World’s Oldest Fossils Found in Greenland

Posted by $ AJAshinoff 8 years, 1 month ago to Science
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I think evolutionary creation - the monumental lottery jackpot of happenstance - just got more difficult to defend.
SOURCE URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/science/oldest-fossils-on-earth.html?_r=0


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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 1 month ago
    More logic applied to the same old non-receptive people as before. Won't change any minds. God can do anything. Even fit dinosaurs in an ark, but he can't seem to appear, strike down infidels or pretty much do anything. Maybe he is disinterested in this experiment, and has moved on to some new universe to make and tempt people with and apple to put on fig leaves.
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    • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
      No, this isn't going to change any minds. And why? Because of the consequences either way. If the creationists are right and God does exist, where does that leave atheists? In a world of trouble. If the atheists are right and God doesn't exist, creationists lose what, exactly? The hope of an afterlife? Looking at the two sides, I can see the appeal: on the one side you get those who hope that this life is a precursor to something better and on the other those who hope that this life is all there is. The side you choose inevitably comes down on which future you want to believe in more.
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 1 month ago
        Quite right. However, I would note that creationists lose freedoms in daily life by their beliefs. These may be considered trivial, maybe not, but adherence to the dogma of an omnipotent being(s) is not free of constraint.
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        • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
          That's an interesting assertion. Can you elaborate or provide examples/specifics of where you think a "freedom" is being given up? I would also suggest we stay with principles as there are far too many religious dogmas to get distracted by delving into generalities...
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          • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 1 month ago
            How about tithing, not working Saturdays or Sunday's (depending on the religion), wearing a burka, not using condoms, in some cases refusing medical treatment, or diet restrictions?
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            • Posted by $ blarman 8 years, 1 month ago
              Great examples. So here is how I see each side evaluating these issues. Which one is right... That's a separate question.

              Tithing. To an atheist, this just looks like a forfeiture of money: at best a waste and at worst the funding of a moocher. To a Christian or Jew (I believe that Islam also supports the notion of a tithe but I'm shaky there), they see God as the ultimate giver of everything and that 1/10th has two primary purposes: expression of gratitude and funding of the needs of the religion (buildings, etc.).

              Sabbath observance. To an atheist, this looks like a wasted opportunity for riches via work. To a Christian or Jew, it is a literal commandment to follow the example of God and rest on the seventh day. Some point out psychological studies which point to the need of the body for a period of R&R which coincides with a weekly schedule. Personally, I think there's benefit to having that guaranteed day off every week so I can pursue my own interests. Working seven days a week is nuts.

              certain clothing. I'm going to generalize this one because Muslims aren't the only ones who have particular clothing. Priests and nuns have their particular garments, as do Mormons and Orthodox Jews. Atheists view them as a restriction on fashion. Believers view them as a symbol of devotion or covenant - a constant reminder. A religionist could just as easily point out the cult of Nike or [insert fashion diva here] as a complete waste of money, too. Now I will admit that the full hijab is the most extreme, especially when they try to use it as an excuse to prevent law enforcement or identification. While I normally defend the right to worship what one chooses (or nothing at all), rights are always a delicate balance, but I don't believe that I should have to go out of my way (or have my tax dollars used) to cater to your beliefs. If you want to insist on hiding yourself, you get to pay for the additional law enforcement needed when identity verification becomes an issue.

              not using condoms. This one is mostly a Catholic thing but it's not nearly as much about the condom as it is a belief that family is central to life. This one is as much about the general morality of sexuality as anything. An atheist views sex as primarily for pleasure and only secondarily as the means of promulgating the species. A religionist places priority on family and family creation first with the pleasure as a nice side benefit. It's all about priorities.

              refusing medical treatment. This one to my knowledge is almost exclusively the Jehovah's Witnesses (as far as an actual sectarian teaching), but there are cliques among many religions. This one can also include reliance on herbal remedies, acupuncture, and chiropractors. In my opinion, each has a place, but it varies with the actual malady. I know some people who swear by a monthly session with their chiropractor. I have a co-worker who is constantly burning plant oils to stave off cold/flu. Are they irrational when it works for them? And there are those who rely too much on doctors and medicine as well (commonly called hypochondriacs) and whom the doctors are more than happy to keep seeing and prescribing to. To me, this is one where I think everyone likes to focus on the extremes where a middle ground provides plenty of room for sanity and rational thought.

