Lee Cronin: Making matter come alive

www.ted.com Before life existed on Earth, there was just matter, inorganic dead "stuff." How improbable is it that life arose? And -- could it use a different type of chemistry? Using an elegant definition of life (anything that can evolve), chemist Lee Cronin is exploring this question by attempting to create a fully inorganic cell using a "Lego kit" of inorganic molecules -- no carbon -- that can assemble, replicate and compete.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at www.ted.com/translate.

[@pv6830]

in 2011 the distinguished scientist predicted that in about two years they will have it all figured out... well, it's 2022, roughly 11 years later... 9 years after the self-predicted deadline... there yet? In russian language his talk qualifies as "yerunda" (baloney in some English-speaking countries). It reminds of a song by the italian singer Mina: Parole, parole, parole.

[@peppermintgal4302]

A lot of researchers are over - optimistic. Abiogenesis research has, despite your complaints, continued on and produced banger after banger. What does creationism have to show for itself, though?

[@sharpie6888]

@@peppermintgal4302 "continued on and produced banger after banger" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA you're hilarious

[@axelasdf]

Also, my Pastor was a badass. He used Simpsons episodes to get principles across. He played games where you go and shoot everyone's left leg off. He was a man of good health that could read German, Hebrew, and some other historical languages. He explained the real reasons behind the "rules". Don't eat pork because you'll get worms. Don't covet what your neighbor has because the only way to get those items before mass manufacturing was to take it from him. Lying leads to mistrust.

[@antonivanov1351]

So, 11 years have passed and he's still giving promises he'll do it in 2 years...

[@peppermintgal4302]

This is something researchers in every field say. So what? Great strides are still being made by abiogenesis, none have EVER been made by creationism.

[@antonivanov1351]

@@peppermintgal4302 creationists never claimed they would, lol. Btw, what strides specifically are u talking about?

[@peppermintgal4302]

​@@antonivanov1351If creationism produces no results, it is not a practical theory, and should be disregarded. Here's a tiny sample of results we have: Geochemically produced nucleotides. Geochemically produced sugars. Geochemically produced amino acids. Geochemically produced lipids. Geochmically produced ATP and ATP analogues. Various kinds of protocells with lifelike behavior, including protocells that can move up a maze towards resources. Oh, and uhh... evolvable matter. Depending on your definition, that matter might even be alive. We made self replicating RNA molecules that then proceeded to evolve, when left alone, into some 7, interdependent strains, forming an entire ecosystem. Meanwhile, creationists can't even solve the heat problem. Or even find oil! _Evolutionary_ theory, which abiogenesis depends on, can find oil and is used for just that all the time, meaning _it_ puts food on your plate.

[@axelasdf]

@rkyeun The probabilities I was referring to when it comes to quantum operations is not knowing the outcome of the system. There are many possible end-scenarios for a set of particles interacting, but there is no way to know the outcome in advance, we can only surmise the probability of it coming out in a certain state. On a plank's length- There are still conceptual ideas that have dimensions smaller than a plank's length, such as the de Broglie wavelength of a macroscopic object.

[@vivekteega]

Mr. Bean at 13:31

[@1simonmatthews]

The interesting question to me is "How does the universe possess such qualities?" This research is finding out what happens when you mix this and that, but I'd like to know how this happens, how these qualities exist in our universe. Where is the energy that is required for this to happen coming from? How is consciousness possible in this universe? How is thinking possible? If better thinking has evolved over time, when was the point when thinking began?

[@proskillz2337]

Interesting, I was thinking something similar a while back. I was thinking that sand could be evolutionary matter or other forms of grains as they join up to make different matter or bigger matter.

[@proskillz2337]

Another thing is I forgot what's it called but when the land changes due to continuous water fall.

[@tcorp]

Excellent talk.

[@TopGunYesTopGun]

@wachi03 The way he talks about it, he makes it sound like there is that stuff out there (carbon) that is inherently alive, but now he makes 'ordinary matter' alive as well. There is an interesting (and important) talk to be given about how self-replicating molecules kick-started life, and one about how life might not need carbon, but this isn't it.

