13 Mar 05
Originally posted by DarfiusCan one have a method of replication that is unsavoury? Surely whatever method evolves, the organism gets used to it and therefore doesn't place any moral judgements on their replication method. That would be sensible...but then why did the Church get so hung up about sex???
Then I would have to believe that it only stumbled upon that urge once, correct? Or did natural selection weed out the methods of replication that were...unsavory?
13 Mar 05
1 edit
Originally posted by AThousandYoung[/b]Only this once!
[b]Well, for one thing, if life did spontaneously come into being and didn't reproduce, you wouldn't know anything about it. As far as I know, cells don't leave fossils. Am I incorrect?
Many cells do leave fossil evidence. A common one is a diatom, which is a unicellular algae. For a photo and some information see: http://www.indiana.edu/~diatom/diatom.html
Another nice site is: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/GeolSci/micropal/
The build up over thousands of years of dead diatoms can help demonstrate that the age of the earth is considerably older than the creationist claimed 6000 years. Unless of course diatoms multiplied thousands of times faster in the past than they do today. Which given the fossil record shows that they are identical to many of today's diatoms, seems highly unlikely.
13 Mar 05
Originally posted by NemesioNeither has nature, but that is another debate. Another point is
I am guessing because we haven't been at it for a billion years, or
because we haven't simulated the original conditions properly or
any of another million different variables that we can only guess at
because we weren't there 4 billion years ago.
Here is an interesting link, Darfius, that might answer some of your
questions about it.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
Nemesio
can it be done without a plan, a purpose, and a design?
Kelly
13 Mar 05
Originally posted by Nemesiowell i did , in my haste to be helpful, misspelll Fraunhofer.
DAMN!
It was so obvious and I didn't think about it!
Fraunhaufer lines! Of course!
DUH! Doesn't everyone know about them?
Nemesio
P.S., I don't understand more than 33% of your post
if you didn't catch that I was being sarcastic. 😉 I'm
just as much at sea as I was before you posted. 🙁
and Im stll not sure if thats what they use. The point was that however it's done, they say they are picking up signs of the building blocks for life in interstellar space.
call Fraunhofer lines ,,, marks on a rainbow .. each element has its own characteristic line.. Carbon in one place Oxygen in another... if a particle of light carries both lines ,, it shows the presence of a molecule based on carbon and oxygen.
13 Mar 05
I am old enough to remember when Graham Cairns-Smith published his idea that crystals in clay were intimately involved in the very beginnings of life. I am not competent to judge the liklihood of his ideas being correct.
Here is a website I just found when searching for "Cairns-Smith":
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/L/lifeorigin.html
13 Mar 05
1 edit
Originally posted by Darfiusselection is about viability ..organisms survive because they can the ones that can't ,,simply can't.
I used the word unsavory to stress that Nature would have had to have been completely objective in natural selection.
Viability is simply how much change in the environment an organism can take before it cant survive.
Assigning supernatural force to natural processes is what polytheism is all about. what is the difference in assigning an individual force for each process and just one for all processes? The concept is the same.
14 Mar 05
Originally posted by DarfiusYou are implyin g that 'Nature' is some intelligent being (God perhaps). Nature is not objective, or subjective in natural selection. It just 'is'.
I used the word unsavory to stress that Nature would have had to have been completely objective in natural selection.