New Oxygen research. (Introduction)
by David Turell 
, Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 23:10 (3474 days ago)
Oxygen can be freed from CO2 in the upper atmosphere. Some O2 may have been around from the beginning of the Earth:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141003092259.htm-"About one fifth of Earth's atmosphere is oxygen, pumped out by green plants as a result of photosynthesis and used by most living things on the planet to keep our metabolisms running. But before the first photosynthesizing organisms appeared about 2.4 billion years ago, the atmosphere likely contained mostly carbon dioxide, as is the case today on Mars and Venus.- "Over the past 40 years, researchers have thought that there must have been a small amount of oxygen in the early atmosphere. Where did this abiotic ("non-life") oxygen come from? Oxygen reacts quite aggressively with other compounds, so it would not persist for long without some continuous source." (my bold)
New Oxygen research.
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 00:37 (3474 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by Balance_Maintained, Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 00:49
“Let there be an expanse+ between the waters, and let there be a division between the waters and the waters.”-Doesn't this kind of express that perhaps early atmosphere was heavily laden with H2O as opposed to free oxygen?-"No bush of the field was yet on the earth and no vegetation of the field had begun sprouting, because Jehovah God had not made it rain on the earth and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist would go up from the earth, and it watered the entire surface of the ground."-Early sources of fresh water were terrestrial, not from precipitation. Possibly due to a very HOT Earth that was steamy. - "And who barricaded the sea behind doors, When it burst out from the womb, When I clothed it with clouds And wrapped* it in thick gloom, When I established my limit for it And put its bars and doors in place,+"-"Burst out from the womb." Could this be a reference to the Big Bang and the early formation of water prior to the formation of the Earth, or could it be that after the accretion gained enough mass and pressure that it heated up and the water inside erupted violently out from the pressure of its expansion? This "thick gloom"...Extremely heavy cloud cover because the earth was too warm at that point to allow the water to condense enough to fall as precipitation perhaps?-"Why, from the day our forefathers fell asleep in death, all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation's beginning.”+ "For they deliberately ignore this fact, that long ago there were heavens and an earth standing firmly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God"-This certainly sums up my criticism of science, from a biblical standpoint, namely the assumption that "all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation's beginning." Yes, they "deliberately ignore" that there is another version of events that is at odds with their own. Perhaps if they paid attention and let it inform their research they might discover something they didn't know.
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research.
by David Turell , Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 01:51 (3474 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
> Tony: This certainly sums up my criticism of science, from a biblical standpoint, namely the assumption that "all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation's beginning." Yes, they "deliberately ignore" that there is another version of events that is at odds with their own. Perhaps if they paid attention and let it inform their research they might discover something they didn't know.-I know your quotes sound like Genesis in my Bible but they are very different. What is the source? -This quote is from Nahmanides, an interpretation of Genesis:-“At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard [the ‘grain of mustard' was an ancient colloquialism for the tiniest imaginable speck of space]. The matter at this time was so thin, so intangible, that it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on tangible aspects of matter as we know it. From this initial act of creation, from this ethereally thin pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or ever will exist, was, is, and will be formed.” This quote is from Nahmanides, written in the 13th century in Commentary on the Torah, Genesis 1:1!!-Sounds like the Big Bang, doesn't it?
New Oxygen research.
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 02:18 (3474 days ago) @ David Turell
> > Tony: This certainly sums up my criticism of science, from a biblical standpoint, namely the assumption that "all things are continuing exactly as they were from creation's beginning." Yes, they "deliberately ignore" that there is another version of events that is at odds with their own. Perhaps if they paid attention and let it inform their research they might discover something they didn't know. > > I know your quotes sound like Genesis in my Bible but they are very different. What is the source? > > This quote is from Nahmanides, an interpretation of Genesis: > > “At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was > concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard [the > ‘grain of mustard' was an ancient colloquialism for the tiniest imaginable > speck of space]. The matter at this time was so thin, so intangible, that it did > not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance > and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this > intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, > expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in > the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on > tangible aspects of matter as we know it. From this initial act of creation, from > this ethereally thin pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or ever will > exist, was, is, and will be formed.” This quote is from Nahmanides, written > in the 13th century in Commentary on the Torah, Genesis 1:1!! > > Sounds like the Big Bang, doesn't it?-That quote was from 2 Peter 3:4-7
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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research; cyanobacteria
by David Turell , Monday, November 23, 2015, 15:15 (3076 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Cyanobacteria, one of the earliest groups on Earth use photosynthesis for energy, taking CO2 and splitting it, releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. the process appears to have started 2.5 billion years ago:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151120182620.htm-"Earth's oxygen-rich atmosphere emerged in whiffs from a kind of cyanobacteria in shallow oceans around 2.5 billion years ago, according to new research from Canadian and US scientists.-"These whiffs of oxygen likely happened in the following 100 million years, changing the levels of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere until enough accumulated to create a permanently oxygenated atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago -- a transition widely known as the Great Oxidation Event.-"'The onset of Earth's surface oxygenation was likely a complex process characterized by multiple whiffs of oxygen until a tipping point was crossed," said Brian Kendall, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo. "Until now, we haven't been able to tell whether oxygen concentrations 2.5 billion years ago were stable or not. These new data provide a much more conclusive answer to that question."-"The findings are presented in a paper published this month in Science Advances from researchers at Waterloo, University of Alberta, Arizona State University, University of California Riverside, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The team presents new isotopic data showing that a burst of oxygen production by photosynthetic cyanobacteria temporarily increased oxygen concentrations in Earth's atmosphere. "One of the questions we ask is: 'did the evolution of photosynthesis lead directly to an oxygen-rich atmosphere? Or did the transition to today's world happen in fits and starts?" said Professor Ariel Anbar of Arizona State University. "How and why Earth developed an oxygenated atmosphere is one of the most profound puzzles in understanding the history of our planet."-"The new data supports a hypothesis proposed by Anbar and his team in 2007. In Western Australia, they found preliminary evidence of these oxygen whiffs in black shales deposited on the seafloor of an ancient ocean."-Comment: CO2 is a friend. We exhale it and plants inhale it. we all benefit. Neat.
New Oxygen research; cyanobacteria
by David Turell , Friday, March 18, 2016, 14:14 (2960 days ago) @ David Turell
Oxygen was present 3.8 billion years ago when life started according to new research:-https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160216143057.htm-"Reconstructing the emergence and evolution of life on our planet is tightly linked to the questions as to when and to what extent Earth's atmosphere became oxygenated. New geological studies based on data from Western Greenland indicate that small levels of atmospheric oxygen developed already 3.8 billion years ago, some 0.7-0.8 billion years earlier than previously thought.-"Today, most researchers agree that the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere happened in two major steps: the first during the so-called Great Oxidation Event about 2.5-2.4 billion years ago, and the second during the Late Neoproterozoic Era around 750 to 540 million years ago. The latter is thought to have been the cause for the emergence of animals during the so-called 'Cambrian explosion' around 540 to 520 million years ago.-***- "The researchers analysed Earth's oldest Banded Iron Formations (BIFs) from Western Greenland. BIFs are marine chemical sediments originally composed of alternating layers of silica and Fe-hydroxides and are widely used as geochemical archives. The reason for this is that they retain information on the composition and presence of oxygenation/reduction processes in ambient seawater and on the interaction of the atmosphere with Earth's surface.-"The research team used concentrations and isotope compositions, i.e. variations of the same elements with different atomic weight, of the elements chromium (Cr) and uranium (U) present in the BIFs. Chromium and uranium were used as these elements weather rapidly when continental landmasses are exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as oxygen (O2). After weathering, they are transported to the oceans by rivers, where they are deposited with chemical sediments and serve as geochemical signals of weathering by ROS.-"The fact that the analyses of the BIF layers from Western Greenland show elements that require presence of oxygen in the atmosphere opens up for the possibility of evolution of the earliest primitive photosynthetic life forms as early as 3.8 billion years ago. As Robert Frei explains: "It is generally believed that the Early Earth was a completely anoxic, but our study shows that the surface of the Earth was exposed to a low oxygen atmosphere already this time. This has far reaching implications for how we investigate the pace of evolution of life and its biodiversity on our planet.'"-Comment: Most scientific folks cannot uncouple the idea that oxygen, which is the fuel of life, cannot alone cause life to appear. But its presence is one of the factors that should be present to allow for life's appearance.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Monday, July 18, 2016, 14:22 (2838 days ago) @ David Turell
Oxygen levels were very low before the Ediacarans appeared. Using Rock salt researchers have measured the trapped atmospheric gases and found oxygen rising rapidly: - http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2016/07/08/G37937.1.full.pdf+html - "ABSTRACT We present a new and innovative way of determining the oxygen level of Earth's past atmosphere by directly measuring inclusion gases trapped in halite. After intensive screening using multiple depositional, textural/fabric, and geochemical parameters, we determined that tectonically undisturbed cumulate, chevron, and cornet halite inclusions may retain atmospheric gas during crystallization from shallow saline, lagoonal, and/or saltpan brine. These are the first measurements of inclusion gas for the Neoproterozoic obtained from 815 ± 15-m.y.-old Browne Formation chevron halite of the Officer Basin, southwest Australia. The 31 gas measurements afford us a direct glimpse of the composition of the mid- to late Neoproterozoic atmosphere and register an average oxygen content of 10.9%. The measured pO2 puts oxygenation of Earth's paleoatmosphere ~100-200 m.y. ahead of current models and proxy studies. It also puts oxygenation of the Neoproterozoic atmosphere in agreement with time of diversification of eukaryotes and in advance of the emergence of marine animal life. - "CONCLUSIONS We provide the first direct measurements of the oxygen content of the Neoproterozoic atmosphere. After extensive and careful screening of ancient halite crystals, our analysis of Neoproterozoic halite inclusions and their gases sealed during crystallization confirms that average oxygen levels ~815 m.y. ago were 10.9%. Our atmospheric oxygen measurements indicate an oxygenated environment in which complex life could have emerged and flourished in advance of the Ediacaran and Cambrian explosions. Our direct analysis of gas-bearing inclusions in halite places atmospheric and shallow ocean oxygenation ~100-200 m.y. in advance of most proxy-based models. Inclusion gas analysis of primary halite is a new and novel paleobarometer of atmospheric oxygen with many potential terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications." - Comment: There is a diagram in the conclusion showing he relationship of this rise in oxygen to the later appearance of the Ediacarans and then the Cambrians. Oxygen is very necessary for animal life, we know, but the availability of oxygen only unlocked the opportunity for its development, and did not demand or produce its development. We are still left with wondering how it came about. was there an underlying drive.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
DAVID: Oxygen is very necessary for animal life, we know, but the availability of oxygen only unlocked the opportunity for its development, and did not demand or produce its development. We are still left with wondering how it came about. was there an underlying drive. - I find it difficult not to conclude that there WAS an underlying drive. For me it fits in perfectly with the idea that changes in the environment may not only require adaptations (already known) but - as you say - may also provide opportunities for innovation. For you, this all has to be done by God preprogramming or dabbling. As you may have realized by now, I find it more likely that they are possessed of their own autonomous ability (possibly God-given) both to adapt and to innovate.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 19, 2016, 16:28 (2837 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I find it difficult not to conclude that there WAS an underlying drive. For me it fits in perfectly with the idea that changes in the environment may not only require adaptations (already known) but - as you say - may also provide opportunities for innovation. For you, this all has to be done by God preprogramming or dabbling. As you may have realized by now, I find it more likely that they are possessed of their own autonomous ability (possibly God-given) both to adapt and to innovate. - To me the Cambrian is a prime example of why your idea falls short. All of the complex organs we have (brain, heart, kidney, liver, hormones? arrived all at once, all highly complex, all requiring special planning and special coordination of processes. Simple Ediacarans planned that? No way.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
dhw: I find it difficult not to conclude that there WAS an underlying drive. For me it fits in perfectly with the idea that changes in the environment may not only require adaptations (already known) but - as you say - may also provide opportunities for innovation. For you, this all has to be done by God preprogramming or dabbling. As you may have realized by now, I find it more likely that they are possessed of their own autonomous ability (possibly God-given) both to adapt and to innovate. - DAVID: To me the Cambrian is a prime example of why your idea falls short. All of the complex organs we have (brain, heart, kidney, liver, hormones? arrived all at once, all highly complex, all requiring special planning and special coordination of processes. Simple Ediacarans planned that? No way. - The Cambrian is an astonishing event, but no matter what explanation we come up with, there has to be an inventive process and the cell communities must cooperate (special coordination of processes). Your theistic explanation demands belief that your God personally preprogrammed or dabbled a vast variety of innovations for his own enjoyment (he likes complexity for complexity's sake). My theistic explanation demands belief that he endowed organisms with the ability to produce a vast variety of innovations for his own enjoyment. Since you believe your God can do whatever he wants to do, I really can't see why my explanation falls any shorter than yours.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 20, 2016, 14:03 (2836 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: To me the Cambrian is a prime example of why your idea falls short. All of the complex organs we have (brain, heart, kidney, liver, hormones? arrived all at once, all highly complex, all requiring special planning and special coordination of processes. Simple Ediacarans planned that? No way. > > dhw: The Cambrian is an astonishing event, but no matter what explanation we come up with, there has to be an inventive process and the cell communities must cooperate (special coordination of processes). ..... Since you believe your God can do whatever he wants to do, I really can't see why my explanation falls any shorter than yours. - Here is a fellow who uses information theory to say God dabbles: - http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-highly-engineered-transition-to-v... - "?a) The six proteins analyzed here all exhibit a huge informational jump between pre-vertebrates and vertebrates. The total functional informational novelty for just this small group of proteins is more than 6000 bits, with a mean of more than 1000 bits per protein. ?b) These proteins are probably crucial agents in a much more complex regulation network implied in neuron adhesion, endocytosis, migration, and in the end in the vast developmental process which makes individual neurons migrate to their specific individual locations in the vertebrate body plan. ?c) The above process is certainly much more complex than the six proteins we have considered, and implies other proteins and obviously many non coding elements. Our six proteins, therefore, can be considered as a tiny sample of the general complexity of the process, and of the informational novelty implied in the process itself. ?d) Moreover, the process regulating neuron migration is certainly strictly integrated, with so many agents working in a coordinated way. Therefore, there is obviously a strong element of irreducible complexity implied in the whole informational novelty of the vertebrate process, an element that we can only barely envisage, because we still understand too little. ?e) The neuron regulation process, of course, is only a part of the informational novelty implied in vertebrates, a small sample of a much more complex reality. For example, there is a lot of similar novelty implied in the workings of the immune system, of the cytokine signaling system, and so on. ?f) The jump described here is really a jump: there is no trace of intermediate forms which can explain that jump in all existing pre-vertebrates. Of course, neo darwinists can always dream of lost intermediates in extinct species. This is a free world. ?g) Are these 6000+ bits of functional information really functional? Yes, they are. Why? because they have been conserved for more than 400 million years. Remember, the transition we have considered happens between the first chordates and cartilaginous fish, and it can be traced to that range of time. And those 6000+ bits are bits of homology between cartilaginous fish and humans. ?h) How much is 6000 bits of functional information? It is really a lot! Remember, Dembski's Universal Probability Bound, taking in consideration the whole reasonable probabilistic resource of our whole universe from the Big Bang to now, is just 500 bits. 6000 bits correspond to a search space of 2^6000, IOWs about 10^2000, a number so big that we cannot even begin to visualize it. It's good to remind ourselves, from time to time, that we are dealing with exponential values. ?i) How great is the probability that 6000 bits of functional information can be generated in a window time of less than 100 million years, by some unguided process of RV + NS in six objects connected in an irreducibly complex system, even if RV were really helped by some NS in intermediates of which there is no trace? The answer is simple: practically non existent. ?j) Therefore, the tiny sample of six proteins that we have considered here, which is only a small part of a much bigger scenario, points with extreme strength to a definite design inference: - "The transition to vertebrates was a highly engineered process. The necessary functional information was added by design." - Comment: the whole article is very complex, but this summary is quite clear. It is all too complex except for mental planning. See especially his description of neuron organization in the embryology of the brain: (an excerpt) - "The migration of neurons along glial fibers from a germinal zone (GZ) to their final laminar positions is essential for morphogenesis of the developing brain, aberrations in this process are linked to profound neurodevelopmental and cognitive disorders. During this critical morphogenic movement, neurons must navigate complex migration paths, propelling their cell bodies through the dense cellular environment of the developing nervous system to their final destinations. It is not understood how neurons can successfully migrate along their glial guides through the myriad processes and cell bodies of neighboring neurons. Although much progress has been made in understanding the substrates (1-4), guidance mechanisms (5-7), cytoskeletal elements (8-10), and post-translational modifications (11-13) required for neuronal migration, we have yet to elucidate how neurons regulate their cellular interactions and adhesive specificity to follow the appropriate migratory pathways. "
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
QUOTE: How great is the probability that 6000 bits of functional information can be generated in a window time of less than 100 million years, by some unguided process of RV + NS in six objects connected in an irreducibly complex system, even if RV were really helped by some NS in intermediates of which there is no trace? The answer is simple: practically non existent. - I'm not going to pretend that I understand all the technicalities of this, but the gist is very clear, and it simply takes no account of a possible alternative to an “unguided process” and your God's dabbling. I doubt if anyone has any evidence that 100 million years is not enough time for sentient, cognitive, cooperative intelligent organisms (NB your God may have given them their intelligence) to generate enough functional information to produce their own evolution. David's comment: the whole article is very complex, but this summary is quite clear. It is all too complex except for mental planning. See especially his description of neuron organization in the embryology of the brain: (an excerpt) - "The migration of neurons along glial fibers from a germinal zone (GZ) to their final laminar positions is essential for morphogenesis of the developing brain, aberrations in this process are linked to profound neurodevelopmental and cognitive disorders. During this critical morphogenic movement, neurons must navigate complex migration paths, propelling their cell bodies through the dense cellular environment of the developing nervous system to their final destinations. It is not understood how neurons can successfully migrate along their glial guides through the myriad processes and cell bodies of neighboring neurons. Although much progress has been made in understanding the substrates (1-4), guidance mechanisms (5-7), cytoskeletal elements (8-10), and post-translational modifications (11-13) required for neuronal migration, we have yet to elucidate how neurons regulate their cellular interactions and adhesive specificity to follow the appropriate migratory pathways." (My bold) - There is probably no way this process can be described without recourse to cognitive terms, but that does not mean they cannot be taken literally. Every single activity, adaptation and innovation requires cooperation between the cell communities, and this means some kind of awareness of and adjustment to what other cells are doing. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that when neurons navigate, propel themselves, successfully migrate, and especially regulate their interactions, they know what they are doing. No, they will not philosophize, or compose sonnets, or question the purpose of their existence, but they may well work together with other cells to create something new.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Thursday, July 21, 2016, 15:56 (2835 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Every single activity, adaptation and innovation requires cooperation between the cell communities, and this means some kind of awareness of and adjustment to what other cells are doing. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that when neurons navigate, propel themselves, successfully migrate, and especially regulate their interactions, they know what they are doing. -If cells know what they are doing in migrating to specific areas with specific connections, you are saying they have knowledge of what the overall plan looks like and know their prescribed role in advance. Please note the article today about roughly 200 specific areas in our brain. How can your description of cell activity result in specificity of brain areas? It won't.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
dhw: Every single activity, adaptation and innovation requires cooperation between the cell communities, and this means some kind of awareness of and adjustment to what other cells are doing. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that when neurons navigate, propel themselves, successfully migrate, and especially regulate their interactions, they know what they are doing. -DAVID: If cells know what they are doing in migrating to specific areas with specific connections, you are saying they have knowledge of what the overall plan looks like and know their prescribed role in advance. Please note the article today about roughly 200 specific areas in our brain. How can your description of cell activity result in specificity of brain areas? It won't.-But the “cell activity” DOES result in specificity, whether your God has preprogrammed the cells, personally directed them, or endowed them with the ability to direct themselves! Just as an ant colony consists of individuals fulfilling their particular roles within the community, thereby building a city with all its infrastructures, the cells in a community DO follow a plan - though in this case a plan of far, far, far greater complexity. Within the ant community is a guiding intelligence that assigns the roles, and I see this as a perfect analogy for what happens within single bodies, which are also a single community consisting of many communities. Presumably you believe that your God provided the ant community with its plans to build the city, whereas my proposal is that he gave them the intelligence to do it themselves. The same applies to the cell communities of our brains and bodies. The difference is the degree of complexity, not the basic principle of individual beings cooperating to create a city/a body/a brain.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Friday, July 22, 2016, 14:45 (2834 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw:But the “cell activity” DOES result in specificity, whether your God has preprogrammed the cells, personally directed them, or endowed them with the ability to direct themselves! Just as an ant colony consists of individuals fulfilling their particular roles within the community, thereby building a city with all its infrastructures, the cells in a community DO follow a plan - though in this case a plan of far, far, far greater complexity. - I agree with you. Cell activity follows a plan by any of the routes you suggest. Where did the plan they follow come from? - > dhw; Within the ant community is a guiding intelligence that assigns the roles, and I see this as a perfect analogy for what happens within single bodies, which are also a single community consisting of many communities. Presumably you believe that your God provided the ant community with its plans to build the city, whereas my proposal is that he gave them the intelligence to do it themselves. The same applies to the cell communities of our brains and bodies. The difference is the degree of complexity, not the basic principle of individual beings cooperating to create a city/a body/a brain. - Do you really believe your theistic argument above? What you are saying is either God guided or God gave cells the ability to create body plans. Without God whaat is your alternative for body plans?
