Evolution question.

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

A single organism ecosystem at a depth of 2.5 miles into solid rock.

BBC NEWS | World | Planet's loneliest bug revealed

This isn't the first I've heard if this, it's actually pretty well known there are gadzillions of single-celled organisms living quite happily along veins within the rock structure miles down. I've even heard of some living within oil deposits. But old mines seem to be where researchers have the most fun playing with them; salt mines, gold mines, coal mines, seems these critters are everywhere. And that's not counting what they have found lurking in the volcanic smokers at the bottom of the sea!

All that they taught us in grade school about the sun being the source of *all* energy turns out to not be correct...all of these critters we are talking about have lived for aeons without benefit of sunlight.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

This isn't the first I've heard if this, it's actually pretty well known there are gadzillions of single-celled organisms living quite happily along veins within the rock structure miles down. I've even heard of some living within oil deposits. But old mines seem to be where researchers have the most fun playing with them; salt mines, gold mines, coal mines, seems these critters are everywhere. And that's not counting what they have found lurking in the volcanic smokers at the bottom of the sea!

All that they taught us in grade school about the sun being the source of *all* energy turns out to not be correct...all of these critters we are talking about have lived for aeons without benefit of sunlight.

Would you take a bet against them finding bacteria dormant or clearly fossilised on a space rock? I think that will happen pretty soon. (I know about the disputed Martian ones).


tao

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Would you take a bet against them finding bacteria dormant or clearly fossilised on a space rock? I think that will happen pretty soon. (I know about the disputed Martian ones).

Well, that's *the* big question, isn't it? Surviving for how long in near absolute zero, and then surviving the intense heat of re-entry without burning up (presuming the rock even survives that), and after all of that being in some shape to exist in a foreign environment well enough to thrive and procreate.

I suppose there is always an outside possibility, certainly there are microbes that can exist in *one* or *another* extreme, but you gotta admit it is a huge challenge to swing from one extreme to the other and survive, even for microbes. The old "Andromeda Strain" scenario.

Of course it begs the question...where did the microbes come from to begin with... Could that be the basis of the Jedi religion?

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Well, that's *the* big question, isn't it? Surviving for how long in near absolute zero, and then surviving the intense heat of re-entry without burning up (presuming the rock even survives that), and after all of that being in some shape to exist in a foreign environment well enough to thrive and procreate.

I suppose there is always an outside possibility, certainly there are microbes that can exist in *one* or *another* extreme, but you gotta admit it is a huge challenge to swing from one extreme to the other and survive, even for microbes. The old "Andromeda Strain" scenario.

Of course it begs the question...where did the microbes come from to begin with... Could that be the basis of the Jedi religion?

There was a recent experiment where some microbe bearing sedimentary rock was sent up into space glued onto a satellite launch rocket and came back down again. The piece was too small to expect the live microbes to survive but the fossil microbes in the rock did survive well enough to be identified. But for interstellar space travel I think we will find it is not microbes but viruses and phage's that can and do make that journey and they can then start the chain of evolution anew.


tao

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

There was a recent experiment where some microbe bearing sedimentary rock was sent up into space glued onto a satellite launch rocket and came back down again. The piece was too small to expect the live microbes to survive but the fossil microbes in the rock did survive well enough to be identified. But for interstellar space travel I think we will find it is not microbes but viruses and phage's that can and do make that journey and they can then start the chain of evolution anew.

OK, but even so they had to come from somewhere...unless they spontaneously generate? We still have to account for abiogenesis.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

OK, but even so they had to come from somewhere...unless they spontaneously generate? We still have to account for abiogenesis.

Do we? Why does there have to be a creation point? The only reason we think that way at all is because of millennia of creation mythology. Maybe its time to think outside the box?

tao

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Do we? Why does there have to be a creation point? The only reason we think that way at all is because of millennia of creation mythology. Maybe its time to think outside the box?

Actually, I am. Any way one cares to slice it, there must be a beginning.

Spontaneous generation is every bit as hard to *believe* as any religious myth...the numbers just aren't there. Now we have to factor in spontaneous generation *in space?* Spontaneous generation of a pseudo-lifeform that *also* has to survive an atmospheric re-entry after being in a near absolute zero and oxygen (or *any* gas) deprived condition. At this point it just seems to me as believable as any other fractured fairytale. All for the convenience of seeding a watery world around an insignificant star at the outer fringes of the milky way galaxy?

It just seems a bit...convenient?...or do I mean "contrived?" I'm not sure. It is great to speculate, but I will reserve my opinion until I see something that better supports it.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Actually, I am. Any way one cares to slice it, there must be a beginning.

Spontaneous generation is every bit as hard to *believe* as any religious myth...the numbers just aren't there. Now we have to factor in spontaneous generation *in space?* Spontaneous generation of a pseudo-lifeform that *also* has to survive an atmospheric re-entry after being in a near absolute zero and oxygen (or *any* gas) deprived condition. At this point it just seems to me as believable as any other fractured fairytale. All for the convenience of seeding a watery world around an insignificant star at the outer fringes of the milky way galaxy?

