Scientists Confirm There Was Life On Earth 3.5 Billion Years Ago (qz.com) 176
Paleobiologists have confirmed today that life forms existed some 3.5 billion years ago. The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses the latest techniques to date the most aged remains available. Quartz reports: The research, led by paleobiologist William Schopf of the University of California-Los Angeles and geoscientist John Valley of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been in the works for what seems a long time to most, but which the academics know is merely a blink of the eye in terms of life on Earth. The specimens in question, mostly now-extinct bacteria and microbes, were found in 1982 at the Apex Chert, a rock formation in Western Australia, in a piece of rock. In 1993, based on radiometric analyses of the rock, and the shape of fossils, Schopf dated them as biological beings that existed 3.45 billion years ago. The rock held the earliest direct evidence of life, Schopf thought, and inferred from it that creatures existed over a billion years earlier than anyone previously believed. But some scientists argued that this claim was too speculative and that the microfossils, invisible to the naked eye, were really just weirdly-shaped bits of rock, strange minerals that only seem to contain biological specimens but do not.
Since then, technology has improved and Schopf and Valley teamed up to devise a new way to analyze the rock specimen, which now lives in the London Museum of Natural History. Valley spent 10 years developing a method to analyze the individual species that are shaped like tiny cylinders and filaments. Any type of organic substance (including both rock and microbe) contains a characteristic mix of carbon isotopes. Using a secondary ion mass spectrometer (a very rare tool, one of which is housed at the University of Wisconsin), the scientists were able to separate the carbon in each fossil into isotopes. That way, they could measure the carbon-isotope makeup of each fossil, and compare those to fossil-less rocks from the same era. [...] After analyzing the microfossils individually, they identified five species, concluding that two were photosynthesizers, two were methane-consuming organisms, and one produced methane.
Since then, technology has improved and Schopf and Valley teamed up to devise a new way to analyze the rock specimen, which now lives in the London Museum of Natural History. Valley spent 10 years developing a method to analyze the individual species that are shaped like tiny cylinders and filaments. Any type of organic substance (including both rock and microbe) contains a characteristic mix of carbon isotopes. Using a secondary ion mass spectrometer (a very rare tool, one of which is housed at the University of Wisconsin), the scientists were able to separate the carbon in each fossil into isotopes. That way, they could measure the carbon-isotope makeup of each fossil, and compare those to fossil-less rocks from the same era. [...] After analyzing the microfossils individually, they identified five species, concluding that two were photosynthesizers, two were methane-consuming organisms, and one produced methane.
Evolution (Score:3, Funny)
Eukaryotes, pfffft [Re:Evolution] (Score:5, Funny)
Back in my day we had to force ourselves to commit mitosis and grow flagellum to troll. It was painful; be grateful.
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If you call this a life...
Re: Evolution (Score:2)
Evolution != "Progress" (Score:2)
Evolution is about adaptation to a changing environment.
"Progress" has no part in any of it - what does that word even mean? That word implies a goal (how else can you make progress if not towards some goal).
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Most life on Earth isn't intelligent. Actually, most life doesn't even have nerve cells.
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Most life on Earth isn't intelligent. Actually, most life doesn't even have nerve cells.
I fear that's my fault, having hogged up all of it. People are always telling me I have a lot of nerve.
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That's all evolution is about, it has no goal.
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Trump IS proof for evolution.
I mean, look at this man and then talk to me with a straight face about "Intelligent Design".
Re: Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, some remained simpler than others.
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I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Old news (Score:3)
It has been generally accepted that there was life at 3.45Gya since 2013.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20131113/DAA1VSC01.html
Re: Old news (Score:2)
Happy Birth day Life! (Score:2)
Jim... (Score:2)
... and one produced methane (Score:2)
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The bible never said that.
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"devout atheist"
Yeah. I devoutly don't collect stamps.
You forgot to say that you're lying, and not an atheist at all.
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Re: don't be silly the bible says (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the thing: I don't mind hearing Merry Christmas (but I slowly start to DO mind hearing "Last Christmas". C'mon. George is dead, let the song follow). You wish me a Merry Christmas, I'll probably reply in kind.
What bothers me is the asshats that get ballistic if you wish them "Happy Holidays". Who then berate you for wishing them well that "this is a christian nation".
NO. Fuck it, it's not. It's a secular nation. If you want to live in a theocracy, go to fucking Iran. And take a good look at the whole area to get an idea what it leads to if you base your laws on the power fantasies written down by bigoted barbarians millennia ago when it was a-ok to just bash someone's head in because he has the wrong imaginary friend.
