Thorgrimm said:
I asked you a simple question. I expect a simple, straightforward answer, not an insult to my intelligence. Now, which is it going to be?
The Evolution of and/or Creation of Life
- Thread starter Thorgrimm
- Start date
I asked you a simple question. I expect a simple, straightforward answer, not an insult to my intelligence. Now, which is it going to be?
quietfanatic
Ancient One
I'll read through this thread tomorrow.
I suggest that one should clarify what is meant by evolution, creation, and the relationship between them.
I am pretty ignorant about evolutionary theory in spite of my training as a molecular biologist, but I should be able to provide models/explanations, arguments and criticism.
I suggest that one should clarify what is meant by evolution, creation, and the relationship between them.
I am pretty ignorant about evolutionary theory in spite of my training as a molecular biologist, but I should be able to provide models/explanations, arguments and criticism.
Evolution: Small mutations in genetic inheritance result in major changes (e.g. development of new species or even phylum) across time.
Creationism: God did it.
Intelligent Design: <s>God</s> Some supernatural being did it.
Creationism: God did it.
Intelligent Design: <s>God</s> Some supernatural being did it.
Mord_Sith
Mildly Dipped
Unless the gene was not transferred to the Eve strain women as they are the dominant but if the Erectus Female's Mitochondria were recessive instead and relied on the male's that would explain why there was no cataclysmic battle, but instead just a quiet, genetic takeover.
Other than that if the Erectus had just as many facilities as the eve strain, then it's likely that the eve strain was the proverbial weed in the garden of eden, choking out the life of all the other Erectus, but without intermixing, unless they were just different enough that the other Erectus genes and the Eve strain were rejecting eachother perhaps with deadly side effects to the other Erectus.
It happened with monkeys, look we have Aids now because of it, what's stopping that from occurring with the Erectus who decided to play naughty with their cousins, however instead of being able to combat it or at the very least stave it off like we have, the Erectus were wiped out by this prehistoric STD...
Other than that if the Erectus had just as many facilities as the eve strain, then it's likely that the eve strain was the proverbial weed in the garden of eden, choking out the life of all the other Erectus, but without intermixing, unless they were just different enough that the other Erectus genes and the Eve strain were rejecting eachother perhaps with deadly side effects to the other Erectus.
It happened with monkeys, look we have Aids now because of it, what's stopping that from occurring with the Erectus who decided to play naughty with their cousins, however instead of being able to combat it or at the very least stave it off like we have, the Erectus were wiped out by this prehistoric STD...
Thorgrimm said:@ Wooz, if you have something intelligent to add, then by all means do so. If you think my highlighting of certain ucomfortable fact as a nuisance and if you think that I am jumping the gun then by all means present your counter evidence. That is what this thread is about. Otherwise, all you are doing is trolling this thread. Or as my daddy used to say, put up or shut up.I would love to see your take on the subject.
I've been keeping an eye on this thread because I know you tend to devolve into trolling and flaming right quick, Thorgrimm, rather than continue intelligent debate calmly. Just be aware of that, a friendly warning, I'm watching this thread close and will remove it the moment it looks to devolve into personal insults.
I'm glad I personally don't care about evolution. I sometimes wonder why some people do. Geneticists I can get, but it's not like it really matters for the average human being.
I'm not buying your explanation of abiogenesis, by the way. At least, I get your explanation of how it happened, but you seem awful sure of it for something that's just an unproven hypothesis. That's one thing that's always bothered me in believers of evolution theory, the reliance on an unproven theory. That's not exactly a step up from creationism.
Neamos said:
Are you on the fence about gravity?
I think he meant the abiogenesis theory.
I doubt he dipsutes the fact that creatures evolve, but more likely HOW they evolve, as the exact mechanisms are only guessed at, but far from scientifically proven. Darwinian evolution is far from a complete model.
and fyi, its entirely possible that Newton's law of universal gravitation is wrong. We don't even adhere to it strictly, as various scientists since then have added onto it or corrected minor problems with the original theory. Honestly though... there are lots of problems with the theory of gravity. I like it until something better is discovered or the holes in it are patched up, but your examplke is terrible
Evolution (there's been a lot of progress since Darwin -- genetics refine the Darwinian model to a "gene's perspective" approach) is pretty much proven. Even religious people tend to get that.
The origin of life is what's a bit problematic, but most of it stems from the ideological bias that life can't come from lifeless matter. As I said, the theory that would actually work wouldn't even have to be a result that would be scientifically feasible -- it doesn't need to work ALL the time, in fact it can be so unlikely to work that statistical normalisation gets the best of it. The point is that it worked ONCE, under a very specific set of circumstances. If it's exceptionally unlikely that only means we're probably the only species around.
As for Newton -- his laws WERE wrong, but they produce the correct results under normal conditions. IIRC Einstein figured out the formula that worked pretty much universally -- but you normally don't need the speed of light to figure out how far an apple accelerates when falling onto your head.
The problem with the "It's only a theory!" argument is one of language. Yes, it's a theory. No, that doesn't mean it's likely to be false.
