I don't understand the "lock up tight" comment unless it is about the fact that rust requires energy input to break apart. You are right about the lower energy level of compounds that spontaneously combine. Snowflakes and rust are at lower energy levels (they release energy to reach that state) but they are still more complex. Some living compounds are at a lower energy level than the surrounding chemicals but they are more complex.
Sorry. You probably know better than I do. When I said "lock up" I just meant they'd become immune or resistant to anything adding on. It has to do with the total number of electrons in the outer shell. I remember the principle, but I forget which numbers will combine with more atoms and which numbers will "lock up", and refuse to combine with anything further.
Your meaning of "lock up" is not seen in nature. There is no chemical that cannot be made to react with another chemical. Even noble gases like neon can be made to form compounds. For example: The battery in your car is made from plates of Lead and Lead Dioxide submerged in a solution of Sulfuric Acid. When it is providing electricity, lead sulfate is formed on the lead oxide plates from the lead in solution and the sulfate in solution because the charge differential between the plates is changing. Put the battery on a charger and the charge differential changes to put the lead sulfate back in solution and put lead back on the lead plates. The chemical reaction is reversed by adding energy.
I know the inert ones on the right side of the table don't like to combine with anything. Likewise, any compound that adds up to the correct number will become inert (or virtually inert - I don't remember if the distinguish between the two).
Yes the compounds become inert for the temperature/pressure/wetness/electrical state that the compound is in at the time. However, if you change any one of those conditions and all bets are off....ie, lead sulfate goes back into solution and the lead plates increase in weight from the lead coming out of solution onto them.
The Earth is a volatile system. Volcano's, rain, erosion, ocean currents, and hydrothermal vents all change the chemical equilibrium in different locations at different times. Chemical equilibrium changes and chemical reactions occur. These appear to be random events but many have said that God uses random events and coincidences to work his miracles.
Anyhow, building a complex molecule starting from scratch isn't going to be child's play. You start randomly joining atoms, and it's not long before they'll lock up on you. Break 'em up with heat? Sure... and start over again. Unless you provide a means to add in the next element or compound right away when they're at the right temperature and pressure to let you do it.
Changing chemical conditions doesn't always break up a molecule, in fact that is not the usual occurrence at all, especially in a water solution. Things dissolved in water break up into ions (plus and minus charges) then they combine is all sorts of ways...breaking apart and recombining...partially breaking up and adding new atoms/compounds....just adding new compounds...etc. Changes in environmental conditions change the mixture, just like the battery but lots more players in the mix.
Wash, rinse, repeat. But the more progress you make, the harder it is to keep the whole thing from falling apart. And you need the right components available at the right time. You also need heat at the right time. You need shelter from anything that might destroy the project, and a barrier against unwanted elements that might contaminate your project.
In the oceans right now there are literally quadrillions of atoms/molecules in solution. There is the potential for nearly endless combinations of atoms to form compounds. The only difference between now and before life existed is that now the compounds used for life are sucked up by life forms to make them grow. Back then there was no life to suck up those compounds, so they had the potential to combine beyond the basic compounds that are used by life forms now.
You need a lab and a good technician, actually.
Oh yeah... and a lot more smarts than anyone's demonstrated thus far, because none of 'em have yet come close.
One so intelligent that he could design a 4.6 billion year experiment that resulted in adopted children in heaven <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Ah! So the emphasis is on chemical complexity!! I thought you were saying that complexity itself could not occur naturally. That's why I chose the snowflake. Besides, change of state (liquid to solid) is a change of chemistry. I guess that's not the chemistry you were interested in talking about.
Arguing "complexity itself" would likely degenerate into quibbling over the definition. And you might like to maneuver me into trying to prove a negative.
I understand your distrust, but I have not maneuvered you yet, have I?
Just like genetic variation has observed limits, but evolutionists require "proof that these limits always apply", so to do physical complexity, chemical complexity, and informational complexity have distinct limits when found in nature. However, I cannot convince evolutionists that these limits apply "in all times under all circumstances".
I think believing they don't is akin to believing different laws of physics might apply in different galaxies - unless someone can demonstrate that there's a mechanism to ensure that they apply "at all times in all places".
Nothing against you, but I don't think you can show that there is a distinct genetic limit nor a chemical limit even now. I bet if we took enough time to breed dogs and only allowed the dogs with sharper toenails and pointed ears to breed, we could come up with an animal that looks very much like a cat. We could even breed for behaviors that would be more cat like, stealth like a pointer, speed and willingness to chase like a labrador...etc. If creation scientists can show that this animal (dog breed that looks like a cat) cannot be done, then they would have a case for genetic limits. Sounds like another thread, cause it would take us too much to a side track.
How can you say that physical complexity and chemical complexity have limits that don't include life, when you know that your body's mechanisms all work with chemistry? Absolutely, chemical and physical properties have limits but life is certainly not excluded by those limits. If it were, I would not be here to type this message. Maybe I would understand what you are trying to say here if you could elaborate on chemical and physical limits.
Looking at cells, there are extremely complex things going on in there. However, each step is a chemical reaction. The compound either loses energy, transferring it to something else, or gains energy, taking it from something else.
Each step is a chemical reaction occurring at the right location and in the right sequence with the right molecule(s). It's the extreme opposite of random.
The energy gains and losses are another factor with potential to destroy or deplete the process, were it random. That this has been accounted for is another indication that they're well-designed.
I am not arguing against "design" because I can't prove there is no Creator, just as you cannot prove there is a Creator. I am arguing that the formation of life could have been a result of the "design" of nature. Whether that nature is a purposeful act of the divine or not is left up to the viewer.
Louis Pasteur's experiment was not about producing life in the way abiogenesis is. It was about determining if complex life forms (maggots...etc) arise from dead meat.
Yes. His was one in a series of experiments required to combat an entrenched belief.
A belief that maggots and mice arose from dead meat and dirty straw. Irrelevant to the abiogenesis hypotheses.