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Here's the thing: I don't mind hearing Merry Christmas (but I slowly start to DO mind hearing "Last Christmas". C'mon. George is dead, let the song follow). You wish me a Merry Christmas, I'll probably reply in kind.
What bothers me is the asshats that get ballistic if you wish them "Happy Holidays".
I've actually never had that happen to me. They give me strange looks, certainly, but no stranger than my neighbour who occasionally sends me videos of this or that person "proving" intelligent design because he thinks that being an atheist is an irrational decision.
To be honest, I'm not sure how to respond to someone who goes ballistic for *any* greeting. Raised eyebrows? I can handle that. Religious propaganda/literature? Sure, I'll just throw it away anyway. Proselytizing? I'm not gonna argue, just get
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I've actually never had that happen to me. They give me strange looks, certainly, but no stranger than my neighbour who occasionally sends me videos of this or that person "proving" intelligent design because he thinks that being an atheist is an irrational decision.
To be honest, I'm not sure how to respond to someone who goes ballistic for *any* greeting. Raised eyebrows? I can handle that. Religious propaganda/literature? Sure, I'll just throw it away anyway. Proselytizing? I'm not gonna argue, just get away if I can.
But anger? What the hell do you do there? Get angry back? That doesn't help - now there's *two* angry people.
I've had a few get pissed. My reaction is laughing at them. I suspect someone may take a second amendment solution on me some day.
Then Someone could truly say "He literally died laughing"
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The problem is that the people who would want to turn us into a theocracy always assume that THEY would be the ones determining which religion is in charge and THEY would be the ones bashing in someone
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And you think that would mean that it looks any different than the Middle East does today? You have the same shit going on there, one group claiming to have the moral higher ground so they can suppress the rest, and the rest fighting back. Why does anyone think this would be different in any way if we tried the same shit here?
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Don't get me wrong. I don't think it'd be any different than the Middle East. I was just pointing out that the people who want a theocracy in the US assume that they would be in charge and thus somehow immune to any bad stuff that happens thanks to a theocracy. This is (one reason) why you can't rationally discuss this with them. They assume there will be no downside because they are in charge and wouldn't do anything to hurt themselves. Therefore, any downside is "someone else's" problem, not theirs.
Of cou
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And you think that would mean that it looks any different than the Middle East does today? You have the same shit going on there, one group claiming to have the moral higher ground so they can suppress the rest, and the rest fighting back. Why does anyone think this would be different in any way if we tried the same shit here?
Because their god is the right god. And it would be the same outcome. As a society based on one religion gained power, eventually there would be religion based warfare right here. Ideology and religion does not stay still. It's either waxing or waning. As it waxes, there is a demand to become more pure, to become less and less tolerant of other religions. And there you have it - an American version of the middle east, with agry gods who demand blood and death.
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>
What bothers me is the asshats that get ballistic if you wish them "Happy Holidays". Who then berate you for wishing them well that "this is a christian nation"..
Will you join us in the Ban Bing Crosby movement?
He's the bastard that started the heresy with that damn Happy Holiday song.
And he sung Little Drummer Boy with that creepy hippie David Bowie. Jesus has been waterboarding Crosby ever since that evil dude died.
In the meantime, Thanksgiving, Saint Nicholas Day, Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Christmas Day, Three Kings Day/Epiphany, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Omisoka, Yule, Saturnalia, Veteran's day, New Years day, Thanksgiving
And
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Your post makes me aware that it is starting to look a lot like Christmas.
I like Christmas. I wonder if fundamentalists get pissed off that a lot of athiests really love Christmas? It actually looks like spring here though.
Re: don't be silly the bible says (Score:2)
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As an atheist, I love Christmas. Vacation, food, drinking and presents. I'm suspicious of people who don't like Christmas. Fuck those people, they're defective.
Booyeah! Visiting with family and friends, and a lot of my relatives are winemakers. Some really old traditions, like drinking shots of Kümmel, and my Aunt's kickass beef stuffing, And now that I'm retired I can eat poppyseed rolls again.
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I don't. Not because or despite being an atheist, more because I'm a bitter Scrooge. Buying gifts for people you don't see all year (and when you see them you get reminded WHY you avoided them all year over), pushing and shoving in overheated stores (while you're wearing the big jackets because it's freezing outside, pretty much ensuring that you sweat inside and catch a cold as soon as you're back out), trying to snatch that last unit of some favorite toy for one of the spoiled brats one of your relatives
Re: don't be silly the bible says (Score:2)
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What really is insane is this stupid complaints about "Happy Holidays". The reason people say that is not because they are devil-worshipping atheist SJWs. They say it because there are TWO holidays! And I'm not talking about Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, I am talking about WASP holidays called "Christmas" and "New Years". White rich right-wing good Americans take the whole week off and thus their friends may not see them until after BOTH holidays, so what the fuck are they supposed to say?