It WILL always be a theory, because all scientific truth is just theory. That doesn't mean wild guesses ala religion are a valid alternative.
The scientific meaning of "theory" is quite distinct from the colloquial one. If someone proposes a theory that CAN be disproven and ISN'T (unlike the God Hypothesis, which isn't, only because it can't be), and it still upholds after more and more data is discovered (e.g. in the case of evolution: fossil records, real world observations, case studies), it's pretty damn likely to be true (in the case of Einstein) or at least very close to the truth (in the case of Newton).
Most long-standing theses disproven today are not "wrong" in the sense religious nuts would have them be, but merely imprecise or unreliable. There are few theories that are so grossly wrong that a whole body of related fields would be thrown back several decades.
The origin of life is what's a bit problematic, but most of it stems from the ideological bias that life can't come from lifeless matter. As I said, the theory that would actually work wouldn't even have to be a result that would be scientifically feasible -- it doesn't need to work ALL the time, in fact it can be so unlikely to work that statistical normalisation gets the best of it. The point is that it worked ONCE, under a very specific set of circumstances. If it's exceptionally unlikely that only means we're probably the only species around.
As for Newton -- his laws WERE wrong, but they produce the correct results under normal conditions. IIRC Einstein figured out the formula that worked pretty much universally -- but you normally don't need the speed of light to figure out how far an apple accelerates when falling onto your head.
The problem with the "It's only a theory!" argument is one of language. Yes, it's a theory. No, that doesn't mean it's likely to be false.
It WILL always be a theory, because all scientific truth is just theory. That doesn't mean wild guesses ala religion are a valid alternative.
The scientific meaning of "theory" is quite distinct from the colloquial one. If someone proposes a theory that CAN be disproven and ISN'T (unlike the God Hypothesis, which isn't, only because it can't be), and it still upholds after more and more data is discovered (e.g. in the case of evolution: fossil records, real world observations, case studies), it's pretty damn likely to be true (in the case of Einstein) or at least very close to the truth (in the case of Newton).
Most long-standing theses disproven today are not "wrong" in the sense religious nuts would have them be, but merely imprecise or unreliable. There are few theories that are so grossly wrong that a whole body of related fields would be thrown back several decades.
xdarkyrex said:
I'm not really disputing anything because, as I mentioned, I honestly don't care. I do care about people's paradigms towards evolutionary thinking, tho'. Just not about evolution itself.
xdarkyrex said:
It's not possible, it is wrong. Einstein's General Theory of Relatively (not the Special Theory, that's E=mc squared) is the most accurate theory for gravity we have, right now. But the calculation of that is:
You can see why that's slightly impractical
Ashmo said:
I'm not an "it's only a theory"-ist, though.
What bothers me is not people who think about the topic and are aware of the problems of abiogenesis, my problem is the usage of it in a kind of reverse-intelligent design thinking. People "believe" in evolutionary theory, they're raised with that belief in high school (at least in Europe they are), but much like intelligent design doesn't teach people to question the theory much, these people raised on abiogenesis are taught to just accept it as truth even though we have no idea whether or not it's true.
That's not about it being "just a theory". It's not, it's just an assumption.
You can't blame a theory for the disastrous school system, though.
Personally, I'd agree with Dawkins there: evolution should be among the first concepts taught in Biology class (obviously, the scientific method should be known and understood before that -- inquiry is always valid) because it makes all the pieces fall into place.
What's tentative should be taught as tentative, though.
Obviously teachers aren't any good at this -- and even when they are, curricula and obsession with grades and tests prevents them from doing so.
School isn't about learning at all, it's about absorbing facts so you can perform well at specific tests.
Personally, I'd agree with Dawkins there: evolution should be among the first concepts taught in Biology class (obviously, the scientific method should be known and understood before that -- inquiry is always valid) because it makes all the pieces fall into place.
What's tentative should be taught as tentative, though.
Obviously teachers aren't any good at this -- and even when they are, curricula and obsession with grades and tests prevents them from doing so.
School isn't about learning at all, it's about absorbing facts so you can perform well at specific tests.
Mord_Sith
Mildly Dipped
Unfortunately, at least where I am, school is simply a big daycare, especially high school, very rarely do you learn anything of significance in high school, I was lucky and picked up cisco before the school realized how much it cost them per student.
From grade 9 to 12 high school is a holding pen, where you're pushed through the ranks even if you don't try, quite a sad state considering high school used to be actually used to teach, a long, long time ago.
Geh, must not derail, umm, erm, ah damnit I cannot think of any means of continuing the discussion on evolution without input.
dagnabbit...
From grade 9 to 12 high school is a holding pen, where you're pushed through the ranks even if you don't try, quite a sad state considering high school used to be actually used to teach, a long, long time ago.
Geh, must not derail, umm, erm, ah damnit I cannot think of any means of continuing the discussion on evolution without input.
dagnabbit...