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
dhw:But the “cell activity” DOES result in specificity, whether your God has preprogrammed the cells, personally directed them, or endowed them with the ability to direct themselves! Just as an ant colony consists of individuals fulfilling their particular roles within the community, thereby building a city with all its infrastructures, the cells in a community DO follow a plan - though in this case a plan of far, far, far greater complexity. - DAVID: I agree with you. Cell activity follows a plan by any of the routes you suggest. Where did the plan they follow come from? - According to my hypothesis, they worked it out for themselves. - dhw; Within the ant community is a guiding intelligence that assigns the roles, and I see this as a perfect analogy for what happens within single bodies, which are also a single community consisting of many communities. Presumably you believe that your God provided the ant community with its plans to build the city, whereas my proposal is that he gave them the intelligence to do it themselves. The same applies to the cell communities of our brains and bodies. The difference is the degree of complexity, not the basic principle of individual beings cooperating to create a city/a body/a brain. - DAVID: Do you really believe your theistic argument above? What you are saying is either God guided or God gave cells the ability to create body plans. Without God whaat is your alternative for body plans? - If I offer a theistic argument, then of course it involves God. My alternative to your divine preprogramming and/or dabbling is that cells have the intelligence to cooperate in designing new functioning communities (creating body plans) which, in the course of millions and millions of years add more functioning communities, thus creating the bodies we know now. The theistic version of this is that God gave them the aforesaid intelligence. The atheistic version would be that the intelligence - along with life itself - was the product of chance. The agnostic version is that I do not know how life and intelligence came into being. My hypothesis concerning how evolution works can fit in with both theism and atheism.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Saturday, July 23, 2016, 14:40 (2833 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: I agree with you. Cell activity follows a plan by any of the routes you suggest. Where did the plan they follow come from? > > dhw: According to my hypothesis, they worked it out for themselves.-To which I respond. body plans starting with the Cambrian forms are too complex to happen in your simple way.-> DAVID: Do you really believe your theistic argument above? What you are saying is either God guided or God gave cells the ability to create body plans. Without God whaat is your alternative for body plans? > > dhw: My alternative to your divine preprogramming and/or dabbling is that cells have the intelligence to cooperate in designing new functioning communities (creating body plans) which, in the course of millions and millions of years add more functioning communities, thus creating the bodies we know now. ... The agnostic version is that I do not know how life and intelligence came into being. My hypothesis concerning how evolution works can fit in with both theism and atheism.-Spoken from the picket fence. Intelligence involves the ability to gain and store new information. understand and correlate that information, and then have the foresight to design the next plan for the future. I don't see how even your concept of cells can do that.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
DAVID: I agree with you. Cell activity follows a plan by any of the routes you suggest. Where did the plan they follow come from? dhw: According to my hypothesis, they worked it out for themselves. DAVID: To which I respond. body plans starting with the Cambrian forms are too complex to happen in your simple way.-What do mean by my “simple way”? There is nothing simple about billions of cells cooperating to create a complex organ. But it is no more unlikely than each one of those billions of cells being individually programmed or personally directed by an unknown, unsourced superintelligence to fulfil its particular role. -DAVID: Do you really believe your theistic argument above? What you are saying is either God guided or God gave cells the ability to create body plans. Without God whaat is your alternative for body plans? dhw: My alternative to your divine preprogramming and/or dabbling is that cells have the intelligence to cooperate in designing new functioning communities (creating body plans) which, in the course of millions and millions of years add more functioning communities, thus creating the bodies we know now. ... The agnostic version is that I do not know how life and intelligence came into being. My hypothesis concerning how evolution works can fit in with both theism and atheism.-DAVID: Spoken from the picket fence. Intelligence involves the ability to gain and store new information. understand and correlate that information, and then have the foresight to design the next plan for the future. I don't see how even your concept of cells can do that.-I know what intelligence involves, and apart from one, those are the very attributes that some scientists have identified in cells. However, “the foresight to design the next plan for the future” is not quite what I envisage. In my hypothesis, cell communities respond to changes in the environment. They do not anticipate those changes. Some cell communities will merely adjust their structure to cope with them (the known process of adaptation), but others will use the new information to innovate. As you say elsewhere: “If adaptation is not a form of innovation, what is?” We KNOW that cells alter their own structure to adapt. That is not planning for the future: it is an intelligent response to the requirements of the present. I suggest that innovation may be an extension of this process: an intelligent response to new opportunities offered by the present.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Sunday, July 24, 2016, 19:20 (2832 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw; What do mean by my “simple way”? There is nothing simple about billions of cells cooperating to create a complex organ. But it is no more unlikely than each one of those billions of cells being individually programmed or personally directed by an unknown, unsourced superintelligence to fulfil its particular role.-By simple I mean you are proposing progress to complex plans without a planning brain to coordinate all the complex parts. Hunt and peck? -> dhw: However, “the foresight to design the next plan for the future” is not quite what I envisage. In my hypothesis, cell communities respond to changes in the environment. They do not anticipate those changes. Some cell communities will merely adjust their structure to cope with them (the known process of adaptation), but others will use the new information to innovate. As you say elsewhere: “If adaptation is not a form of innovation, what is?” We KNOW that cells alter their own structure to adapt. That is not planning for the future: it is an intelligent response to the requirements of the present. I suggest that innovation may be an extension of this process: an intelligent response to new opportunities offered by the present.-Adaptation is what you are describing, and cells can do that, but how does your method get to new species? This is why my God dabbles. This still sounds like chance hunt and peck. It doesn't answer the problem of the Cambrian Explosion; only God does.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
Dhw: What do mean by my “simple way”? There is nothing simple about billions of cells cooperating to create a complex organ. DAVID: By simple I mean you are proposing progress to complex plans without a planning brain to coordinate all the complex parts. Hunt and peck?-We should avoid using the word “brain” in this context. I assume that not even your God has a brain, unless you are suddenly going to tell us that he is actually a physical being. A guiding intelligence for each plan may “emerge” from the cooperation of the many intelligent cell communities within the existing body. This is no more fantastic than your own preprogramming/dabbling hypothesis.-dhw: We KNOW that cells alter their own structure to adapt. That is not planning for the future: it is an intelligent response to the requirements of the present. I suggest that innovation may be an extension of this process: an intelligent response to new opportunities offered by the present. DAVID: Adaptation is what you are describing, and cells can do that, but how does your method get to new species? This is why my God dabbles. This still sounds like chance hunt and peck. It doesn't answer the problem of the Cambrian Explosion; only God does.-As we keep repeating, NOBODY knows how ANY method gets to new species. That is why we theorize. We have both used adaptation as a clue to a possible method, but are you now suggesting that your God preprogrammed and/or dabbled every single adaptation as well as every single innovation as well as every single natural wonder? “God” doesn't answer the Cambrian problem. Your answer is that God preprogrammed or dabbled, and mine is that they may have had the intelligence (possibly God-given) to do it themselves. All three “methods” provide questionable answers to the problem of the Cambrian.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Monday, July 25, 2016, 23:59 (2831 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: “God” doesn't answer the Cambrian problem. Your answer is that God preprogrammed or dabbled, and mine is that they may have had the intelligence (possibly God-given) to do it themselves. All three “methods” provide questionable answers to the problem of the Cambrian. - The Cambrian Explosion requires a planning intelligence. God is my answer.
New Oxygen research; pre-Ediacaran
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 17, 2016, 01:55 (2809 days ago) @ David Turell
Oxygen rose from low original levels due to production from mosses 400 million years ago:-https://www.newscientist.com/article/2101032-without-oxygen-from-ancient-moss-you-wouldnt-be-alive-today/-"Earth's air is only breathable today because of moss-like plants that colonised the land 470 million years ago.-"The moss enriched the atmosphere with oxygen and triggered a cycle that maintained its levels, paving the way to complex life.-"Oxygen in its current form first appeared on Earth 2.4 billion years ago in what has become known as the Great Oxidation Event.-"But it was not until around 400 million years ago that oxygen in the atmosphere approached present day levels. Scientists have long debated what caused this shift, without which humans could not have evolved.-"A team from the University of Exeter, in the UK, used computer simulations to show how the first land plants contributed to the Earth's oxygen.-"The earliest terrestrial plants were simple bryophytes, such as moss, which lack vein-like systems to transport water and minerals.-"Factoring the properties of modern bryophytes into the simulations indicated that thanks to the ancient mosses, modern levels of atmospheric oxygen would have been achieved by 420 to 400 million years ago.-"The emergence of the plants eventually led to a stable and self-sustaining cycle of oxygen flowing between sedimentary rocks, living things and the atmosphere.-"Today, the air we breathe consists of of 78 per cent nitrogen and 21 per cent oxygen, with smaller amounts of argon, carbon dioxide, water vapour and trace gases.-"As well as making the air breathable, oxygen generates the ozone layer that protects life on Earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun."-Comment: Note the oxygen cycle system keeps oxygen at the same steady level. Again, the theory is that this level was necessary for evolution to progress, although it didn't have to progress. Bacteria are still here and very successful just as they were.
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
by David Turell , Thursday, August 25, 2016, 15:33 (2800 days ago) @ David Turell
New research studying trapped air in rocks pushes back in time that higher levels of Oxygen was present 813 million years ago:-https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160822174234.htm-"Geologists are using new direct methods to measure the Earth's oxygenation. They identified, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements.-***-"The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements.-"'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." (my bold)-"Fluid inclusions, the microscopic bubbles of liquids and gases in rock salt, can contain trapped air. Analysis of this trapped air allows researchers to understand past surface conditions and how oxygen has changed over the course of geologic history.-"The team used a quadrupole mass spectrometer to study the air pockets. Carefully crushing minute rock salt crystals released water and gases into the mass spectrometer, which then analyzed for various compounds of oxygen and other gases.-"'There are a lot of different environmental conditions specific from the past that we can find occurring in modern samples," Benison said. "This tells us about the range of conditions on Earth and also has implications for Mars.'"-Comment: That amount of oxygen is half the level existing now, and folks at high altitude easily live at oxygen pressures equal to that amount. Note the bolded comment that high oxygen levels are perhaps not needed for diversity in life forms. That removes from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen. The Cambrian origin story remains as mysterious as ever for materialists to consider. Perhaps God dabbled!
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
QUOTE: The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements. "'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." (David's bold)-This is all very confusing, but perhaps you can sort it out. If diversity of life emerged “around this time period”, it was 300 million years before the Cambrian. I thought the Cambrian was when diversity of life emerged. The passage in bold means nothing more than the claim that these researchers are lowering the amount of oxygen they think is necessary for the development of organisms.-DAVID's comment: That amount of oxygen is half the level existing now, and folks at high altitude easily live at oxygen pressures equal to that amount. Note the bolded comment that high oxygen levels are perhaps not needed for diversity in life forms. That removes from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen. The Cambrian origin story remains as mysterious as ever for materialists to consider. Perhaps God dabbled!-How high are high oxygen levels? Was there or was there not an increase in oxygen levels at the time of the Cambrian? The article only tells us what levels there were 300 million years before (which apparently led to diversity of life). Even you have used the words “perhaps not needed”. “Perhaps” does not remove anything from consideration. But of course the Cambrian remains a mystery. God remains a mystery too.
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
by David Turell , Friday, August 26, 2016, 15:27 (2799 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements. > "'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." (David's bold) > > dhw: This is all very confusing, but perhaps you can sort it out. If diversity of life emerged “around this time period”, it was 300 million years before the Cambrian. I thought the Cambrian was when diversity of life emerged. The passage in bold means nothing more than the claim that these researchers are lowering the amount of oxygen they think is necessary for the development of organisms.-The Cambrian is where diversity began, not before. The issue is why not? 300 million years of no diversity suggests increased oxygen was not the necessary driving force for the Cambrian.-> > DAVID's comment: That amount of oxygen is half the level existing now, and folks at high altitude easily live at oxygen pressures equal to that amount. Note the bolded comment that high oxygen levels are perhaps not needed for diversity in life forms. That removes from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen. The Cambrian origin story remains as mysterious as ever for materialists to consider. Perhaps God dabbled! > > dhw: How high are high oxygen levels? Was there or was there not an increase in oxygen levels at the time of the Cambrian? The article only tells us what levels there were 300 million years before.-It is my impression that this new early oxygen level discovery removes most of the previously presumed oxygen rise in the immediate pre-Cambrian period. Thus the question arises as to why the Cambrian diversity explosion waited so long!
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
QUOTE: The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements. "'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. (dhw's bold)-No it doesn't. It emerges 300 million years later.-QUOTE: "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." -No they don't. We need to know the amount of oxygen during the Cambrian, and the article does not even mention that! David: It is my impression that this new early oxygen level discovery removes most of the previously presumed oxygen rise in the immediate pre-Cambrian period. Thus the question arises as to why the Cambrian diversity explosion waited so long! I don't know where you get that impression from, since the article does NOT tell us the amount of oxygen during the Cambrian! Here are two more articles:-	The Cambrian Period - UCMP www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambrian.php 21/08/2016 • The Cambrian Period. ... the oceans became oxygenated. Although there was plentiful atmospheric oxygen by the beginning of the period, ...-QUOTE: "Also during the Cambrian, the oceans became oxygenated. Although there was plentiful atmospheric oxygen by the beginning of the period, it wasn't until the Cambrian that there was a sufficient reduction in the number of oxygen-depleting bacteria to permit higher oxygen levels in the waters. (My bold) This dissolved oxygen may have triggered the "Cambrian Explosion" — when most of the major groups of animals, especially those with hard shells, first appeared in the fossil record.-And the following refers to research done in 2014:-When life exploded | Science News for Students https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/when-life-exploded-QUOTE: "Spear's team found sulphate levels 830 million years ago were just 10 percent as high as they are today. […] by the end of the Precambrian, about 540 million years ago, ocean sulphate levels had risen to between 50 percent and 80 percent of today's levels. Oxygen levels would have risen by a similar amount, says Spear at Penn State. Another recent study [Yale University] also showed that low oxygen levels played a role in delaying the great diversification of life. Together, these studies provide snapshots of how much richer in oxygen the world's oceans grew in the buildup to the Cambrian Explosion over hundreds of millions of years."-The 10 percent 830 million years ago is only just below the 10.9 percent mentioned in your article, which does not tell us the level leading up to the Cambrian. This article tells us it rose to 50-80%. I wasn't around at the time, but I'm certainly not going to conclude that your article “removes from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen.”