The attempt to secularize C
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Huh? Since when is religion as valid as science?
I mean, outside of Texas.
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Christian values changed society so that it no longer depended on Christian values.
You might want to explain this. It doesn't exactly make a lot of sense by itself.
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The values you cite are not religious values. Religious laws concerning not lying/stealing/killing only apply to others from the same religious group. I hope I needn't field examples where god himself told his chosen people that it's more than ok to kill, pillage and go on a rampage among the "other peoples" that they conquered, usually in the name of the lord or even with his aid.
So please, don't gimme that "Christian values of not lying/stealing/murdering". Like every religion, these "values" were meant t
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Could we just be thankful for 3 days off and not waste them on some superstitious nonsense? Just once?
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Fine, I'll not wish anyone anything. Next one to wish me Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas or whatever else will get a heartfelt "Yeah, fuck you, too!"
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Wait, he only said, "The Bible never said that", which you then agreed with. For all you know, the commentor was a devout Catholic.
Meh, it does have an unbroken genealogy from Adam and Eve via Noah, Abraham etc. to Jacob who was born ~2168 years after Creation. He went to Egypt's land when he was 130 years old, the Exodus was 430 years later, 480 years after that they built the temple, 345 years after that was the exile. This is generally agreed to be year 586 BC by our calendar. Add that up and you get 6000-ish years, there are no "and then millions of years passed" gaps.
But like everything about the Bible that doesn't make sense it's
The"fall" and the Christian religion (Score:2)
All of Christian theology hangs on the fall of Eve and Adam and the world with it. Without this literal event nothing about New Testament theology makes any sense. That is why Creationism is very important. Jesus believed in the actual literal Genesis story and built his theology upon it. I personally don't understand how a Christian cannot believe in the literal Adam and Eve story and have a coherent belief .
(Disclaimer I don't believe it but I understand why they fight)
Re: The"fall" and the Christian religion (Score:2)
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I went to Catholic school and Sunday School in the early 70's... I can confirm I was taught the literal Genisis story.
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The problem comes from the Jewish style of writing. Part historical fact (though generally filtered through generations of oral history), part moral education, part explanatory and part religious metaphor. Soddom and Gemorrah, for example, related the memory of two cities being destroyed b
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Personally, I see the story as a metaphor for ascending to sentience. Adam was an animal that spoke, walking around naming things for God, but not self-aware. The "garden" was blissful ignorance, and their punishment was knowledge of themselves; like, "I have to work every day?", and, "OH MY GOD GIVING BIRTH HURTS!!!"
Re: don't be silly the bible says (Score:2)
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Christ has revoked all previous Jewish laws, and left only one: Love one another.
Jewish books have no place in Christianity.
Odd for a man who was an observant Jew, spend his entire life as an observant Jew, and died as one. In fact one of his most famous acts, which likely contributed to his trial and death was making a disruptive commotion about corruption of orthodox Jewish religious practice in the Temple during Passover.
When did he revoke "all previous Jewish laws"?
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"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
-Matthew 5:17
Re: don't be silly the bible says (Score:2)
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Re:One for those species who could not adapt (Score:5, Funny)
The biggest joke here is that most of those you claim "adapted" don't even think evolution is real and instead prefer to believe that their imaginary friend poofed everything into existence with magic.
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The rule of thumb on slashdot appears to be:
Do I like this?
If the answer is yes, it is true. It's real.
If the answer is no, then it is false. It isn't real.
So the christian ones. Plenty of them. They don't like evolution, so it isn't real. Libertarian types who don't like feeling guilty about flying or running AC all summer - they don't like the idea of climate change. So that's bullshit too.
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I do think the data points to climate change being real, I still run the AC all Summer. I just don't give a fuck about whether the planet is still hospitable to human life after I'm gone.
Re: One for those species who could not adapt (Score:2)
Re: One for those species who could not adapt (Score:2)
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While it is hard to wrap our minds around as creatures of our seemingly orderly cosmos, if there truly is nothing at all, then there are no laws at all (e.g. no conservation of matter and energy, no cause and effect), and so there is nothing to prevent anything from suddenly popping into existence (along with whatever new laws of physics).
