The first reproduction

[Morm]

I've been pondering this for about a month now. It's a long post, so grab a drink and get comfy. TL;DR : why the hell would the first reproducing organism have gone to the trouble?

If you have an organism, likely a bacteria or archaea (or something simple like that), it doesn't necessarily reproduce 100% of the time. I know many qualifications for life is that it must self replicate, but surely not all of the 'minimum characters for life' appeared at the same time. Following the likely (and inevitable) chemical evolution that took place, why is it necessary that these sets of qualities arose? Well for simple propagation and survival of course. Meanwhile, things like Viruses walk the line with several qualities missing:

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Viruses
Viruses are most often considered replicators rather than forms of life. They have been described as "organisms at the edge of life",[21] since they possess genes, evolve by natural selection,[22] and replicate by creating multiple copies of themselves through self-assembly. However, viruses do not metabolize and require a host cell to make new products. Virus self-assembly within host cells has implications for the study of the origin of life, as it may support the hypothesis that life could have started as self-assembling organic molecules.[23][24]

Something had to beget life that holds all of the below traits, perhaps life or "replicators" missing one or two of the traits:

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Biology
Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive, where life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena:[14][16][17]
Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.
Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology

Here is where I take some issue with things. Reproduction, at it's most basic and first instance, does not make sense. It makes sense once it's started and once protocol for life and reproduction has formed (ie. men having a penis and loving tits). The first organism to reproduce was almost certainly not the first "replicator" or organism to exist and most certainly was not alone in its environment.

So what happens when this organism breeds? It loses a great deal of resources for the sole purpose of making competition for itself. So it's a double negative, no up side what so ever for the organism. The only situation I can think of would be multicellularity or at least colonialism, which gives an advantage. However, I can't think of a situation where that could have happened right off the bat with reproduction. Why would this trait of using resources to create competition have helped the first organism thrive? I would personally lean towards this organism and its kind getting the axe rather quickly as non reproducing organisms would have schooled them competitively. Note that this is referring to ONE generation, as that's all we have to work with with non reproducers. We are assuming there are many forms and that there exists at this time an environment that produces this life en mass. Life wasn't a one time mistake, it was an explosion.

Why do we need to reproduce, anyways? As an organism, what shit do you give about making more competition for yourself now and "leaving a legacy"? Like I said, it makes sense once it's started once you engage the instincts, hormones and of course, a good set of tits. However, why would this first breeding organism have started reproducing?

Well, I have not read "the Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. He's a bit of an idiot I think, but the idea that genes are the puppet masters and we are just vessels to do their bidding- the gene itself wants to live on, or something like that, so it has to reproduce. I don't get it, perhaps it's beyond my comprehension. Perhaps a complex molecule is actually planning things out. Or, more likely, it's still a mystery and Dawkins can eat a dick. I say this because if the genes were in charge, things have gotten WAY out of hand for them, just ask cancers and smogon users wasting life and time respectively.

Luck, as in any evolutionary thought, plays a big role. Perhaps the reproducers just got lucky, once the gravy train got a small foot hold (perhaps as few as 5 organisms, all reproduced from the original and its predecessors) it was inevitable and they landslid everything else. Luck is luck, we all know from critical 'hax' that it can play a big role in most anything, but I somehow thing the odds were tipped in favor of reproduction, no matter how unlikely this trait forming would have been.

So what is really going on here? Is there some malevolent force* that put reproduction in motion? Is it the genes who are really up to this? It's been bugging me, but the question is: Why the hell would any organism reproduce and how would it and its ancestors have out competed non reproducers who are gluttonously hogging up resources?


*to remain undescribed as we don't know what it is, please step off any God jockeys :D

 

[Darkamber8828]

The reproducing species would probably beat the non-reproducers by outlasting them, since they...reproduce, while all the animals that don't...die out.

So yeah.

 

[billymills]

I'm not a biology major, I've never really liked biology, but I think it's worth trying to puzzle through this question.

Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

Reproduction does stand out among the characteristics of life as the only one that is not continuous. (It's possible not to reproduce, but I dare you to try not to respond to any stimuli.)There are a great number of organisms that exist that don't reproduce, the mule comes to mind. I'm also pretty sure that there are a few species that produce offspring that won't reproduce because they are useful for other jobs (see: bees).

As for why reproduction happened, that's not really important. The 'why' is why did reproduction succeed?

Assuming in a single generation, an organism that does not reproduce will have a higher chance of survival, especially when there are low concentrations of nutrients. However, assume one generation when there is a high concentration of nutrients. Instead of the 1 organism that doesn't reproduce succeeding, both the reproducing and non-reproducing organism succeed. At the end of the day, there's 1000 reproducing organisms to 1 non-reproducing organism. Even if suddenly there was a shortage of nutrients, the reproducing organisms would still have the advantage due to the sheer number of them.

This is only one guess I came up with on the spot, but seems somewhat feasible.

 

[whistle]

I haven't had too much time to think this post out in detail nor have I taken a biology class in three years now so bear with me if this is a little confusing... sorry!

Anyways, I think the answer you are looking for is kind of what you described as Dawkins' argument. I haven't read that book either but the point is that competition/survival should be viewed from a multigenerational perspective - which is why it is the gene that matters more, not the individual. Whether we see one tactic (no reproduction) or another (reproduction) today depends completely on which variation was more conducive to long term survival a long time ago.

Either there was just one source of life at the very beginning, or there were more than one at the same time. Logically it seems much less plausible that there were multiple sources of life that just sprouted up simultaneously since it isn't something that is very common in the known universe. If there was just one source of life, then by definition it would have to be able to reproduce; otherwise it wouldn't be a common ancestor and it would have been an evolutionary dead end. So that is one possible answer to your question - there could have been non reproducing DNA/RNA fragments, but since they couldn't reproduce, they didn't pass on their methods (non-reproduction, specifically). Then once some strand of RNA that could reproduce came along, it passed its method on when it reproduced and that produced all life as we know it.

Alternatively, lots of sources of life sprouted up simultaneously... say ten non-reproducing "life forms" and one reproducing "life form". I think you are right that the reproducing life form would be much less competitively viable in the first generation since it has to expend energy reproducing; however, it would have no competition at all in the second generation, so over the course of a few billion years there was probably one life form that could reproduce that also managed to survive the first generation. After that it just kept reproducing and mutating till it produced everything else. I guess this is kind of the same idea as the first case, which also seems to be the core of Dawkins' argument: it doesn't matter whether an individual organism survives or not in a specific instance, since life probably didn't start exactly once and only once. Since non-reproducing genetic lines... well, aren't lines, they couldn't produce what we see now - the rare occasion that a reproducing organism survived long enough to create a genetic line would be the only chance for life as we know it to come about.

Now for how this RNA/DNA fragment (or whatever people think the first traces of life were) evolved into a homeostatic organism that responds to stimuli... my best argument is just that all of the qualities you list in your second hide box are ones that render significant evolutionary benefits, so the genetic lines containing these mutations were more likely to survive and pass on their information than those that did not have these mutations.

I had something else to say that I thought was interesting but I forgot. If I remember I'll edit it in...

 

[mtr]

Reproduction succeeds over models such as parthenogenesis (everyone in a species is a "female" that makes diploid eggs rather than haploid eggs like humans and most others do) because reproduction lends itself to genetic diversity, which makes an organism more able to survive things like disease, habitat variations, etc. Even non-reproductive organisms like bacteria use plasmids to transfer genetic material.

 

[Morm]

The reproducing species would probably beat the non-reproducers by outlasting them, since they...reproduce, while all the animals that don't...die out.

So yeah.

I actually gave reasons as to why it's DISADVANTAGEOUS over one generation to reproduce and then specifically said that's our time frame. Did you read the whole post?