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
by David Turell , Saturday, August 27, 2016, 23:24 (2798 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: I don't know where you get that impression from, since the article does NOT tell us the amount of oxygen during the Cambrian! Here are two more articles: > > 	The Cambrian Period - UCMP > www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/cambrian.php - > 21/08/2016 • The Cambrian Period. ... the oceans became oxygenated. Although there was plentiful atmospheric oxygen by the beginning of the period, ... - > The is information from a 2011 article. My info is current atmospheric measurements from that same time period.. - > And the following refers to research done in 2014: > > When life exploded | Science News for Students > https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/when-life-exploded - From your article: "Imagine being able to test drops of actual Precambrian seawater to find out just how much oxygen the oceans contained at a given moment in the distant past. That's what Natalie Spear has done. Last year, this geologist and her team at Pennsylvania State University in State College discovered ancient seawater droplets in Australia. They were trapped in 830 million-year-old salt crystals. When saltwater evaporates, it leaves behind this mineral, called halite." - This is essentially the same salt methodology as my article! With a different result. If my article is correct, then the point remains that oxygen may not be the trigger.
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
QUOTE: The team's study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth's atmosphere 813 million years ago -- 10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements. "'Diversity of life emerges right around this time period," Benison said. (dhw's bold)-dhw: No it doesn't. It emerges 300 million years later.-QUOTE: "We used to think that to have diversity of life we needed specific things, including a certain amount of oxygen. (The findings) show that not as much oxygen is required for organisms to develop." -dhw: No they don't. We need to know the amount of oxygen during the Cambrian, and the article does not even mention that! I drew your attention to two articles that referred specifically to the Cambrian. Your response is
AVID: From your article: "Imagine being able to test drops of actual Precambrian seawater to find out just how much oxygen the oceans contained at a given moment in the distant past. That's what Natalie Spear has done. Last year, this geologist and her team at Pennsylvania State University in State College discovered ancient seawater droplets in Australia. They were trapped in 830 million-year-old salt crystals. When saltwater evaporates, it leaves behind this mineral, called halite." This is essentially the same salt methodology as my article! With a different result. If my article is correct, then the point remains that oxygen may not be the trigger.-The result is a difference of 10% compared to 10.9%. Your article confuses the time when diversity of life emerged, and does not tell us the amount of oxygen believed to have been present in the lead-up to the Cambrian (between 50% and 80% according to my article). Even the possibility that organisms can develop with less oxygen than originally thought does not preclude higher oxygen as the trigger for the Cambrian. It certainly doesn't remove “from consideration that the Cambrian explosion almost 300 million years later was triggered by oxygen”. However, this is all very minor. Even if an increase in oxygen did trigger the explosion, it still doesn't explain how organisms managed to respond with all their innovations. So we still have our mystery.
New Oxygen research; from rocks, higher earlier
by David Turell , Monday, August 29, 2016, 00:41 (2797 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw; However, this is all very minor. Even if an increase in oxygen did trigger the explosion, it still doesn't explain how organisms managed to respond with all their innovations. So we still have our mystery. - That is the point I made. Salt is salt and comes from oceans. High O2 at the 10+% level was around for 300 million years and finally the Cambrians appeared. The O2 in salt is ocean O2.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Saturday, September 24, 2016, 19:46 (2770 days ago) @ dhw
Studying oxygen abundance in different levels of water in the oceans seems related to the Cambrian Explosion to allow evolution to advance:-https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160923100751.htm-"The new study is the first to distinguish between bodies of water with low and high levels of oxygen. It shows that poorly oxygenated waters did not support the complex life that evolved immediately prior to the Cambrian period, suggesting the presence of oxygen was a key factor in the appearance of these animals.-***-" 'The question of why it took so long for complex animal life to appear on Earth has puzzled scientists for a long time. One argument has been that evolution simply doesn't happen very quickly, but another popular hypothesis suggests that a rise in the level of oxygen in the oceans gave simple life-forms the fuel they needed to evolve skeletons, mobility and other typical features of modern animals.-***-"By teasing apart waters with high and low levels of oxygen, and demonstrating that early skeletal animals were restricted to well-oxygenated waters, we have provided strong evidence that the availability of oxygen was a key requirement for the development of these animals. However, these well-oxygenated environments may have been in short supply, limiting habitat space in the ocean for the earliest animals.'-***-"The researchers found that levels of elements such as cerium and iron detected in the rocks showed that low-oxygen conditions occurred between well-oxygenated surface waters and fully 'anoxic' deep waters. Although abundant in well-oxygenated environments, early skeletal animals did not occupy oxygen-impoverished regions of the shelf, demonstrating that oxygen availability (probably >10 micromolar) was a key requirement for the development of early animal-based ecosystems. (my bold)-***- "'We honed in on the last 10 million years of the Proterozoic Eon as the interval of Earth's history when today's major animal groups first grew shells and churned up the sediment, and found that oxygen levels were important to the relationship between environmental conditions and the early development of animals.'"-Comment: Of course adequate oxygen is a seeming requirement for the evolution of complex Cambrian animals. The authors' comments are a tautology which do not explain the sudden jump or gap demonstrated by the Cambrian Explosion itself.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID's comment: Of course adequate oxygen is a seeming requirement for the evolution of complex Cambrian animals. The authors' comments are a tautology which do not explain the sudden jump or gap demonstrated by the Cambrian Explosion itself. -As I understand it, they are confirming the theory that an increase in oxygen triggered the Cambrian explosion. According to my hypothesis, this would have created conditions suitable for organisms to innovate. According to your hypothesis, God took advantage of the environmental change (or maybe initiated it - you never seem to be quite sure whether he controls the environment or not) to do lots of dabbles, or he had preprogrammed the first cells with all the innovations, and existing organisms then chose which programmes to switch on when the extra oxygen arrived.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Sunday, September 25, 2016, 15:23 (2769 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID's comment: Of course adequate oxygen is a seeming requirement for the evolution of complex Cambrian animals. The authors' comments are a tautology which do not explain the sudden jump or gap demonstrated by the Cambrian Explosion itself. > > > dhw; As I understand it, they are confirming the theory that an increase in oxygen triggered the Cambrian explosion. According to my hypothesis, this would have created conditions suitable for organisms to innovate. According to your hypothesis, God took advantage of the environmental change (or maybe initiated it - you never seem to be quite sure whether he controls the environment or not) to do lots of dabbles, or he had preprogrammed the first cells with all the innovations, and existing organisms then chose which programmes to switch on when the extra oxygen arrived.-However it happened once the necessary level of oxygen appeared, the Cambrian animals popped up, which fits right into my theory that there is a deliberately implanted drive to complexity in the whole process of evolution.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID's comment: Of course adequate oxygen is a seeming requirement for the evolution of complex Cambrian animals. The authors' comments are a tautology which do not explain the sudden jump or gap demonstrated by the Cambrian Explosion itself. dhw; As I understand it, they are confirming the theory that an increase in oxygen triggered the Cambrian explosion. According to my hypothesis, this would have created conditions suitable for organisms to innovate. According to your hypothesis, God took advantage of the environmental change (or maybe initiated it - you never seem to be quite sure whether he controls the environment or not) to do lots of dabbles, or he had preprogrammed the first cells with all the innovations, and existing organisms then chose which programmes to switch on when the extra oxygen arrived.-DAVID: However it happened once the necessary level of oxygen appeared, the Cambrian animals popped up, which fits right into my theory that there is a deliberately implanted drive to complexity in the whole process of evolution.-It fits right into my hypothesis that there is a drive to improvement as well as survival in the whole process of evolution. That drive may have been deliberately implanted, and your God may have given organisms the wherewithal to implement it by themselves, as opposed to his personally preprogramming or dabbling every single new development, extant and extinct, in order to balance nature in order to provide food in order to keep life going in order to prepare the way for humans. (I hope I've got that right.)
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Monday, September 26, 2016, 15:35 (2768 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: However it happened once the necessary level of oxygen appeared, the Cambrian animals popped up, which fits right into my theory that there is a deliberately implanted drive to complexity in the whole process of evolution. > > dhw: It fits right into my hypothesis that there is a drive to improvement as well as survival in the whole process of evolution. That drive may have been deliberately implanted, and your God may have given organisms the wherewithal to implement it by themselves, as opposed to his personally preprogramming or dabbling every single new development, extant and extinct, in order to balance nature in order to provide food in order to keep life going in order to prepare the way for humans. (I hope I've got that right.) - Improvement is not required if the organisms at a less complex level are surviving just fine. Bacteria happily existing unchanged for 3.5 billion years are proof of this. Developement of complexity is not required if survival is working! 3.5 billion years of changing and challenging environments on Earth notwithstanding. You insistence about survival is a holdover from your previously pure-Darwin days of thinking. Survival of the fittest is still a tautology.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Monday, September 26, 2016, 18:39 (2768 days ago) @ David Turell
An afterthought about survivability as a factor in evolution:-Again starting with bacteria, they are here easily permanently. On the other hand once multicellularity appears, species come and go as complexity advances by the process of evolution. That means that multicellularity as a condition of living requires much more involved adaptability, i.e., large complex phenotypic alterations when survival is challenged. If that statement is accepted, what evolution does really show is what is required for survivability , i.e., punctuated equilibrium, the huge gaps in speciation. My conclusion from this viewpoint is that multicellularity's complexity drives the organisms to evolve more complexity until there is a perfect solution to the problem, H. sapiens. We have the mental prowess to solve problems without requiring phenotypic changes. All stated in my first book.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: However it happened once the necessary level of oxygen appeared, the Cambrian animals popped up, which fits right into my theory that there is a deliberately implanted drive to complexity in the whole process of evolution.-dhw: It fits right into my hypothesis that there is a drive to improvement as well as survival in the whole process of evolution. That drive may have been deliberately implanted, and your God may have given organisms the wherewithal to implement it by themselves, as opposed to his personally preprogramming or dabbling every single new development, extant and extinct, in order to balance nature in order to provide food in order to keep life going in order to prepare the way for humans. (I hope I've got that right.)-DAVID: Improvement is not required if the organisms at a less complex level are surviving just fine. Bacteria happily existing unchanged for 3.5 billion years are proof of this. Developement of complexity is not required if survival is working! 3.5 billion years of changing and challenging environments on Earth notwithstanding. You insistence about survival is a holdover from your previously pure-Darwin days of thinking. Survival of the fittest is still a tautology.-You have totally misrepresented my hypothesis, which is that there is a drive for survival AND inmprovement. Read the opening statement above: THERE IS A DRIVE TO IMPROVEMENT AS WELL AS TO SURVIVAL. You call it a drive to complexity, but unless you do not regard the appearance of limbs, the senses, brains etc. as improvements, this amounts to the same thing. DAVID: An afterthought about survivability as a factor in evolution: Again starting with bacteria, they are here easily permanently. On the other hand once multicellularity appears, species come and go as complexity advances by the process of evolution. That means that multicellularity as a condition of living requires much more involved adaptability, i.e., large complex phenotypic alterations when survival is challenged. If that statement is accepted, what evolution does really show is what is required for survivability , i.e., punctuated equilibrium, the huge gaps in speciation. My conclusion from this viewpoint is that multicellularity's complexity drives the organisms to evolve more complexity until there is a perfect solution to the problem, H. sapiens.-Now who is harping on about survival (my bold)? Multicellularity was not REQUIRED and was not a condition of living. But it led to colossal improvements. When you say “perfect solution to the problem”, what is the problem? If the problem is survival, bacteria appear to have the perfect solution.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 27, 2016, 16:26 (2767 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: Improvement is not required if the organisms at a less complex level are surviving just fine. Bacteria happily existing unchanged for 3.5 billion years are proof of this. Developement of complexity is not required if survival is working! 3.5 billion years of changing and challenging environments on Earth notwithstanding. You insistence about survival is a holdover from your previously pure-Darwin days of thinking. Survival of the fittest is still a tautology. > > dhw: You have totally misrepresented my hypothesis, which is that there is a drive for survival AND inmprovement. Read the opening statement above: THERE IS A DRIVE TO IMPROVEMENT AS WELL AS TO SURVIVAL. You call it a drive to complexity, but unless you do not regard the appearance of limbs, the senses, brains etc. as improvements, this amounts to the same thing. - What causes the drive to improvement? My point is the appearance of multicellularity (complexity) causes more problems which have to be solved, so why bother. If evolution is a chance process there logically should be no drive. Therefore the drive comes from God. > > dhw; Now who is harping on about survival (my bold)? Multicellularity was not REQUIRED and was not a condition of living. But it led to colossal improvements. When you say “perfect solution to the problem”, what is the problem? If the problem is survival, bacteria appear to have the perfect solution. - Exactly my point. Why did evolution go beyond bacteria?
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: Improvement is not required if the organisms at a less complex level are surviving just fine. Bacteria happily existing unchanged for 3.5 billion years are proof of this. Developement of complexity is not required if survival is working! 3.5 billion years of changing and challenging environments on Earth notwithstanding. You insistence about survival is a holdover from your previously pure-Darwin days of thinking. Survival of the fittest is still a tautology. - dhw: You have totally misrepresented my hypothesis, which is that there is a drive for survival AND inmprovement. Read the opening statement above: THERE IS A DRIVE TO IMPROVEMENT AS WELL AS TO SURVIVAL. You call it a drive to complexity, but unless you do not regard the appearance of limbs, the senses, brains etc. as improvements, this amounts to the same thing. - DAVID: What causes the drive to improvement? My point is the appearance of multicellularity (complexity) causes more problems which have to be solved, so why bother. If evolution is a chance process there logically should be no drive. Therefore the drive comes from God. - Why bother? In order to improve - hence limbs, senses, brains etc. The issue between us is not the cause of the drive - I keep agreeing that God is a possible cause - but its existence and purpose. You told me I was confining evolution to the drive for survival, which I was not. I have explained why there is very little difference between your drive for complexity and my drive for improvement, and now you switch back to the origin of the drive! - dhw; Now who is harping on about survival? Multicellularity was not REQUIRED and was not a condition of living. But it led to colossal improvements. When you say “perfect solution to the problem”, what is the problem? If the problem is survival, bacteria appear to have the perfect solution. - DAVID: Exactly my point. Why did evolution go beyond bacteria? - I have told you: the drive to improvement. What problem have humans solved so perfectly?
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Thursday, September 29, 2016, 00:53 (2766 days ago) @ dhw
> DAVID: What causes the drive to improvement? My point is the appearance of multicellularity (complexity) causes more problems which have to be solved, so why bother. If evolution is a chance process there logically should be no drive. Therefore the drive comes from God. > > dhw: Why bother? In order to improve - hence limbs, senses, brains etc. The issue between us is not the cause of the drive - I keep agreeing that God is a possible cause - but its existence and purpose. You told me I was confining evolution to the drive for survival, which I was not. I have explained why there is very little difference between your drive for complexity and my drive for improvement, and now you switch back to the origin of the drive! - Because I view complexity as the main drive, and it may or may not bring improvement or survival! Improvement is a judgmental approach. The appearance of complexity is obvious, but 99% of all species produced by the process have disappeared!