              diet restrictions. This one is prevalent in several religions, whether it be a permanent restriction (pork for Muslims and Jews, alcohol for Mormons) or a temporary one (Lent, Ramadan). The atheist simply looks at the presence of a restriction. The religionist looks at it as a warning against certain behavior.
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  • Posted by kddr22 8 years, 1 month ago
    There is nothing in the article that goes against evolution. Science is about ever adding knowledge, from a microbiology and genetic science base one can see evolution in action. Many people on this board view many things as correct that science has firmly established as wrong eg autism and mmr vaccine, Yes it should be a choice but the Science does not support it. Science must be repeatable and others have to be able to replicate the data. Just because we do not understand the order of the universe does not mean it does not exist. Even the math of chaos fractals has a predictability, or look at the math/physics behind entropy. I look a the article as fascinating new information that now has to be incorporated into out knowledge base and it is great ....I put my "faith" in science and logic a=a.
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    • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
      The timetable just got MUCH longer is all I implied. That said, evidence suggests the timetable is grossly inaccurate, time to reevaluate.

      I agree it is fascinating.
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    • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 1 month ago
      We're talking about darwin's inter-species type evolution and the 1000's of years from single cell on up. The article tells us of something that existed while the earth was still getting it's stuff straight. (assuming they have the "Time" line correct).
      Every life form "evolves" only within it's own species, if it hadn't...wouldn't be here now...that's what the inference was.

      Yes, science is awesome...so long as it never gets comfortably established...learn and adapt baby.
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  • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
    Wish whoever keeps down voting these posts would show some balls and discuss the matter RATIONALLY. Why are you here if you can't look at the facts and discuss its potential impact on how we see the world. Isn't that what Rand called re-evaluating your premise when new information comes to light that can shape your position?

    Shameful and cowardly.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 1 month ago
      Dawkins blew away the "blind watchmaker" argument for creationism decades ago, yet you persist in using it. One of us is being irrational here, and I don't think it's I.

      Discuss away.
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      • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
        I'm not arguing anything. While I may believe differently than others I do not push my views on anyone else. We simply do not know where we came from no matter what anyone says. I find the revelation of new information, information showing that man is likely much older than what anyone claims, to be intriguing (particularly because it coincides with the primary theme of my new novel).

        I can more easily believe in Creation or planetary seeding before the extreme reoccurring unlikely jackpots of darwinian evolution. But I wouldn't (couldn't) deny someone else the right to think differently and welcome conversation.
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
          AJ, the data is there to support a scenario of an advanced civilization around 14 thousand years or so ago, that was taken down by the Lesser Dryas impacts of 11,800BC. It has nothing to do with beliefs, in that there are incontrovertible facts of stone working in South American that we cannot do even today. Without a clear track to establish a factual timeline, though, ideas like that will continue to be dismissed as "fantasy" despite the fact no one has an alternative. I too, am not sure everything can be laid at the door of Darwin, other than he did make a good case for evolution progressing in established species, but that how that appears in each case, is not clear. The fossil record for man leaves a lot to be explained still. The Hobbit People of Flores Island are an example of finds that change most standard perceptions.
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
            yes, there is some strong archaeological support for civilization well before whats currently believed. Many cities have been located just of the coast, under water, of many continents.

            Hopefully, my novel will turn out well and everyone will enjoy the possibilities I present. :) (yes, I'm constantly promoting - shameless)
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            • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
              Don't forget Yonaguni. It is something that is amazing, in that it is clear evidence of something going on. If built prior to the Younger Dryas impacts, then it would have been seaside property. From Nat Geo (and who doesn't respect them?):
              Some experts believe that the structures could be all that's left of Mu, a fabled Pacific civilization rumored to have vanished beneath the waves.

              http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ne...
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    • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
      Hard to do that unless you first say something about the evidence that you have that the ancient fossils, it they are, indicate a supernatural origin to life.
      I will discuss it with you if you like.
      First of all there is no lottery. Natural processes do not require any form of consciousness, thought, or effort by outside nothingness. They happen due to the identities of that which exists. If the conditions are right, stuff happens without needing any human permission or the creative hand of a non-existent deity. Evolutionary processes need only the identities of existents to happen. What is useful, adequate, or ignorable will be kept until changed.

      As for the report, it is a hypothesis that is being defended and challenged. No reason for fear by some that it might upset their lives. The Old One has enough supporters that their is no reason to despair.
      As for 'balls', balls are not part of the scientific discussion other than where they are needed in the evolutionary process, though process is not right since it would imply some kind of built in direction for existence, hint, that primacy of consciousness rather than the primacy of existence.
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      • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
        Did I once say anything about a supernatural origin of man outside of what I mentioned about what I personally believe? Did I ever say IN ANY POST HERE that anyone should believe as I do?

