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/sci/ - Science & Math

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6150237 No.6150237 [Reply] [Original]

When the first organisms that would later become us started forming, how could they "know" how to interact with the environment, when there is no guiding process?

Just explain how the fuck those tiny little organisms eventually became humans without any design behind it whatsoever, i just don´t buy it.

>> No.6150239

>>6150237

It wouldn't "know" anything, just like most living things don't "know" anything even now. It's just obeying physical laws.

>> No.6150243

>>6150239

I know i sound like a retard, i barely even know what i just asked, i just know that mutations are the most infatuating thing for me about science.

Should i even try studying it on my own?

>> No.6150269
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6150269

“For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people,are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new
tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other. At the input end they even develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow. As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together in groups to fight with other groups. In time, the tubes grow such an
abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering variety of forms. There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd.”

-Alan Watts

I've listened to most of his stuff, seems to entertain my mind.

>> No.6150372

>>6150237

You don't buy it because you don't read it.

Stop following popsci and other such dross and start reading Stephen Jay Gould.

>> No.6150376

>>6150372
>Stephen Jay Gould
>stop reading pop-sci

Pick one who hasn't had most of his career debunked

>> No.6150399

>>6150376
>most of his career debunked

Not really.

>> No.6150411

>>6150237

> Never read a biology book

Hurr durr I don't buy it!

>> No.6150422

>>6150411
not him and have taken some biology courses. I understand it abstractly but if i actually think about it it blows my mind that proteins are behaving so perfectly when they are really just like inanimate objects

>> No.6150442

>>6150422
also, how does a cell know to divide? Do they have some kind of internal timer or clock or do they divide based on some stimulant or situation?

>> No.6150446

>>6150442
It can be pretty complicated and depends on what kind of cell you're talking about.

To start have a look over:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_cycle

>> No.6150447

>>6150237
we don't have all the answers yet but we can narrow it down to the ediacaran period

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24550167

obviously it started with a simple mechanism and became more complex, it was guided by natural selection, a filter feeder that retracts when it gets dark or cold for instance would lose less energy and was more likely to survive and reproduce

>> No.6150454

>>6150422
The first ones were far from perfect, but hey! No competition!

So a crappy structure that would replicate itself could exist at the time, today it would be eaten before it had the chance to replicate.

>> No.6150459

>>6150237
Have fun

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

>> No.6150512

>>6150442

if you want to get a better understanding then i suggest you take the word "know" out of your head when you're trying to learn this.

>> No.6150527

>>6150399
> Not really.

Upgrade to: NOT AT ALL.

There's only one reason people don't understand how chemicals can become life: They refuse to believe it.

>> No.6150611

>>6150512
well ya but its not just like random...

>> No.6150664

>>6150611
taking entry level bio courses, it's not random indeed, it's a complex system with proteins stepping up and activating the production of other sets of proteins which make the cell progress through it's cycle while deactivating others, etc depending on the cell type

>> No.6150684

>>6150664
ah so like after x amount of time for Y cell an approximate number of reactions will have occurred and will have changed the state of the cell

>> No.6151114

>>6150684
yes, kind of

I was very fond of biology before I had to take those mandatory uni courses (maths undergrad here, go figure why they put us through them).
If you're not going to delve very deep into the subjects (and maybe even if you do), then you'll always stay on your "hunger" and keep asking yourself new questions until you just give up.

(basically, when they showed us what was the drive behind the cellular cycles for example, they said it was because of some faggy ass protein, which was itself a result of a faggy ass processs which was itself a result of some nigga protein and so on and so forth)

I don't know how biomed fagets cope, it's just mindless learning

>> No.6151123

>>6151114
ya i agree, feel that way about my chemE friends sometimes. Good old computer science is just logic mostly.

>> No.6151153

>>6150237
Ask Urey

>> No.6151149

>>6150664
Maybe you should ask yourself why the process is not random.

and then question your belief that it happens at random.

>> No.6151202

>>6151149
Was your reply meant to the guy I replied to?
Because I did say it was not so random...

Each phase of the cell cycle activates the next one as it starts through protein production / phosphorisation or whatever.

>> No.6152119

Instinct I suppose like how a baby turtle knows to enter the sea.

>> No.6152160

>>6152119
This seems completely different from what OP asked. However, this is one of t he most contested things in Biology. How newly born animals are capable of following a certain set of instructions or "instincts".

>> No.6152232

Now re-read this thread with a religious undertone to it replacing biology with the bible.

;)

>> No.6152235

>>6152160
last i check, random doesn't generate instructions. Biology thumpers are afraid to have their methods thwarted.

>> No.6152237

>>6152232
>replacing biology with the bible.

How is that supposed to work?

>> No.6152241

>>6152235
>last i check, random doesn't generate instructions.

Check again.

>> No.6152242

>>6152237
>>6152237
by not quote mining