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: What causes the drive to improvement? My point is the appearance of multicellularity (complexity) causes more problems which have to be solved, so why bother. If evolution is a chance process there logically should be no drive. Therefore the drive comes from God. dhw: Why bother? In order to improve - hence limbs, senses, brains etc. The issue between us is not the cause of the drive - I keep agreeing that God is a possible cause - but its existence and purpose. You told me I was confining evolution to the drive for survival, which I was not. I have explained why there is very little difference between your drive for complexity and my drive for improvement, and now you switch back to the origin of the drive!-DAVID: Because I view complexity as the main drive, and it may or may not bring improvement or survival! Improvement is a judgmental approach. The appearance of complexity is obvious, but 99% of all species produced by the process have disappeared!-We know for a fact that organisms try to survive, so I think even you would agree that is a built-in drive. However, the drive itself is no guarantee of survival, as proven by the 99% extinction! Ditto the drive for improvement. I must confess I simply cannot see the point of complexity just for the sake of complexity, and I'm surprised you don't consider limbs, the senses, brains etc. an improvement, but you are right. That is a judgemental approach. Clearly then, nobody should argue that humans are an improvement over bacteria, let alone that H. sapiens "is a perfect solution to the problem". I did ask you before, what problem? Whatever it is, we'd better not say it involves improvement, even if some of us might think that solving a problem is better than not solving a problem.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Friday, September 30, 2016, 02:46 (2765 days ago) @ dhw
dhw:Clearly then, nobody should argue that humans are an improvement over bacteria, let alone that H. sapiens "is a perfect solution to the problem". I did ask you before, what problem? Whatever it is, we'd better not say it involves improvement, even if some of us might think that solving a problem is better than not solving a problem.-The problem for me is the meaning of the existence of life with an evolutionary process involved. Where is it going? To make humans.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
dhw: Clearly then, nobody should argue that humans are an improvement over bacteria, let alone that H. sapiens "is a perfect solution to the problem". I did ask you before, what problem? Whatever it is, we'd better not say it involves improvement, even if some of us might think that solving a problem is better than not solving a problem.-DAVID: The problem for me is the meaning of the existence of life with an evolutionary process involved. Where is it going? To make humans.-Why do you stop there? What is the meaning of the existence of humans? And what is the meaning of the existence of the duck-billed platypus, who is also here “”against all the odds”, to use your favourite expression? Why did your God create a process that involved complexity for complexity's sake, with 99% of species going extinct, if all he wanted to do was make humans? And if humans are the perfect solution to the problem of the meaning of the existence of life, whose problem was it in the first place? God's? Does this mean that when he designed every innovation and natural wonder just for the sake of complexity, complexity itself became a problem, and humans were the perfect solution because….because…?-Here's a theistic alternative to this befuddling scenario. God created life and gave organisms the means of engineering their own survival and possible improvements. And they came and went in a long higgledy-piggledy history, as conditions kept changing and some could cope and others couldn't. Currently, humans are here, as by far the most complex, conscious beings we humans are aware of. Nobody knows where the process of evolution will take us in the next few thousand million years, and nobody knows if God is still interested. If he is, he doesn't seem to be intervening, so presumably he's just watching. The non-theistic alternative starts with chance creating life, and the rest is the same apart from the references to God. In neither case do we need to twist ourselves in knots with meanings, balance of nature, keeping life going till humans arrive, complexity for complexity's sake, all in order to explain why God specially designed murderous viruses, parasitic flies and especially my favourite, the weaverbird's nest.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Friday, September 30, 2016, 19:28 (2764 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And if humans are the perfect solution to the problem of the meaning of the existence of life, whose problem was it in the first place? God's? Does this mean that when he designed every innovation and natural wonder just for the sake of complexity, complexity itself became a problem, and humans were the perfect solution because….because…?-Humans have the brain power to manage the Earth, solve problems, like stopping an asteroid from striking the Earth; curing viral diseases, etc. > > dhw: Here's a theistic alternative to this befuddling scenario. > The non-theistic alternative starts with chance creating life,-I don't accept chance.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
dhw: And if humans are the perfect solution to the problem of the meaning of the existence of life, whose problem was it in the first place? God's? Does this mean that when he designed every innovation and natural wonder just for the sake of complexity, complexity itself became a problem, and humans were the perfect solution because….because…?-DAVID: Humans have the brain power to manage the Earth, solve problems, like stopping an asteroid from striking the Earth; curing viral diseases, etc.-True. So God designed the weaverbird's nest and the pararasitic fly and the monarch's lifestyle for the sake of complexity, or to balance nature so that life could keep going till humans arrived, because he had a problem, which was: what is the meaning of the existence of life? And the perfect solution to his problem was humans who could solve the problems he created in the first place.-dhw: Here's a theistic alternative to this befuddling scenario. […] The non-theistic alternative starts with chance creating life...-DAVID: I don't accept chance.-I know. But perhaps at least you can accept the POSSIBILITY of the theistic alternative (i.e. God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement etc.) that I offered you to the incredibly befuddling scenario above.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Saturday, October 01, 2016, 15:33 (2763 days ago) @ dhw
> dhw: Here's a theistic alternative to this befuddling scenario. […] > The non-theistic alternative starts with chance creating life... > > DAVID: I don't accept chance. > > dhw: I know. But perhaps at least you can accept the POSSIBILITY of the theistic alternative (i.e. God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement etc.) that I offered you to the incredibly befuddling scenario above.-Human intelligence is the answer. God gave it to us, fitting your theistic theory.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
dhw: Here's a theistic alternative to this befuddling scenario. […] The non-theistic alternative starts with chance creating life... DAVID: I don't accept chance.-dhw: I know. But perhaps at least you can accept the POSSIBILITY of the theistic alternative (i.e. God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement etc.) that I offered you to the incredibly befuddling scenario above.-DAVID: Human intelligence is the answer. God gave it to us, fitting your theistic theory. -What is human intelligence the answer to? Does it explain your befuddling theory that God designed the weaverbird's nest / the parasitic fly / the cuttlefish's camouflage to ensure the continuation of life until humans arrived, and designed viruses so that humans (who hadn't yet arrived) would have problems to solve? And does it disprove the theory that God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement, thus leading to the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth?
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Sunday, October 02, 2016, 21:38 (2762 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Human intelligence is the answer. God gave it to us, fitting your theistic theory. > > dhw: What is human intelligence the answer to? Does it explain your befuddling theory that God designed the weaverbird's nest / the parasitic fly / the cuttlefish's camouflage to ensure the continuation of life until humans arrived, and designed viruses so that humans (who hadn't yet arrived) would have problems to solve? And does it disprove the theory that God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement, thus leading to the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth?-Back to the same point. God may well have given the organisms mechanisms for survival and improvement with guidelines. We've agreed it is a possibility.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: Human intelligence is the answer. God gave it to us, fitting your theistic theory. -dhw: What is human intelligence the answer to? Does it explain your befuddling theory that God designed the weaverbird's nest / the parasitic fly / the cuttlefish's camouflage to ensure the continuation of life until humans arrived, and designed viruses so that humans (who hadn't yet arrived) would have problems to solve? And does it disprove the theory that God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement, thus leading to the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth?-DAVID: Back to the same point. God may well have given the organisms mechanisms for survival and improvement with guidelines. We've agreed it is a possibility.-God may well have given the organisms AUTONOMOUS mechanisms for survival and improvement, i.e. without guidelines. You have not agreed to that as a possibility.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Monday, October 03, 2016, 15:37 (2761 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: What is human intelligence the answer to? Does it explain your befuddling theory that God designed the weaverbird's nest / the parasitic fly / the cuttlefish's camouflage to ensure the continuation of life until humans arrived, and designed viruses so that humans (who hadn't yet arrived) would have problems to solve? And does it disprove the theory that God gave organisms the means of survival and possible improvement, thus leading to the higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth? > > DAVID: Back to the same point. God may well have given the organisms mechanisms for survival and improvement with guidelines. We've agreed it is a possibility. > > dhw: God may well have given the organisms AUTONOMOUS mechanisms for survival and improvement, i.e. without guidelines. You have not agreed to that as a possibility.-I know.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 18, 2018, 19:41 (2108 days ago) @ dhw
New research shows how little oxygen was present in the billion years before the Cambrian era:
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-billion-year-old-lake-deposit-yields-clues.html
"A sample of ancient oxygen, teased out of a 1.4 billion-year-old evaporative lake deposit in Ontario, provides fresh evidence of what the Earth's atmosphere and biosphere were like during the interval leading up to the emergence of animal life.
"The findings, published in the journal Nature, represent the oldest measurement of atmospheric oxygen isotopes by nearly a billion years. The results support previous research suggesting that oxygen levels in the air during this time in Earth history were a tiny fraction of what they are today due to a much less productive biosphere.
"'It has been suggested for many decades now that the composition of the atmosphere has significantly varied through time," says Peter Crockford, who led the study as a Ph.D. student at McGill University. "We provide unambiguous evidence that it was indeed much different 1.4 billion years ago."
"The study provides the oldest gauge yet of what earth scientists refer to as "primary production," in which micro-organisms at the base of the food chain—algae, cyanobacteria, and the like—produce organic matter from carbon dioxide and pour oxygen into the air.
"'This study shows that primary production 1.4 billion years ago was much less than today," says senior co-author Boswell Wing, who helped supervise Crockford's work at McGill. "This means that the size of the global biosphere had to be smaller, and likely just didn't yield enough food—organic carbon—to support a lot of complex macroscopic life," says Wing, now an associate professor of geological sciences at University of Colorado at Boulder.
"To come up with these findings, Crockford teamed up with colleagues from Yale University, University of California Riverside, and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who had collected pristine samples of ancient salts, known as sulfates, found in a sedimentary rock formation north of Lake Superior. Crockford shuttled the samples to Louisiana State University, where he worked closely with co-authors Huiming Bao, Justin Hayles, and Yongbo Peng, whose lab is one of a handful in the world using a specialized mass-spectrometry technique capable of probing such materials for rare oxygen isotopes within sulfates.
"The work also sheds new light on a stretch of Earth's history known as the "boring billion" because it yielded little apparent biological or environmental change.
"'Subdued primary productivity during the mid-Proterozoic era—roughly 2 billion to 800 million years ago—has long been implied, but no hard data had been generated to lend strong support to this idea," notes Galen Halverson, a co-author of the study and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill. "That left open the possibility that there was another explanation for why the middle Proterozoic ocean was so uninteresting, in terms of the production and deposit of organic carbon." Crockford's data "provide the direct evidence that this boring carbon cycle was due to low primary productivity.'"
Comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but did't cause it.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, July 19, 2018, 06:31 (2108 days ago) @ David Turell
New research shows how little oxygen was present in the billion years before the Cambrian era:
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-billion-year-old-lake-deposit-yields-clues.html
"A sample of ancient oxygen, teased out of a 1.4 billion-year-old evaporative lake deposit in Ontario, provides fresh evidence of what the Earth's atmosphere and biosphere were like during the interval leading up to the emergence of animal life.
"The findings, published in the journal Nature, represent the oldest measurement of atmospheric oxygen isotopes by nearly a billion years. The results support previous research suggesting that oxygen levels in the air during this time in Earth history were a tiny fraction of what they are today due to a much less productive biosphere.
"'It has been suggested for many decades now that the composition of the atmosphere has significantly varied through time," says Peter Crockford, who led the study as a Ph.D. student at McGill University. "We provide unambiguous evidence that it was indeed much different 1.4 billion years ago."
"The study provides the oldest gauge yet of what earth scientists refer to as "primary production," in which micro-organisms at the base of the food chain—algae, cyanobacteria, and the like—produce organic matter from carbon dioxide and pour oxygen into the air.
"'This study shows that primary production 1.4 billion years ago was much less than today," says senior co-author Boswell Wing, who helped supervise Crockford's work at McGill. "This means that the size of the global biosphere had to be smaller, and likely just didn't yield enough food—organic carbon—to support a lot of complex macroscopic life," says Wing, now an associate professor of geological sciences at University of Colorado at Boulder.
"To come up with these findings, Crockford teamed up with colleagues from Yale University, University of California Riverside, and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, who had collected pristine samples of ancient salts, known as sulfates, found in a sedimentary rock formation north of Lake Superior. Crockford shuttled the samples to Louisiana State University, where he worked closely with co-authors Huiming Bao, Justin Hayles, and Yongbo Peng, whose lab is one of a handful in the world using a specialized mass-spectrometry technique capable of probing such materials for rare oxygen isotopes within sulfates.
"The work also sheds new light on a stretch of Earth's history known as the "boring billion" because it yielded little apparent biological or environmental change.
"'Subdued primary productivity during the mid-Proterozoic era—roughly 2 billion to 800 million years ago—has long been implied, but no hard data had been generated to lend strong support to this idea," notes Galen Halverson, a co-author of the study and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill. "That left open the possibility that there was another explanation for why the middle Proterozoic ocean was so uninteresting, in terms of the production and deposit of organic carbon." Crockford's data "provide the direct evidence that this boring carbon cycle was due to low primary productivity.'"
David: Comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but did't cause it.
And ironically match very closely the predictions that could be made if the biblical creation account is true in terms of processes.
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Thursday, July 19, 2018, 18:13 (2107 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
"'Subdued primary productivity during the mid-Proterozoic era—roughly 2 billion to 800 million years ago—has long been implied, but no hard data had been generated to lend strong support to this idea," notes Galen Halverson, a co-author of the study and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill. "That left open the possibility that there was another explanation for why the middle Proterozoic ocean was so uninteresting, in terms of the production and deposit of organic carbon." Crockford's data "provide the direct evidence that this boring carbon cycle was due to low primary productivity.'"
David: Comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but did't cause it.
Tony: And ironically match very closely the predictions that could be made if the biblical creation account is true in terms of processes.
The origin of the universe and the Earth and us in Genesis 1-6 sounds just like the Big Bang theory, as a book points out.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, July 19, 2018, 23:22 (2107 days ago) @ David Turell
"'Subdued primary productivity during the mid-Proterozoic era—roughly 2 billion to 800 million years ago—has long been implied, but no hard data had been generated to lend strong support to this idea," notes Galen Halverson, a co-author of the study and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill. "That left open the possibility that there was another explanation for why the middle Proterozoic ocean was so uninteresting, in terms of the production and deposit of organic carbon." Crockford's data "provide the direct evidence that this boring carbon cycle was due to low primary productivity.'"
David: Comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but did't cause it.
Tony: And ironically match very closely the predictions that could be made if the biblical creation account is true in terms of processes.
David: The origin of the universe and the Earth and us in Genesis 1-6 sounds just like the Big Bang theory, as a book points out.
Especially some of the more nuanced details, like that green plants started growing while the earth was still heavily shrouded in clouds, probably algae, and the the clouds were parted to reveal the luminaries as the Earth had a sudden uptick in oxygen.
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Friday, July 20, 2018, 01:40 (2107 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
"'Subdued primary productivity during the mid-Proterozoic era—roughly 2 billion to 800 million years ago—has long been implied, but no hard data had been generated to lend strong support to this idea," notes Galen Halverson, a co-author of the study and associate professor of earth and planetary sciences at McGill. "That left open the possibility that there was another explanation for why the middle Proterozoic ocean was so uninteresting, in terms of the production and deposit of organic carbon." Crockford's data "provide the direct evidence that this boring carbon cycle was due to low primary productivity.'"
David: Comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but did't cause it.
Tony: And ironically match very closely the predictions that could be made if the biblical creation account is true in terms of processes.
David: The origin of the universe and the Earth and us in Genesis 1-6 sounds just like the Big Bang theory, as a book points out.
Tony: Especially some of the more nuanced details, like that green plants started growing while the earth was still heavily shrouded in clouds, probably algae, and the the clouds were parted to reveal the luminaries as the Earth had a sudden uptick in oxygen.
Oxygen is a late arrival to the atmosphere. The book is "Genesis and the Big bang" and uses seven eons for days, which is perfectly compatible with the original Hebrew.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Monday, May 06, 2019, 21:15 (1816 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Monday, May 06, 2019, 21:26
A study from Siberian Cambrian rock layers shows the relationship of atmospheric oxygen levels to new species development:
https://phys.org/news/2019-05-oxygen-linked-boom-early-animal.html
"Extreme fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen levels corresponded with evolutionary surges and extinctions in animal biodiversity during the Cambrian explosion, finds new study led by UCL and the University of Leeds.
"The Cambrian explosion was a crucial period of rapid evolution in complex animals that began roughly 540 million years ago. The trigger for this fundamental phase in the early history of animal life is a subject of ongoing biological debate.
"The study, published today in Nature Geoscience by scientists from the UK, China and Russia, gives strong support to the theory that oxygen content in the atmosphere was a major controlling factor in animal evolution. (my bold)
"The study is the first to show that during the Cambrian explosion there was significant correlation between surges in oxygen levels and bursts in animal evolution and biodiversity, as well as extinction events during periods of low oxygen.
***
"'
"By analysing the carbon and sulphur isotopes found in ancient rocks, we are able to trace oxygen variations in Earth's atmosphere and shallow oceans during the Cambrian Explosion. When compared to fossilised animals from the same time we can clearly see that evolutionary radiations follow a pattern of 'boom and bust' in tandem with the oxygen levels.
"'This strongly suggests oxygen played a vital role in the emergence of early animal life."
Study co-author Professor Graham Shields from UCL Earth Sciences, said: "This is the first study to show clearly that our earliest animal ancestors experienced a series of evolutionary radiations and bottlenecks caused by extreme changes in atmospheric oxygen levels. (my bold)
"'The result was a veritable explosion of new animal forms during more than 13 million years of the Cambrian Period. In that time, Earth went from being populated by simple, single-celled and immobile organisms to hosting the wonderful variety of intricate, energetic life forms we see today."
"The team analysed the carbon and sulphur isotopes from marine carbonate samples collected from sections along the Aldan and Lena rivers in Siberia. During the time of the Cambrian explosion this area would have been a shallow sea and the home for the majority of animal life on Earth.
***
"'The Siberian Platform gives us a unique window into early marine ecosystems. This area contains over half of all currently known fossilised diversity from the Cambrian explosion.
"'Combining our isotope measurements with a mathematical model lets us track the pulses of carbon and sulphur entering the sediments in this critical evolutionary cradle. Our model uses this information to estimate the global balance of oxygen production and destruction, giving us new insight into how oxygen shaped the life we have on the planet today."
Comment: The oxygen levels were very important factors in allowing the diversification of new forms, but there is an underlying evolutionary driving mechanism which is the real cause of the new animals. Note my bolds about oxygen which tends to blur this point . The final bold above makes the point of how sloppy the authors have been in describing the role of oxygen. Oxygen allows the newly designed form to appear, but does not initiate anything. Again, a Darwinism slant in the reporting.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
QUOTES with David’s bolds: "The study, published today in Nature Geoscience by scientists from the UK, China and Russia, gives strong support to the theory that oxygen content in the atmosphere was a major controlling factor in animal evolution.
"The study is the first to show that during the Cambrian explosion there was significant correlation between surges in oxygen levels and bursts in animal evolution and biodiversity, as well as extinction events during periods of low oxygen."
"… we can clearly see that evolutionary radiations follow a pattern of 'boom and bust' in tandem with the oxygen levels".
"'This strongly suggests oxygen played a vital role in the emergence of early animal life."
Study co-author Professor Graham Shields from UCL Earth Sciences, said: "This is the first study to show clearly that our earliest animal ancestors experienced a series of evolutionary radiations and bottlenecks caused by extreme changes in atmospheric oxygen levels.
"….giving us new insight into how oxygen shaped the life we have on the planet today."[/b]
DAVID: The oxygen levels were very important factors in allowing the diversification of new forms, but there is an underlying evolutionary driving mechanism which is the real cause of the new animals. Note my bolds about oxygen which tends to blur this point. The final bold above makes the point of how sloppy the authors have been in describing the role of oxygen. Oxygen allows the newly designed form to appear, but does not initiate anything. Again, a Darwinism slant in the reporting.
