How Did Life Begin?
In this documentary Nobel Prize recipient Sir Harry Kroto attempts to answer one of world’s most puzzling question: how did life on earth come to be?
The chemistry has amazing power to explain the world around us. But this documentary is pushing its limits. Seek an answer for the deepest question the human beings asked themselves with Nobel Prize winner chemist Sir Harold (Harry) Walter Kroto: How did life begin?
How did life actually begin in Earth? How are lives linked to the fate of the stars? Take a look at the recent scientific research in the field and learn about the ancient world of RNA and DNA.
There are of course no definitive answers offered by this documentary, but we get the feeling that we are closer than ever to discovering the answer to the age old question of how life began.
he needs to stop saying those lame ass none excisting numbers who does he think he is are we supossed to belive theres numbers like that.
There must be a second part to this documentary that explains if or if not the experiment worked to sow all of the chemicals to build RNA were achievable.
It still will never explain how a baby can fend for itself to grow into an adult. 3 days without water, dead. No way of getting food, dead. The environment would probably cause death due to exposure to the elements. Not in anyway, shape or form could this be possible.
Humans are not proportional to earth ?
I liked the documentary. It didn't try to complicate the issue, and instead Sir Harry explain in clear concise ways - what we've learned and where we're headed. Good job!
Isn't it peculiar that these people lived for thousands of years without knowing there is a hell,,,mark twain
Whilst it's an interesting piece, the primary conceit of this cultural perspective, and it's obsession with linearity, and with a certain repetitive continuity of it's status, as a culture, is that it assumes that some (the 'civilised')) human beings are the superior intelligence amongst the living organisms of Earth.
Given the obvious adverse affects of 'civilisation' , comparing those with the ever incrementally increasing natural fecundity and bio-diversity, I would argue that the obverse is true.
The issue of the source of life is irrelevant, as we are, clearly emergent natural organisms. Bags of Bacteria. We came from earth.
And if our stories are to have meaning within the context of Earth's natural bio-diversity and incremental increase of over all fecundity for all life, then THAT is where we need to look. To where our practices do not support, or where they cause damage to, those natural processes. To gauge our practices such that they are nurturant, in the bio-logical sense of the word.
truth is nobody CAN know how life began because we only have ever had an inside perspective on it. it's like somebody who is bound in a 2 dimentional world trying to contemplate 3D. we make our assumtions of the universe with the arrogant belief that human perception is lacking nothing yet their are animals on earth who's natural abilities of perception make us look handicaped and because of this our science is limited to the parimeters of our understanding. so in some areas, our science is still a student, a novice at best.
good doc
I agree with those who complain the doc. was disapointingly superficial. But what do you expect? Nobody, as far as I can tell can begin to explain the spontanious emergence of "matabolism" from inert substances. Scientists will tell you that Science will someday prove how it happened, but as of yet they still can't explain the origin of the Big Bang. I see both of these mysteries as questions that will never be explained by Science alone. It may take something more akin to a futuristic Mysticism/Science hybrid feild of enquiry to begin to approach it. Or a God source revelation. Or maybe an Issac Asimov (we are God) moment.?!!? hahaha...Oh! I almost had it!
@Joe Johnson
"I am kind of surprised that this doc did not mention Charles Darwin."
-Darwin only came up with the concept of evolution. Evolution only deals with bio-diversity, not the beginning -not the theory of abiogenesis.
"Even Einstein believed in some kind of supernatural force or superior being that also could be considered in the creation of the universe."
-Yeah, so?
"The big bang theory was also not mentioned or did I miss that?"
-The big bang deals with the creation of the universe. Life forms on earth came after the Big Bang, long after.
"Also he uses the thousand-million standard, instead of just saying a billion."
-Don't worry, I've already sent a threatening letter to Sir Harry Kroto, demanding an apology.
"It also comes down to the obvious question of Who created God."
-Only a theist would ever think this. And for some odd reason they fear it. A majority scientist don't even bother asking this question because a Deity cannot be explained through natural means i.e. science.
"Nobody really cares if somebody is an atheist or deist, to each his own."
-Yeah, right...
Nothing really new here that your average high school student wouldn't know.
I am kind of surprised that this doc did not mention Charles Darwin. Also, I don't think Watson "stumbled" onto the double helix of DNA as was stated in the piece, he actually worked to arrive at finding the double helix as stated in his book. Even Einstein believed in some kind of supernatural force or superior being that also could be considered in the creation of the universe.
