The Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life

Sovereign · #1 by **Sovereign** » Feb 02, 2012 8:01 pm

I'm putting this in the pseudoscience section because this paper has no testable theories. It's a theory of everything but no experiments were conducted to verify its conclusion to my knowledge. Here is the abstract.

Life is an inordinately complex unsolved puzzle. Despite significant theoretical progress, experimental anomalies, paradoxes, and enigmas have revealed paradigmatic limitations. Thus, the advancement of scientific understanding requires new models that resolve fundamental problems. Here, I present a theoretical framework that economically fits evidence accumulated from examinations of life. This theory is based upon a straightforward and non-mathematical core model and proposes unique yet empirically consistent explanations for major phenomena including, but not limited to, quantum gravity, phase transitions of water, why living systems are predominantly CHNOPS (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur), homochirality of sugars and amino acids, homeoviscous adaptation, triplet code, and DNA mutations. The theoretical framework unifies the macrocosmic and microcosmic realms, validates predicted laws of nature, and solves the puzzle of the origin and evolution of cellular life in the universe.

http://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/2/1/1/

Spearthrower · #2 by **Spearthrower** » Feb 02, 2012 8:03 pm

It's actually already been posted at least twice!

There's been a lot of controversy over how this got published, and the potential mental state of the author. Tbh, I thought the journal had removed it, but clearly not. Shows the kind of quality this new journal is going to produce!

CdesignProponentsist · #3 by **CdesignProponentsist** » Feb 02, 2012 8:09 pm

It lost me at quantum gravity.

The influence of quantum scale gravity would have 10^100 times (probably a horribly bad estimate but still) less influence on molecules than electromagnetism. I think it is pretty much certain it has nothing to do with abiogenesis.

Sovereign · #4 by **Sovereign** » Feb 02, 2012 9:21 pm

Spearthrower wrote:It's actually already been posted at least twice!

I did not realize that... :oops:

Shrunk · #5 by **Shrunk** » Feb 03, 2012 12:19 am

PZ Myers has his say on the article here. It seems the author's university has disowned the paper. PZ also discusses another paper from the same journal.

I think anything published by this journal can be safely ignored.

CdesignProponentsist · #6 by **CdesignProponentsist** » Feb 03, 2012 12:51 am

I found the actual number. Gravity has 1000000000000000000000000000000000000 (or 1036) times less influence on molecules than electromagnetism. It would be like a fly influencing Earths orbit around the sun.

Spearthrower · #7 by **Spearthrower** » Feb 03, 2012 9:02 am

Shrunk wrote:PZ Myers has his say on the article here. It seems the author's university has disowned the paper. PZ also discusses another paper from the same journal.

I think anything published by this journal can be safely ignored.

It seems such an odd thing to start a journal and kill its respectability within 2 volumes.

I am not sure whether application of Hanlon's razor is actually correct here.

Shrunk · #8 by **Shrunk** » Feb 03, 2012 11:34 am

Spearthrower wrote:
Shrunk wrote:PZ Myers has his say on the article here. It seems the author's university has disowned the paper. PZ also discusses another paper from the same journal.

I think anything published by this journal can be safely ignored.

It seems such an odd thing to start a journal and kill its respectability within 2 volumes.

I am not sure whether application of Hanlon's razor is actually correct here.

My thoughts exactly. If it's not a creationist front, it could simply be one of those journals that charge authors a fee for the "privilege" of being published.

Calilasseia · #9 by **Calilasseia** » Feb 03, 2012 11:01 pm

You mean a vanity journal?

susu.exp · **#10** by **susu.exp** » Feb 03, 2012 11:36 pm

Well, I read "The Capricious Character of Nature" (also in issue 2) and thought that that one was the second paper. It should be the third at least.
It´s open access, so the submitting party has to pay and aparently their review process ain´t that good. I have to note that I got lucky in bad luck here. I´ve had some trouble with a bit of a programming, which has moved a paper submission back somewhat. Since Life has the "special offer" (no submission fees right now) and the scope of the journal matches the content of my paper, my advisor (who got a note from them via mail) suggested I give it a go there. If R could handle strings longer than 400 symbols my paper could have been in that issue (and I think it´s a really cool paper, which solves a statistics problem from ecology left open since the 1970s)!
I think their lack of decent review killed the journal at the get go, but it looks as if they had every intention of getting it going as a decent one. They got Kaufmann to write a rather neat review paper for issue 1. I think they blew it because they were getting too ambitious - if that paper made sense, it´d have made a big splash for the journal. Now it´s made a big crash...

Shrunk · **#11** by **Shrunk** » Feb 04, 2012 12:45 pm

The Editor of Life (BTW, isn't there already a magazine by that name?) has responded to the controversy. PZ Myers thinks the response only makes the situation worse:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/ ... g-excuses/