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View Full Version : Is life just one huge chemical reaction?



Comrade-Z
7th June 2006, 19:28
How might one confront the religious argument of intelligent design and how they claim that it is very improbable that an "unguided" evolution could bring the earth to where it is now?

One way might be to create a scientific model in which life can be thought of as one huge 2 billion-year-long exothermic chemical reaction, which continues to perpetuate itself partly because of the continuous influx of new energy through the reaction (in the form of sunlight).

After all, "life" is nothing but specific arrangements of chemicals and energy, right? (And won't that argument make the godsuckers angry! :lol: )

What this would suggest is that evolution had to happen the way it did. Once the chemical reaction started, assuming all other variables remain constant (external sunlight input, meteorite impacts, etc.), the chemical reaction would have necessarily led to where it is now.

This implies a good deal of physical determinism, which also has the effect of attacking the religious notion of "free will."

Janus
7th June 2006, 19:42
Well, we are simply a bunch of chemical and biological reactions going on.

As for life, there are interactions that aren't always considered "chemical" but I agree that there is a large amount of determinism in our lives and reductionists are right about many things.

Cult of Reason
7th June 2006, 20:14
Orderly decay of energy states. ;)