[@toutagamon]

Can you please make your videos 720P? Thanks

[@gulllars]

@MarkoKraguljac agreed, the use of the word "want" in reference to molecules is unfortunate. There was a talk some time ago about genes, memes, and temes that had a much better description of life: Self replecating information. (imperfect replication of information then leads to evolution). The speaker had organized it into tiers where genes (biologic entities) were the first replicator, memes (ideas) were the second, and temes (technologies) were the third. First tier could be other "hardware".

[@MumblingMickey]

@TheYgds As a physicist considering a course in biocybernetics I've been awaiting this for some time now.... It seems to me that a life spent researching carbon structures is about to be demonstrated to me as a bad call...lol I take the point about the timeframe...I mean seriously how is he going to research, produce and write this up in such a narrow window...unless he's already more than 50% there....and I haven't read a single thing about this in Nature recently... have you?

[@Evnflw1]

Still waiting............ it's 2022

[@fakeshadowhunter2064]

so you are saying that we're gonna mimik situations to grow life like we once had for ourselves?

[@xSilverPhinxx]

@xjaskix I think it's more of a language thing than actually ascribing personality to matter, though the two are linked.

[@lordmetroid]

You do not need a container for something to compete, you need instability. The most stable RNA molecule would be the more fittest information carrier for example. Then when the strain of the ultimate stable RNA molecule would have been created one can then imagine that the competition amongst these strains to adapt even further stability by adding proteins, lipids and whatnot to available as a sort of skeleton to prevent the molecule from deteriorating before it could be replicated.

[@Esico6]

Where did the rna came from? 😂😂

[@stinkyboy111]

2:20 ball is life

[@jmm1233]

A Star is the most simpliest form of matter evolviing , it is the cells of the organism known as the galaxy

[@gregorysagegreene]

Given all the current theories on abiogenesis, and what we understand about the physics of the cosmos getting us from quarks to the periodic table and complex inorganic chemistry, is it not possible that the underlying driving forces of the Universe are not Evolution; but rather: Energy capture and utilization, ever-increasing complexity and differentiation, localized reduction of entropy.

[@derhafi]

Nobody ever laimed that the "underlying driving forces of the Universe" are "Evolution" What are you even talking about?

[@smoke2514]

They should try to make it able to do photosynsis like plants

[@Classic_H_Radio]

where did the "soup" come from in the first place?

[@fakeshadowhunter2064]

Result of random chemical combination

[@reasonandsciencecatsboardcom]

We are in 2022. Still waiting....

[@derhafi]

So, it’s not been done yet…That however does not add credibility to the position of the scientifically illiterate faith-based-cult members who think that there is a credible alternative to abiogenesis. Neither has anyone demonstrated that the supernatural exists, nor that is interferes with reality. Whilst abiogenesis research has made a lot of progress over the last decade..…theists seem to be stuck at the same place ever since somebody invented the God…sorry, “intelligence” they happen to believe in.

[@reasonandsciencecatsboardcom]

@@derhafi yes, there is. intelligence is capable of creating blueprints, information transmission systems, and upon these, machines, assembly lines, energy turbines, and chemical factories. We know this, because , humans with intelligence, have created all these things. They exist on a molecular level, in each cell. Chance has never been demonstrated to have such capabilities. Therefore, it is rational to infer, that design is the more case-adequate explanation.