Assuming in a single generation, an organism that does not reproduce will have a higher chance of survival, especially when there are low concentrations of nutrients. However, assume one generation when there is a high concentration of nutrients. Instead of the 1 organism that doesn't reproduce succeeding, both the reproducing and non-reproducing organism succeed. At the end of the day, there's 1000 reproducing organisms to 1 non-reproducing organism. Even if suddenly there was a shortage of nutrients, the reproducing organisms would still have the advantage due to the sheer number of them.

Presumably numbers of spontaneous competition are roughly on par with nutrients available, so the premise of this is incorrect on the hypothetical level. Competition is competition, it follows the resource gravy train. I'm glad you're participating in the thinking, billy, I do value your precious Edmontonian mind.

I haven't read that book either but the point is that competition/survival should be viewed from a multigenerational perspective - which is why it is the gene that matters more, not the individual. Whether we see one tactic (no reproduction) or another (reproduction) today depends completely on which variation was more conducive to long term survival a long time ago.

Survival and competition is present in any discrete generation, I don't see what there is to argue taking it to the single level. The original observations were made on the single generational level then extrapolated. Long term survival is completely irrelevant if your species or breeding organisms are nixed in generation 1 (or shortly thereafter).

Either there was just one source of life at the very beginning, or there were more than one at the same time

Yeah, the thing is that there would have been some pretty steep odds that the only source of life would be reproductive to kick things off, unless it's something hardwired by a 'puppet master', which to me makes zero sense. The issue is common ancestry, which was demonstrated twice over. In fact, the sperm gene has been shown to be the same all the way down to Poriferans (sponges) I believe, meaning a common ancestry for reproductive organisms- exactly fitting in with my problem with how it arose (not all over the place but from a discrete source).

Alternatively, lots of sources of life sprouted up simultaneously... say ten non-reproducing "life forms" and one reproducing "life form". I think you are right that the reproducing life form would be much less competitively viable in the first generation since it has to expend energy reproducing; however, it would have no competition at all in the second generation, so over the course of a few billion years there was probably one life form that could reproduce that also managed to survive the first generation. After that it just kept reproducing and mutating till it produced everything else. I guess this is kind of the same idea as the first case, which also seems to be the core of Dawkins' argument: it doesn't matter whether an individual organism survives or not in a specific instance, since life probably didn't start exactly once and only once. Since non-reproducing genetic lines... well, aren't lines, they couldn't produce what we see now - the rare occasion that a reproducing organism survived long enough to create a genetic line would be the only chance for life as we know it to come about.

I'd suggest it more rare for a reproducing individual, considering that EVERY animal that reproduces today holds the same gene for sperm production with no known holdovers (who clearly aren't doing so well if they exist). They would still have competition in the second generation- competition not only from non-reproductives, but reproductives! So they are actually impeding their own process- two steps forward, one step back so to speak. I'm worried more about what happened to allow it to survive long enough to reproduce viable offspring. I'm starting to think luck paired a reproductive with some advantage that made it a shit wrecking ringer in that time and allowed it to go to town. A billion and a half years, give or take, I could see it with billions of trials per second. Not a very tidy answer, though.

Now for how this RNA/DNA fragment (or whatever people think the first traces of life were) evolved into a homeostatic organism that responds to stimuli... my best argument is just that all of the qualities you list in your second hide box are ones that render significant evolutionary benefits, so the genetic lines containing these mutations were more likely to survive and pass on their information than those that did not have these mutations.

RNA was first, then DNA, it's pretty well established in scientific thought. Yeah kinda where my thinking is going but I hope some brilliant mind who has a different background than me says something brilliant.

Reproduction succeeds over models such as parthenogenesis (everyone in a species is a "female" that makes diploid eggs rather than haploid eggs like humans and most others do) because reproduction lends itself to genetic diversity, which makes an organism more able to survive things like disease, habitat variations, etc. Even non-reproductive organisms like bacteria use plasmids to transfer genetic material.