Ashmo said:
Yes, I'm fairly sure I made it very clear that that's what I'm saying. I'm bothered by paradigms that come from schooling, not about the theories.
quietfanatic
Ancient One
Both a Newtonian and a quantum physicist would be equally dead after being squashed by the Empire State Building, just as a creationist or biologist would be killed by a virulent multi-drug resistant bacterium. Gravity is a fact. Evolution is a fact. Natural selection is a fact. I have observed these phenomena personally. The detailed mechanisms/explanations and relative significance of different components is in the realm of theory. Evolution is arguably the core them in biology, and evolutionary concepts provide us with incredibly powerful tools for scientific research.
I believe a slow, gradual slope is part of Darwinian Theory, although I haven’t read the book. Or is one referring to biological evolution, out of context and without definition? Hopefully not. I would define biological evolution as heritable change/s in a population over one or more generations. This is a minimal scientific definition that would likely be accepted by the vast majority of biologists. Note that there is no mention of progress, speed, selection, adaptation, complexity or diversification as that would make it scientifically incorrect, although some of these can be part of evolution. Evolution can clearly be slow and gradual. Thinking about evolution firstly at the level of speciation, extinction etc. and using ‘evolution’ interchangeably with natural selection (one of the mechanisms) demonstrates a poor understanding of evolutionary theory. Modern fields such as population genetics and molecular biology have revolutionised evolutionary theory, but natural selection is still a very important mechanism, central to adaptation. Evolution acts at the level of populations, whilst selection acts at the level of individuals. Some of the numerous other mechanisms and models, which can overlap (sometimes heavily), include genetic drift, speciation, neoteny (e.g. humans as "baby" apes), extinction, gene flow, epigenetic inheritance (more speculative, but possibly akin to Lamarckian inheritance as a second mechanism for adaptation), and at a more molecular level, lateral gene transfer, mutation, recombination, transposition, duplication, gene conversion, promoter/regulator and domain shuffling. I can explain some of these if people ask me to, although I should be working more on my own Honours research, where again I am using evolutionary thinking to develop and test hypotheses.
Now back to screening Thorgrimm’s post. I will note the errors that spring to mind as I go along.
The use of B.C. rather than billion years ago or before present (where present for BP = 1950), suggests that the author has little background in science (and likely also adds to the case for religious bias as most contemporary academics would probably use B.C.E. anyway).
Radiocarbon dating is for the order of tens of thousands of years (10^4) old, rather than billions (10^9). One application is the dating of archaeological artifacts based on the principle of uptake of small amounts of atmospheric C-14 by plants whilst they are living.
There are five major nucleotides, not four, i.e. adenine, cytosine, thymine (uracil in RNA) and guanine.
Does that mean that a soap bubble or lipid vesicle is alive, where a droplet might incorporate more lipid (another vital class of molecules needed for life) before splitting into two copies of the same size and composition as the original entity? Such structures can be of considerable interest in studying the origin of life, for example as seen in the article that Thorgrimm refers us to (I think, although it might be the wrong one as author and title is needed). It is concerned with prebiotic chemistry, not microbiology. Their approach is summarised as “In contrast to ‘metabolism-first’ or ‘replication-first’ theories, we propose an ‘individual-first’ hypothesis.” (Fernando, C. and Rowe, J. (2007) The Origin of Autonomous Agents).
Life on Earth likely appeared because a number of steps were thermodynamically and kinetically favourable. To summarise, the universe began without simultaneous spontaneous generation of life, so consequently it began from non-life according to natural laws. Looking for supernatural explanations means dispensing with the scientific worldview, whereas abiogenesis can be tested experimentally and appears reasonable. If the supernatural really does exist, it might make research a little more difficult.
Abiogenesis was barely even considered during my university training and I have little interest in it compared to the current complexity of life. I am annoyed that students are given very simple models to help them understand difficult concepts in science, but I can see why it is done from an educational perspective, the “lies to children” principle. There just isn’t time to provide the evidence for everything and explore all of the subtleties, so we have to take things on trust until we have a sufficient knowledge base to analyse the detail ourselves, and even then, only in some areas. Many school teachers wouldn’t have the expertise to understand the detail themselves and would have trouble even if the syllabus highlighted the areas of ambiguity (potentially leading to a political nightmare). As a compromise it is reasonable to inculcate students with a healthy scepticism simply by informing them that the models they learn may be incomplete or false, and are subject to change. One short unit could even look at a few prescribed examples to make the point clearer.
Brilliant scientists can arguably lose touch with reality occasionally, such as Newton and his alchemy, Linus Pauling (multiple Nobel Prize winning chemist, molecular biologist and more) with megavitamins (although his orthomolecular medicine my have at least some merit), so in the end one must look at the evidence and primary literature if you want to be confident about something.
Oxidation removes oxygen from the atmosphere rather than releasing it (although in terms of redox chemistry oxidation refers to the loss of electrons by one species whilst the acceptor is said to be reduced).
I wouldn’t describe gases and liquids such as water, ammonia, hydrogen as the proverbial rock pile.
The description of the clay theory seems to erroneously mix several different models, but there are still considerable problems, such as with dilution, lack of specificity/fidelity. The comments on timing don’t make sense.