[@ZebecZT]

@@reasonandsciencecatsboardcomwell said

[@peppermintgal4302]

​@@reasonandsciencecatsboardcom All systems contain information. Let's say you have a flood break out because a natural reservoir up in a mountain eroded its way into a new valley, producing a new river flow. Let's say the flood waters are rushing towards a juncture. Down one channel, the water is destined to meet a sinkhole deep in the earth that leads to the ocean via underground pathways. Down the other is a dead-end, a valley that is surrounded on every other side by hills the water won't be able to climb over. In this scenario, there's no way for the "water circuit" to know from the get go which way down the juncture the water should keep flowing. This information can't reach it from the destinations faster than light speed according to general relativity, and in fact, we can guess it won't reach any faster than the speed of waves in the water. And as a matter of fact, the destination must first _recieve_ information, in the form of the arrival of water, in order for a signal to be sent from there back to the juncture! So what happens is, when the water collides with the walls at the end of the second channel, it builds up momentarily, (because water is still being pushed in by the juncture,) and this produces a backup, (literally water seems to go "back up" the channel. Now, no individual molecule necessarily goes far, but there is a sort of reverse wave that goes up the channel.) That backup eventually reaches the juncture, and soon after, the "circuit" of water stabilizes --- the water in the second channel ceases flowing, and the juncture largely supplies water only to the first channel. Now, should we say that some kind of river God must have broken the reservoir to create this river, simply because the entire system calculates a stable flow rate for both channels, solving a mathemagical formula in the process? No, that'd be silly, right? The fact is, information is entropy. The amount of information necessary to describe the universe is constantly growing. That's because the universe is expanding, partly, but also because individual parts of it are growing more complex. This is a derivation of basic facts of statistics and the laws of large numbers. If every possible "microstate" (a state where nothing is unknown or unspecified, aka a state that is not vaguely described, but as specific as possible,) of the universe is almost equally likely, (and while I have no idea if they are, it's safe to say that any individual state should, not knowing anything of the universe beforehand, be roughly so,) then the most likely "macrostates" will be _large._ This means more metrics would be necessary to fill out the macrostate and give us a microstate. Those metrics are information. _Information is entropy!_ For more, I suggest reading up on Shannon Information Theory.

[@peppermintgal4302]

​@@ZebecZT No, it's terribly said, lol. All things have mathematically definable metrics that apply to them, and ergo, contain information. Whether it's a river, or a flow of electrons through a lightning bolt, or a hurricane, or a star, whatever it is, it's state changes perform mathematical calculations. There is a reason people doubt that black holes are well described by our current theories, its because mathematically, singularities destroy information, and that seems like it should be impossible.

[@AxelTiger]

Id go with the "Campbells soup theory!"...but I have a hunch it had something to do with lightning hitting that 'tide pool'

[@xSilverPhinxx]

@potaschlor Some people extend the definition of life to accommodate them, but I think this in turn makes it all more murky. We thing we'd know life if we saw it, but would we?

[@TheYgds]

@MumblingMickey, Geez I feel kind of sheepish by not putting in the rejoinder that I am an undergrad biochemist, I should not be so generous to myself with that. with that said to answer your question I have only read his paper on iCHELLS which is published in Angerwandte Chemie. So far he has only demostrated that be can form compartments. He has not yet published anything (to my knowledge) that could fill the role of instruction. As for metabolism, depends on what kind of metabolism is there.

[@axelasdf]

@GronTheMighty Never would I say that we shouldn't research more. I only state that we have found physical limitations in many areas(plank's length, observable/non-observable universe, quantum entanglement), and there are still very many unanswered questions, like this recent neutrino velocity problem. Physics is an amazing field of study, but the question that drives me to belief isn't "how", but "Why?". Why do all of these constants line up to form the universe that operates and led to us?

[@madreamer]

So in 2011 He said he's gonna make life in His lab in 4 years. it's 2022 still dead stuff in His lab.

[@derhafi]

So, it’s not been done yet…That however does not add credibility to the position of the scientifically illiterate faith-based-cult members who think that there is a credible alternative to abiogenesis. Neither has anyone demonstrated that the supernatural exists, nor that is interferes with reality. Whilst abiogenesis research has made a lot of progress over the last decade..…theists seem to be stuck at the same place ever since somebody invented the God…sorry, “intelligence” they happen to believe in.