Of course there is an underlying mechanism, but that does not contradict the author’s emphasis on the importance of the environment. You could not have a clearer example of the way in which many of us believe evolution works: as the environment changes, organisms may need to change their structures in order to survive (= adaptation), or they may exploit the new conditions to invent new structures (innovation). According to your theory, your God must have preprogrammed or dabbled the increase in oxygen, and provided the first living cells with a programme for every single undabbled innovation made possible by it. My theistic proposal is that he provided the first living cells with an autonomous intelligence enabling some (but not all) their descendants to cope with or exploit the new conditions. Neither proposal is contradicted by the article itself, with the possible exception of the word "caused" in the last quote. Perhaps "triggered" would be better, unless you wish to tell us that your God preprogrammed/dabbled the new species BEFORE the increase in oxygen - as you think he turned whale legs into flippers BEFORE pre-whales entered the water.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Tuesday, May 07, 2019, 14:52 (1815 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES with David’s bolds: "The study, published today in Nature Geoscience by scientists from the UK, China and Russia, gives strong support to the theory that oxygen content in the atmosphere was a major controlling factor in animal evolution.
"The study is the first to show that during the Cambrian explosion there was significant correlation between surges in oxygen levels and bursts in animal evolution and biodiversity, as well as extinction events during periods of low oxygen."
"… we can clearly see that evolutionary radiations follow a pattern of 'boom and bust' in tandem with the oxygen levels".
"'This strongly suggests oxygen played a vital role in the emergence of early animal life."
Study co-author Professor Graham Shields from UCL Earth Sciences, said: "This is the first study to show clearly that our earliest animal ancestors experienced a series of evolutionary radiations and bottlenecks caused by extreme changes in atmospheric oxygen levels."….giving us new insight into how oxygen shaped the life we have on the planet today."[/b]
DAVID: The oxygen levels were very important factors in allowing the diversification of new forms, but there is an underlying evolutionary driving mechanism which is the real cause of the new animals. Note my bolds about oxygen which tends to blur this point. The final bold above makes the point of how sloppy the authors have been in describing the role of oxygen. Oxygen allows the newly designed form to appear, but does not initiate anything. Again, a Darwinism slant in the reporting.
dhw: Of course there is an underlying mechanism, but that does not contradict the author’s emphasis on the importance of the environment. You could not have a clearer example of the way in which many of us believe evolution works: as the environment changes, organisms may need to change their structures in order to survive (= adaptation), or they may exploit the new conditions to invent new structures (innovation). According to your theory, your God must have preprogrammed or dabbled the increase in oxygen, and provided the first living cells with a programme for every single undabbled innovation made possible by it. My theistic proposal is that he provided the first living cells with an autonomous intelligence enabling some (but not all) their descendants to cope with or exploit the new conditions. Neither proposal is contradicted by the article itself, with the possible exception of the word "caused" in the last quote. Perhaps "triggered" would be better, unless you wish to tell us that your God preprogrammed/dabbled the new species BEFORE the increase in oxygen - as you think he turned whale legs into flippers BEFORE pre-whales entered the water.
It is the underlying mechanism of your comment that is at issue. I view it as much more active than your passive approach of changing environment pushing the animals to change. The hippopotamus makes a major point:
The Hippo is a creature that has been around for a very long time. There is evidence to suggest they walked on the Earth more than 55 million years ago. The closest relatives of the Hippo are whales and porpoises. There are fossils that have been located in Africa that are dated back about 16 million years ago. They have been analyzed on many levels to give us some insight about Hippo evolution.
https://www.hippoworlds.com/hippopotamus-evolution/
And they still have four legs despite all that time in water, It is obviously something besides environment that guides development of new forms and major modifications.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: The oxygen levels were very important factors in allowing the diversification of new forms, but there is an underlying evolutionary driving mechanism which is the real cause of the new animals. Note my bolds about oxygen which tends to blur this point. The final bold above makes the point of how sloppy the authors have been in describing the role of oxygen. Oxygen allows the newly designed form to appear, but does not initiate anything. Again, a Darwinism slant in the reporting.
dhw: Of course there is an underlying mechanism, but that does not contradict the author’s emphasis on the importance of the environment. You could not have a clearer example of the way in which many of us believe evolution works: as the environment changes, organisms may need to change their structures in order to survive (= adaptation), or they may exploit the new conditions to invent new structures (innovation). […]
DAVID: It is the underlying mechanism of your comment that is at issue. I view it as much more active than your passive approach of changing environment pushing the animals to change.
This is not a passive process! It is the very opposite! Environmental change either demands or allows new actions. Survival depends on active change (= adaptation), and innovation depends on inventiveness, which is even more active. The changed environment is the trigger for action – passivity in most cases will result in extinction. According to you, however, organisms do absolutely nothing apart from magically turning on the one special programme passed down by the very first cells for every single change or, alternatively, lying/sitting there while your God performs his operations or delivers his lectures on how-to-do-it.
DAVID: The hippopotamus makes a major point:
The Hippo is a creature that has been around for a very long time. There is evidence to suggest they walked on the Earth more than 55 million years ago. The closest relatives of the Hippo are whales and porpoises. There are fossils that have been located in Africa that are dated back about 16 million years ago. They have been analyzed on many levels to give us some insight about Hippo evolution.
https://www.hippoworlds.com/hippopotamus-evolution/
And they still have four legs despite all that time in water, It is obviously something besides environment that guides development of new forms and major modifications.
There is no need to tell us that every species is different, and of course there is “something” which develops the new forms to cope with or exploit the new environment. I propose cellular intelligence, and you propose ye ancient computer programme or dabbling. Once an organism has found a means of survival that enables it to cope with its environment, there is no need for it to change. Hence bacteria from the year dot. Some organisms remain the same (hippo), whereas others may find means of improving their chances of survival by producing new structures for themselves (whales). In your own mish-mush of hypotheses, you simply have your God organizing the same process – his programmes and dabbles result in different ways of coping with or exploiting the environment (or of course not coping, and going extinct), but you have the anatomical changes taking place before the environmental changes.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Wednesday, May 08, 2019, 18:20 (1814 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is the underlying mechanism of your comment that is at issue. I view it as much more active than your passive approach of changing environment pushing the animals to change.
dhw: This is not a passive process! It is the very opposite! Environmental change either demands or allows new actions. Survival depends on active change (= adaptation), and innovation depends on inventiveness, which is even more active. The changed environment is the trigger for action – passivity in most cases will result in extinction. According to you, however, organisms do absolutely nothing apart from magically turning on the one special programme passed down by the very first cells for every single change or, alternatively, lying/sitting there while your God performs his operations or delivers his lectures on how-to-do-it.
Yes, this is a discussion about how speciation works. The minor adaptations we see have never been proven to do any more than that. The fossil record only shows large gaps which reinforces the problem about adaptations leading to anything. The changes we do see in any species series requires design and planning, as I view it.
DAVID: The hippopotamus makes a major point:
The Hippo is a creature that has been around for a very long time. There is evidence to suggest they walked on the Earth more than 55 million years ago. The closest relatives of the Hippo are whales and porpoises. There are fossils that have been located in Africa that are dated back about 16 million years ago. They have been analyzed on many levels to give us some insight about Hippo evolution.
https://www.hippoworlds.com/hippopotamus-evolution/And they still have four legs despite all that time in water, It is obviously something besides environment that guides development of new forms and major modifications.
dhw: There is no need to tell us that every species is different, and of course there is “something” which develops the new forms to cope with or exploit the new environment. I propose cellular intelligence, and you propose ye ancient computer programme or dabbling. Once an organism has found a means of survival that enables it to cope with its environment, there is no need for it to change. Hence bacteria from the year dot. Some organisms remain the same (hippo), whereas others may find means of improving their chances of survival by producing new structures for themselves (whales). In your own mish-mush of hypotheses, you simply have your God organizing the same process – his programmes and dabbles result in different ways of coping with or exploiting the environment (or of course not coping, and going extinct), but you have the anatomical changes taking place before the environmental changes.
In this arena of land animals going aquatic, those that choose to do so must solve major physiologic problems. Tell me how whales learned to give birth and nurse under water. Trial and error won't work. In view of that one point, to me your theory of speciation is impossible.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID: It is the underlying mechanism of your comment that is at issue. I view it as much more active than your passive approach of changing environment pushing the animals to change.
dhw: This is not a passive process! It is the very opposite! Environmental change either demands or allows new actions. Survival depends on active change (= adaptation), and innovation depends on inventiveness, which is even more active. The changed environment is the trigger for action – passivity in most cases will result in extinction. According to you, however, organisms do absolutely nothing apart from magically turning on the one special programme passed down by the very first cells for every single change or, alternatively, lying/sitting there while your God performs his operations or delivers his lectures on how-to-do-it.
DAVID: Yes, this is a discussion about how speciation works. The minor adaptations we see have never been proven to do any more than that. The fossil record only shows large gaps which reinforces the problem about adaptations leading to anything. The changes we do see in any species series requires design and planning, as I view it.
I have answered your criticism that my hypothesis is passive, and so now you revert to the fact that nothing is proven. I know. Your hypothesis that your God planned every undabbled change 3.8 billion years ago and put the whole programme into the very first cells is also an unproven hypothesis. Please move on.
[…]
DAVID: And they still have four legs despite all that time in water, It is obviously something besides environment that guides development of new forms and major modifications.
dhw: There is no need to tell us that every species is different, and of course there is “something” which develops the new forms to cope with or exploit the new environment. I propose cellular intelligence, and you propose ye ancient computer programme or dabbling. Once an organism has found a means of survival that enables it to cope with its environment, there is no need for it to change. Hence bacteria from the year dot. Some organisms remain the same (hippo), whereas others may find means of improving their chances of survival by producing new structures for themselves (whales). In your own mish-mush of hypotheses, you simply have your God organizing the same process – his programmes and dabbles result in different ways of coping with or exploiting the environment (or of course not coping, and going extinct), but you have the anatomical changes taking place before the environmental changes.
DAVID: In this arena of land animals going aquatic, those that choose to do so must solve major physiologic problems. Tell me how whales learned to give birth and nurse under water. Trial and error won't work. In view of that one point, to me your theory of speciation is impossible.
Why are you asking me to solve a mystery that not even the greatest minds on earth have yet managed to solve? Once more, nobody knows how all these changes take place. That is why you and I can only offer unproven hypotheses. (See also “Bacterial intelligence”.)
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Thursday, May 09, 2019, 21:55 (1813 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is the underlying mechanism of your comment that is at issue. I view it as much more active than your passive approach of changing environment pushing the animals to change.
dhw: This is not a passive process! It is the very opposite! Environmental change either demands or allows new actions. Survival depends on active change (= adaptation), and innovation depends on inventiveness, which is even more active. The changed environment is the trigger for action – passivity in most cases will result in extinction. According to you, however, organisms do absolutely nothing apart from magically turning on the one special programme passed down by the very first cells for every single change or, alternatively, lying/sitting there while your God performs his operations or delivers his lectures on how-to-do-it.
DAVID: Yes, this is a discussion about how speciation works. The minor adaptations we see have never been proven to do any more than that. The fossil record only shows large gaps which reinforces the problem about adaptations leading to anything. The changes we do see in any species series requires design and planning, as I view it.
I have answered your criticism that my hypothesis is passive, and so now you revert to the fact that nothing is proven. I know. Your hypothesis that your God planned every undabbled change 3.8 billion years ago and put the whole programme into the very first cells is also an unproven hypothesis. Please move on.
[…]
DAVID: And they still have four legs despite all that time in water, It is obviously something besides environment that guides development of new forms and major modifications.dhw: There is no need to tell us that every species is different, and of course there is “something” which develops the new forms to cope with or exploit the new environment. I propose cellular intelligence, and you propose ye ancient computer programme or dabbling. Once an organism has found a means of survival that enables it to cope with its environment, there is no need for it to change. Hence bacteria from the year dot. Some organisms remain the same (hippo), whereas others may find means of improving their chances of survival by producing new structures for themselves (whales). In your own mish-mush of hypotheses, you simply have your God organizing the same process – his programmes and dabbles result in different ways of coping with or exploiting the environment (or of course not coping, and going extinct), but you have the anatomical changes taking place before the environmental changes.
DAVID: In this arena of land animals going aquatic, those that choose to do so must solve major physiologic problems. Tell me how whales learned to give birth and nurse under water. Trial and error won't work. In view of that one point, to me your theory of speciation is impossible.
Why are you asking me to solve a mystery that not even the greatest minds on earth have yet managed to solve? Once more, nobody knows how all these changes take place. That is why you and I can only offer unproven hypotheses. (See also “Bacterial intelligence”.)
I like my theory and you have yours. We'll stop,
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
DAVID’s comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but didn't cause it.
Agreed. New conditions offered new opportunities, and these were exploited by whatever mechanism it is that enables organisms to come up with their innovations.
New Oxygen research; abundance and Cambrian
by David Turell , Thursday, July 19, 2018, 18:25 (2107 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: Same story. Higher concentrations of oxygen allowed for the Cambrian Explosion, but didn't cause it.
dhw: Agreed. New conditions offered new opportunities, and these were exploited by whatever mechanism it is that enables organisms to come up with their innovations.
Agreed.
New Oxygen research; new theory of abundance
by David Turell , Sunday, January 01, 2017, 01:05 (2672 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by David Turell, Sunday, January 01, 2017, 01:12
This theory involves the burial of organic materials like coal and oil causing the increase in atmospheric oxygen. Perhaps more important than just the production of oxygen by photosynthesis:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161230185406.htm
"Oxygen enables the chemical reactions that animals use to get energy from stored carbohydrates -- from food. So it may be no coincidence that animals appeared and evolved during the "Cambrian explosion," which coincided with a spike in atmospheric oxygen roughly 500 million years ago.
"It was during the Cambrian explosion that most of the current animal designs appeared.
"In green plants, photosynthesis separates carbon dioxide into molecular oxygen (which is released to the atmosphere), and carbon (which is stored in carbohydrates).
"But photosynthesis had already been around for at least 2.5 billion years. So what accounted for the sudden spike in oxygen during the Cambrian?
"A study now online in the February issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters links the rise in oxygen to a rapid increase in the burial of sediment containing large amounts of carbon-rich organic matter. The key, says study co-author Shanan Peters, a professor of geoscience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is to recognize that sediment storage blocks the oxidation of carbon.
"Without burial, this oxidation reaction causes dead plant material on Earth's surface to burn. That causes the carbon it contains, which originated in the atmosphere, to bond with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. And for oxygen to build up in our atmosphere, plant organic matter must be protected from oxidation.
"And that's exactly what happens when organic matter -- the raw material of coal, oil and natural gas -- is buried through geologic processes.
***
"our argument is that there are mechanistic connections between geology and the history of atmospheric oxygen," Husson says. "When you store sediment, it contains organic matter that was formed by photosynthesis, which converted carbon dioxide into biomass and released oxygen into the atmosphere. Burial removes the carbon from Earth's surface, preventing it from bonding molecular oxygen pulled from the atmosphere."
"Some of the surges in sediment burial that Husson and Peters identified coincided with the formation of vast fields of fossil fuel that are still mined today, including the oil-rich Permian Basin in Texas and the Pennsylvania coal fields of Appalachia.
"'Burying the sediments that became fossil fuels was the key to advanced animal life on Earth," Peters says, noting that multicellular life is largely a creation of the Cambrian.
***
"The ultimate geological cause for the accelerated sediment storage that promoted the two surges in oxygen remains murky. "There are many ideas to explain the different phases of oxygen concentration," Husson concedes. "We suspect that deep-rooted changes in the movement of tectonic plates or conduction of heat or circulation in the mantle may be in play, but we don't have an explanation at this point."
"Holding a chunk of trilobite-studded Ordovician shale that formed approximately 450 million years ago, Peters asks, "Why is there oxygen in the atmosphere? The high school explanation is 'photosynthesis.' But we've known for a long time, going all the way back to Wisconsin geologist (and University of Wisconsin president) Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, that building up oxygen requires the formation of rocks like this black shale, which can be rich enough in carbon to actually burn. The organic carbon in this shale was fixed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis, and its burial and preservation in this rock liberated molecular oxygen."
"What's new in the current study, Husson says, is the ability to document this relationship in a broad database that covers 20 percent of Earth's land surface.
Continual burial of carbon is needed to keep the atmosphere pumped up with oxygen.
" Many pathways on Earth's surface, Husson notes, like oxidation of iron -- rust -- consume free oxygen. "The secret to having oxygen in the atmosphere is to remove a tiny portion of the present biomass and sequester it in sedimentary deposits. That's what happened when fossil fuels were deposited."
Comment: A fascinating theory. Oxygen is stored in the atmosphere only when carbon is sequestered. Certainly the oxygen levels rose before the Cambrian and burial of Earth's layers is caused by subduction of continental plate edges, and, of course, volcanism. Lava layers and shale layers can be and are above and below each other. This is a reminder that the Earth is a special planet with a liquid iron/nickel core creating a magnetic field which is very protective of the life that appeared by blocking nearly all the nasty radiation that abounds in the universe. Humans appeared only after a very long evolutionary process of stages, starting with a sterile Earth, modified by simple early life which then prepares a different Earth for the arrival of complex life in the Cambrian. Not by chance!
New Oxygen research; importance to evolution
by David Turell , Friday, February 03, 2017, 01:50 (2639 days ago) @ David Turell
This paper points out how newly=appearing oxygen levels fit the history of the appearance of complex forms in evolution:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170202090810.htm
A low level of atmospheric oxygen in Earth's middle ages held back evolution for 2 billion years, raising fresh questions about the origins of life on this planet.
***
"Their research helps explain why the 'great oxidation event', which introduced oxygen into the atmosphere around 2.4 billion years ago, did not generate modern levels of oxygen.
"In their paper, published in Nature Communications, Atmospheric oxygen regulation at low Proterozoic levels by incomplete oxidative weathering of sedimentary organic carbon, the University of Exeter scientists explain how organic material -- the dead bodies of simple lifeforms -- accumulated in the earth's sedimentary rocks. After the Great Oxidation, and once plate tectonics pushed these sediments to the surface, they reacted with oxygen in the atmosphere for the first time.
"The more oxygen in the atmosphere, the faster it reacted with this organic material, creating a regulatory mechanism whereby the oxygen was consumed by the sediments at the same rate at which it was produced.
