On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 1:49 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> But >> leaving that obvious fact aside, the other obvious fact is that >> evolution has used organic chemistry to make self-replicators because >> that was the easiest way to do it. Do you imagine that if it were easy >> to evolve steel claws which helped predators catch prey that steel >> claws would not have evolved? What would have prevented their >> evolution, divine intervention? > > > You are assuming that there are other options though. Maybe there are, but > we don't know that for sure yet. If there were, it seems like there would be > either multiple kinds of biology in the history of the world, or individual > species which have mutated to exploit the variety of inorganic compounds in > the universe available. What prevented their evolution is the same thing > that creates thermodynamic irreversibility out of reversible quantum wave > functions. The universe is an event, not a machine. When something happens, > the whole universe is changed, and maybe that change becomes the active > arrow of qualitative progress. Organic chemistry got there first, therefore > that door may be closed - unless we, as biological agents, open a new one. Iron is already present in haemoglobin and myoglobin. For that matter, silicon may also be an essential micronutrient for bone health (http://www.spritzer.com.my/WebLITE/Applications/news/uploaded/docs/Dietary%20Silicon%202004.pdf). What prevents these elements from being utilised in a different way? Would it disprove your entire theory if we found an animal living in some forgotten hole that had steel claws? -- Stathis Papaioannou -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