What do you mean by that? Science has been able to replicate the formation of nucleic acids (polymers/chains of nucleotides) and you just had the clay acting as a DNA-polymerase that does just that. An example is described in a free article (Huang, W, and Ferris, J.P., 2003) and related works, such as the quality (also free) review by Orgel (2004) that I recommend which suggests that although an RNA world may have been likely, a precursor molecule other than RNA (but not protein or DNA) is more feasible first, such as due to the difficulty of synthesising nucleotides under prebiotic conditions.
I should note that archaeobacteria is an outdated term, as science now divides life into three domains. Interestingly, the Archaea (prokaryotes such as extremophiles that have a bacterial ‘lifestyle’ but DNA replication and transcription closer to a eukaryote, larger, more complex cells with membrane bound organelles, such as protists and humans) are more closely related to the Eukarya than Bacteria. Algae are eukaryotes that contain mitochondria and chloroplasts so they obviously did not evolve before bacteria.
Algae in the common sense of the word are ‘higher’ organisms (eukaryotes). Maybe the author means Blue-green algae, a common name for cyanobacteria, fascinating (E.g. They can contain nonribosomal peptide synthetases that make special proteins without mRNA, they can be filamentous/colonial and specialised.) and important creatures (producing more than 70% of the oxygen from the ocean even now, so we couldn’t survive without them, and maybe close to 100% of all biogenic oxygen). Some of the earliest fossils are thought to be examples of cyanobacteria, such as in the stromatolites from Australia. Cyanobacteria started the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere by splitting water using photosystems I and II for photosynthesis. This oxygen would probably have built up in the surrounding water before saturating it. Dissolved iron existed at high concentrations in the ocean but much was oxidised, leading to precipitation of iron oxide. The excess entered the atmosphere around 2.7 billion years ago, oxidising minerals on land (likely billions of years before life colonised it). A further increase in the rate of atmospheric oxygen accumulation several million years after the first rise probably signals the evolution of eukaryotic algae some time around 2 billion years ago. As well as getting the timing, chemistry, location and organism wrong, the first post also obviously missed out on the vast diversity of prokaryotic life other than ‘green slime’ living in the oceans and other bodies of water. Literal interpretation of the Bible has no place in biology, and as a Bible reading Science Boy, I know that Genesis is scientifically inaccurate, but I won’t go into that again now, as I don’t think we have any wavering creationists around here, although Thorgrimm might be interested in looking for parallels to try to establish a compromise between blind religious faith and science.
People might like to be reminded of endosymbiotic theory. It is thought that an ancestral anaerobic prokaryote of some kind, precusor eukaryote, or maybe even an archaean, engulfed a bacterium similar to an alphaproteobacterium, aerobic heterotrophs that were either parasites or prey that escaped digestion. The resident became obligate as genes were transferred to the host genome and was actually a great boon, yielding far greater amounts of energy for both organisms via aerobic respiration using oxygen. With further evolution, our new organelle is further modified and we can recognise the powerhouse of the Eukarya that we all know and love, the mitochondrion. Today Wolbachia, a similar parasitic bacterium that infects a number of organisms, including insects, is also becoming obligate in nematode worms. This means that we can treat heartworm in dogs by treating them with antibiotics that kill the bacteria, causing loss of the worm. Wolbachia can also alter reproduction in some hosts in several interesting ways. The other main example of endosymbiotic theory is the plastid, or chloroplast, which is thought to have similarly originated from multiple engulfments of bacteria closely related to cyanobacteria, such that some people argue that cyanobacteria turnover close to 100% of biogenic oxygen as they perform photosynthesis in plants as well. Some geneticists study these organelles in terms of symbiotic bacterial populations. This theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and is a good example of how evolution is about much more than mutation. It was the inspiration for the midichlorians in the new Star Wars.
Now where does Thorgrimm get his weird (and largely incorrect) dates? That’s easy to check with the mighty Google.
And so the niggling suspicion is unfortunately correct. He has lifted practically the entirety of his ‘lil' dissertation’ from a crackpot nuclear physicist’s website, but with little change; the addition of a smiley here, a Skippy there, whilst ignoring certain sections that might not fit well with a particular religious bias, such as life originating on another planet and talk of ancient gods? The real author believes in aliens, pagan gods and other things that would put him in good company with the likes of Scientologists. Such a dissertation would get one expelled from university, or suspended at the very least. The plagiarism is pretty sloppy too.
Cute. Shame about not fixing the science.
I think I’ll ignore the rest of ‘his’ timeline now, which is probably also fraught with errors. Who took it on trust that he had honestly done his own homework?
What other stuff has Thorgrimm blatantly plagiarised in this thread?
So we know of the existence of Wikipedia? I would love to see Thorgrimm’s personal summary of the metabolism first position and why he is so convinced by it, preferably with references. It would also be useful if arguments are reposted in his own words, again preferably with references, showing that he has researched and thought about what he claims or questions. Otherwise it would be better if one debated against Encyclopedia Britannica before coming back to NMA.
