News1 min ago
Self-Replicating Molecules.
How did certain chemicals combine to produce the first self-replicating molecules?
Answers
We don't know. Writings on the subject are still full of the words 'possibly' and 'perhaps'.
17:56 Wed 13th Nov 2013
And, Khandro, given our knowledge of how the brain works, courtesy of science, we have an understanding of how music and other arts affect us as they do. Your reference to Nietzsche understanding the arts is no more than Dr Johnson's observation that he could not make a table himself, because it was not his business to make tables, but he knew a bad table when he saw it and could criticise it. It could be argued that he understood tables better , aesthetically or practically, than someone whose business it was to make any particular table.
What's that to do with science ?
What's that to do with science ?
Such opinions I think miss two things worth noting: firstly, although in a sense you probably knew this already really, a great deal more goes on in the scientific world than ever reaches the general public. Most of it is ideas that will never reach the public eye because they turn out to be wrong. But the very fact that such ideas even receive attention in the first place is a sign that imagination in Science is alive and kicking in a way that far exceeds the apparent opinion of Naomi above. It's just that of course such ideas then have to be put to experimental tests, and then most of them tend to fail. But the point is that they were conceived of in the first place.
Secondly, the amount of progress that has been made in Scientific understanding in the last decade alone is seriously incredible. Medical, physical, biological, chemical understanding has advanced at a rate such that it remains virtually impossible for any single person to keep up with more than a tiny corner of it. If progress really is being inhibited, I don't think we're noticing its affects much.
Currently I'm working on a small project related to the Higgs boson. In part because the work is still in progress I won't go into any detail, but the gist of it is that we are exploring the possibility that the particle detected at the LHC actually has a different value of spin from the one it's meant to have according to the Higgs theory. That is, one or two or three, etc., instead of zero. The ultimate aim of the work will actually be to rule out other values conclusively -- another point worth making. Science is also about ensuring that you've ruled out all the other possibilities, or rather that you can compare two or even multiple ideas against each other based on the same set of data.
Science has to demand evidence, that's its very foundation. Get rid of that constraint and you're left with unverified speculation. But even with that constraint the progress made is vast and huge and far beyond the "not always conducive to progress" opinion expressed above.
Secondly, the amount of progress that has been made in Scientific understanding in the last decade alone is seriously incredible. Medical, physical, biological, chemical understanding has advanced at a rate such that it remains virtually impossible for any single person to keep up with more than a tiny corner of it. If progress really is being inhibited, I don't think we're noticing its affects much.
Currently I'm working on a small project related to the Higgs boson. In part because the work is still in progress I won't go into any detail, but the gist of it is that we are exploring the possibility that the particle detected at the LHC actually has a different value of spin from the one it's meant to have according to the Higgs theory. That is, one or two or three, etc., instead of zero. The ultimate aim of the work will actually be to rule out other values conclusively -- another point worth making. Science is also about ensuring that you've ruled out all the other possibilities, or rather that you can compare two or even multiple ideas against each other based on the same set of data.
Science has to demand evidence, that's its very foundation. Get rid of that constraint and you're left with unverified speculation. But even with that constraint the progress made is vast and huge and far beyond the "not always conducive to progress" opinion expressed above.
Self replication is simple. It happens in crystals all the time as the elements are built onto the crystalline structure.
The real challenge was the first reaction that provided energy to perform further work. This reaction which releases a free electron is the most fundamental process in absolutely all living things.
It also occurs outside of life in the formation of serpentine from olivine in "white smokers" where hot basic water exits the ocean floor in hydrothermal vents.
The process also forms tiny cellular pockets.
The real challenge was the first reaction that provided energy to perform further work. This reaction which releases a free electron is the most fundamental process in absolutely all living things.
It also occurs outside of life in the formation of serpentine from olivine in "white smokers" where hot basic water exits the ocean floor in hydrothermal vents.
The process also forms tiny cellular pockets.
jim360 //Science is also about ensuring that you've ruled out all the other possibilities, or rather that you can compare two or even multiple ideas against each other based on the same set of data. //
Jim makes a very important point. A lot more of science effort goes into rejecting hypotheses than the glory of the breakthrough we hear about.
It is very important work and science certainly does not lack imagination.
Jim makes a very important point. A lot more of science effort goes into rejecting hypotheses than the glory of the breakthrough we hear about.
It is very important work and science certainly does not lack imagination.
/but to understand and appreciate opera, you don't have to be a great singer/
Really Khandro?, yet another unsupported assertion. Perhaps great singers have a better appreciation than others, How would anybody know? Perhaps you would care to devise an experiment to prove your point if you have enough imagination.
Really Khandro?, yet another unsupported assertion. Perhaps great singers have a better appreciation than others, How would anybody know? Perhaps you would care to devise an experiment to prove your point if you have enough imagination.