[@peppermintgal4302]

We've made self reproducing RNA molecules, which have grown in complexity since then without intervention to form ecosystems.

[@NarekAvetisyan]

how many atoms an average molecule has?

[@xjaskix]

@MarkoKraguljac nah, it's common for scientists to speak of atoms/molecules/etc as having "wants" and so on. it makes it easier to understand what they do if you antropomorphize a little bit. and of course everyone knows atoms or molecules don't have personalities so it's a harmless way to describe things. don't be so jaded.

[@Cognosium]

For a very broad interpretation of evolutionary processes which do indeed extend beyond biology, check out "The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?" (free download in e-book formats from the "Unusual Perspectives" website)

[@Iker888]

@happinessfaction Im sure that's what he meant, it's well known even outside scientific circles thats it's adaptability what matters.

[@potaschlor]

What about viruses? Wouldn't they be the smallest evolvable unit? They don't fall within the definition of "life" because they don't have cell membranes and require the use of living cells to replicate. They are made of DNA or RNA housed inside a protein coat and they compete with other viruses and other lifeforms. Maybe you should try to spontaneously generate new viruses, though you'd need to be careful about containment to avoid an outbreak.

[@Melki]

@AleXGT7 a lot of laws in this world, I say all of persistant laws that matter, are laws that initiate interactions after interactions or the exercising of laws over and over again. Our emotion follow this, to keep on experiencing interactions after interactions forever... so interactions that are not lovely is ruled out. So its not competition that preserve life or existence, its love. If living beings don't love, they'd stop creating laws, they'd die. What do you think? :)

[@LunarFuror]

@AshrielDrummer I hope to see more people like you around here.

[@darkjannn]

I fail to see how by this guy's defenition biological cells and genes are somehow not matter. Also, great to see he's able to use inorganic components to build cells without carbon, but should he succeed in generating something that can replicate and evolve, the structures within it that hold and replicate information, the stuff that's actually evolving, could and should still be regarded as genes, Would be great to see what those would look like though :)

[@triforcelink]

Matter already evolves. It is our perceptions that need to catch up.

[@kevinjloder]

That was difficult to pay attention to. But I can't wait to hear progress! Evolvable matter...

[@MOADAM2010]

@xSilverPhinxx : what makes more sense that everything is created or that is just random and change :-) ????

[@yurikolovsky]

The line between alive and non alive is very blurry, so the fire would be pretty much alive if it had a concrete body, for example he mentioned that he believes that alive things are "fires in a container"

[@MOADAM2010]

@MumblingMickey : LOL thnx 4 the advice :-) !!!

[@Classic_H_Radio]

also, if you're planning on "setting things up" over the next two years, who or what set the unaccounted for soup?

[@gregorysagegreene]

"No soup for you", specifically, until you take the next leap.

[@DeoMachina]

Well best of luck to him, but I fear none of us are going to live to see where this can go.

[@ZebecZT]

12 years and still nothing.

[@turoni314]

I admit that he might have oversimplified some 'stuff' but if you wanna read about the real deal you should probably go to 'his' website: /chem.gla.ac.uk/cronin/

[@MumblingMickey]

Evolution is indeed a process always in motion. The price equation is indeed applied to more than evolution...its applied to meme theory, economics, engineering and design etc. So its not confined to biology. Cronins idea is basically a study of Catalysis. I think you could easily apply the price equation to that if you mapped the properties of chemicals. Although I accept it was not designed for that task.

[@lordmetroid]

Smallest evolvable unit is not bacteria, it is simply a molecule made of several interconnected molecules that can spontaneously be copied by using the surrounding matter, id est self-replicating. To take a few examples from the organisms in existens, there are many self-replicating molecules but the most famous of them are DNA. However other kinds of molecules like RNA and protein can also make copies of itself and I am sure there are other molecules.

[@Iker888]

@happinessfaction It's an understandable point. Cheers.

