Canadians think life formed... spontaneously

But they don't really form "spontaneously". They require heat or another form of energy to begin the formation of ribosomes etc.

"This had been shown in a seminal experiment in the 1950s in which basic chemicals were combined in a flask, heated and zapped with electricity, creating basic proteins as a result."

Then the ribosomes require a bust of energy to form into more complex structures and so on.

Mainly the reason this happens is due to the position of Earth, so we get the right about of UV and heat from the Sun, yet not the radiation and excess heat to fry us or the low amounts to freeze us. Allowing the protein to get the heat energy and survive to form complex structures. And volcanoes contribute giving heat and some of the needed gases.

I guess really the question is why did they get more complex. Is it merely that, that certain shape is easier or naturally the next step in evolution or just a random occurance?

Life here on earth developed out of reactions caused by sufficient heat energy, presence of reactive substances, and/or outside influence such as a comet. Cosmic clouds and nebula have conditions where ammonia, sulphur, carbon dioxide, ethyl alcohol, and other compounds and substances are created. It could be that a comet with these things in it reached earth and sparked life. Even in the comet, conditions are favorable for these compounds.

I was watching the universe the other day and they remarked on interstellar clouds full of ethanol. It seems organic molecules are fairly widely distributed in the universe. This together with the spontaneous self organizing features of nature would make the assumption that life may be fairly common entirely rational.

Science seems to want to include that as deep as it may delve, the more observant it is of the facts. Let's see, if it concludes or has concluded, you be the judge, that we are all made of the same material as all other things, then as life we must conclude that all things existing, are alive or will live or has lived, making the universe a living thing and not more living things but one in its self. Does Science wish to prove that God, as the "Life" of the universe, Is.

I would rather like to either argue this or explain it, face to face as I can't seem to find it, anything other than hilarious.

You can say that about everything, which should highlight the flaw in reasoning. If we are made of the same material as all other things, then we are made of the same material as cake, and so is everything else, and so everything is cake. If you think this line of reasoning is correct (it is equivilent to the above), then prove it by eating your laptop. I'll provide the cream if necessary (although it will look like a lamp... same thing, right?).

Being composed of the same fundamental particles does not make two systems "the same", and so will not bestow all systems with the same processes, such as growth, metabolism and reproduction.

Bones

Even the formation of something much simpler requires some energy, right? At absolute zero, in the absence of any thermal energy, all chemical reactions come to a stop. The early earth was bombarded by energy -- the world was hotter, there was no atmosphere so there was more cosmic radiation, etc. So insofar as heat can be a catalyst, it was around.

Years ago, I got a book called The Intelligent Universe by Fred Hoyle. He was a pretty famous cosmologist - actually I think he won a Nobel. This was one of the first books to seriously promote Panspermia (great word, eh?), based on exactly this observation. So - nascent planets are like ova, and comets full of organic material are like sperm, racing around the cosmos, 'fertilizing' planets and giving rise to early life forms which then develop according to the dynamics of natural selection (plus whatever else is pushing complexity). Subsequently, further influxes of life-forming materials arrive frequently from space. Hoyle reckons this is where some viruses come from. I think he also suggested that maybe this was behind the Cambrian explosion (although it has been a long while since I read it).

Panspermia has not been written off. I recall seeing another story about it recently. I have always loved the idea. It has been suggested that the tardigrade genus might have hitch-hiked in on a meteorite, partly because:

(from Wikipedia)

and also because they are unlike anything else on earth.

Philosophically, though, the issue that is bugging me at the moment is how the idea of the spontaneous emergence of consciousness relates to the idea of causality. I still can't accept the idea that intelligence emerges from non-intelligence, unless there is a sense in which it was already latently present (i.e. 'latent becomes patent'). This is because I see intelligence as a characteristic of 'the causal realm' which always must be prior to 'the material realm'. Matter can't 'do' anything in my understanding; it is entirely passive. Still working on this....

---------- Post added 01-04-2010 at 10:14 AM ----------

Incidentally I have just seen Avatar which is an absolute knockout and very 'religiously' interesting in my view.