The big bang theory was also not mentioned or did I miss that? Also he uses the thousand-million standard, instead of just saying a billion. It also comes down to the obvious question of Who created God. But I digress. Nobody really cares if somebody is an atheist or deist, to each his own.
Andy,
I'm an atheist, but I do not subscribe to scientific materialism - I feel strongly there is something more. In fact, to deny immateriality is to deny space - which is so defined. It further denies time, which is not a material/energy continua construct.
Your question - why do only spiritual/religious people have these experiences is inaccurate. Many atheists have had NDE's and it changed them - some believed in God, but most just believed in something beyond the physical plane without defining it.
The very idea of strict materialism in a world with 'laws of nature' is in fact a direct contradiction - where and what are these laws? They act yet have no physical substance. You cannot find a corporeal thing which is a law of nature - yet all materialists scientists will tell you that laws of nature exist. I find no attempt to explain this inherent contradiction in scientific theory. It is merely ignored
Finally, the phenomenon of quantum entaglement proves the materialist project wrong - or very nearly so. It's been 80 years + and the best 'explanation' we have is the wildly metaphysical many worlds theory - completely unfalsifiable by even the most speculative means. Meaning - the best theory is NOT scientific.
That's the state of play in science.
why poland?
pls learn the fact from islam
you will get to know the fact in the quran a revelation from ALLAH the creator of the whole universe who also make u to exist
I still hope that someday somebody will answer this question with the truth.
10^9 is a billion and 10^12 is a trillion. ive never heard anyone regard 10^12 as a billion before, with exception to the possibility of a member of the u.s. congressional budget committee. i joke. and in all seriousness the u.s. debt is overrated. as a percentage of gdp, we saw way worse debt during wwII. but thats a different topic for different time.
@charles b., i welcome your arguments of spirituality and religion and in no way intend to further corner your viewpoints or comment on your level of intelligence, but i feel it necessary to point out my reactions to your previous comments.
Why is it that you and so many others in the religious community tend to be so fortunate so as to more frequently have these spiritual experiences? I'd love for the life of me to have just one spiritual vision or awakening.
You would presumably argue that this is a result of my lack of faith. I would argue the same thing - that it is my lack of faith that has lead me to never having experienced anything of sacred value, or anything even remotely close. but where your argument stops mine continues, because i would also add that i don't view the world through the context of mysticism whereas you do. coincidence? i think not.
I enjoyed this short but sweet documentary. I really get knots in my neck when the Bible crowd comes in and ruins the conversation with their ridiculous, dead end propositions, like the one above about why humans die when a bullet enters their brain. That question has a logical, scientific answer, but it is only, at best, tangentially related to the topic at hand. It is absurd to call this documentary "simplistic", and then answer it with even more simplistic questions. We are left with the possibility that RNA is the answer to the origin of life. Why RNA runs down or degrades, causing old age and death is another subject that, with time, research and patience, will also be answered with a scientific, not a Biblical explanation.
Stroke victims are example of the brain as a electro-chemical system. I don't recommend it.
dna or rna ?
This was very disappointing...so superficial. Much better is the documentary, "The Quest for Life."
This was really lame. Sorry. Can anyone tell me, from this "docu," how life began? And why is science so stuck in the rut of thinking so linearly, as if anything really has a beginning or an end? Is it because of the predominance of the Big Bang MODEL, or some hangover from the (narrowest) Judeo-Christian view of time? Jeez...are there no poets or mystics in science any more? What has happened to imagination, open-mindedness, humility, awe and possibility?
Watch "The Quest for Life" to see what happens to the organic molecules carried in meteorites when they slam into the earth--how amino acids and protein chains form from the collision. Or how, when catastrophic meteoric events extinguish 90% of existing life, 10x the number of previously existing species appear afterwards.
Robert Anton Wilson: I liked his "Maybe Logic" very much.
"...4-and-a-half-thousand-million years ago." hahaha, never heard it put quite that way hahah
Charles,
You seem a good chap but perpetuating this rubish is dangerouse. Our children are growing up in 21st century still being told that magic exist. In the United Staes the misguided loyalty that religion commands decides elections at local and federal levels. I appreciate your sence of humor but this is no laughing matter. You say you have both, that is impossible. One arguement destroys the other completely. Either you believe in the scientific method and thierfore not in the super natural or vice versa. Let go of what you have been told and what your unaided sences interpret, trust the facts. This is how we should make decisions in this world.Morality has taught us how to wage war humanely, science gets rid of the war all together. Morality will in fact just be the way we live when we finally let go of all the fairy tales.