It just seems a bit...convenient?...or do I mean "contrived?" I'm not sure. It is great to speculate, but I will reserve my opinion until I see something that better supports it.

No you are not, you are still thinking there must be a creation point. You say "any way you slice it", that is not outside the box but as conventional as afternoon tea. Since all of physics agrees and science has demonstrated time to be an illusion, and since it now seems equally certain there are other dimensions we cannot see, what meaning does "start point" actually have? Imposing a start point is natural given our linear experience of reality but that is only our experience, it is not the actual reality.

How can a boson spin clockwise and anti-clockwise at the same time? Its not possible in our atomic scale reality but its happening billions of times within your body at this moment. What if the coding in all these left handed amino acids, (that are detectable throughout the visible universe in spectrographic analysis), that are vital for life carry subatomic coding that predisposes them to blossom into living organisms?

In truth I believe there to be many versions of reality based upon the scale and dimensions you include in your thinking. Each year that goes by, each piece of data that becomes available that is pertinent to this thought, only strengthens this belief. In just the past couple of months there has been enough science published to, (for a neutral observer such as I), completely overthrow what we think we know about life itself, its beginnings here on Earth and even the nature of universal time. We are as yet primitives with few answers but surely the most ridiculous of them all is that some omnipresent super being created it all from nothing. To start with it is just such an anthropocentric notion that it would have to have a huge body of evidence to even consider it, and that evidence is simply not there.

tao

[Tao_Equus]

Here is a "blast from the past" on that iconic experiment in the 1950's that sought to recreate the conditions on early Earth. Seems it was far more successful than Stanley Millar, the research graduate who conducted the experiments, ever realised.

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | New spark in classic experiments

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

No you are not, you are still thinking there must be a creation point.

Yes, and what, pray tell, would you call the "Big Bang?" I would call it a beginning.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

Since all of physics agrees...

Does it, really?

Seems to me the Law of Diminishing Returns, known also as "friction" in Newtonian Physics, disagrees.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

and science has demonstrated time to be an illusion,

Ah, so illusion is real and reality is illusion...sounds like philosophy to me, not science.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

and since it now seems equally certain there are other dimensions we cannot see, what meaning does "start point" actually have?

Why? Because of some abstract math and unsubstantiated speculation? And you call religion a farce? I'm sorry, but I see absolutely *no* difference on this matter, between a fanciful scientific *heaven* of multi-verses and a mythical unsubstantiated heaven of a religious text.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

vital for life carry subatomic coding that predisposes them to blossom into living organisms?

Certainly a possibility I am not willing to dismiss, but neither is it something I am willing to take on faith.

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

created it all from nothing.

Sounds like the Big Bang to me...verbatim. Just ask Hawking.

BTW, I sense an attempt to attach a religious connotation to the term "abiogenesis." That would be an error...it is a decidedly scientific term that has nothing to do, at all, with religion or mythology...that is, unless you agree that science is another religious attempt to understand reality,

Cheers!

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

Yes, and what, pray tell, would you call the "Big Bang?" I would call it a beginning.

Since when have I been a Big Bang advocate?

Does it, really?

Seems to me the Law of Diminishing Returns, known also as "friction" in Newtonian Physics, disagrees.

Come on Juan, you can do better than a flippant incomprehensible one liner.

Why? Because of some abstract math and unsubstantiated speculation? And you call religion a farce? I'm sorry, but I see absolutely *no* difference on this matter, between a fanciful scientific *heaven* of multi-verses and a mythical unsubstantiated heaven of a religious text.

Wrong wrong wrong. Nobody has ever demonstrated heaven to be real. But we now utilise the quantum dimension regularly. Not unsubstantiated math but practically applied math.

Sounds like the Big Bang to me...verbatim. Just ask Hawking.

BTW, I sense an attempt to attach a religious connotation to the term "abiogenesis." That would be an error...it is a decidedly scientific term that has nothing to do, at all, with religion or mythology...that is, unless you agree that science is another religious attempt to understand reality,

Cheers!

Of course I would never agree to that. But it does kind of amuse me to see the religious try to manipulate it all to prop up their own insecure faith in fairytales.

tao

[juantoo3]

I just gotta love ya, even when you misrepresent and try to avoid by changing goalposts.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

I just gotta love ya, even when you misrepresent and try to avoid by changing goalposts.

lol, where have I moved a goalpost? If I am inconsistent I would greatly appreciate knowing where and how!!

tao

[juantoo3]

Originally Posted by Tao_Equus

lol, where have I moved a goalpost? If I am inconsistent I would greatly appreciate knowing where and how!!

LOL! Where would I begin?...the post would be over the word count limit. That much is consistent at least.

A good start would be the logical fallacies...like the fallacy of absolutes.

[Tao_Equus]

Originally Posted by juantoo3

LOL! Where would I begin?...the post would be over the word count limit. That much is consistent at least.

A good start would be the logical fallacies...like the fallacy of absolutes.

Ohhhh I see!! I am not agreeing with you so that makes my logic a fallacy and inconsistent.... got ya!! Glad thats cleared up

tao