        This post wasn't created to discuss spiritualism, faith, or the supernatural. You know what they say about when you assume?

        Every tiny aspect leading to muck-based evolution has very extreme odds of actually occurring randomly in nature. Do you deny that? Further, you need thousands, perhaps tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, of equally improbable perfectly precise individual reactions to occur in sequence in nature to build on themselves (also highly improbable) to move to the next stage in the process to cultivate whatever life form is considered the foundation of life on Earth. Do deny this too?

        I watch this type of information because ITS THE BASIS FOR A NOVEL I'm working on and offers a degree of validation (and opportunity to share the manuscripts existence).

        Its a fools errand to think anyone knows the origin of life. Anyone who does is a delusional liar. And, perhaps balls was a poor choice of words... courage, nerve or guts would work better in this instance. Its a weak person who takes a point on a neutral topic without explaining himself.
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        • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
          Did I say anything about your saying anything about that others should believe as you do?
          Why bring up veiled references to your belief in creation if you do not want comment on them?
          Evolution is not creationism. It is only an observation and description of how some natural processes proceed. It is not a causative thing.

          What makes you believe that probabilities actually exist in nature? They are mental constructs which gives one a way toward the understanding of objective reality when without total information with large numbers of existents. Nature does not operate by odds. It operates by what is possible with the identities, as exstents, of that which exists. The fact that you clutter up your reasoning with irrelevant extreme odds which most likely have no relevance for natural processes. That is nonsense about the number of reactions that have to occur to get self reproduction. Just takes a few molecular interactions at most somewhere. All the rest of the other-where reactions are irrelevant. Starting with perhaps googolplex sized odds which when reduced from the Universe to a small new planet from an at least third generation type G star will not work. Things do not work by chance, only the loss of your money in places like Vegas works that way. So I deny your attempt to get a creator into the mix.
          It is safe to say that no one knows the origin of life on Earth, and it is probably wrong to accuse individuals of lack of balls or guts or courage or etc. for not commenting on your ideas. Lack of knowledge does not require making up a stand in for the knowledge.
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
            When someone takes a point without making one its a lack of spine.
            My two bits.
            I'm sure others here would agree.
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            • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
              That is if the original poster would give some reasonable stuff to begin with. Otherwise expect the unexpected comments to a post.
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              • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
                Whats unreasonable about revealing a NY Times article conveying evidence that man may be much older on this earth than previously thought? Do that not cause those who believe in evolutionary creation to reevaluate their premise if for no other reason than to adjust their time table?
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                • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
                  Define “evolutionary creation.” It’s not a construct I’m familiar with. Darwin proposed natural selection as a driver of evolution, in which species adapt to changing environments in order to survive and reproduce. Today scientists are investigating more recent theories, such as self-organization of autocatalytic sets, to explain the possible origin of biological organisms. (See Stuart Kaufmann’s books, The Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe.) None of these theories propose a concept such as “evolutionary creation.”
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                  • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
                    Just to words, perhaps carelessly put together, to describe a process. By using it I meant to say forming naturally and then dramatically evolving over time into what we see today. I've had protracted conversations with people only to learn we were talking about two different things.

                    I do not doubt adaption (evolution) in humans and in all species. I do doubt that humans came from muck as a matter of remarkable fortune over a remarkably long span of time. Yes, I'd sooner believe man was placed here by God, a meteor was the catalyst for the process of mans development, another race of humans seeded this planet, or a totally alien species altered an indigenous animal on earth to facilitate its rise about animal status. All of these things are far more probable to me than happenstance by way of extraordinarily fortunate chemical interactions over X amount of time.
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                    • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
                      “Muck” is an emotionally loaded term that should have no place in evaluating the truth or falsity of a belief system. “Fortunate” is a value judgment that has no bearing on what types of chemical reactions are possible and whether or not they take place. “Probability” cannot be the logical basis of a belief system – the fact that we are here means that the conditions necessary for our existence are also here, and the fact that we can’t explain everything about those conditions simply means that there are some things we do not (yet) know. And finally, God vs. happenstance is a false alternative – in the past few decades, scientists have deepened their understanding of natural processes, such as the mechanisms of self-organization, that are anything but “happenstance.” Again, I recommend Stuart Kaufmann’s books The Origins of Order and At Home in the Universe for a fuller exposition of these concepts.
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                      • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
                        stew? sludge? Muck was not intended as a slur just a descriptor; if it did occur this way it was definitely more than water and likely much more stagnant and thicker.
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                        • Posted by $ CBJ 8 years, 1 month ago
                          Thank you for the clarification that the word “muck” was employed as an objective descriptor, and was not in any way intended to evoke feelings of disgust or revulsion.