"This mechanism broke down with the rise of land plants and a resultant doubling of global photosynthesis. The increasing concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere eventually overwhelmed the control on oxygen and meant it could finally rise to the levels we are used to today.
"This helped animals colonise the land, leading eventually to the evolution of humankind.
"The model suggests atmospheric oxygen was likely at around 10% of present day levels during the two billion years following the Great Oxidation Event, and no lower than 1% of the oxygen levels we know today.
"Life on earth is believed to have begun with the first bacteria evolving 3.8 billion years ago. Around 2.7 billion years ago the first oxygen-producing photosynthesis evolved in the oceans. But it was not until 600 million years ago that the first multi-celled animals such as sponges and jellyfish emerged in the ocean. By 470 million years ago the first plants grew on land with the first land animals such as millipedes appearing around 428 million years ago. Mammals did not rise to ecological prominence until after the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago. Humans first appeared on earth 200,000 years ago.
"Professor Lenton said: "This time in Earth's history was a bit of a catch-22 situation. It wasn't possible to evolve complex life forms because there was not enough oxygen in the atmosphere, and there wasn't enough oxygen because complex plants hadn't evolved -- It was only when land plants came about did we see a more significant rise in atmospheric oxygen.
"'The history of life on Earth is closely intertwined with the physical and chemical mechanisms of our planet. It is clear that life has had a profound role in creating the world we are used to, and the planet has similarly affected the trajectory of life. I think it's important people acknowledge the miracle of their own existence and recognise what an amazing planet this is.'"
Comment: Life depends upon the energy released by oxidation. There is no question of the relationship of oxygen levels and the ability to evolve. But there was no obvious requirement to complexify, so I have concluded that the organisms contained a driving mechanism or God stepped in to drive evolution. Both ideas fit the history .
New Oxygen research; importance to evolution
dhw: (under “Evolution took a long time”): I am simply pointing out that invaders disturbing the “balance of nature” have nothing to do with your God designing and destroying countless species in order to produce humans.
DAVID: How does evolution proceed without loss of earlier species?
That still has nothing to do with invaders disturbing the “balance of nature”. And it still doesn’t mean that God had to design all the extinct species, lifestyles and wonders in order to get to humans. And evolution has proceeded with some species surviving. I might just as well ask you why your God couldn’t simply have concentrated on the species that were necessary for the evolution of humans instead of bringing in all the unnecessary ones and then killing them off.
DAVID's comment : Life depends upon the energy released by oxidation. There is no question of the relationship of oxygen levels and the ability to evolve. But there was no obvious requirement to complexify, so I have concluded that the organisms contained a driving mechanism or God stepped in to drive evolution. Both ideas fit the history .
Just to keep the record clear: I too have concluded that the organisms may contain a driving mechanism, possibly designed by your God, and if he exists, he may also have stepped in occasionally. And I find it far more likely that an autonomous inventive driving mechanism was responsible for the vast majority of evolutionary innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders rather than a mechanism preprogrammed by your God 3.8 billion years ago to deliver each and every one of them. I trust you are standing by your earlier agreement to the possibility of the mechanism being autonomous (bar divine dabbling).
New Oxygen research; importance to evolution
by David Turell , Friday, February 03, 2017, 21:04 (2638 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: (under “Evolution took a long time”): I am simply pointing out that invaders disturbing the “balance of nature” have nothing to do with your God designing and destroying countless species in order to produce humans.
DAVID: How does evolution proceed without loss of earlier species?
dhw: That still has nothing to do with invaders disturbing the “balance of nature”.
The articles about correcting balance of nature from invaders are to illustrate how sensitive the balance is.
dhw: And it still doesn’t mean that God had to design all the extinct species, lifestyles and wonders in order to get to humans. And evolution has proceeded with some species surviving. I might just as well ask you why your God couldn’t simply have concentrated on the species that were necessary for the evolution of humans instead of bringing in all the unnecessary ones and then killing them off.
I really can't answer you. We both see that is what happened.
dhw: I trust you are standing by your earlier agreement to the possibility of the mechanism being autonomous (bar divine dabbling).
Yes, autonomous, with God correcting whenever necessary is possible.
New Oxygen research; importance to evolution
dhw: (under “Evolution took a long time”): I am simply pointing out that invaders disturbing the “balance of nature” have nothing to do with your God designing and destroying countless species in order to produce humans.
DAVID: How does evolution proceed without loss of earlier species?
dhw: That still has nothing to do with invaders disturbing the “balance of nature”.
DAVID: The articles about correcting balance of nature from invaders are to illustrate how sensitive the balance is.
Thank you. It is a totally separate issue from “balance of nature” in the context of how evolution has developed.
dhw: And it still doesn’t mean that God had to design all the extinct species, lifestyles and wonders in order to get to humans. And evolution has proceeded with some species surviving. I might just as well ask you why your God couldn’t simply have concentrated on the species that were necessary for the evolution of humans instead of bringing in all the unnecessary ones and then killing them off.
DAVID: I really can't answer you. We both see that is what happened.
Thank you for your honesty. Maybe the answer is that he didn’t design all the extinct species, lifestyles and wonders in order to get to humans. As below:
dhw: I trust you are standing by your earlier agreement to the possibility of the mechanism being autonomous (bar divine dabbling).
DAVID: Yes, autonomous, with God correcting whenever necessary is possible.
Isn’t it nice to have a possible answer to the question you couldn’t answer!
New Oxygen research; importance to evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, February 04, 2017, 22:22 (2637 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I really can't answer you. We both see that is what happened.
dhw: Thank you for your honesty. Maybe the answer is that he didn’t design all the extinct species, lifestyles and wonders in order to get to humans. As below:
dhw: I trust you are standing by your earlier agreement to the possibility of the mechanism being autonomous (bar divine dabbling).
DAVID: Yes, autonomous, with God correcting whenever necessary is possible.
dhw: Isn’t it nice to have a possible answer to the question you couldn’t answer!
I'll stick with the proposal that God uses evolution to reach the point of producing the current type of humans. I don't think evolution continues from here! Humans are given control of Earth. The only thing we can do is stop everything with exploding atoms!
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Monday, September 18, 2017, 23:11 (2411 days ago) @ David Turell
The level of atmospheric oxygen was kept low by the Earth's surface mineral, Olivine, until it disappeared:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170918111851.htm
"Earth's early atmosphere and oceans were devoid of free oxygen, even though tiny cyanobacteria were producing the gas as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Free oxygen is oxygen that isn't combined with other elements such as carbon or nitrogen, and aerobic organisms need it to live. A change occurred about three billion years ago, when small regions containing free oxygen began to appear in the oceans. Then, about 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen in the atmosphere suddenly increased by about 10,000 times in just 200 million years.
This period, known as the Great Oxidation Event, changed chemical reactions on the surface of the Earth completely.
***
"It turned out that a staggering change occurred in the composition of continents at the same time free oxygen was starting to accumulate in the oceans," Smit said.
"Before oxygenation, continents were composed of rocks rich in magnesium and low in silica -- similar to what can be found today in places like Iceland and the Faroe Islands. But more importantly, those rocks contained a mineral called olivine. When olivine comes into contact with water, it initiates chemical reactions that consume oxygen and lock it up. That is likely what happened to the oxygen produced by cyanobacteria early in Earth's history.
"However, as the continental crust evolved to a composition more like today's, olivine virtually disappeared. Without that mineral to react with water and consume oxygen, the gas was finally allowed to accumulate. Oceans eventually became saturated, and oxygen crossed into the atmosphere.
"It really appears to have been the starting point for life diversification as we know it," Smit said. "After that change, the Earth became much more habitable and suitable for the evolution of complex life, but that needed some trigger mechanism, and that's what we may have found."
"As for what caused the composition of continents to change, that is the subject of ongoing study. Smit notes that modern plate tectonics began at around the same time, and many scientists theorize that there is a connection."
Comment: Oxygen in high amounts must be present for life to evolve and diversify. It first rose to about 10% before the Cambrian and finally reached its present 21%. This shows how the Earth had to evolve for complex life to appear.
New Oxygen research;photosynthesis early appearance?
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 06, 2018, 19:24 (2242 days ago) @ David Turell
A new genome study suggests photosynthesis appeared a billion years earlier than thought:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180306093304.htm
"The earliest oxygen-producing microbes may not have been cyanobacteria.
"Ancient microbes may have been producing oxygen through photosynthesis a billion years earlier than we thought, which means oxygen was available for living organisms very close to the origin of life on earth. In a new article in Heliyon, a researcher from Imperial College London studied the molecular machines responsible for photosynthesis and found the process may have evolved as long as 3.6 billion years ago.
***
"Previously, scientists believed that anoxygenic evolved long before oxygenic photosynthesis, and that the earth's atmosphere contained no oxygen until about 2.4 to 3 billion years ago. However, the new study suggests that the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis may have been as much as a billion years earlier, which means complex life would have been able to evolve earlier too.
"Dr. Cardona wanted to find out when oxygenic photosynthesis originated. Instead of trying to detect oxygen in ancient rocks, which is what had been done previously, he looked deep inside the molecular machines that carry out photosynthesis -- these are complex enzymes called photosystems. Oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis both use an enzyme called Photosystem I. The core of the enzyme looks different in the two types of photosynthesis, and by studying how long ago the genes evolved to be different, Dr. Cardona could work out when oxidative photosynthesis first occurred.
"He found that the differences in the genes may have occurred more than 3.4 billion years ago -- long before oxygen was thought to have first been produced on earth. This is also long before cyanobacteria -- microbes that were thought to be the first organisms to produce oxygen -- existed. This means there must have been predecessors, such as early bacteria, that have since evolved to carry out anoxygenic photosynthesis instead.
"'This is the first time that anyone has tried to time the evolution of the photosystems," said Dr. Cardona. "The result hints towards the possibility that oxygenic photosynthesis, the process that have produced all oxygen on earth, actually started at a very early stage in the evolutionary history of life -- it helps solve one of the big controversies in biology today.'"
Comment: Even if oxygen arrived that early, at 3+ billion years ago, and is necessary for life as we know it, the Cambrian Explosion which relates to higher oxygen levels, is only 540 million years ago. Cyanobacterial production is still very important as a major source of oxygen in the atmosphere.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 27, 2018, 18:57 (2129 days ago) @ David Turell
Studying layers from the Ediacaran/Cambrian interface shows the importance of oxygen levels:
https://phys.org/news/2018-06-mass-extinction-earth-animals.html
"Fossil records tell us that the first macroscopic animals appeared on Earth about 575 million years ago. Twenty-four million years later, the diversity of animals began to mysteriously decline, leading to Earth's first know mass extinction event.
"Scientists have argued for decades over what may have caused this mass extinction, during what is called the "Ediacaran-Cambrian transition." Some think that a steep decline in dissolved oxygen in the ocean was responsible. Others hypothesize that these early animals were progressively replaced by newly evolved animals.
***
"But there is evidence to suggest that during the mass extinction event, there was a loss of dissolved oxygen in Earth's oceans, an effect called "marine anoxia."
***
"To determine the levels of marine anoxia and its effects, the research team used a novel approach of combining geochemical data and the Earth's fossil record to precisely match evolutionary and environmental events.
***
"To overcome this, the team pioneered a new and more efficient approach. Rock samples of marine limestone were collected in the Three Gorges Area (Hubei Province) of the People's Republic of China. This area is known for having some of the best examples in the world from the Ediacaran Period. The rock samples for this study were deposited in a shallow marine environmental between 551 and 541 million years ago, and hold a record of the marine environmental changes that occurred when they were deposited.
"Back at the lab, the team measured the uranium isotope variations in marine limestone and then then integrated the uranium isotope data and paleontological data from the same suite of rocks. Once the data were integrated, the team could clearly see that the episode of extensive marine anoxia coincided with the decline and the subsequent disappearance of early animals.
"'This may have been most severe marine anoxic event in the last 550 million years," says Zhang. "Mathematical modeling of our data suggests that almost the entire seafloor was overlain by anoxic waters during the end of the Ediacaran Period.'"
comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
DAVID’s comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
I’m not sure that this is a valid distinction. Plentiful oxygen may trigger innovation by offering new opportunities, just as environmental factors trigger adaptation. In that sense it could be said to allow and to drive evolution.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
by David Turell , Thursday, June 28, 2018, 17:46 (2128 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
dhw: I’m not sure that this is a valid distinction. Plentiful oxygen may trigger innovation by offering new opportunities, just as environmental factors trigger adaptation. In that sense it could be said to allow and to drive evolution.
Allowing and triggering are two very different concepts. Note, you define trigger as offering to interpret your comment. When I pull the trigger on my pistol I'm not offering the bullet, especially if you are standing in the way.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
DAVID’s comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
dhw: I’m not sure that this is a valid distinction. Plentiful oxygen may trigger innovation by offering new opportunities, just as environmental factors trigger adaptation. In that sense it could be said to allow and to drive evolution.
DAVID: Allowing and triggering are two very different concepts. Note, you define trigger as offering to interpret your comment. When I pull the trigger on my pistol I'm not offering the bullet, especially if you are standing in the way.
Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
by David Turell , Friday, June 29, 2018, 14:49 (2127 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
dhw: I’m not sure that this is a valid distinction. Plentiful oxygen may trigger innovation by offering new opportunities, just as environmental factors trigger adaptation. In that sense it could be said to allow and to drive evolution.
DAVID: Allowing and triggering are two very different concepts. Note, you define trigger as offering to interpret your comment. When I pull the trigger on my pistol I'm not offering the bullet, especially if you are standing in the way.
dhw: Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!
Not so fast. Oxygen is a part of inanimate matter. Evolution is a process in living matter. Innovation can only occur in living matter, with or without oxygen. Anerobic organisms prove the point.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
DAVID’s comment: oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.
dhw: I’m not sure that this is a valid distinction. Plentiful oxygen may trigger innovation by offering new opportunities, just as environmental factors trigger adaptation. In that sense it could be said to allow and to drive evolution.
DAVID: Allowing and triggering are two very different concepts. Note, you define trigger as offering to interpret your comment. When I pull the trigger on my pistol I'm not offering the bullet, especially if you are standing in the way.
dhw: Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!
DAVID: Not so fast. Oxygen is a part of inanimate matter. Evolution is a process in living matter. Innovation can only occur in living matter, with or without oxygen. Anerobic organisms prove the point.
I’m not saying oxygen evolves! I’m saying changes in the environment may trigger evolutionary change - including innovation - in living organisms: climate, sun, water, atmosphere, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, desertification, floods, pollution…and an increased amount of oxygen. Now you seem to be saying that none of these factors have any influence on evolution because they are inanimate!
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
by David Turell , Saturday, June 30, 2018, 14:55 (2126 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!DAVID: Not so fast. Oxygen is a part of inanimate matter. Evolution is a process in living matter. Innovation can only occur in living matter, with or without oxygen. Anerobic organisms prove the point.
dhw: I’m not saying oxygen evolves! I’m saying changes in the environment may trigger evolutionary change - including innovation - in living organisms: climate, sun, water, atmosphere, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, desertification, floods, pollution…and an increased amount of oxygen. Now you seem to be saying that none of these factors have any influence on evolution because they are inanimate!
Whew! How you love to over analyze. Of course there are a multitude of external factors that impinge on living matter, but it only living matter that can ultimately make the decision to evolve. Simple obvious point.
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
dhw: Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!
DAVID: Not so fast. Oxygen is a part of inanimate matter. Evolution is a process in living matter. Innovation can only occur in living matter, with or without oxygen. Anerobic organisms prove the point.
dhw: I’m not saying oxygen evolves! I’m saying changes in the environment may trigger evolutionary change - including innovation - in living organisms: climate, sun, water, atmosphere, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, desertification, floods, pollution…and an increased amount of oxygen. Now you seem to be saying that none of these factors have any influence on evolution because they are inanimate!
DAVID: Whew! How you love to over analyze. Of course there are a multitude of external factors that impinge on living matter, but it only living matter that can ultimately make the decision to evolve. Simple obvious point.
You said that “oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.” I pointed out the “simple obvious point” that an increase in oxygen might very well have been the starting point for evolutionary developments and that environmental change generally is a “driving force” in evolution. But I’m pleased to see you now embracing the concept of living organisms making their own decisions!
New Oxygen research; oxygen is needed
by David Turell , Sunday, July 01, 2018, 15:10 (2125 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Yes, they are different concepts, but that does not mean that the one precludes the other. Some organisms could not exist without the requisite amount of oxygen. The oxygen allows their existence. It is possible that an increased amount of oxygen was the first step in the process of innovation that marks the Cambrian. If so, the oxygen triggered innovation. Trigger: any event that sets a course of action in motion (Encarta). But thank you for not shooting me!
DAVID: Not so fast. Oxygen is a part of inanimate matter. Evolution is a process in living matter. Innovation can only occur in living matter, with or without oxygen. Anerobic organisms prove the point.
dhw: I’m not saying oxygen evolves! I’m saying changes in the environment may trigger evolutionary change - including innovation - in living organisms: climate, sun, water, atmosphere, earthquakes, volcanoes, asteroids, desertification, floods, pollution…and an increased amount of oxygen. Now you seem to be saying that none of these factors have any influence on evolution because they are inanimate!
DAVID: Whew! How you love to over analyze. Of course there are a multitude of external factors that impinge on living matter, but it only living matter that can ultimately make the decision to evolve. Simple obvious point.
dhw: You said that “oxygen when plentiful allows evolution, but does not drive it.” I pointed out the “simple obvious point” that an increase in oxygen might very well have been the starting point for evolutionary developments and that environmental change generally is a “driving force” in evolution. But I’m pleased to see you now embracing the concept of living organisms making their own decisions!
You know full well our concepts of evolutionary change differ.