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0 + 0 = 0, that's a mathematical certainty.
-100+100 = 0 is a mathematical certainty too.
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A billion years still is a very, very long time. A billion years is less time than it took from single celled organism to humans.
Re:Age of Earth 4.5 billion (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry. MORE TIME than it took from ... In other words, first multicellular organisms came into existence less than a billion years ago.
I need more coffee.
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And you said single where you meant multi. More coffee.
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Yeah, a billion years ago there were still single celled organisms and only 200 mia later we had multi... you know what I mean, now let me sleep!
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I've never understood the support for panspermia as an origin of life theory. Or rather, I don't understand the continued enthusiasm given how much we've learned in the past few decades about pre-biotic chemistry - other than perhaps the exotic notion that we're evolved from alien life. There is nothing magical about the chemistry found in our biological makeup. All the building blocks are here, and scientists are already fabricating self-replicating, highly organized biological molecules in lab conditio
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You misinterpret the state of the art in Science by jumping to invalid conclusions.
Nobody has yet created anything comparable to living matter. Chemical self-replication is meaningless. Hence it is still unclear whether life can actually be created from non-living matter in an evolutionary process. Panspermia is one possible explanation, although it has the same problem, just once removed.
Re:Age of Earth 4.5 billion (Score:5, Interesting)
Chemical self-replication IS basically what life is. If the "building blocks" are available, self replicating molecules will do just that. At what point you call that "life" is debatable, but in the end, this is what life does. Replicate itself from available resources.
You will not observe this again. At least not on this planet. We have an oxidizing atmosphere that pretty much destroys anything that could remotely form like this. There is a reason why the great oxygenation event nearly killed life off. Plus, we don't have a few million years that we could possibly wait.
Personally, I'm more inclined to think that life can and does simply happen when the conditions are right. But, hey, it could just as well be that an interstellar probe from some alien civilization (crash-) landed on our planet those 4.something billion years ago and one of the mechanics assembling it sneezed on it before launching it.
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Chemical self-replication IS basically what life is. If the "building blocks" are available, self replicating molecules will do just that. At what point you call that "life" is debatable, but in the end, this is what life does. Replicate itself from available resources.
And fail. Your invalid generalization results in an invalid conclusion. You probably also think that icicles forming (which is basically a physical self-replication) is "life". Incidentally, do you think self-replicating computer malware is "life"?
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There is of course more to "life" than just reproduction. A metabolism for example. The definition is not easy and I am fairly sure that the transition from "dead matter" to "living matter" is quite fluid without a hard cut you could point to and say "that's it" without some arbitrary definition.
And no, icicles are not self replicating. Water changing its aggregate state has nothing to do with self-replication. If you talked about crystals forming, you'd actually be closer to it, still no cigar, though. Wha
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Yes, no, maybe, anything is basically speculation right now. I don't know if there's any way to test for something like this and without, trying to even formulate a hypothesis is moot.
But I'm neither geophysicist nor microbiologist. Maybe someone does know a way to at least determine what is and what is not possible.
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alien probes all the way down?
And now I can't scrub that image out of my brain...
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Hence it is still unclear whether life can actually be created from non-living matter in an evolutionary process.
Except for every single baby, human or otherwise, which is born everyday, right? Unless you think sperm or an egg is living matter.
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Unless you think sperm or an egg is living matter.
It almost is. And the small part that's missing was removed on purpose. It's like removing a brick from a house, and then saying that you can build a house by putting the brick back.
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You will seriously argue that sperm and eggs are non-living? Do you also think the earth is flat?
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Panspermia doesn't solve the question anyway. It merely moves it to a different place.
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Yep... there has to be a brute fact some where along the line. And that is the mystery. However, insisting that there is an eternal all powerful, all knowing, all beneficial (whatever that means) Necessary Being is the most absurd.
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Agree. Limited panspermia e.g. Earth exchanging rocks with Mars, sure. I bet some Earth biota made it to Mars. Might even still be there.
But interstellar/intergalactic panspermia? Doubt it very much. And doubt very much that it's required as an explanation for life's origin.
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I've never understood the support for panspermia as an origin of life theory.
People want to believe that their folks will show up and get them off of this rock
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Just because it happened so quickly doesn't mean it was easy, or necessarily likely.
A person can, after all, win a lottery the very first time they play. When we have such a small data set to work with, we are not in any kind of position to know how likely or unlikely life actually is.