I would be curious to learn a little more about how it ‘kicked evolution in the nuts’. The closest possibility I can think of would be that he means the tangential use of a theory that already preceded Bakker’s popular book by more than a decade, which although controversial, is just another proposed evolutionary mechanism. Using Wiki a little more my self this time:
What does that involve? People might be curious to read about an RNA World replication model to address the problem you alluded to, where a parallel copy is synthesised instead (Taylor, 2006). Interesting, but pretty weak.
Less rather than more. It is not accurate.
So it’s all an elaborate piece of deception to lead us onto the path to enlightenment? I think not.
Sorry if I appear flamy, but comedy gold.
The mummified dinosaur is probably entirely mineralised, so it might be a little misleading to call the fossil a mummy, but it is very interesting.
I know a bit about viruses Mord_Sith, but I don’t follow what you’re trying to say. Could you please elaborate on that? Are you suggesting that Homo sapiens sapiens was infected with a virus that immunised them before it mutated to help wipe out competing hominids? Safer viral vectors for gene therapy and cancer treatment would be great, but are you also talking about something different to that? The speculation on mitochondria doesn’t seem to make any sense either and suggests one hasn’t studied genetics.
My hypothesis is that Thorgrimm is behaving like some of these "Christian Scientists" (not to be confused with scientists who are Christian, but more objective). Of course scientists aren’t perfect, but they are generally clever and hard working individuals who are genuinely interested in the quest for knowledge.
You first.
I suggest people read the famous Matthew 7:1-8 as I have to put in something more for the ‘scientist priest kings’.
I am your father.
Time to highlight an example of “lies to children”. Although it is generally true that mitochondria are maternally inherited, it isn't quite true in all cases. For paternal linkage the mitochondria in the tail of the sperm actually do get incorporated into the developing oocyte, which often leads to heteroplasmy (copies of different mitochondrial DNAs) before the cell walls are formed. So male mtDNA can be passed on. This has been seen in a number of animals, including humans. However, this is rare, and the male DNA is generally lost by genetic drift. Also, mitochondria are not always the simple little rods you see in textbooks. They can change shape, fuse or split. Thus one could imagine how maternal and paternal mtDNAs could recombine with each other. Other organisms can be very different, such as a form of mitochondria in mussels that is biparentally inherited, as well as paternally in certain plants. I should also note that mutation rates in mitochondria are very high, and as I understand, of a similar level both in humans and other animals, so we aren’t special.
This definition of evolution is incorrect such as because it is too specific and implies increasing complexity, whilst excluding numerous evolutionary mechanisms. Although this type of evolution can occur, it is by no means the end of the story.
Parts of my post may appear to be insulting to some, but don’t even think about it.
I believe we can all calmly discuss science, debate and share ideas. That might not be possible on many other forums, but NMA is a fortunate place where we can mix religion, politics and guns with little trouble. You can always splitvat any unproductive spam.
Evolutionary theory can do just fine without abiogenesis, although modern science and evolutionary thinking makes it highly plausible. Evolution is so useful for learning about biology that some educators mention it first of all.
Although we had a special lecture on evolution at university, abiogenesis was hardly mentioned at all. However, we also had a tutorial in biology on recognising reliable sources for scientific research.
You can do research with internet alone Mord_Sith, doing surprisingly well with the likes of Google(scholar), Wikipedia and Pubmed.
Thorgrimm said:
I believe a slow, gradual slope is part of Darwinian Theory, although I haven’t read the book. Or is one referring to biological evolution, out of context and without definition? Hopefully not. I would define biological evolution as heritable change/s in a population over one or more generations. This is a minimal scientific definition that would likely be accepted by the vast majority of biologists. Note that there is no mention of progress, speed, selection, adaptation, complexity or diversification as that would make it scientifically incorrect, although some of these can be part of evolution. Evolution can clearly be slow and gradual. Thinking about evolution firstly at the level of speciation, extinction etc. and using ‘evolution’ interchangeably with natural selection (one of the mechanisms) demonstrates a poor understanding of evolutionary theory. Modern fields such as population genetics and molecular biology have revolutionised evolutionary theory, but natural selection is still a very important mechanism, central to adaptation. Evolution acts at the level of populations, whilst selection acts at the level of individuals. Some of the numerous other mechanisms and models, which can overlap (sometimes heavily), include genetic drift, speciation, neoteny (e.g. humans as "baby" apes), extinction, gene flow, epigenetic inheritance (more speculative, but possibly akin to Lamarckian inheritance as a second mechanism for adaptation), and at a more molecular level, lateral gene transfer, mutation, recombination, transposition, duplication, gene conversion, promoter/regulator and domain shuffling. I can explain some of these if people ask me to, although I should be working more on my own Honours research, where again I am using evolutionary thinking to develop and test hypotheses.
Now back to screening Thorgrimm’s post. I will note the errors that spring to mind as I go along.
The use of B.C. rather than billion years ago or before present (where present for BP = 1950), suggests that the author has little background in science (and likely also adds to the case for religious bias as most contemporary academics would probably use B.C.E. anyway).