                          By the way, how can water be stagnant (in the sense that you are using the term) if it does not contain any previously existing forms of life?
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                • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
                  Sorry, what article about man being much older. I did not see that article, just the one about life being on earth a few hundred million years earlier than previously thought. And why would man being around longer need a reevaluation of some evolutionary premise or some big deal with adjusting a time table. Scientists do such things as a matter of keeping knowledge consistent. In fact there is no such thing as evolutionary creation. Evolution is not a causative process. It is a description of what happens biologically in nature, nothing more, so put away the fear of a something that can't do anything to you and let biologists have there unifying theory.
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    • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
      It happens in other places too. Apparently, all the people in the Gulch are not enlightened to the same level of careful consideration of facts, and want to pursue agendas. That belongs to the political party gang, not here.
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      • Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 1 month ago
        Hi nickursis,
        History has shown us that firmly held beliefs are defended by the mainstream and often the new discovering indivdual is shunned and ostracized or often ripped off. John Kerry says if you deny man made global warming you are unfit for public office. Oregon outlaws teachers from discussing alternatives to man made global warming in schools. Exxon is under fire for their climate studies differing results. The label is denier. The intent is to stifle discussion. With the statists global warming agenda , looting and control are the goals. In the gulch rational consideration of evidence and the implications of such should be the norm.
        Have a great day.
        DOB
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        • Posted by bsmith51 8 years, 1 month ago
          I love irony. It's precious that those who call themselves "progressive" firmly believe in stasis, that they know the correct world climate and condition and that any deviation will be catastrophic.
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
          Exactly! Oregon is a paragon of using hot button labels and politically correct science to explain everything. That is also why they want to pass a 6.5 billion tax increase "for the children" which, when you read the law, will never go to the damn children. Everything is about selling a pile of crap as gold, just because they spray painted it. It still stinks in the end. What I have seen about "Global warming" adds up to "Maybe the climate is changing, and no one can prove one way or another root cause" So, instead of blaming certain parties, find the best ways to deal with it, protect against the bad parts and maybe find a way off the rock to ensure humanity's survival. But the power to manipulate, lie and skim money is too strong for the greedy politicos, and those who would make a buck off misfortune and problems.
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    • Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 1 month ago
      Well said AJAshinoff and +1.The planet has been evolving for 4.3 billion years what we know is the tip of the iceberg so to speak. Thanks for the post and new info.
      Regards,
      DOB
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  • Posted by salta 8 years, 1 month ago
    Congrats to the team who found it, but I'm not sure why this is a game changer. When I was studying this years ago we were told the earliest stromatolites were 3.5bn yrs ago. This new find only stretches the timeline slightly, but it was always viewed as elastic anyway.
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  • Posted by bsmith51 8 years, 1 month ago
    Everything is recycled, even the surface of the earth itself. But what if it wasn't? I've always thought it would be interesting to formulate a plot for a book on the finding of some area of rock that had never been subducted by plate tectonics, rock that contained evidence of some ancient civilization or other fantastic finding.
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    • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
      Go read or listen to "Magicians of the Gods" and "Fingerprints of the Gods" for an explanation of why everyone may have been looking in the wrong place, as well as all the pain and suffering a few scientists have had to absorb because the had data showing that the "mainstream accepted" story was not quite correct. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support eh lost civilization theory, and how it may have helped the current round. It also ties together a lot of myths and legends into a workable framework.
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      • Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 1 month ago
        I second nickursis's recommendation of Graham Hancock's work. He has made a strong case for a long lost technologically advanced civilization that disappeared 13000 years ago. The oldest dated cooperatively built site found on the planet so far is Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Gobekli Tepe means " Navel of the hill". The city of Cuzco in Peru means "the earths navel". Mexica as Mexico was once called means "navel of the moon" Easter Island named by the Dutch discoverer because of the day found was previously called navel of the world or "Te-pito-o-te- henua" In Egypt the omphalos means "navel of the kingdom of Sokar" the Greeks omphalos stone or "navel"stone was said to be a meteorite.
        What does it mean.I don,t know but I believe the distances and similarities indicate some interconnections by these ancient people.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 1 month ago
    Well...have you heard about the algae that grows on the outside of the windows of the space station? It would seem that the DNA for life exists in space and comes to us upon the cosmic winds...in fact, if you think about it, everything we find on earth is in space and blown around not just by cosmic winds but from solar winds as well...yea, that takes a Big chunk out of Darwin's evolution.
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    • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
      Is there some law of nature that life from Earth cannot find its way through a couple of hundred miles of atmosphere to the level that the shuttles flew or even have contaminated the shuttles while sitting there at Cape Canaveral near the Atlantic Ocean?
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      • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
        Heat would incinerate just about anything inorganic, so organic would have a slim to no chance of making through the atmosphere unprotected. Now, If a catalytic bacteria was inside a meteor which had an ocean impact that could be the starting point, very conceivable. But then that begs the question where in space did that bacteria come from? Since Novas are the source of all material in existence it really makes the idea of bacteria coming from an outside source more likely.