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Actually, it did a lot. Survived the late heavy bombardment, developed a few ways to synthesize ATP, invented the nucleus which led to the development of eukaryotes, they developed flagella and carnivore behaviour, viruses came into existence, and my personal favorite, they came up with sexual reproduction.
And you now waste all that with a flick of your hand...
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Actually, it did a lot. Survived the late heavy bombardment, developed a few ways to synthesize ATP, invented the nucleus which led to the development of eukaryotes, they developed flagella and carnivore behaviour, viruses came into existence, and my personal favorite, they came up with sexual reproduction.
And you now waste all that with a flick of your hand...
It s quite possible that life originated here on earth more than once, and of course there is the possibility that it came form Mars. Regardless, the study of life on earth is incredibly fascinating. So much simply fits together with the physics. Although I'm not an expert, I've done a lot of personal research, and the pieces are fitting pretty nicely.
Sure beats the concept of Kangaroos swimming from Australia to the middle east so they wouldn't drown in a flood.
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Once you have solved the Kangaroo problem, try solving it for Eucalyptus trees.
You know, the whole flood story would gain a lot of credibility if they claimed it was a local event and that god simply created everything else later. I mean, think about it, the whole book takes place in that rather small area between Egypt and Babylon, no mention of any part of Europe or even the Americas... One could get the impression, whoever wrote it never went past Egypt and Babylon...
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You know, the whole flood story would gain a lot of credibility if they claimed it was a local event and that god simply created everything else later. I mean, think about it, the whole book takes place in that rather small area between Egypt and Babylon, no mention of any part of Europe or even the Americas... One could get the impression, whoever wrote it never went past Egypt and Babylon...
There is some evidence that there was a cataclysmic breach in the strait of Gibraltar that allowed the Atlantic ocean to rather rapidly fill the Mediterranean, sea area. Some settlements have been found that are now under water. A theory called the Zanclean Fllood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] proposes a rather quick re-filling of the sea, perhaps in as short a time as a few months. This happened, the only controversy is the length of time it took to refill the sea. must admit that a few months would h
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IIRC it was the Bosporus that budged, not Gibraltar, but the effect certainly would have been the same for anyone living there. The general area between Sinai and Babylon is filled with stories about devastating floods, the Gilgamesh epos for example (which is not only older than any biblical report about a flood but its parts about the flood are also most likely already a copy of an older Babylonian flood and creation myth) and a few Akkadian texts that tell pretty much the same story... most of them sane
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IIRC it was the Bosporus that budged, not Gibraltar, but the effect certainly would have been the same for anyone living there. The general area between Sinai and Babylon is filled with stories about devastating floods, the Gilgamesh epos for example (which is not only older than any biblical report about a flood but its parts about the flood are also most likely already a copy of an older Babylonian flood and creation myth) and a few Akkadian texts that tell pretty much the same story... most of them sane enough, though, to talk about a great flood that sure was devastating and killed "the people" but not a world wide event.
I've always suspected that the Desert God's versio of the flooding was largely based on the oral traditions, and how good storytellers can amp up a story and create great entertainment. The Desert God's flood is an awesome story from the point of people who don't have knowledge of a world larger than what they see, but simple back of the envelope calculations show the amount of water needed to fully cover the entire globe is simply mind boggling and needed to come from somewher and go somewhere and itwould
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The fun part is that a bible thumping con arti... I mean, entrepreneur, Ken Ham, actually proved the whole ark myth impossible: By building one [wikipedia.org]. I'll spare you the financial details, but it's a fun story by itself, and supporting well my theory that religion is the only scam the government stays out of.
Well, said Ark has the (more or less) accurate proportions of what the bible says the ark should be like. It took 1000 people 2 years to build it. Considering a construction cost of the alleged 100 millions,
Re: Age of Earth 4.5 billion (Score:2)
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It most likely happened similar to what we can still observe today in some single celled organisms, where asexual reproduction is complemented by lateral gene transfer between individuals. While asexual cloning sure is advantageous in situations where the environmental situation does not change because it certainly is a faster way to multiply a population, a mechanism that allows the recombination of genetic traits has advantages if adaptation is required.
The precursor to "true" sexual reproduction was most
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You're off by about a factor of a million, but otherwise surprisingly accurate.
Re:There real story here is (Score:4, Funny)
Should've looked closer, there's a few senators old enough that there's some mold growing on them.
INTELLIGENT life, on the other hand, ...
Re: There real story here is (Score:2)
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If you read the paper that is what makes these rock special is that they haven't metamorphosed.
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Re: Confused (Score:2)
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As for the likelihood of God, it is no more or less implausible than the Simulation Theory.