Radiocarbon dating is for the order of tens of thousands of years (10^4) old, rather than billions (10^9). One application is the dating of archaeological artifacts based on the principle of uptake of small amounts of atmospheric C-14 by plants whilst they are living.
There are five major nucleotides, not four, i.e. adenine, cytosine, thymine (uracil in RNA) and guanine.
Does that mean that a soap bubble or lipid vesicle is alive, where a droplet might incorporate more lipid (another vital class of molecules needed for life) before splitting into two copies of the same size and composition as the original entity? Such structures can be of considerable interest in studying the origin of life, for example as seen in the article that Thorgrimm refers us to (I think, although it might be the wrong one as author and title is needed). It is concerned with prebiotic chemistry, not microbiology. Their approach is summarised as “In contrast to ‘metabolism-first’ or ‘replication-first’ theories, we propose an ‘individual-first’ hypothesis.” (Fernando, C. and Rowe, J. (2007) The Origin of Autonomous Agents).
Life on Earth likely appeared because a number of steps were thermodynamically and kinetically favourable. To summarise, the universe began without simultaneous spontaneous generation of life, so consequently it began from non-life according to natural laws. Looking for supernatural explanations means dispensing with the scientific worldview, whereas abiogenesis can be tested experimentally and appears reasonable. If the supernatural really does exist, it might make research a little more difficult.
Abiogenesis was barely even considered during my university training and I have little interest in it compared to the current complexity of life. I am annoyed that students are given very simple models to help them understand difficult concepts in science, but I can see why it is done from an educational perspective, the “lies to children” principle. There just isn’t time to provide the evidence for everything and explore all of the subtleties, so we have to take things on trust until we have a sufficient knowledge base to analyse the detail ourselves, and even then, only in some areas. Many school teachers wouldn’t have the expertise to understand the detail themselves and would have trouble even if the syllabus highlighted the areas of ambiguity (potentially leading to a political nightmare). As a compromise it is reasonable to inculcate students with a healthy scepticism simply by informing them that the models they learn may be incomplete or false, and are subject to change. One short unit could even look at a few prescribed examples to make the point clearer.
Brilliant scientists can arguably lose touch with reality occasionally, such as Newton and his alchemy, Linus Pauling (multiple Nobel Prize winning chemist, molecular biologist and more) with megavitamins (although his orthomolecular medicine my have at least some merit), so in the end one must look at the evidence and primary literature if you want to be confident about something.
Oxidation removes oxygen from the atmosphere rather than releasing it (although in terms of redox chemistry oxidation refers to the loss of electrons by one species whilst the acceptor is said to be reduced).
I wouldn’t describe gases and liquids such as water, ammonia, hydrogen as the proverbial rock pile.
The description of the clay theory seems to erroneously mix several different models, but there are still considerable problems, such as with dilution, lack of specificity/fidelity. The comments on timing don’t make sense.
What do you mean by that? Science has been able to replicate the formation of nucleic acids (polymers/chains of nucleotides) and you just had the clay acting as a DNA-polymerase that does just that. An example is described in a free article (Huang, W, and Ferris, J.P., 2003) and related works, such as the quality (also free) review by Orgel (2004) that I recommend which suggests that although an RNA world may have been likely, a precursor molecule other than RNA (but not protein or DNA) is more feasible first, such as due to the difficulty of synthesising nucleotides under prebiotic conditions.
I should note that archaeobacteria is an outdated term, as science now divides life into three domains. Interestingly, the Archaea (prokaryotes such as extremophiles that have a bacterial ‘lifestyle’ but DNA replication and transcription closer to a eukaryote, larger, more complex cells with membrane bound organelles, such as protists and humans) are more closely related to the Eukarya than Bacteria. Algae are eukaryotes that contain mitochondria and chloroplasts so they obviously did not evolve before bacteria.
Algae in the common sense of the word are ‘higher’ organisms (eukaryotes). Maybe the author means Blue-green algae, a common name for cyanobacteria, fascinating (E.g. They can contain nonribosomal peptide synthetases that make special proteins without mRNA, they can be filamentous/colonial and specialised.) and important creatures (producing more than 70% of the oxygen from the ocean even now, so we couldn’t survive without them, and maybe close to 100% of all biogenic oxygen). Some of the earliest fossils are thought to be examples of cyanobacteria, such as in the stromatolites from Australia. Cyanobacteria started the rise of oxygen in the atmosphere by splitting water using photosystems I and II for photosynthesis. This oxygen would probably have built up in the surrounding water before saturating it. Dissolved iron existed at high concentrations in the ocean but much was oxidised, leading to precipitation of iron oxide. The excess entered the atmosphere around 2.7 billion years ago, oxidising minerals on land (likely billions of years before life colonised it). A further increase in the rate of atmospheric oxygen accumulation several million years after the first rise probably signals the evolution of eukaryotic algae some time around 2 billion years ago. As well as getting the timing, chemistry, location and organism wrong, the first post also obviously missed out on the vast diversity of prokaryotic life other than ‘green slime’ living in the oceans and other bodies of water. Literal interpretation of the Bible has no place in biology, and as a Bible reading Science Boy, I know that Genesis is scientifically inaccurate, but I won’t go into that again now, as I don’t think we have any wavering creationists around here, although Thorgrimm might be interested in looking for parallels to try to establish a compromise between blind religious faith and science.
