One thing never evolves into something else!

[Dr.GH]

Has palaeontology shown that bacteria were the first life forms? If so, how? Have they found any fossilized bacteria from over one billion years ago?

Yep,


Schopf, J. William
1999 Cradle of Life:The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils, Princeton University Press

 

[shinbits]

Yep,


Schopf, J. William
1999 Cradle of Life:The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils, Princeton University Press

Okay. What does was written? Have you a link or any info?

 

[Mallon]

Okay. What does was written? Have you a link or any info?

Do some reading on stromatolites.

Or better yet: go out and read the book you were just recommended. Challenge yourself.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Yep,


Schopf, J. William
1999 Cradle of Life:The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils, Princeton University Press

Cradle of Life : The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils (Paperback)
by J. William Schopf

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/06...ref=sr_1_1/102-8502438-2478522?_encoding=UTF8
it is at amazon used for $9.

might be the best $12 you spend this week on books.

if you think education or books are expensive you should examine ignorance and illiteracy and what they really cost.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Cradle of Life : The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils (Paperback)
by J. William Schopf

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/06...ref=sr_1_1/102-8502438-2478522?_encoding=UTF8
it is at amazon used for $9.

might be the best $12 you spend this week on books.

if you think education or books are expensive you should examine ignorance and illiteracy and what they really cost.

addressed to the poster of:
Okay. What does was written? Have you a link or any info?

 

[shinbits]

So a book that can't be posted and read on this forum was posted as proof for an argument.

Not very classy.

 

[Mallon]

So a book that can't be posted and read on this forum was posted as proof for an argument.

Not very classy.

You should try reading a real book sometime. It's very gratifying. It will improve your spelling and grammar and help you to avoid such mistakes as "What does was written?".

 

[rmwilliamsll]

So a book that can't be posted and read on this forum was posted as proof for an argument.

Not very classy.

i am sorely tempted to let the posting stand on it's own merits. however i just responded with this:
the issue coming from within fundamentalism that i am personally interested in is the creation-evolution-design debate. it is almost completely separable into educated and undereducated segments of the society.

on another forum. so i'm thinking about the issues.

it amazes me for people not to find study and read fascinating and the most interesting thing that they can do. i post my reading lists, i post book reviews to amazon, i love books, reading and studying. to make an argument that to follow up on a piece of evidence requires walking to a library, borrowing a book and reading it, and that this is "not very classy" i think betrays more about how the poster thinks then it does about the person making the recommendation.



i'd like to tell a little story.
i used to sell books at swapmeets, not novels, not westerns and other c**p but good solid non-fiction books, the kind of stuff i'd like to read, and much of it i did read during the week.

well, this absolutely beautiful college aged women walked into the stand and asked for a book by dostolki, i asked her if she meant "dostoevsky". to which she replied, "you used the same name that he did". i asked her who he was. It turns out, probably because she was pretty that a college instructor took the time to try to put something into her head and had recommended that she read anything by "dostoevsky". what she wanted to do was buy a book that i had read and would tell her about so that she could go back to school on monday and act as if she had read the book.
needless to say i was just a little upset.


there is a .sig here that sums up the idea.

help, we've been attacked by the intelligent and educated portion of the population.

 

[Tomk80]

See, there is a serious flaw in that reasoning. That flaw, is the assumption, that evolution is true, and therefore, bacteria as the very first life forms is true, because evolution says it was.

Evolution has no way whatsoever of knowing of showing that bacteria were the first life forms. But it is the only logical possibility, if you want to make evolution work.

But evolution, quite simply, isn't true.

Euh, actually, this is very far from true. That single celled organisms (although not bacteria perse) where the first life forms, is a conclusion drawn from various lines of evidence, amonst which is the twin-nested hierarchy. It is not an assumption.

Furthermore, this conclusion isn't necessary for evolution, and neither does evolution require the single-celled ancestor to be true.

 

[shinbits]

Euh, actually, this is very far from true. That single celled organisms (although not bacteria perse) where the first life forms, is a conclusion drawn from various lines of evidence, amonst which is the twin-nested hierarchy.

What lines of evidence? Care to explain them?

 

[Dr.GH]

Well, since some people are too lazy to go to a library, or too broke to buy a book, here is a nice website that took all of a few minutes to find which seems to be a quite good summary of the paleontological data for our earliest known life forms.

The Earliest Life.

 

[Dr.GH]

Well, it took a few more minutes but here is another excellent website,

EARLY EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE, OCEANS, AND LIFE

 

[Dannager]

So a book that can't be posted and read on this forum was posted as proof for an argument.

Not very classy.

shinbits, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of evidence in the scientific community is documented in scientific journals, which you would have to purchase in order to read anyway.

 

[Aron-Ra]

See, there is a serious flaw in that reasoning. That flaw, is the assumption, that evolution is true, and therefore, bacteria as the very first life forms is true, because evolution says it was.

Evolution has no way whatsoever of knowing of showing that bacteria were the first life forms. But it is the only logical possibility, if you want to make evolution work.