Parthenogenesis is reproduction. I think you're comparing sexual vs asexual and that's not the point of this. The bolded part is tough for me to reply to, simply because it's pretty incorrect. Bacteria reproduce, simple fact, all of them do. What difference does it make if reproduction leads to genetic diversity? Unless you have someone laying out a blueprint and guiding things, the genetic diversity involved from reproduction doesn't really matter in Gen 1 reproducers. Reproduction makes sense from a long term standpoint but if you're the first to do it, it's just using materials to create competition. Not very "street wise", is it?

 

[whistle]

the best way I can think of to reconcile the short-term vs long-term perspectives is basically blunt force. as you said, though, it's not a "tidy" solution at all. basically just take the billions or trillions or [large number] of life beginnings until you get to the one genetic line that manages to get through all the downfalls of reproduction in the early stages. this does make sense logically, to me at least, because there's no reason for us to expect to see lines of non-reproducing organisms in the modern day - we should only expect to see reproducing organisms. so while the mathematics could be strongly aligned against the genesis of a reproductive line, the results of that line are all that can be observed.

a clarification of sorts to the above explanation is something I vaguely remember reading in my HS biology book - self-replication is a necessary condition of the first stages of life. ribozymes (word found with the help of google lol) are RNA molecules that that catalyze their own synthesis. so if molecules in the early atmosphere - out of sheer chance - randomly arrange themselves into a form that can self-replicate, that would be the beginning of life.

 

[cantab]

A couple of possibilities:

1) Danger lurks around every corner. Not reproducing is putting all your eggs in one basket. It gets broken, you die and your genetic legacy ends.

2) There are physical constraints on how BIG you can get. Single cells need to have nutrients diffuse in, get too big and the middle is starved. If you have a rigid cell wall, it's not rigid enough if it's too big. If' you're suspended in the water column, get too big and you sink. And so on.

Consequently, once you've reached maximum size, if you have excess resources the choice is between using them for reproduction or discarding them. In that case, reproduction is clearly the better option.

It is I believe the case that almost all organisms around nowadays first grow, then reproduce. There's some overlap, but nothing starts reproducing the moment it itself is born, except maybe viruses - and you can argue that they grow inside the host cell so are not zero seconds old when they exit it. (There's a few things that are smaller as adults than as young, but they're pretty rare).

 

[Morm]

Those two points don't matter on the short term, Cantab. As if a bacteria gives a rats ass about a legacy. That's one problem I find with this is that many people present it almost like there was a battle plan set out in evolution when there clearly wasn't.

Brute force is a good way of dealing with it, but for my mind I'd like to know there was something more at play than random chance. Sometimes though, random chance + luck does win the day. Sigh.

 

[cantab]

OK, put it this way. A reproducing organism's numbers can increase or decrease. A non-reproducing organism's numbers can ONLY DECREASE. There's chance involved, in that death is partly random. But it's clear that the non-reproducing organism is doomed to extinction.

There are further factors. You orginally said "It loses a great deal of resources for the sole purpose of making competition for itself". This is FALSE on two counts.

Firstly, simple organisms don't expend much resources reproducing, they simply split their resources. What was one cell becomes two cells about half the size of the original. The only thing you need to make another of is the genes, all the other bits just get shared between the daughter cells.

Secondly, if one goes left, and the other goes right, then they're not competing. Each organism can only use resources within a certain distance. Get further than that apart and you've got essentially no competition in the short term.
Even without geographic separation, one organism can only use resources at a certain RATE. If you use 1 kilo of sulphur a year and you live in a vent that produces a hundred a year, then there's room for 99 more of you without causing you any competition.

 

[Morm]

OK, put it this way. A reproducing organism's numbers can increase or decrease. A non-reproducing organism's numbers can ONLY DECREASE. There's chance involved, in that death is partly random. But it's clear that the non-reproducing organism is doomed to extinction.

agreed, but on a single-generation focus, the reproducers have a significant disadvantage. I agree with this statement, but the focus is a little off; if you take it on the one generation viewpoint, it doesn't make sense (given that we've outlined no mitigative factors) that reproducers would have even made it out of the gates.

There are further factors. You orginally said "It loses a great deal of resources for the sole purpose of making competition for itself". This is FALSE on two counts.

