As a biologist, how do you account for the existence of life?

There was an RNA molecule or molecules that could make more of themselves (probably really poorly, at first)

Have you read a book called The Stairway to Life: An Origin-of-Life Reality Check by Tan & Stadler? You can find it on Amazon. It's pretty short and will get you thinking rigorously about the problem.

No. But I feel like it is unlikely I'll find much value in it. Part 1 being on the Venter work does NOT inspire confidence at all. Not to dismiss them - they're great I've worked with them on a couple projects - but it frankly doesn't have anything to do with abiogenesis. The other fact that lots of creationists like it doesn't bode well either.

Like, of COURSE the Venter cell looks too complicated to originate from raw chemicals! The lineage it evolved from was far more complex, and Mycoplasma underwent minimization. Minimal life also does not equal simple life, or life that was most probable to arise from chemicals. Just a stupid premise, really.

There's no point engaging in good faith, or at all, with creationists. "You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into."

In fact exactly the opposite is the situation. I knew ahead of time that this guy wouldn’t read a short book, but I posted it for the sake of people who are interested in empiricism and evidence-based thinking.

It’s hard to see how it would be evidence based if the evidence’s premise is fundamentally flawed - just in such a niche way that people not in my field wouldn’t be able to see it. They’re kinda preying on the fact that people like you can’t see it, and that’s sad.

Just read the book. If it is so terrible then you can write a review demolishing it.

No. I know it's nonsense even without reading it, because it starts from a false premise.

What is the false premise?

The false premise is that the religious explanation is the default or incumbent explanation, which must then be bettered or countered by "challenger" explanations such as science. It tries to frame the argument with religion as the "defending champion" for challengers to somehow unseat ("atheists need to explain how...").

In reality, of course, religious explanation has no such presumptive default or incumbent status. Religious explanations are just one of many potential explanations for how the world works and compete on equal terms with any other. And when the religious explanation really just boils down to some variant of "god did it", it becomes very obvious how inadequate that is compared to even the worst scientific attempts.

Related: religious apologists constantly try to pretend that criticisms or problems identified with scientific explanations somehow count as points in favor of their religious alternative. This is also a false idea. It is not a debate, where pointing out flaws in your opponent's argument helps yours "win". It is a search for truth, and finding fault with another theory does nothing at all to enhance your own.

Why do you think the book has anything to do with religion.

It does not.

Here are some example chapter titles:

Homochitality of building blocks

Boipolymer Reproduction

Means of Gene Regulation

Selectively Permeable Membranes

The whole book is just an examination of such scientific issues.

Religion doesn’t come in to it anywhere.

Get outta here with your BS.

"One purpose of this book is to call out and clarify the leap of faith that atheism implies." - p185

You're now just straight up lying and I'm done with you.

Breaking the site guidelines like this will get your account banned on HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, or how badly someone else is behaving.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Understood. I apologise for stepping over the line.

We've banned this account for starting and perpetuating flamewars on HN and ignoring our requests to stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't perpetuate religious flamewars on HN. It's the last thing we need here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40648381 also, because you broke the site guidelines badly downthread.

Also searchable by its other title "God of the Gaps Volume 6,000 - Forget the Other 5999, This Time We're Really Sure, Can You Stop Doing Research Now Please"

Yes, I bite the bullet on the god of the gaps when it comes to the origin of life.

And I'm not opposed to doing research, of course (hard to believe I have to clarify this)

In fact I want people to research the question of the origin of life as rigorously and exhaustively as possible because it is just going to make it that much more obvious that life was designed by God.

I have absolutely no fear that this "gap" is going to do anything but widen.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40627070.