New Oxygen research;photosynthesis early appearance?
by David Turell , Friday, July 26, 2019, 16:20 (1735 days ago) @ David Turell
A new study of ancient bacteria confirms that photosynthesis may well have appeared earlier than thought:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190725120556.htm
"Structures inside rare bacteria are similar to those that power photosynthesis in plants today, suggesting the process is older than assumed.
***
"Scientists have always assumed that anoxygenic photosynthesis is more 'primitive', and that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved from it. Under this view, anoxygenic photosynthesis emerged about 3.5 billion years ago and oxygenic photosynthesis evolved a billion years later.
"However, by analysing structures inside an ancient type of bacteria, Imperial College London researchers have suggested that a key step in oxygenic photosynthesis may have already been possible a billion years before commonly thought.
***
"The bacteria they studied, Heliobacterium modesticaldum, is found around hot springs, soils and waterlogged fields, where it performs anoxygenic photosynthesis. It is very distantly related to cyanobacteria, the main bacteria that performs oxygenic photosynthesis today.
"It is so distantly related that it last had a 'common ancestor' with cyanobacteria billions of years ago. This means that any traits the two bacteria share are likely to also have been present in the ancient bacteria that gave rise to them both.
"By analysing the structures that both H. modesticaldum and modern cyanobacteria use to perform their different types of photosynthesis, Dr Cardona found striking similarities.
"Both structures contain a site that cyanobacteria and plants exclusively use to split water -- the first crucial step in oxygenic photosynthesis.
"The evolution of cyanobacteria is usually assumed to also be the first appearance of oxygenic photosynthesis, but the fact that H. modesticaldum contains a similar site means that the building blocks for oxygenic photosynthesis are likely much more ancient than thought, as old as photosynthesis itself, and therefore could have arisen much earlier in Earth's history.
"Dr Cardona also suggests that this might mean oxygenic photosynthesis was not the product of a billion years of evolution from anoxygenic photosynthesis, but could have been a trait that evolved much sooner, if not first.
"Dr Cardona said: "This result helps explain in fantastic detail why the systems responsible for photosynthesis and oxygen production are the way they are today- but for it to make sense it requires a change of perspective in the way we view the evolution of photosynthesis.
"'Under the traditional view -- that anoxygenic photosynthesis evolved first and was the only type for about a billion years or more before oxygenic photosynthesis evolved -- these structures should not exist at all in this type of bacteria.'"
Comment: this suggests photosynthesis appeared extremely early and supports my theory that God planned for a heavily oxygenated Earth as part of his pre-planning for evolution's future.
New Oxygen research;photosynthesis early appearance?
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, July 29, 2019, 17:30 (1732 days ago) @ David Turell
How long until evolutionists run out of room to wind the clock back?
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research; photosynthesis early appearance?
by David Turell , Thursday, March 25, 2021, 20:33 (1127 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Photosynthesis may have started earlier than thought:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210324142839.htm
"Researchers find that the earliest bacteria had the tools to perform a crucial step in photosynthesis, changing how we think life evolved on Earth.
***
"Lead researcher Dr Tanai Cardona, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: "We had previously shown that the biological system for performing oxygen-production, known as Photosystem II, was extremely old, but until now we hadn't been able to place it on the timeline of life's history. Now, we know that Photosystem II show patterns of evolution that are usually only attributed to the oldest known enzymes, which were crucial for life itself to evolve."
***
"The new research finds that enzymes capable of performing the key process in oxygenic photosynthesis -- splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen -- could actually have been present in some of the earliest bacteria. The earliest evidence for life on Earth is over 3.4 billion years old and some studies have suggested that the earliest life could well be older than 4.0 billion years old.
***
"On Earth, it took more than a billion years for bacteria to perfect the process leading to the evolution of cyanobacteria, and two billion years more for animals and plants to conquer the land. However, that oxygen production was present at all so early on means in other environments, such as on other planets, the transition to complex life could have taken much less time.
"The team made their discovery by tracing the 'molecular clock' of key photosynthesis proteins responsible for splitting water. This method estimates the rate of evolution of proteins by looking at the time between known evolutionary moments, such as the emergence of different groups of cyanobacteria or land plants, which carry a version of these proteins today. The calculated rate of evolution is then extended back in time, to see when the proteins first evolved.
"They compared the evolution rate of these photosynthesis proteins to that of other key proteins in the evolution of life, including those that form energy storage molecules in the body and those that translate DNA sequences into RNA, which is thought to have originated before the ancestor of all cellular life on Earth. They also compared the rate to events known to have occurred more recently, when life was already varied and cyanobacteria had appeared.
"The photosynthesis proteins showed nearly identical patterns of evolution to the oldest enzymes, stretching far back in time, suggesting they evolved in a similar way.
"First author of the study Thomas Oliver, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: "We have used a technique called Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction to predict the protein sequences of ancestral photosynthetic proteins. These sequences give us information on how the ancestral Photosystem II would have worked and we were able to show that many of the key components required for oxygen evolution in Photosystem II can be traced to the earliest stages in the evolution of the enzyme.'"
Comment: The mechanism of photosynthesis is vital for life to become complex, which occurred after the Great Oxygenation Event. Looking at the early timing of development, it seems to me to be carefully planned and designed by God.
New Oxygen research; volcanos helped early oxygen
by David Turell , Thursday, August 26, 2021, 19:17 (973 days ago) @ David Turell
From a study in Australian rocks:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210826111724.htm
"A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of Earth's early atmosphere, which assumed that most changes in the early atmosphere were controlled by geologic or chemical processes.
***
"In its earliest days, Earth had no oxygen in its atmosphere and few, if any, oxygen-breathing lifeforms. Earth's atmosphere became permanently oxygen-rich about 2.4 billion years ago, likely after an explosion of lifeforms that photosynthesize, transforming carbon dioxide and water into oxygen.
***
"Where there were volcanic emissions, the authors reason, there must have been lava and volcanic ash fields. And those nutrient-rich rocks would have weathered in the wind and rain, releasing phosphorus into rivers that could fertilize nearby coastal areas, allowing oxygen-producing cyanobacteria and other single-celled lifeforms to flourish.
***
"'There are other nutrients that modulate biological activity on short timescales, but phosphorus is the one that is most important on long timescales," Meixnerová said.
"Today, phosphorus is plentiful in biological material and in agricultural fertilizer. But in very ancient times, weathering of volcanic rocks would have been the main source for this scarce resource.
"'During weathering under the Archaean atmosphere, the fresh basaltic rock would have slowly dissolved, releasing the essential macro-nutrient phosphorus into the rivers. That would have fed microbes that were living in the shallow coastal zones and triggered increased biological productivity that would have created, as a byproduct, an oxygen spike," Meixnerová said.
"The precise location of those volcanoes and lava fields is unknown, but large lava fields of about the right age exist in modern-day India, Canada and elsewhere, Buick said.
"'Our study suggests that for these transient whiffs of oxygen, the immediate trigger was an increase in oxygen production, rather than a decrease in oxygen consumption by rocks or other nonliving processes," Buick said. "It's important because the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is fundamental -- it's the biggest driver for the evolution of large, complex life.'" (my bold)
Comment: Note my bold. I don't think oxygen as a driver of evolution. Lots of oxygen allows evolution to advance but the driver is up for debate here. Again this shows how our planet evolved to support life, but remember the origin of life predates oxygen by its appearance with other metabolisms at about 3.5 billion years ago, all previously presented here.
New Oxygen research; new type of photosynthesis
by David Turell , Thursday, February 17, 2022, 19:50 (798 days ago) @ David Turell
A strange new animal in the Gobi desert found with it:
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-scientists-enigmatic-bacterium-gobi-harvests.html
"Eight years ago an unusual bacterium was discovered in Lake Tian E Hu (Swan lake) in the Gobi desert. The new organism belongs to a rare bacterial genus called Gemmatimonas, and it contained bacteriochlorophyll, a pigment related to chlorophylls found in plants. Analysis of its genome by a collaboration of European and British scientists suggested that this novel bacterium conducts an ancient form of photosynthesis.
"Lead Author, Dr. Pu Qian, says, "this structural and functional study has exciting implications because it shows that G. phototrophica has independently evolved its own compact, robust, and highly effective architecture for harvesting and trapping solar energy."
***
"Their work revealed the detailed structure of the photosynthesis complex, which comprises 178 pigments bound to more than 80 protein subunits . The light harvesting subunits are arranged in two concentric rings around the reaction center which converts the absorbed light energy into an electrical charge. "The architecture of the complex is very elegant. A real masterpiece of nature," says Dr. Michal Koblizek from the Inst. of Microbiology, Czech Rep. "It has not only good structural stability, but also great light harvesting efficiency."
"Since the pigments in the outer ring have higher energy than the pigments in the center of the ring the whole arrangement serves as a funnel. The energy absorbed by the pigments at the periphery of the complex is transferred within several picoseconds down the energy gradient to the center of the complex where it is transformed into metabolic energy."
Comment: a beautiful example of design. Please look at the diagram.
New Oxygen research;early electron release in photosynthesis
by David Turell , Monday, April 03, 2023, 15:17 (388 days ago) @ David Turell
Electrons are released much earlier than thought:
https://www.livescience.com/scientists-accidentally-discover-photosynthesis-doesnt-work...
"In the new study, published March 22 in the journal Nature(opens in new tab), researchers used a new technique, known as ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy, to study how photosynthesis works at a timescale of one quadrillionth of a second (0.000000000000001 second) for the first time. The team was initially trying to figure out how quinones — ring-shaped molecules that can steal electrons during chemical processes — impact photosynthesis. But instead, the researchers found that electrons could be released from photosystems much earlier during photosynthesis than scientists previously believed was possible.
***
"Two photosystems are used during photosynthesis: photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII). PSII primarily provide electrons to PSI by taking them from water molecules: PSI then further excites the electrons before releasing them to eventually be given to carbon dioxide to create sugars, via a series of complex steps.
"Past research had suggested that the protein scaffolding in PSI and PSII was very thick, which helped to contain electrons within them before being passed on to where they were needed. But the new ultrafast spectroscopy technique revealed that the protein scaffolding was more "leaky" than expected and that some electrons could escape from the photosystems almost immediately after light was absorbed by the chlorophyll within the photosystems. These electrons could therefore reach their destinations faster than expected.
***
"'Many scientists have tried to extract electrons from an earlier point in photosynthesis, but said it wasn't possible because the energy is so buried in the protein scaffold," Zhang said. "The fact that we can [potentially] steal them at an earlier process is mind-blowing.'"
Comment: Such a complex system cannot happen by chance. Design required.
New Oxygen research; photosynthesis early appearance?
by David Turell , Wednesday, January 03, 2024, 19:43 (113 days ago) @ David Turell
New fossils give a very early date or 1.78 billion years ago:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bacteria-fossils-oldest-machinery-photosynthesis-th...
"Ancient tiny fossils from Australia may carry evidence of great power: the ability to make oxygen through photosynthesis.
"The fossilized bacteria, dating from 1.73 billion to 1.78 billion years ago, are chock-full of structures that resemble those where oxygen-producing photosynthesis takes place in most modern cyanobacteria and in plants. Called thylakoid membranes, the structures are the oldest ever found, researchers report January 3 in Nature. The finding pushes back the evidence of thylakoids in cyanobacteria by 1.2 billion years.
***
"Researchers already had indirect evidence from genetics and chemical studies that cyanobacteria had developed thylakoids by the time these fossilized bacteria lived, says Patricia Sanchez-Baracaldo, an evolutionary microbiologist at the University of Bristol in England. Still, exactly when the structures evolved is hotly debated. So it’s exciting to see fossil evidence of such old thylakoids, says Sanchez-Baracaldo, who was not involved in the work. “Any evidence that you have from that time period is important because the fossil record is really very sparse.”
"Some researchers think that thylakoids may have evolved before the Great Oxidation Event around 2.4 billion years ago. Prior to that event, there were whiffs of oxygen here and there in the atmosphere, but it took the concentrated action of photosynthetic bacteria to send Earth’s oxygen levels skyrocketing. Stacks of thylakoids within cyanobacteria may have multiplied the bacteria’s oxygen production.
"During the period when the now-fossilized cyanobacteria lived, oxygen levels in Earth’s atmosphere had plummeted again to a fraction of today’s levels, Sanchez-Baracaldo says. The fossils hint that there may have been small pockets where oxygen was abundant and could have fostered the evolution of the ancestors of plants and animals."
Comment: if oxygen dependent organism were to arise, oxygen had to come first. The very first organisms on the sea floor appeared in a highly anoxic ocean. The highly complex Cambrian forms could only appear once the oceans were oxygenated.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Monday, March 26, 2018, 20:09 (2222 days ago) @ David Turell
An other study from deep cores in Russia show the rapid increase in sulfates which demonstrates how rapidly oxygen appeared over 2.4 billion years ago:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/primeval-salt-shakes-up-ideas-on-how-the-atm...
"Within the three-kilometer-long, cylindrical core excavated from the Russian basin, Blättler and her colleagues identified a 600-meter-thick deposit of sulfate-rich materials, including halite (aka sodium chloride)—the crystalline progenitor of common table salt. The deposit’s immense size and various trace geochemical markers, Blättler says, both suggest it formed in ocean water rather than in any freshwater source.
***
"The team’s analysis shows this ancient ocean water carried roughly 20 percent as many sulfates as are found in modern seawater. Sulfate concentration in ocean water is a key tracer of how much oxygen is the atmosphere—and how it gets there in the first place.
***
"Three billion years ago Earth's atmosphere lacked the abundant molecular oxygen (O2) that makes air breathable for complex life today. It was not until the Great Oxygenation Event, a mysterious transition that occurred from 2.7 to 2.4 billion years ago, that this gas—crucial to life as we know it—began to substantially accumulate in the atmosphere.
On the way to allowing life to evolve, the rise of oxygen also transformed Earth’s rocks and thus fundamentally altered our planet’s geochemistry. As oxygen in the atmosphere reacted chemically with iron pyrite in rocks, it bonded with the pyrite's sulfur, creating sulfates and other mineral by-products that gradually washed out of the rocks and flowed into to the ocean. This is why the amount of sulfate in a well-preserved salt deposit can be used to establish the oxygen levels in ancient air.
"Previous research with carbon isotopes provided less-direct evidence of atmospheric oxygen, as did work done by Lyons’s team with trace metals and sediments. The new findings, however, provide a stronger connection to the buildup of the life-giving gas in the atmosphere, Lyons says. “Carbon isotopes suggest a lot of oxygen was released,” he notes. “But this sulfate is, in essence, the smoking gun of that process.”
"Scientists are not yet certain how all that oxygen entered the atmosphere in the first place. Some think it may have been a gradual geologic process—possibly a change in the mixtures of gases belched out by volcanoes or the atmosphere’s gradual loss of lightweight hydrogen atoms to outer space. Others prefer the idea of a more sudden mechanism such as a geologic upheaval from planet-scale volcanic eruptions or Earth-shaking asteroid impacts. Life itself may have even have caused a rapid spike, via oxygen released by newly evolved photosynthetic organisms.
"Blättler believes the new results provide a stronger case for a sudden jump than for gradual easing. “The large accumulation of sulfate that we see from our observations favors a much more dramatic transition,” Blättler says. “You have to push the system really hard to accumulate this much sulfate. It’s not a trivial amount.'”
Comment: We know cyanobacteria provided much of the oxygen and this study shows it occurred between 2.7-2.4 billion years ago. It is more evidence how God used bacteria in the controls over evolutionary processes.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
DAVID’s comment: We know cyanobacteria provided much of the oxygen and this study shows it occurred between 2.7-2.4 billion years ago. It is more evidence how God used bacteria in the controls over evolutionary processes.
Let us maintain a degree of scientific objectivity: It is more evidence of the role that bacteria have played in evolutionary processes.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 27, 2018, 14:43 (2221 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: We know cyanobacteria provided much of the oxygen and this study shows it occurred between 2.7-2.4 billion years ago. It is more evidence how God used bacteria in the controls over evolutionary processes.
dhw: Let us maintain a degree of scientific objectivity: It is more evidence of the role that bacteria have played in evolutionary processes.
The role of bacteria is well established. I accept that God is on control.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
DAVID’s comment: We know cyanobacteria provided much of the oxygen and this study shows it occurred between 2.7-2.4 billion years ago. It is more evidence how God used bacteria in the controls over evolutionary processes.
dhw: Let us maintain a degree of scientific objectivity: It is more evidence of the role that bacteria have played in evolutionary processes.
DAVID: The role of bacteria is well established. I accept that God is on control.
“Accept”? You believe God is in control. And yet you can’t make up your mind whether God is or isn’t in control of bad bacteria.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Wednesday, March 28, 2018, 15:12 (2220 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID’s comment: We know cyanobacteria provided much of the oxygen and this study shows it occurred between 2.7-2.4 billion years ago. It is more evidence how God used bacteria in the controls over evolutionary processes.
dhw: Let us maintain a degree of scientific objectivity: It is more evidence of the role that bacteria have played in evolutionary processes.
DAVID: The role of bacteria is well established. I accept that God is on control.
dhw: “Accept”? You believe God is in control. And yet you can’t make up your mind whether God is or isn’t in control of bad bacteria.
Why do I have to have certainty about all of God's activities? That is your problem. You want exactitude about all aspects of how our reality came into existence so you can accept something.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Monday, July 23, 2018, 18:34 (2103 days ago) @ David Turell
Confirmation of timing at 2.7 billion years ago, using sulfur:
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-sulfur-analysis-oxygen.html
"Torres, a Rice assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, and his colleagues report in Nature Geoscience that the balance of sulfur isotope anomalies in Archean rock, a marker of the "great oxygenation event," can also be recognized and measured in the rivers that erode it.
"The researchers sampled water from two of the few places on Earth where Archean rock is exposed in abundance: at the Superior Craton in Canada and in South Africa. They determined that while individual samples of rock may still show an imbalance (the anomalies) of sulfur isotopes, careful analysis of the water that diffuses and transports sulfur from thousands of miles of rock to the ocean shows that the contents are ultimately in alignment with bulk Earth's sulfur signature.