Firstly, simple organisms don't expend much resources reproducing, they simply split their resources. What was one cell becomes two cells about half the size of the original. The only thing you need to make another of is the genes, all the other bits just get shared between the daughter cells.

Actually, considering the first reproducers would have been bacteria or archaea, I'd say there is'a significant chance that half or slightly less of their accumulated resources go to splitting. You make it seem quite diminutive but you're talking HALF the resources plus the energy it takes to accomplish the feat of splitting.

Secondly, if one goes left, and the other goes right, then they're not competing. Each organism can only use resources within a certain distance. Get further than that apart and you've got essentially no competition in the short term.

Competition is competition; we're assuming that there was tons of life around, so it's just adding one more to the shit storm of bacteria trying to make a life for themselves. I see the point though and you're right, the fact that there is added competition isn't as significant in this instance as the whole cost of energy in splitting, but it's an added mindfuck really. Expending so much energy to make a competitor makes no sense on the one generation level.

Even without geographic separation, one organism can only use resources at a certain RATE. If you use 1 kilo of sulphur a year and you live in a vent that produces a hundred a year, then there's room for 99 more of you without causing you any competition.

Agreed. I was going on the assumption that there was life starting everywhere, taking advantage of all the resources. It's just kind of the icing on the silly cake of reproducing in the first place that it adds competition, that's all.

 

[Scoopapa]

I can't say it much better than cdk007 of youtube, so I'm going to post a link to a video that talks about much of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

The first minute or so is creationist bashing that has little to do with science, but then it gets interesting.

This stuff isn't that solid yet, but it's certainly an interesting idea. Basically, I would say replication is the very first thing that would have to happen for a proto-organism. Replication is the only way evolution can happen, so it seems much more likely that early-Earth chemistry created something capable of replication first, which then evolved all of those other traits, than that something with, say, response to stimuli randomly appeared and then added the ability to reproduce somehow as well.

 

[Morm]

Well when you look at it, RNA strands in nature pretty much automatically start forming proteins that they code for. All it would take is an RNA strand with the starting point of RNA polymerase and you're pretty much reproducing. Perhaps it was the reproducing that took place FIRST rather than LAST.

Edit: Not to mention protenoid microspheres have a strong tendency to reach a critical size and then split in half. So the phospholipid bilayer combined with some proteins tends to facilitate this as well; PRETTY coincidental that so much of life auto assembles and auto replicates, but then again perhaps it was a nice eventuality that all these self replicators and auto assemblers got together and made life. Perhaps it's an indicator of some of the restrains of continuing life. :D

 

[cantab]

Actually, considering the first reproducers would have been bacteria or archaea, I'd say there is'a significant chance that half or slightly less of their accumulated resources go to splitting. You make it seem quite diminutive but you're talking HALF the resources plus the energy it takes to accomplish the feat of splitting.

You're counting what is "split away" as cost. It isn't. It's just rearrangement.

 

[Morm]

You're counting what is "split away" as cost. It isn't. It's just rearrangement.

There is some metabolic cost in the split process, along with the obvious cost of what it takes to bulk up and make another set of organelles plus DNA.

God produced man for the purpose of his glory.
case closed, on topic.

Trolling is not allowed in Congregation.

 

[cantab]

Off topic, since humans have little to do with this.

And indeed, other than the command to "go forth and multiply" I can't think of anything the Bible has to say on this. Meanwhile, if you accept the existence of God then you have a lot of potential alternatives to reproduction, at least for plants and other animals if not for humans. Like spontaneous generation, or how about simply not needing to eat. God could have created us without the need to eat and thus without the need to kill. Yet He didn't. Why not?

(Incidentally, I think of late there's been too much multiplying and not enough going forth! We ought to have lunar colonies by now, but plans just get postponed and postponed and postponed.)

 

[Scoopapa]

I was really hoping the "God" post would just be ignored. This discussion is interesting, arguing with fundies is not. Plus, it seems like he might be trolling anyway.