Whether or not Science dismisses something for which is can currently find no evidence depends on an assessment of how likely it was to find that evidence in the first place. If the chances were assessed as being high, then a null result says rather a lot about how valid the idea is likely to be. Most ideas that Science dismisses have failed the test.
As to the idea that Science "discounts the possibility that, with better technology, evidence may at some time in the future be forthcoming," why do you think that Scientists built the LHC in the first place? And plans are already bouncing around for something even bigger. The future technologies we need to obtain the evidence are conceived of and developed by those scientists hunting for that evidence.
Returning again, briefly, to the Higgs Boson as an illustration of the principle, the experimental tests necessary to find it were first described in the mid-70s, before the colliders that would be needed were built. As the hunt went on with no evidence through the 1990s at LEP and then at the Tevatron, Scientists didn't just give up, they realised that they needed more advanced colliders and more advanced technology, and developed it. And voila! We found it. Or something that looks like it, anyway. The challenge is to test if it really is the thing we were looking for, or something else that just looks like it.
Science is the most self-critical field of study in existence. As a result, as you said earlier, there is often a very good reason behind what it claims. Thus ideas that have been dismissed or fallen by the wayside have failed the critical tests and analysis. In the future they may re-emerge triumphant after all. But that becomes less and less likely with each null result.
As to the idea that Science "discounts the possibility that, with better technology, evidence may at some time in the future be forthcoming," why do you think that Scientists built the LHC in the first place? And plans are already bouncing around for something even bigger. The future technologies we need to obtain the evidence are conceived of and developed by those scientists hunting for that evidence.
Returning again, briefly, to the Higgs Boson as an illustration of the principle, the experimental tests necessary to find it were first described in the mid-70s, before the colliders that would be needed were built. As the hunt went on with no evidence through the 1990s at LEP and then at the Tevatron, Scientists didn't just give up, they realised that they needed more advanced colliders and more advanced technology, and developed it. And voila! We found it. Or something that looks like it, anyway. The challenge is to test if it really is the thing we were looking for, or something else that just looks like it.
Science is the most self-critical field of study in existence. As a result, as you said earlier, there is often a very good reason behind what it claims. Thus ideas that have been dismissed or fallen by the wayside have failed the critical tests and analysis. In the future they may re-emerge triumphant after all. But that becomes less and less likely with each null result.
//Perhaps you would care to devise an experiment to prove your point if you have enough imagination.//
Easy; get a lot of musicians and singers together in a large auditorium and ask them to put on the Ring Cycle without a conductor.
Barenboim this year has produced the Ring at the proms hailed as one of the greatest interpretations EVER.
He's good on the piano, probably passable on one or two other instruments, but have you heard him sing!!
Is there anything else I can help you with?
Easy; get a lot of musicians and singers together in a large auditorium and ask them to put on the Ring Cycle without a conductor.
Barenboim this year has produced the Ring at the proms hailed as one of the greatest interpretations EVER.
He's good on the piano, probably passable on one or two other instruments, but have you heard him sing!!
Is there anything else I can help you with?
jomifl; You said, "Perhaps great singers have a better appreciation than others, How would anybody know?"
I know, and so does every one else including Barenboim, why don't you?
Can you name a great singer who has gone on to be a great conductor?
Your constant bickering shows you up for the fool you appear to be.
I know, and so does every one else including Barenboim, why don't you?
Can you name a great singer who has gone on to be a great conductor?
Your constant bickering shows you up for the fool you appear to be.
Congratulations Khandro I'm glad that you and your mate Barenboim are in such close agreement. Do you have any references for that additional unsupported assertion or is it just another one to be ignored. Do try to be more imaginitive with your insults, perhaps you should read some Oscar Wilde to sharpen up you wit.
Khandro, I can't think of any oboeist who has become a great conductor ! Not all musicians are; they go on courses to learn conducting nowadays.
Barenboim knows music. He knows what a great performance sounds like, and has a good idea of how to produce it. The singing part of the operas, the technical side, is dealt with by other professional singers, singing coaches. He will not be telling singers how to sing and they won't be telling him, or anyone, how to perform the music. There will be a directorial role, as with directors telling actors what emphasis he wants and how he sees the characters, but that is universal to all drama.
Still don't know how Nietzsche's criticism of opera is any better than a professionals; it may be like that of Dr Johnson and his table.
Barenboim knows music. He knows what a great performance sounds like, and has a good idea of how to produce it. The singing part of the operas, the technical side, is dealt with by other professional singers, singing coaches. He will not be telling singers how to sing and they won't be telling him, or anyone, how to perform the music. There will be a directorial role, as with directors telling actors what emphasis he wants and how he sees the characters, but that is universal to all drama.
Still don't know how Nietzsche's criticism of opera is any better than a professionals; it may be like that of Dr Johnson and his table.
