Originally posted by DeepThought My point wasn't as technical as that. It's a matter of what the evidence means. If there was little water before the LHB (late heavy bombardment) then that would fit with some ideas, but not with photosynthesisers which is what the article was saying they'd found in their zircon grain. If there was water then there's questions about how our really dis ...[text shortened]... or alternatively laboratory errors. Even if it's the latter then that's important information.
I imagine the LHB brought a lot of water but the conditions that made Earth also had water in the cloud that condensed into our planet so, considering the finding there was life before LHB, doesn't that clearly imply there was a lot of water before that series of events we call the LHB?
Originally posted by sonhouse I imagine the LHB brought a lot of water but the conditions that made Earth also had water in the cloud that condensed into our planet so, considering the finding there was life before LHB, doesn't that clearly imply there was a lot of water before that series of events we call the LHB?
The presence of life itself probably not. The result that there were photosynthesisers does imply that there was plenty of water as it's an ingredient in the reaction and would have to be readily available.
Originally posted by humy http://phys.org/news/2015-10-life-earth-billion-years-agomuch.html
This evidence points to life starting much earlier than scientists originally thought and before the massive bombardment of the inner solar system that many scientists assume would have surely wiped out any life on Earth. This implies that life may have indeed been wiped out but then quickly ...[text shortened]... e on Earth, the evolutionary step from microbe to intelligent life must be a very difficult one.
Well if abiogenesis is soooo easy to reproduce, go do it.
Originally posted by whodey Well if abiogenesis is soooo easy to reproduce, go do it.
You say you can't?
The hell you say.
nobody said it was easy for us to make abiogenesis happen, because it obviously wouldn't be.
It is also not easy for us to make a thunder storm happen that floods a whole mountain valley, or make just one small microgram of iron from pure hydrogen via nuclear fission, or destroy a star by making it supernova, or do many such things that happen in nature, so ... so what? Does our inability to reproduce what most educated and intelligent people in this modern day of science and reason would naturally assume to be a natural process, imply it isn't a natural process? If so, why so and would you say thunder storms are not caused by natural processes because we cannot reproduce them?
Originally posted by humy nobody said it was easy for us to make abiogenesis happen, because it obviously wouldn't be.
It is also not easy for us to make a thunder storm happen that floods a whole mountain valley, or make just one small microgram of iron from pure hydrogen via nuclear fission, or destroy a star by making it supernova, or do many such things that happen i ...[text shortened]... uld you say thunder storms are not caused by natural processes because we cannot reproduce them?
But all those things are witnessed in nature.
No one has witnessed abiogenesis. One needs faith for that.
Originally posted by whodey But all those things are witnessed in nature.
No one has witnessed abiogenesis. One needs faith for that.
How does not witnessing it in nature logically imply it it isn't caused by natural causes?
Nobody witnesses the center of the sun, so something supernatural involved there because we don't witness it?
One needs pure blind faith to assume supernatural being where one cannot observe (and where one can observe, unless you claim to have actually seen great big male angels prancing about in there fairy dresses. A christian once informed me that all angels are male -not sure what became of all the females ). No such faith required applying reason, logic, indirect observation, and calculating the probabilities from extrapolation of data.
Originally posted by humy How does not witnessing it in nature logically imply it it isn't caused by natural causes?
Nobody witnesses the center of the sun, so something supernatural involved there because we don't witness it?
One needs pure blind faith to assume supernatural being where one cannot observe (and where one can observe, unless you claim to have actually seen great big ...[text shortened]... ason, logic, indirect observation, and calculating the probabilities from extrapolation of data.
The "were you there?"-argument is a classic among dim-witted creationists (I can infer they are dim-witted even though I have not personally witnessed their wits).
Originally posted by humy Nobody witnesses the center of the sun,.
It all depends on what you mean by 'witness'. If you were looking at a neutrino detector that detected neutrinos from the centre of the sun, would you be 'witnessing' it? Or does witnessing require light waves entering the eye?
I have never seen any of the people on RHP, have I witnessed them or not? Are they real?
Originally posted by KazetNagorra The "were you there?"-argument is a classic among dim-witted creationists (I can infer they are dim-witted even though I have not personally witnessed their wits).
you should read this link. Here is just a small snip of it but you really should read all of it:
“...The obvious contradiction here is that anyone using this argument also wasn't there to see the event and wasn't there to verify whether the anyone else was there. If the accusation is that no one was around to see evolution in action, the accusation that no one was around to see God magic the universe into existence 6,000 years ago is equally true. Someone can claim that the Bible is such first-hand evidence, but unless the person using the "were you there?" argument was around when the Bible was written (unlikely) or has personally supervised every copy of it made between creation in 4,004 BC and today, the same accusation applies. ...”
I would add to that:
If it didn't happen because nobody was there to witness it happen, then, by the same 'logic', it did happen because nobody was there to witness it not happen.
Originally posted by twhitehead It all depends on what you mean by 'witness'. If you were looking at a neutrino detector that detected neutrinos from the centre of the sun, would you be 'witnessing' it? Or does witnessing require light waves entering the eye?
I have never seen any of the people on RHP, have I witnessed them or not? Are they real?
I took what whodey meant by "witness" in his post was actually physically being at the place and time in question to make direct observation, not indirect observation from being at a different place and time looking at the evidence. Obviously, there is no logic in dismissing indirect observation merely because it is indirect, no matter how indirect.
Originally posted by humy I took what whodey meant by "witness" in his post was actually physically being at the place and time in question to make direct observation, not indirect observation from being at a different place and time looking at the evidence. Obviously, there is no logic in dismissing indirect observation merely because it is indirect, no matter how indirect.
I am sure whodey would not question all the other scientific findings that are also not amenable to direct observation (as in seen by the human eye). So most of chemistry, bio-chemistry, atomic physics and so on. Does whodey question the existence of atoms or DNA? Is he a flat earther given that he has never personally circumnavigated the globe?
Originally posted by whodey But all those things are witnessed in nature.
No one has witnessed abiogenesis. One needs faith for that.
For one thing, abiogenesis is a hypothesis and has not been 'witnessed' only hypothesised and another, you get a big kick out of poo pooing science, which is like berating a 6 year old because he is failing a calculus class.
Modern science is only a couple hundred years old, say 400 if you go back to Newton. I think you would have to agree even in human history terms, that is a rather short time.
So come back in another 400 years or even 200 years and see if your poo pooing science still flies.
Let science at least advance to the 8th grade before you diss it.
Originally posted by sonhouse abiogenesis is a hypothesis.
I think it is just a bit more than that; unless we are to believe the "Goddidit" nonsense, which doesn't really explain anything and is just a cheap crap way to avoid the tiny effort of thinking, it logically must have happened else life and we wouldn't be here. It is the case of it being scientifically implicitly proven more by reason rather than explicitly by the empirical evidence.
Originally posted by humy How does not witnessing it in nature logically imply it it isn't caused by natural causes?
Nobody witnesses the center of the sun, so something supernatural involved there because we don't witness it?
One needs pure blind faith to assume supernatural being where one cannot observe (and where one can observe, unless you claim to have actually seen great big ...[text shortened]... ason, logic, indirect observation, and calculating the probabilities from extrapolation of data.
Calculating probabilities and extrapolating data?
Ok, what are the mathematical probabilities that a living cell forms by itself?
evidence that life started ~4.1 million years ago
23 Oct '15 11:36
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