[@axelasdf]

@GronTheMighty Because we're remarkably unique and interesting. We exist. If the universal constants were any different, we wouldn't. This machine consisting of all matter and energy managed to spit out something that could objectively view it. Something that could think and respond. We're pretty damn neat, and I like that we are here.

[@MumblingMickey]

@DukeTwicep Well the equation that governs this is not Drakes equation, simplistic though it is but rather Prices equation. Prices equation explains evolution by selective processes mathematically. It does not require the advent of 'organic' building blocks....just building blocks. However Prices equations are extremely complex and its only now with cloud computing and extremely powerful processors and GPU's that we could embark on emulating the procedure in software. I'd give it 6 months.

[@StopFear]

Thank God!

[@MOADAM2010]

@xSilverPhinxx : WHERE THE EGG CAME FROM :-) ????

[@TheFounderUtopia]

@MarkoKraguljac He's just being metaphorical, it's an anthropomorphic simplification so the audience can understand. No different than saying that magnets "want" to stick together, it's just how you express the nature of a force to lay people. Besides, although we are intelligent our own selfishness, our "want" for survival doesn't come from that, rather it is our genes which are not self aware which are selfish, so it's perfectly valid to refer to genes as matter that wants its shape to win.

@Truthiness231 you understood me

[@axelasdf]

@tky011 Yeah, I don't believe any of that either. I was brought up in a ridiculously small town with a small church (only 15 or so people in regular service, maybe 50 at Christmas/Easter) and outside of the ceremony these people created a community. We ran the food shelter and organized funding for well drilling and introducing agriculture. We helped people out when misfortune struck. When I went to youth group, we learned REAL reasons why we shouldn't do certain things.

[@Melki]

@Melki get to have a peaceful sustaining and satisfying world

[@Ryan44567]

@itsasin1969 I agree but your statement isn't sound. You said we can be certain that a X doesn't exist but I am certain that this particular X doesn't exist. If your premise is correct there is no way you can know if an X doesn't exist.

[@RoboticusMusic]

@gaiagale virtual things cannot control the universe you are saying?

[@finix65]

@Not1delusion I think without the dichotomies it would've been a really complicated lecture to follow. Narrowing the scope to "evolution could go either this way or that" helps to enrich the content since it's more focused. That being said he does use too many words like 'stuff' though.

[@pikkuadi]

2013 here we come

[@Volound]

@killer2111994 the front of the shot. the rather suave and subtly irritated gentleman of arab extraction, with the goatee.

[@michaelkuhn6195]

Dean Kenyon rightly concludes: “It is an enormous problem, how you could get together in one tiny, sub-microscopic volume of the primitive ocean all of the hundreds of different molecular components you would need in order for a self-replicating cycle to be established.”

[@derhafi]

Well...Dean Kenyon is also a young Earth creationist. NObody should give a damn about whatever his opinion is.

[@michaelkuhn6195]

How could ammonia (NH3), the precursor for amino acid synthesis, have accumulated on prebiotic earth, if the lifetime of ammonia would be short because of its photochemical dissociation? How could prebiotic events have delivered organosulfur compounds required in a few amino acids used in life, if in nature sulfur exists only in its most oxidized form (sulfate or SO4), and only some unique groups of procaryotes mediate the reduction of SO4 to its most reduced state (sulfide or H2S)? How did unguided stochastic coincidence select the right amongst over 500 that occur naturally on earth? How was the concomitant synthesis of undesired or irrelevant by-products avoided? Etc etc

[@Esico6]

@@derhafi Well I don’t think you know better.

[@Esico6]

@@michaelkuhn6195 yes its way to complex. All those questions are not addressed by fantasy science.

[@derhafi]

@@Esico6 You don't think I don't know the age of the earth better than an "young Earth creationist" ? Adorable!

[@Melki]

@GuyTM Its our lack of ability to discover lovely solutions that causes the tendency towards selfish solutions, and by classifying all lies as lies for everybody, we will get there.