The chemistry of RNA really is what makes the reproduction possible. Remember that, in DNA, each nucleobase only "pairs" with a specific other nucleobase. Guanine pairs with Cytosine, and Adenine pairs with Thymine (Uracil in RNA).

picture

Cytosine (C) bonding with Guanine (G), Adenine (A) bonding with Uracil (U). Some elements, such as oxygen, attract electrons more strongly than others, such as hydrogen. As a result, certain areas of the molecule are left with + or - charges based on whether they are attracting or losing electrons. The red shows where exposed + and - charges are causing the two nucleobases to stick together, which is called a hydrogen bond. The thing to draw from this is that the shape of nucleobases causes to bond well with other, specific nucleobases.

If you're not sure what the pic means, here's a key

Black lines are covalent bonds. Double lines show double bonds. Thick and dotted triangular lines simply show elevation (though I forget which is up and which is down), but are otherwise the same as a single line. Letters are atoms, but notice that sometimes two lines meet and there's no letter: these are Carbon. Organic chemists just don't show it with a letter, because it's the most common element in organic chemistry. Red dotted lines show hydrogen bonds, which I explain in more detail in the caption. The hexagons are truly just hexagonal arrangements of bonded atoms - the blue ones indicate that they're part of a nucleobase, while the unfilled ones are part of the "structure" which the nucleobases are bonded to. The squiggly lines indicate that the molecule continues on both sides in a similar fashion as you see in the diagram. The tan area just highlights the area where hydrogen bonds take place. I'm really not sure what the "2' 3' 5'" stuff means, so if anyone does help me out here! It's not crucial for understanding my argument at any rate. If you still have any questions, just ask.

Because nucleobases form strands naturally (they also exist naturally in certain types of clay), it's easy to see how a single strand floating in a soup of nucleobases could form a double strand using the type of bonds shown in the picture. If said double strand were to split, the newly created strand would be a "negative" of the main strand, or a "mold", if you will. If this "negative" were to form a double strand and split again, the newly created strand would be a copy of the original. Normal ocean temperatures would allow the double strands to form, while hot temperatures (such as near a thermal vent) are enough to cause them to split. Thermal vents tend to form circular currents, and a strand caught in such a current could potentially be forming negatives and splitting off of them repeatedly.

The early earth almost certainly had more than 5 nucleotides, but only those that could suitably "pair" with another would form reliable negatives, and thus strands containing only suitable nucleobases would propagate much more quickly, which means eventually the nucleobase strands would be made up of the most suitable nucleobases, each with a good pair. Note that so far these strands do absolutely nothing other than replicate. However, that is enough to cause evolution to work, so everything from there to life could feasibly be explained in terms of evolutionary steps.

At any rate, this is a plausible way it could have happened, and it seems likely to me. Also interesting to note that at this early stage there doesn't seem to be a "cost" for reproducing. It's really just a chemical process that creates polymers of similar order.

The youtube video I linked in my previous post covers this stuff, as well as how cell walls (which also use fairly simple chemistry in their most basic form) could have played a role.

 

[J-man]

Trolling is not allowed in Congregation.

You think i'm trolling? I believe God, being an infinite "first being", "Reproduced" "for the trouble" of his glory. That's my take on this subject whether you like it or not, and i would bite my toungue before making such an inflaming accusation.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I haven't read through the entire thread thoroughly, and I'm not very farmiliar with biology beyond the basic level stuff necessary to refute creationists, but I see this as a rather simple question to answer.

If all the organisms today are the descendants of one initial organism that decided to reproduce, that means said organisms presumably carried on the genes of the initial organism...and all the organisms that decided not to reproduce did not pass on their genes.

While it's true that reproduction is evolutionarily disadvantageous from a certain perspective (in that it costs resources and introduces more competition for existing resources) it's also what allows evolution to occur in the first place! Organisms that do not reproduce might have an initial competitive advantage against organisms that do reproduce, but that does not matter when they cannot pass on that trait. The initial organism that reproduced was able to introduce more organisms inclined towards reproduction into the environment, and eventually those were the only organisms around because organisms with competing traits never left behind any descendants.