        No?
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        • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
          No!!
          Are you saying that the Milky Way was produced in a nova or supernova? Only heavy elements were produced in supernovas or more recently by humans. Most of the other elements are produced in stars and if they supernova, spread the elements and produce the heavy elements to make up planets, etc.
          The shuttles did not heat that much going into space so life might have been able to grow on the windows and other out of the way crannies.
          You have no reason for that more likely statement. It is a 100% likely that life was on Earth fairly early and after a long long time flourished and eventually gave mankind something to argue about, which if nature had a purpose, might have been the purpose.
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          • Posted by $ 8 years, 1 month ago
            Apologies, I should have written dying stars releasing elements in various phases of its decline. Nova's were a misnomer. Still it begs a fascinating question, where did the bacteria/virus whatever derive when the wellspring of all matter is a dying star.
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            • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
              It is not the wellspring of all matter has attributes which are useful to rearrange into other forms than just atoms of the elements. There was matter before the first stars from existence came. However gravitating matter was produced, stars became of it and galaxies. Nucleosynthesis produced some other elements and some stars of a couple of generations exploded with the present generation creation along with the planets formed from the left overs. Then a certain range of planet types which had conditions where life might be able to exist, existed. There was a lot of stuff and conditions that needed to occur for life to exist.
              I do not know how many such planets might exist in the about 160,000,000,000 light year diameter universe, but there are very roughly 100 billion galaxies of over 100 billion stars with a high percentage of them with planetary systems. That is about 10^22 stars and say that there is one suitable planet per 100 billion planet systems, that would still be 100 billion suitable planets. If the conditions of temperature, water, and perhaps clay exist, and due to the fact that Avogadro's number, 6.023 x 10^23 molecules per mole of substance is so large (that is why that little 50 mg tablet can have hundreds of thousands of molecules to treat each of the billions of cells in your body) there would be an almost certain creation of self reproducing molecules and things like hydrophobic lipids to form containers for other slop. Once life starts in not so hospitable conditions, then it is like a plague hard to stop as seen by bacteria living in very hostile environments on earth, such as miles under the sea floors, high in the atmosphere, in you highly acidic stomach and chemically active intestines, and even in pockets in granite.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 8 years, 1 month ago
    I can't wait till NASA or some one else lands a probe on one of the Jovian moons or Pluto with the proper analytical equipment will change everything about life as we know it.
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  • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 1 month ago
    "In fact, with trivial variations, there is only one genetic code for all known forms of life, pointing to a single origin." Not correct. Viruses have a different genetic code and apparently different origins from other life forms and are thought by some scientists to have extraterrestrial origins.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
    This is certainly going to have some scietists doing much revising while others hotly debate and we all gasp in wonder. I wonder how many understand the true significance of this discovery. 3.5 or so Billion Years? Holy Smokes.
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    • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
      Well, they did only push back the possibility a couple of hundred million. The real point is it sort of does not fit in the Creationist model very well. But a lot of stuff doesn't do well in that model.
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      • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
        I was pondering that the very young earth would have been quite inhospitable to life, and gives one pause to the fact that life needs little encouragement and once started is very tenacious. Yet, we still cannot create life under the most perfect of circumstances that we can create.
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        • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
          The basis of several Sci Fi novels, who have a basis of an intelligent life form seeding the galaxy, or more. I often think if they ever came back they would be sad to see how ignorant and petty a race can be..oh yea, and greedy...
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          • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
            The old 'it couldn't have happened here but maybe could have elsewhere and spread here' thing. Does nothing for the origin of life. Life may be easy to come into existence under certain conditions so that certain molecular and more complex stuff can exist long enough to interact in an evolutionary manner. As long as carbon and a few other necessary elements exist, there is enough material for life once self replication happens.
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            • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
              Again, we kind of get to chicken and egg question. I think of the STNG finale where Q takes Picard to Earth and goes "Oh look, the goo didn't quite make it" and all ends, but for the intervention of three Enterprises...
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              • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
