doesn't give the solution of whre and how live began, it's only moves the place of origin to another place, and the problem is the same.

However, Europa is the prime location for searching ET life forms, independantly developed from Earthly ones. But Mars is a good relatively cheap start.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
My guess is that DNA is unique for Earth. Our life sprung here and nowhere else. I don't believe in the panspermia idea. If evidence shows otherwise, I gladly change my mind.

If the panspermia idea is the correct one, it doesn't give the solution of whre and how live began, it's only moves the place of origin to another place, and the problem is the sa ...[text shortened]... forms, independantly developed from Earthly ones. But Mars is a good relatively cheap start.

And right now it looks like 50:50 whether life started on Mars first and a meteor hit transported some extremophiles to Earth or Vice Versa, could have happened either way since it appears certain Mars had oceans a couple billion years ago or even sooner....
If it were to be shown Mars has life forms with DNA, then the evidence would tilt in the direction of Panspermia but because of the meteorite thing, we would have to widen our search like you say, to maybe Europa or any of the ice worlds in the outer system, especially ones orbiting Jupiter or Saturn, enough tidal energy to cause internal heating and liquid water giving a chance for life there and the ice cover giving strong evidence against some interstellar cloud seeding life in the solar system.

Originally posted by sonhouse
And right now it looks like 50:50 whether life started on Mars first and a meteor hit transported some extremephiles to Earth or Vice Versa, could have happened either way since it appears certain Mars had oceans a couple billion years ago or even sooner....

I'm very excited of hte search for life on Mars! I would be even more excited if they found living things on Mars! But is it recommendable to bring this life to Earth? What if the life find the environment on Earth good and starts to multiply uncontrollable?

The most exciting question is whether they have DNA as on Earth, and if this DNA is based on the same amino acids, coding for the same proteins.

50:50, well I'm open for either. But what do I really think about life on Mars? Answer: No.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
But is it recommendable to bring this life to Earth? What if the life find the environment on Earth good and starts to multiply uncontrollable?

Nuke em!
😛
IF theres life that we can take home i think they will be very secure in isolating it. Then if something goes wrong they could always toss it in liquid acid or whatever.

Originally posted by zozozozo
Nuke em!
😛
IF theres life that we can take home i think they will be very secure in isolating it. Then if something goes wrong they could always toss it in liquid acid or whatever.

The most dangerous phase in a space vehicels lifetime is (in order) (1) the journey up through the atmosphere, (2) the journey down through the atmosphere, and (3) up there in the space.
If somethings happens in the journeythrough the atmosphere and the container breaks up in pieces, then it's a risque that we have a fall out, and contamination.
If the Martian life thrives in the atmosphere of the Earth, and multiplies heavily, then we are in deep danger. If it furthermore like the nutricients of our humanly bodies, then we are in deep deep trouble.