[@TheFounderUtopia]

@MarkoKraguljac I do see your point and I understand to a degree, but I think you are reading too much into it. I think it's an acceptable compromise to use anthropomorphizing as a tool to present a very simplistic overview of something you are mentioning in passing. One could say "compelled" rather than "want", but this begs the question of "how" which sidetracks the discussion and derails the original lecture. To not simplify is to be forced to address everything, there's a time and a place.

[@Cognosium]

That, of course, is a far more plausible hypothesis. Furthermore, it may even be that such systems may have already have arisen. Unlike carbon based biology, however, they could not have progressed very far, the configurational options being very limited.

[@snylekkie]

3:31 spot the massive yawn to the left!! hahaha

[@Kojak7snap]

@PoeticJustice05 The strongest, fastest, most intelligent cheetah will drop like a rock in the desert, and the most adaptable and resilient plants have none of those three characteristics. Fittest, in this context, means most suited; the sloth or snail is well suited to it's niche in the biosphere, regardless of weakness, lack of relative intelligence, and lack of speed.

[@axelasdf]

@marcotmcom If you give them enough time, they will develop their own reactions to interference with their processes, likely.

[@P1ranh4]

@ehpl It's how nature works, it doesn't have to be how society works... and it isn't.

[@MarkoKraguljac]

@TheFounderUtopia Adequate use of language and thought process are most important in science. Saying that magnets or genes "want" something is inexcusable distortion of reality and a great disservice to the though process of young people. Our human world consists of words and thoughts; the more they resemble relations from reality the more there will be traction for future discoveries. Saying things differently is not harder to understand but describes them better. Its a Mickey Mouse world now.

[@Cognosium]

Unfortunately, the way in which this talk is presented can easily lead to fundamental misunderstanding. I presume this is the fault of those who produced the talk rather than of the speaker himself. Analysing carefully, all that Lee Cronin seems claiming is not that any other element than carbon is capable of allowing the very extensive and complex manifestations of biology that we observe, but rather that much simpler systems using other elements may prove to be evolvable.

[@axelasdf]

@tky011 You can also recognize that ideas matter. They give people comfort/guidance/perspective. The mere existence of the idea creates changes in mentality and behavioral patterns. Do you prove everything that you use in life? Is that actually a requirement before it becomes useful? How I came to my belief, I started trimming away from religion everything that already has an explanation. I'm left with only universal constants and a couple of other physics terms left. It seems created.

[@Zicid]

WHY DON'T LET HIM TO THINK ABOUT HE DOES,,, HIS THOUGHTS ARE RESPECFULL

[@xSilverPhinxx]

@MOADAM2010 THE EGG EVOLVED!

[@AleXGT7]

@Melki Except love is a human defined unique emotion. It really has no relation to even other animals on this planet let alone what inanimate objects that could come "alive".

[@peppermintgal4302]

Love is produced by physiological processes that we share with a number of other animals. I take it you've never owned a pet?

[@DaBamBamMan]

@S0up3rD0up3r Makes them feel better about not being able to comprehend that things change. Over a long period of time, big changes happen, resulting in offshoots of a specific organism. It's that simple, yet they refuse to believe it.

[@eschersky]

@wachi03 You're right. He however don't seem to think in a way an ''every grad student in biological sciences'' would.

[@damith219]

Oh come one... When would people get a joke? :) Besides, I'm not saying that Dawkins is at a fault here. I just wanted to point out that inorganic abiogenesis is not THAT novel an idea. Regardless, the results shown in the talk are phenomenal to the advancement of the subject...

@GrudgyDiablo whatever...you understood me

[@Hampus3313]

Incredible stuff.

[@rwwanon]

@AustralianAllTheWay In that case, they should have considered inviting someone fully capable of speech to talk about it.

[@AnirbanBandyopadhyay]

2011 he says he will make life in 2 years. Today is 2019, he makes elementary chemical computers

[@AvNotasian]

Yeah I think he got side tracked :P

[@peppermintgal4302]

We've made autocatalytic RNA that formed an entire ecosystem of interdependent strains in its own. It's debatable whether that constitutes life, sure, but it's definitely evolvable matter lol.