                My favorite character on STNG.
                Well, the chicken or the egg question is the wrong question. Should be how did life begin and evolve from simple budding to complex cell division to eventual sexual reproduction with the no need to magically produce the chicken or the egg. If the chicken exists, no problem, if the egg exists, no problem. Life does not come ready made just as you were not ready made with functioning sperm or ova. The had to be created in the sense of DNA and complex chemistry did it.
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                • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
                  Essentially what I was trying to express, a huge number of coincidences and specific events have had to occur to get where we are at, or.... and that is where you can add (higher power, aliens, space farmers, space weevils, star dogs. There could be an argument for aliens getting stuck here at some point and we are just the descendants who have forgotten our origins, or as some have postulated, an alien life form came here a long time back and crafted humans from the ape beings. Either way, something along the lines of odds to winning the lottery, but people do win the lottery.
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                  • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
                    Have you any evidence to point to anything other than life having started on Earth? If you want to go the odds way, then there is no problem with life starting on Earth. Take your lottery. The odds just says that it is unlikely for a particular person to win but in the long run someone will win no matter how small the odds. If you do not take the Earth in the beginning as special but like the lottery having only a very small chance for life, then for that planet being the one that life started on is very small. But that is not what happened. Earth, like the lottery winner, won. So, like the lottery winner, there is 100% certainty that Earth won as was so with the lottery winner. You seem to want to say that Earth could not have won because it was somehow special in its begining and some outside influence was the cause of life there. Why not think that way for the lottery winner? Some people do just that by thanking god for the win. Are you trying to do something like that for life on Earth?
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                    • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
                      That, sir, is a negative. Assuming that a specific set of conditions will generate a form of life (self reproducing organism) is is prefectly valid (IMHO) to assume any planet with those circumstances will (or should) do so. The one thing we cannot be assured of, is there something special we do not know yet (like some electrostatic charge or amount of vulcanism needed) required for the "spark" to occur? Maybe we got distracted in the Sci Fi line of discussion, I am not saying that life would be an unusual occurance. In fact, I am betting we will find life forms on most planets where there is a source of energy (for instance Europa would have a chemical and a heat component to provide such). Look at 2001/2010, the premise was life started on earth, and then was "helped" along. There is no reason to believe or disbelieve either, as there is no evidence either way. It "could be". Or not.
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                      • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
                        First would have to come reproducing molecules. Organisms much later. Life probably came after very many molecular baby steps. Containing structures are easy to come by to contain whatever molecular structures happen to be there when the structures are formed. Extremely large number of different mixtures could have shelter in the structures. Etc. I just enjoy science fiction and and do not connect much of it to real possibilities. My old favorite for star travel and great battles was the Skylark series by Doc Smith with the control of inertia. Can't be done because inertia deals with net gravitational field of the Universe and gravity being a fictitious force cannot be gotten rid of by any physical means. His other Lensman series about psi stuff with ancient good and bad powerful civilizations guiding humanity again can't be done as far a ESP studies indicate.
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          • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 1 month ago
            Nick:
            I disagree. If they exist, they would find a super intelligent creature evolving faster than its primitive side can keep up with its inventiveness. A creature that in a mere blink of the eye, galaxy time-wise has gone from a intellectual primitive to being on the verge of exploring the great mysteries. Many vicious faults, true, but also Einstein and Beethoven.
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            • Posted by $ nickursis 8 years, 1 month ago
              It is mainly a Sci Fi concept, I am sure there are a lot more questions and issues beyond what you say, and I agree there is a lot to be questioned in such a circumstance.
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    • Posted by lrshultis 8 years, 1 month ago
      Why do so many jump to that much revising, rewriting texts, etc. stuff with any surprising discovery, hypothesis in this case? Can't see the referenced article, but read a couple of others on the subject. Don't see what all the noise is about. I do not see any special true significance to the earlier beginning of the same kind of life unless one wants to say that it is way too early and would indicate something other than beginning naturally on Earth.
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  • Posted by bsmith51 8 years, 1 month ago
    OT: I really appreciate that here we have intelligent, thoughtful comments and discussion on this and so many other subjects.
    One only need peruse the comments below most news articles to appreciate those of Galt's Gulch.
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