The origin of life
From RationalWiki
The Origin of Life is a much-debated topic that relates to how life began on this planet. Depending upon individual perspectives, there are a multitude of creation, design, and bizarre theories as to how life began. This article attempts to discuss the creation myths found in various religions. The last section consists of the scientific story as to how life originated.
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[edit] Abrahamic
[edit] Judeo-Christian
This particular creation story is derived from Genesis, the first chapter of the Bible, or the Torah in the Jewish faith. The myth states that God created the world, space, all the stars, and all known life over a series of six days, allowing Himself to rest on the seventh. While creationists (intelligent design pushers) insist that this occurred roughly six to ten thousand years ago, and that the “days” were literal 24 hour days, nowhere does the Bible mention when the creation took place, or even discuss how long the days were.
[edit] Islamic
Islam, rather than placing its entire myth in one book, spreads the myth of creation across the Qur'an. In the Islamic faith, the skys and earth were made as one unit. Rather than taking six days, the Qur'an teaches creation took six long spans of time. Similar to the Bible, the Qur'an teaches that one God, Allah, created the world and everything, and that He made all organisms from a single drop of water. After which, He made angels, the moon, the sun, and all the other stars. The only thing not made by now was man.
Allah then took multiple types of soil, mixed them together, and made a man (it is not mentioned if it was in his image or another). God placed Adam in Paradise, than created Eve (in Islam, Hawa), from Adam’s side. Finished, God commanded all the angels to bow to Adam, than departed to the heavens. Iblis, believed to be the personification of Satan, refused to obey, and as in the Bible, tempted Eve, gave them the fruit, and got them expelled from Paradise.
[edit] Pagan
[edit] Aborigine
The Aborigines of Australia focus their creation myth around the “dreamtime”, a time around 10,000 years ago. In the beginning, everything already existed, save for life. The stars, planets, and everything else woke up, and burst through a surface, racing to their places. Two beings, however, formed themselves out of nothing. These beings are called the Ungambikula. Upon arriving to the Earth, they found masses of half-completed humans composed of animals and plants. To all extents, they were formless beings. The Ungambikula took a human of whose form they admired, and constructed all other humans in that way. The process of forming a human was not easy, requiring years of working with stone knives. At long last, every human in the world “existed” in a full and complete way. With their work done, the Ungambikula parted to below the surface, and went to sleep. The ground wherever they stepped, however, is holy, and marked by opals (Ed note: Opals play a VERY important role in Aborigine culture.)
[edit] Viking/Norse
The Norse creation myth begins with two separate realms of extreme hot (Muspelheim) and cold (Nifelheim) with a massive emptiness between them called Ginnungagap, under which lay a life-giving well called Hvergelmir. The water that flowed from the well was frozen by the icy north winds and the built-up ice created not the first human, but the first Frost Giant known as Ymir. Along with Ymir was a cow called Audumla who fed Ymir with her milk. Ymir drank the milk and fathered other Frost Giants from the shards that broke off of him and Audumla nourished herself by licking the ice around her, which was the frozen water from Hvergelmir.
After three days of licking, Audumla found a man in the ice: Burri, first of the Aesir (Norse gods). His son Borr married the giantess Bestla and they had three sons: Vili, Ve and Odin. The family fought against the evil Ymir and killed him, the water from his wounds drowning most of the Frost Giants, except for Bergelmir who made a sheltered boat to protect himself and his family from the flood (sound familiar?).
Using Ymir's body, the Aesir created Midgard, the world, and planted Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life, in order to hold the world steady with its roots and to hold up the sky with its branches. After creating the world, Odin created the first man and woman by making them out driftwood and gave them souls; Vili gave them thought and feeling while Ve gave them hearing, sight and speech. Soon Midgard was filled with humans, but sorrow and pain came to them when the giants and other evil beings took the shape of humans and intermarried with humans, despite all that Odin did.
[edit] Native American
[edit] Ancient Egyptian
[edit] Ancient Greek
[edit] Scientific
There is no single generally accepted scientific hypothesis about the origin of life - abiogenesis.
The earth itself is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and around 3 billion years ago, life is thought to have begun. The oceans had, by this time, cooled down to below 100 degrees Celsius which led to their condensing, and scientists think a pH of around 5.8 allowed for significant reactions to occur to produce noticeable amounts of organic molecules. The organic molecules forming in the ocean eventually formed a "primordial soup", and, somehow or other, the molecules for a cell wall mixed with the molecules for the cytoplasm, RNA got in, and life began. From this point on, evolution took over. Whatever cell could get the most food in the shortest time and make the most offspring (mitosis) survived to pass on its traits. Sooner or later, two cells grouped together, working to a mutual advantage, forming the first multicellular organism.
The most important organelles in the cell, the mitochondria in all eukaryotes and the chloroplasts in plants, were at one time individual organisms capable, in the enriched environment of the ocean, of creating their own ATP (the driving source of reactions and energy.) Whereas the first primitive cells were only capable of deriving 2-4 ATP from their reactions, mitochondria, in the presence of oxygen, and chloroplasts, in the presence of CO2, could produce 32 ATP, a tremendous survival advantage.
Their seperate origins are indicated by:
- The presence of a membrane around these structures, similar to that of the membrane found on the exterior of the cell.
- Their DNA which is completely seperate from the nuclear DNA of the cell itself.