But evolution, quite simply, isn't true.

Yes it is true, and demonstrably so. For example, here is the definition of evolution which I think is the most accurate:

Biological evolution is a process of varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in their morphology, physiology or development, -which (compiled over successive generations) can increase biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.

Now do you concede that all of this has already been demonstrated to be true? Or is there any part of this definition which you still think you can claim is untrue? Have I not also already demonstrated the accuracy of my points in the OP of this thread? Or is there any part of that which you can defend as untrue? And remember to be specific.

Evolution is true and can easily be shown to be so. It is a directly-observable, measurable, inevitable fact of population genetics, and it has practical application in billion-dollar medical, biotech, and agricultural industries -where creationism is nothing but deliberate lies desperately pleading for an already falsified compilation of fables. Magic wands, incantations, cursed potions, golems and other spells abound in a mythology rampant in evil spirits and talking animals, -where prejudice and paranoia praise gullability as a virtue -while wisdom is ridiculed as foolishness, and inquiry is punished as a capitol crime. There is simply no good fruit possible from creationism because there is just no truth in it.

 

[Hydra009]

-where creationism is nothing but deliberate lies desperately pleading for an already falsified compilation of fables. Magic wands, incantations, cursed potions, golems and other spells abound in a mythology rampant in evil spirits and talking animals, -where prejudice and paranoia praise gullability as a virtue -while wisdom is ridiculed as foolishness, and inquiry is punished as a capitol crime.

Laying it on just a tad thick?

 

[shinbits]

here is a nice website that took all of a few minutes to find which seems to be a quite good summary of the paleontological data for our earliest known life forms.

The Earliest Life.

This link doesn't even attempt to explain the position you've held, that single-celled organisms were around billions of years ago, and how or why this is believed.

Here's a quote from the second link you gave me:

"Knowledge of Earth’s earliest life, and the environment in which it evolved, is incomplete and controversial at the present time. "

The rest of the link, doesn't even attempt to show how we would know that there were single-celled organisms billions of years ago. It just explains what theories and hypothesis was made, possibilities and maybes.

And this all goes back to what I said: Evolution has no to really know that microbes were the original sources of life.

And as these links show, neither does paleantology.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Laying it on just a tad thick?

No I don't think so. If they were talking about the immaculate conception of Minerva from the brain of Jupiter, it would be no different. I just can't maintain my patience and keep saying "well maybe there really are pixies in the garden", like I'm talking to kids in a kinder care romper room. I'm just losing my patience, that's all. At this point, I feel like if I wanted to discuss important, serious research related to the Arctic circle, some twit would derail it by proselytizing for Santa Clause.

To my mind, its like this: Imagine the way a child talks, one who is rude and undisciplined, and knows his parents aren't around. Now imagine that its not a child talking that way, but a full-grown man. Now imagine this guy walks into the maternity ward of a hospital, and boldly accuses all the pediatrists and obstetricians of a fraudulent conspiracy... because he believes babies come from the stork! I think that's a pretty fair analogy to what's going on here.

Now imagine this same guy calls all of the doctors nazis and bigots and accuses them of wanting to rape and murder all their patients. That would be about like what _Origen just said to me.

 

[shinbits]

Yes it is true, and demonstrably so. For example, here is the definition of evolution which I think is the most accurate:

Biological evolution is a process of varying genetic frequencies among reproductive populations; leading to (usually subtle) changes in their morphology, physiology or development, -which (compiled over successive generations) can increase biodiversity when continuing variation between genetically-isolated groups eventually lead to one or more descendant branches increasingly distinct from their ancestors or cousins.

Now do you concede that all of this has already been demonstrated to be true? Or is there any part of this definition which you still think you can claim is untrue? Have I not also already demonstrated the accuracy of my points in the OP of this thread? Or is there any part of that which you can defend as untrue? And remember to be specific.

Everything in the definition you've given for evolution is true. I completely agree with everything that this definitition says.

Except the part about populations become increasingly more distinct from thier ancestors. We have no organisms that have been studied by man, to become increasingly more distinct from thier predecessors with each generation. At best, some may be able to find a hybrid, or a freak mutation from one generation to another, but never a steady increasing distinction.

On top of which, a steady increase in distinction must be shown in hundreds of different animals, in order to have some basis to say that all creatures have evolved.

 

[Mallon]

This link doesn't even attempt to explain the position you've held, that single-celled organisms were around billions of years ago, and how or why this is believed.

Do you need to be spoon-fed this stuff?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatolites

For starters. Use the search engine at www.google.com for more. All you need to do is go to that site and type in key search words like "stromatolites" or "Precambrian fossils" or the like and hit "Google search." You will then be given a list of websites that contain the relevant information you are searching for.

 

[Mallon]

Except the part about populations become increasingly more distinct from thier ancestors. We have no organisms that have been studied by man, to become increasingly more distinct from thier predecessors with each generation.

Read the study done by Reznick and Endler on predation on guppy populations. Again, the Google trick I referred to above should work.