People might like to be reminded of endosymbiotic theory. It is thought that an ancestral anaerobic prokaryote of some kind, precusor eukaryote, or maybe even an archaean, engulfed a bacterium similar to an alphaproteobacterium, aerobic heterotrophs that were either parasites or prey that escaped digestion. The resident became obligate as genes were transferred to the host genome and was actually a great boon, yielding far greater amounts of energy for both organisms via aerobic respiration using oxygen. With further evolution, our new organelle is further modified and we can recognise the powerhouse of the Eukarya that we all know and love, the mitochondrion. Today Wolbachia, a similar parasitic bacterium that infects a number of organisms, including insects, is also becoming obligate in nematode worms. This means that we can treat heartworm in dogs by treating them with antibiotics that kill the bacteria, causing loss of the worm. Wolbachia can also alter reproduction in some hosts in several interesting ways. The other main example of endosymbiotic theory is the plastid, or chloroplast, which is thought to have similarly originated from multiple engulfments of bacteria closely related to cyanobacteria, such that some people argue that cyanobacteria turnover close to 100% of biogenic oxygen as they perform photosynthesis in plants as well. Some geneticists study these organelles in terms of symbiotic bacterial populations. This theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and is a good example of how evolution is about much more than mutation. It was the inspiration for the midichlorians in the new Star Wars.
Now where does Thorgrimm get his weird (and largely incorrect) dates? That’s easy to check with the mighty Google.
And so the niggling suspicion is unfortunately correct. He has lifted practically the entirety of his ‘lil' dissertation’ from a crackpot nuclear physicist’s website, but with little change; the addition of a smiley here, a Skippy there, whilst ignoring certain sections that might not fit well with a particular religious bias, such as life originating on another planet and talk of ancient gods? The real author believes in aliens, pagan gods and other things that would put him in good company with the likes of Scientologists. Such a dissertation would get one expelled from university, or suspended at the very least. The plagiarism is pretty sloppy too.
Daniel Sewell Ward said:
Daniel Sewell Ward said:
Thorgrimm said:Psychotic rock? Isn't that the name of some Death Metal band?
Cute. Shame about not fixing the science.
I think I’ll ignore the rest of ‘his’ timeline now, which is probably also fraught with errors. Who took it on trust that he had honestly done his own homework?
What other stuff has Thorgrimm blatantly plagiarised in this thread?
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life said:
So we know of the existence of Wikipedia? I would love to see Thorgrimm’s personal summary of the metabolism first position and why he is so convinced by it, preferably with references. It would also be useful if arguments are reposted in his own words, again preferably with references, showing that he has researched and thought about what he claims or questions. Otherwise it would be better if one debated against Encyclopedia Britannica before coming back to NMA.
[url=http://www.dinox.org/reviews/revdinher.htm said:
I would be curious to learn a little more about how it ‘kicked evolution in the nuts’. The closest possibility I can think of would be that he means the tangential use of a theory that already preceded Bakker’s popular book by more than a decade, which although controversial, is just another proposed evolutionary mechanism. Using Wiki a little more my self this time:
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#Common_misconceptions said:
xdarkyrex said:
What does that involve? People might be curious to read about an RNA World replication model to address the problem you alluded to, where a parallel copy is synthesised instead (Taylor, 2006). Interesting, but pretty weak.
Ashmo said:
Less rather than more. It is not accurate.
Thorgrimm said:
So it’s all an elaborate piece of deception to lead us onto the path to enlightenment? I think not.
Ashmo said:
Thorgrimm said:And if I seem a bit harsh I apologize for that, just this is one subject I have studied and followed most of my adult life. So I may not have a degree in the subject, but I feel I can hold my own in a debate on the subject.
Sorry if I appear flamy, but comedy gold.
The mummified dinosaur is probably entirely mineralised, so it might be a little misleading to call the fossil a mummy, but it is very interesting.
I know a bit about viruses Mord_Sith, but I don’t follow what you’re trying to say. Could you please elaborate on that? Are you suggesting that Homo sapiens sapiens was infected with a virus that immunised them before it mutated to help wipe out competing hominids? Safer viral vectors for gene therapy and cancer treatment would be great, but are you also talking about something different to that? The speculation on mitochondria doesn’t seem to make any sense either and suggests one hasn’t studied genetics.
Ashmo said:
Thorgrimm said:
My hypothesis is that Thorgrimm is behaving like some of these "Christian Scientists" (not to be confused with scientists who are Christian, but more objective). Of course scientists aren’t perfect, but they are generally clever and hard working individuals who are genuinely interested in the quest for knowledge.
You first.
I suggest people read the famous Matthew 7:1-8 as I have to put in something more for the ‘scientist priest kings’.
Or as my daddy used to say, put up or shut up.
I am your father.