My field of study is primarily economics, so I'll make this point within the context of supply/demand: If all companies can sell a satisfactory amount of products at x price, why do they bother to lower their price at all when it has no perceived benefit for them? And the reason for that is pretty simple: to lure customers away from their competition, which may increase the amount of products that they sell and thus their profit. Of course, other companies see this and they also must take a seemingly self-destructive step of lowering their prices. Because profit margins don't matter if, at the end of the day, you don't sell anything. It would be a similar situation with reproduction.

 

[J-man]

the problem with this is that, beyond speculation, science can't figure out how life began, therefore i find difficult to understand why we are delving into a subject on speculation... unless it's not.

 

[Fatecrashers]

the problem with this is that, beyond speculation, science can't figure out how life began, therefore i find difficult to understand why we are delving into a subject on speculation... unless it's not.

Delving into a subject based on speculation is perfectly viable, as long as you ground them in logic and common sense. You could say that great discoveries and inventions were made based on speculation. Had Columbus not speculated that there was an alternate way to get to India he would not have discovered the Americas.

 

[Morm]

If all the organisms today are the descendants of one initial organism that decided to reproduce, that means said organisms presumably carried on the genes of the initial organism...and all the organisms that decided not to reproduce did not pass on their genes.

Again I'll say that we aren't looking at that scope, we're looking at it from a standpoint of reproducingbeing a negative thing on a one generation standpoint and is that negative enough to cause the axe to fall (which it did more often than not, I'm guessing).

While it's true that reproduction is evolutionarily disadvantageous from a certain perspective (in that it costs resources and introduces more competition for existing resources) it's also what allows evolution to occur in the first place!

Read the rest of the posts.

Organisms that do not reproduce might have an initial competitive advantage against organisms that do reproduce, but that does not matter when they cannot pass on that trait.

It does when they (reproducers) cannot pass on their traits because they are at a disadvantage. It's technically not a disadvantage until they actually reproduce though, so perhaps that is the key to all this.
You don't see the disadvantage taking place until you've already doubled your reproducers from 1 to 2, making it all the more likely they will gain a further foot hold. I think I've just answered my own issue :D.

the problem with this is that, beyond speculation, science can't figure out how life began, therefore i find difficult to understand why we are delving into a subject on speculation... unless it's not.

Obvious troll, please, educate yourself on the subject. It's not speculation- this is a thought experiment based ENTIRELY on observation and common sense.

 

[J-man]

Obvious troll

please refrain from disrespecting me. i haven't done so to you. I am not a troll.

please, educate yourself on the subject.

how do i educate myself on something naturalist science has yet to figure out? i want to know exactly how the first cell came about and replicated itself without speculative speech or science of the gaps speech. please enlighten me.

It's not speculation- this is a thought experiment

a thought experiment?

based ENTIRELY on observation and common sense.

What about scientific law and theory? what has been observerd concerning this subject?

 

[Morm]

Do you have any idea how scientific law and theory work? I sincerely doubt it, perhaps you should check wikipedia and then you can observe the difference between the concept of this thread and law or theory. You can educate yourself by understand the natures of naturally occurring molecules such as RNA, or their friends RNA polymerase/helicase for one, same with DNA. Also phospholipid bilayers and protenoid microspheres would be a good start.

i want to know exactly how the first cell came about and replicated itself without speculative speech or science of the gaps speech. please enlighten me.

In what way isn't this either an attempt to troll or derail the thread? I know exactly what you're getting at with this line of thinking...let me guess, we're 'grasping at straws' but you have a book that has it written down for all of us that we're overlooking? Please, don't ruin the concept of this thread with unfounded and unprovable fairy tales. Your rhetoric is more unprovable than that found in this thread because we at least have some idea of things using observable and very real evidences like RNA found today. Am I off the mark there?

 

[J-man]

In reguards to my first three posts, they were legitimate. after that i pushed it too far and apologize for that. Mock my rhetoric, but when i'm on topic, it has yet to be beaten. not in this case though as i was in the wrong.