[@billyg89]

@osemudiame123 you obviously didnt get the point of my comment. If i wanted to get specific i would've said that he thinks matter can replicate without nucleic acids. the point is that he thinks non organic molecules can carry replicable information and succeed in life in a stable way, which isn't true. proteins can't be made without carbon.

[@LexoG33]

@jackooboy1 That is true, but life had to have originated somewhere and there is evidence it has been here on Earth for most of its existence. Life may have not originated here on Earth but wherever it did had to have allowed nucleic acids, amino acids, and lipids to come together in an aqueous solution.

[@duydatyds]

more than 10 years had passed and we're still waiting for the first "evolvable matter" that this babbler was talking about let alone an artificial cell.

[@kinetic7609]

Lol

[@peppermintgal4302]

We made self replicating RNA molecules that do evolve, and in fact, evolved into an entire ecosystem. What is that but "evolvable matter"?

[@AtheistKharm]

@itsasin1969 I can't believe your comment got so many up votes.... awesome.

[@archaeopteryxxxx]

Carl Sagan used to say we were "Star 'Stuff,'" - should we fault Dawkins for using it as well?

[@Kirbynessness]

Yet another case of Philosophy preceding Science in it's discoveries. Though this development is still very exciting because it moves the revelations of the illusion of life and of evolution (process of elimination) dictating all of existence from the realm of metaphysics and conjecture into the light of empirical fact.

[@duckmanjoel]

Is fire alive or inorganic. It grows and uses oxygen.

[@redsbr]

Yeah we can look for "change over time," which is evolution in matter. But how do we know the difference between change that is evolution and change that isnt evolution? ALSO consider this. Evolution has no "goal." Evolution includes the survival of some properties while the elimination and change of others. So let me ask you this. How much of one thing is to survive and how much of one thing is to change for it to be considered evolution? What ratio? Evolution is just a colloquial term.

[@osemudiame123]

@billyg89 what's your point? most living things don't have minds

[@ratje67]

I'm thrilled to live in a time where science is breaching the frontiers into the unimaginable! Maybe we should pause arguing about the religious consequences for a while. Just go blank and hear these nerds out first

[@Melki]

@bindlessMoredom well scientist explained that state of materials are governed by fields in the universe. So what we could touch and feel is like tip of the iceberg of existence. Water, air, rocks took their state by following laws, that's my conclusion.

[@ZZzzzzzWhat]

The advance of scientific research makes me positive about the future. And if it wasn't for the ignorant dogma we would know much more about the natural world by now.

[@jaymthegenius]

"A bacteria" I think you mean a bacterium, bacteria is the plural form of the word.

[@MarkoKraguljac]

@xjaskix It needs good will to understand what I am saying. It is just my opinion that science should not be a PR project. Instead of saying that molecules "want" anything they should admit (their language must reflect the fact) that they simply dont know enough about molecule interactions to authoritatively talk about it (and simplify). If they knew, protein folding for example would be solved by now. I am just asking that language (expression) should reflect facts in all scientific fields. c>

[@vinny184]

This man absolutely nuked religious fanaticism on ool. Completely made Dr J Tour, the frontman of christopseudoscientism, act like a lost small child without ad hominem statements. Such a smart man.

[@gonzalo1465]

was absolutely the opposite 😂

[@HerrMueller93]

does anyone else see a zombie apocalypse coming from this?

[@Ko252]

@sdrawkcabgnipytmi Good question. "Free will is the apparent ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints."

[@txdmsk]

@AshrielDrummer I'm afraid you need to look up the word's definition in a dictionary if you find the inability to picture a universe without the gods unimaginative.

[@rwwanon]

Jeez, this guy just basically rambled for 15 minutes.

[@osemudiame123]

@mitkoogrozev that would work but must people would disagree with it because they want to feel special