Time to highlight an example of “lies to children”. Although it is generally true that mitochondria are maternally inherited, it isn't quite true in all cases. For paternal linkage the mitochondria in the tail of the sperm actually do get incorporated into the developing oocyte, which often leads to heteroplasmy (copies of different mitochondrial DNAs) before the cell walls are formed. So male mtDNA can be passed on. This has been seen in a number of animals, including humans. However, this is rare, and the male DNA is generally lost by genetic drift. Also, mitochondria are not always the simple little rods you see in textbooks. They can change shape, fuse or split. Thus one could imagine how maternal and paternal mtDNAs could recombine with each other. Other organisms can be very different, such as a form of mitochondria in mussels that is biparentally inherited, as well as paternally in certain plants. I should also note that mutation rates in mitochondria are very high, and as I understand, of a similar level both in humans and other animals, so we aren’t special.
Ashmo said:
This definition of evolution is incorrect such as because it is too specific and implies increasing complexity, whilst excluding numerous evolutionary mechanisms. Although this type of evolution can occur, it is by no means the end of the story.
Brother None said:
Parts of my post may appear to be insulting to some, but don’t even think about it.
I believe we can all calmly discuss science, debate and share ideas. That might not be possible on many other forums, but NMA is a fortunate place where we can mix religion, politics and guns with little trouble. You can always splitvat any unproductive spam. Evolutionary theory can do just fine without abiogenesis, although modern science and evolutionary thinking makes it highly plausible. Evolution is so useful for learning about biology that some educators mention it first of all.
Although we had a special lecture on evolution at university, abiogenesis was hardly mentioned at all. However, we also had a tutorial in biology on recognising reliable sources for scientific research.
You can do research with internet alone Mord_Sith, doing surprisingly well with the likes of Google(scholar), Wikipedia and Pubmed.
quietfanatic said:
Highlighting this because it's funny. Reason enough to vat the thread too, but I'll leave it up since y'all seem to be enjoying it.
quietfanatic said:
The theory can do fine, sure, because the model isn't reliant on where and how it starts, just that it started at some point. But the "belief" in evolution as an explanation for our presence here and the conviction people have that believing in evolution is "better" than creationism (even though some form of creationism are only different from scientific evolutionary theory at the point of abiogenesis) because it's scientific is a bit misguided.
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
quietfanatic said:
nobody disputes that evolution happens. its the assumption that the entirety that everything in all aspects has been driven soley by the theory of evolution is the point of divergence.
deeply religious people believe that evolution was started or maintained in specific direction by a supernatural being(s). (Creationisim)
scientifically religious people believe that evolution happens with pushes by a supernatural being. (Crevolution, eg: how long is a day to god? )
deeply scientific people believe that there was no supreme being and that evolution happened soley on its on merits without outside interference. (Evolutionists)
there are holes in each theory due to leaps of faith AND missing or un-proveable sections.
just wanted to clarify.
Mord_Sith
Mildly Dipped
I lay no claim to being a scientific fellow, but with what I was suggesting was what I figure in my limited knowledge of the working of the human body could have occurred.
Completely un-researched ideas but what I (at least what I thought I was getting at) was that perhaps the other Erectus RNA was recessive rather than Dominant, relying on the male's genes, and while the Eve strain wandered around doing whatever, they were effectively overwriting the genetic code for future generations of the other Erectus, as I'm sure you've seen many people with beetled brows, as a male trait I'm sure that it's one of the few lasting traits from the other Erectus strains.
The other part comes from what is most likely an urban myth that I recall picking up some time ago about the source of Aids, however as I said before, it is unresearched, educated guess at the best of lights. What I was figuring is that if Monkeys were only at about 99.5% different from humans, but interaction on that level caused people to contract a virulent disease (assuming it's genetics based rather than that dirty, dirty monkey) So if alternate strains of the *mostly* similar genetic strains caused a near fatal disease in those that it had come in contact with.
Anyhow, I'm just crazy and trying to put some input in to see if it stirs any ideas up, but it almost seems as though this thread's going into it's death throws any moment now...
Besides, I like my temporal mechanics and the like, but that's pure theory at this point so meh...
Completely un-researched ideas but what I (at least what I thought I was getting at
) was that perhaps the other Erectus RNA was recessive rather than Dominant, relying on the male's genes, and while the Eve strain wandered around doing whatever, they were effectively overwriting the genetic code for future generations of the other Erectus, as I'm sure you've seen many people with beetled brows, as a male trait I'm sure that it's one of the few lasting traits from the other Erectus strains.The other part comes from what is most likely an urban myth that I recall picking up some time ago about the source of Aids, however as I said before, it is unresearched, educated guess at the best of lights. What I was figuring is that if Monkeys were only at about 99.5% different from humans, but interaction on that level caused people to contract a virulent disease (assuming it's genetics based rather than that dirty, dirty monkey) So if alternate strains of the *mostly* similar genetic strains caused a near fatal disease in those that it had come in contact with.
Anyhow, I'm just crazy and trying to put some input in to see if it stirs any ideas up, but it almost seems as though this thread's going into it's death throws any moment now...
Besides, I like my temporal mechanics and the like, but that's pure theory at this point so meh...