"'Changes in chemistry can tell you something about the environment, and rocks can tell you whether there was oxygen at a particular time," Torres said. "Early in our history, sulfur isotope anomalies are all over the place. Then, roughly 2.7 billion years ago, they disappear and they never come back."
"Sulfur is a marker because four stable isotopes, known by their molecular masses of 32, 33, 34 and 36, can show different behaviors when present in the atmosphere. "Most sulfur is mass 32, but there are small amounts of the other masses," Torres said.
"Ultraviolet light from the sun reacted with sulfur gas and split it into separate compounds with heavier and lighter isotopes. Eventually, these compounds sunk into and remain in rock that formed at the time.
"'But there's this weird thing: Really old rocks have more 33-sulfur in them than we would expect, based on the relative masses," Torres said. "Because 33 is one heavier than 32, we should easily be able to predict their relative abundances using physical chemistry. But, we find that 33 is way more abundant than expected. That's why we call it an anomaly."
"When oxygen appeared, it absorbed ultraviolet light and quenched the sulfur reaction, as seen in the rock. That's all well and good, Torres said, but the theory doesn't account for anomalous sulfur that continued to leach from Archean rock into surface water, be carried to the ocean and then condense into new rock that would also have the anomaly.
"'This recycling of ancient rock was a way to perpetuate the anomaly even after oxygen had arisen," he said. The researchers suspected persistence of the anomaly could blur understanding of the timing of oxygen's rise by as much as 100 million years.
"It didn't, they discovered, but it wasn't easy. The team included researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Petrographic and Geochemical Research in Nancy, France. Members collected scores of samples from the Canadian sites to go along with South African samples they already had and checked their sulfur signature after eliminating the effects of contaminants from sulfurous acid rain, ice-melting road salt and dust from local mining operations. But their final calculations showed a robust balance in 33-sulfur collected by river runoff over a wide area.
"'Our effort allows us to be confident we've got the timing for this great oxidation event, so now we can start to understand the mechanisms," Torres said. "If you think about the whole scope of Earth's history, 100 million years is small, but on the evolutionary timeline of organisms, it matters.'"
Comment: Is life a result of chance processes? Or was this all a design with oxygen appearing at the correct time?
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 02:49 (2103 days ago) @ David Turell
"Torres, a Rice assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, and his colleagues report in Nature Geoscience that the balance of sulfur isotope anomalies in Archean rock, a marker of the "great oxygenation event," can also be recognized and measured in the rivers that erode it.
"The researchers sampled water from two of the few places on Earth where Archean rock is exposed in abundance: at the Superior Craton in Canada and in South Africa. They determined that while individual samples of rock may still show an imbalance (the anomalies) of sulfur isotopes, careful analysis of the water that diffuses and transports sulfur from thousands of miles of rock to the ocean shows that the contents are ultimately in alignment with bulk Earth's sulfur signature.
Hey, just throw out the data that doesn't fit....
"'Changes in chemistry can tell you something about the environment, and rocks can tell you whether there was oxygen at a particular time," Torres said. "Early in our history, sulfur isotope anomalies are all over the place. Then, roughly 2.7 billion years ago, they disappear and they never come back."
"Sulfur is a marker because four stable isotopes, known by their molecular masses of 32, 33, 34 and 36, can show different behaviors when present in the atmosphere. "Most sulfur is mass 32, but there are small amounts of the other masses," Torres said.
"Ultraviolet light from the sun reacted with sulfur gas and split it into separate compounds with heavier and lighter isotopes. Eventually, these compounds sunk into and remain in rock that formed at the time.
"'But there's this weird thing: Really old rocks have more 33-sulfur in them than we would expect, based on the relative masses," Torres said. "Because 33 is one heavier than 32, we should easily be able to predict their relative abundances using physical chemistry. But, we find that 33 is way more abundant than expected. That's why we call it an anomaly."
The geological organization of the elements don't match predictions.
"When oxygen appeared, it absorbed ultraviolet light and quenched the sulfur reaction, as seen in the rock. That's all well and good, Torres said, but the theory doesn't account for anomalous sulfur that continued to leach from Archean rock into surface water, be carried to the ocean and then condense into new rock that would also have the anomaly.
"'This recycling of ancient rock was a way to perpetuate the anomaly even after oxygen had arisen," he said. The researchers suspected persistence of the anomaly could blur understanding of the timing of oxygen's rise by as much as 100 million years.
"It didn't, they discovered, but it wasn't easy. The team included researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Petrographic and Geochemical Research in Nancy, France. Members collected scores of samples from the Canadian sites to go along with South African samples they already had and checked their sulfur signature after eliminating the effects of contaminants from sulfurous acid rain, ice-melting road salt and dust from local mining operations. But their final calculations showed a robust balance in 33-sulfur collected by river runoff over a wide area.
How can they account for those things with any degree of accuracy?
"'Our effort allows us to be confident we've got the timing for this great oxidation event, so now we can start to understand the mechanisms," Torres said. "If you think about the whole scope of Earth's history, 100 million years is small, but on the evolutionary timeline of organisms, it matters.'"
David Comment: Is life a result of chance processes? Or was this all a design with oxygen appearing at the correct time?
I am pretty certain the o2 bloom will be found in conjunction with a global uptick in cover vegetation, if evidence such as that is even possible to find. Grass and Trees in a carbon dioxide rich environment that broke up the global cloud cover left over from the cooling of the earths molten surface temperatures.
--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 24, 2018, 04:47 (2103 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
David: "Torres, a Rice assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, and his colleagues report in Nature Geoscience that the balance of sulfur isotope anomalies in Archean rock, a marker of the "great oxygenation event," can also be recognized and measured in the rivers that erode it.
"The researchers sampled water from two of the few places on Earth where Archean rock is exposed in abundance: at the Superior Craton in Canada and in South Africa. They determined that while individual samples of rock may still show an imbalance (the anomalies) of sulfur isotopes, careful analysis of the water that diffuses and transports sulfur from thousands of miles of rock to the ocean shows that the contents are ultimately in alignment with bulk Earth's sulfur signature.
Tony: Hey, just throw out the data that doesn't fit....
DAvid: "'Changes in chemistry can tell you something about the environment, and rocks can tell you whether there was oxygen at a particular time," Torres said. "Early in our history, sulfur isotope anomalies are all over the place. Then, roughly 2.7 billion years ago, they disappear and they never come back."
"Sulfur is a marker because four stable isotopes, known by their molecular masses of 32, 33, 34 and 36, can show different behaviors when present in the atmosphere. "Most sulfur is mass 32, but there are small amounts of the other masses," Torres said.
"Ultraviolet light from the sun reacted with sulfur gas and split it into separate compounds with heavier and lighter isotopes. Eventually, these compounds sunk into and remain in rock that formed at the time.
"'But there's this weird thing: Really old rocks have more 33-sulfur in them than we would expect, based on the relative masses," Torres said. "Because 33 is one heavier than 32, we should easily be able to predict their relative abundances using physical chemistry. But, we find that 33 is way more abundant than expected. That's why we call it an anomaly."
Tony: The geological organization of the elements don't match predictions.
David: "When oxygen appeared, it absorbed ultraviolet light and quenched the sulfur reaction, as seen in the rock. That's all well and good, Torres said, but the theory doesn't account for anomalous sulfur that continued to leach from Archean rock into surface water, be carried to the ocean and then condense into new rock that would also have the anomaly.
"'This recycling of ancient rock was a way to perpetuate the anomaly even after oxygen had arisen," he said. The researchers suspected persistence of the anomaly could blur understanding of the timing of oxygen's rise by as much as 100 million years.
"It didn't, they discovered, but it wasn't easy. The team included researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Petrographic and Geochemical Research in Nancy, France. Members collected scores of samples from the Canadian sites to go along with South African samples they already had and checked their sulfur signature after eliminating the effects of contaminants from sulfurous acid rain, ice-melting road salt and dust from local mining operations. But their final calculations showed a robust balance in 33-sulfur collected by river runoff over a wide area.
Tony: How can they account for those things with any degree of accuracy?
"'Our effort allows us to be confident we've got the timing for this great oxidation event, so now we can start to understand the mechanisms," Torres said. "If you think about the whole scope of Earth's history, 100 million years is small, but on the evolutionary timeline of organisms, it matters.'"
David Comment: Is life a result of chance processes? Or was this all a design with oxygen appearing at the correct time?
Tony: I am pretty certain the o2 bloom will be found in conjunction with a global uptick in cover vegetation, if evidence such as that is even possible to find. Grass and Trees in a carbon dioxide rich environment that broke up the global cloud cover left over from the cooling of the earths molten surface temperatures.
The plant bloom is supposed to follow the Cambrian by +/- a couple hundred million years later. Darwin could never explain its timing.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 09, 2020, 22:20 (1416 days ago) @ David Turell
The role of volcanic gasses:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-volcanic-earth-mantle-key-atmospheric.html
"Oxygen first accumulated in the Earth's atmosphere about 2.4 billion years ago, during the Great Oxidation Event. A long-standing puzzle has been that geologic clues suggest early bacteria were photosynthesizing and pumping out oxygen hundreds of millions of years before then. Where was it all going?
"Something was holding back oxygen's rise. A new interpretation of rocks billions of years old finds volcanic gases are the likely culprits.
***
"'The data demonstrates that an evolution of the mantle of the Earth could control an evolution of the atmosphere of the Earth, and possibly an evolution of life."
***
"The Archean Eon, when only microbial life was widespread on Earth, was more volcanically active than today. Volcanic eruptions are fed by magma—a mixture of molten and semi-molten rock—as well as gases that escape even when the volcano is not erupting.
"The Archean Eon, when only microbial life was widespread on Earth, was more volcanically active than today.
"Volcanic eruptions are fed by magma—a mixture of molten and semi-molten rock—as well as gases that escape even when the volcano is not erupting.
The new study combines that data with evidence from ancient sedimentary rocks to show a tipping point sometime after 2.5 billion years ago, when oxygen produced by microbes overcame its loss to volcanic gases and began to accumulate in the atmosphere.
"'Basically, the supply of oxidizable volcanic gases was capable of gobbling up photosynthetic oxygen for hundreds of millions of years after photosynthesis evolved," said co-author David Catling, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences. "But as the mantle itself became more oxidized, fewer oxidizable volcanic gases were released. Then oxygen flooded the air when there was no longer enough volcanic gas to mop it all up.'"
Comment: All the processes that evolved the Earth for life seem to have been involved in setting the high level of atmospheric oxygen we have now.
New Oxygen research;great oxygenation event study
by David Turell , Monday, March 01, 2021, 19:37 (1151 days ago) @ David Turell
Another study of the event:
https://phys.org/news/2021-03-great-oxygenation-event.html
"Around 2.5 billion years ago, our planet experienced what was possibly the greatest change in its history: According to the geological record, molecular oxygen suddenly went from nonexistent to becoming freely available everywhere. Evidence for the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) is clearly visible, for example, in banded iron formations containing oxidized iron. The GOE, of course, is what allowed oxygen-using organisms—respirators—and ultimately ourselves, to evolve. But was it indeed a 'great event' in the sense that the change was radical and sudden, or were the organisms alive at the time already using free oxygen, just at lower levels?
***
"The question that has not been resolved, however, is: Did the production of oxygen coincide with the GOE, or did living organisms have access to oxygen even before that event? One side of this debate states that molecular oxygen would not have been available before the GOE, as the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans prior to that time would have ensured that any oxygen released by photosynthesis would have immediately reacted chemically. A second side of the debate, however, suggests that some of the oxygen produced by the photosynthetic microorganisms may have remained free long enough for non-photosynthetic organisms to snap it up for their own use, even before the GOE. Several conjectures in between these two have proposed 'oases,' or short-lived 'waves,' of atmospheric oxygenation.
***
"The phylogenetic trees the researchers ultimately obtained showed a burst of oxygen-based enzyme evolution about 3 billion years ago—something like half a billion years before the GOE. Examining this time frame further, the scientists found that rather than coinciding with the takeover of atmospheric oxygen, this burst dated to the time that bacteria left the oceans and began to colonize the land. A few oxygen-using enzymes could be traced back even farther. If oxygen use had coincided with the GOE, the enzymes that use it would have evolved later, so the findings supported the scenario in which oxygen was already known to many life forms by the time the GOE took place.
"The scenario that Jabłońska and Tawfik propose looks something like this: Oxygen is one of the most chemically reactive elements around. Like one end of a battery, it readily accepts electrons, thus providing extra metabolic power. That makes it extremely useful to many life forms, but also potentially damaging. So photosynthetic organisms as well as other organisms living in their vicinity had to quickly develop ways to efficiently dispose of oxygen. This would account for the emergence of oxygen-utilizing enzymes that would remove molecular oxygen from cells. One microorganism's waste, however, is another's potential source of life. Oxygen's unique reactivity enabled organisms to break down and use "resilient" molecules such as aromatics and lipids, so enzymes that take up and use oxygen likely began evolving soon after. (my bold)
"Tawfik says, "This confirms the hypothesis that oxygen appeared and persisted in the biosphere well before the GOE. It took time to achieve the higher GOE level, but by then oxygen was widely known in the biosphere.'"
Comment: An extremely clear picture of how to use oxygen and handle its dangerous side effects. Note my bold. Of course I believe God managed all of this progress with oxygen.
New Oxygen research; how photosynthesis works
by David Turell , Tuesday, March 02, 2021, 19:37 (1150 days ago) @ David Turell
More explanation of a complex process in plants:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210302094108.htm
"Highly productive crops such as sugarcane, sorghum and maize belong to the type of plants that use the more efficient C4 photosynthetic pathway to transform water, sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugars.
"Scientists have known for a long time that one of key factors that makes C4 photosynthesis more efficient is that they have the capacity to enclose CO2 inside a gas tight compartment in the leaf tissue, making it easier for the inefficient photosynthetic enzyme Rubisco to fix carbon. "The big question we haven't been able to answer until now is what makes this compartment gas tight so CO2 can't escape?" says lead author Dr Florence Danila, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis (CoETP) at the Australian National University (ANU).
"'Our research provides several pieces of evidence about the responsibility of suberin on making the leaf cells of C4 plants, gas tight. Suberin forms a layer that keeps CO2 gas inside a layer of cells called the bundle sheath.
***
"Now, for the first time, we have been able to see clearly under the microscope, the anatomical differences between plants with and without suberin.
***
"Centre Director and co-author of the paper Bob Furbank says that "this is a very exciting discovery, one of the last mechanistic pieces of the C4 photosynthesis puzzle, as Hal Hatch, the discoverer of the C4 pathway noted some time ago."
"'It shows that science discoveries can take a long time to be solved and that the recipe for eureka moments like this are the collaborative work of several experts combined with modern technologies, plus a pinch of serendipity."
Comment: This highly complex system which produces oxygen for the whole Earth has so many interlocking parts it could not have developed by chance. Design required.
Oxygen research; one type cyanobacteria source
by David Turell , Sunday, April 02, 2017, 23:04 (2580 days ago) @ David Turell
Out of 41 apecies of cyanobacteria only one makes oxygen starting 2.3 billion years ago.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170330153934.htm
"Researchers reveal the family tree of the group of microorganisms responsible for 'inventing' the oxygen-producing photosynthesis that lets you breathe. They added the genomes of 41 uncultured microorganisms, which helped to pin down the precise point in the evolution of cyanobacteria at which oxygenic photosynthesis arose.
"The ability to generate oxygen through photosynthesis -- that helpful service performed by plants and algae, making life possible for humans and animals on Earth -- evolved just once, roughly 2.3 billion years ago, in certain types of cyanobacteria. This planet-changing biological invention has never been duplicated, as far as anyone can tell. Instead, according to endosymbiotic theory, all the "green" oxygen-producing organisms (plants and algae) simply subsumed cyanobacteria as organelles in their cells at some point during their evolution.
"'Oxygenic photosynthesis was an evolutionary singularity," says Woodward Fischer, professor of geobiology at Caltech, referring to the process by which certain organisms use the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar for food, with oxygen as a by-product. "Cyanobacteria invented it, and then ultimately become the chloroplasts of algae. Plants are just a group of algae that moved on land."
***
"The 41 species are all types of cyanobacteria but none carry genes for photosynthesis, and therefore they don't produce organic matter, like algae and plants do. Rather, they consume it.
"Fischer and his colleagues found that a single branch of cyanobacteria -- dubbed Oxyphobacteria -- were likely the first and only group to evolve oxygenic photosynthesis.Their closest relatives, Melainabacteria, live in the guts of animals (including humans) among other environments, and do not produce oxygen. And while one might suggest that Melainabacteria simply lost the ability to produce oxygen over time, the next most closely related cyanobacteria after those, described in the paper as Sericytochromatia, also do not engage in oxygenic photosynthesis.
"'This nails down that Oxyphobacteria were really the only ones to ever invent this globe-shaping chemical process," Fischer says.
***
" Cyanobacteria are planetary-scale engineers, capable of splitting water. They invented the most challenging chemistry on the face of the planet. We would love to be able to do their water-splitting chemistry as effortlessly as they do to make fuels, and these guys figured out how to do it two and a half billion years ago," Fischer says."
Comment: One might assume that this mutation, as a one-of, was a direct intervention by God to create the oxygen-rich atmosphere we have today.
Oxygen research; one type cyanobacteria source
QUOTE: "Cyanobacteria are planetary-scale engineers, capable of splitting water. They invented the most challenging chemistry on the face of the planet. We would love to be able to do their water-splitting chemistry as effortlessly as they do to make fuels, and these guys figured out how to do it two and a half billion years ago," Fischer says."
David's comment: One might assume that this mutation, as a one-of, was a direct intervention by God to create the oxygen-rich atmosphere we have today.
Alternatively one might assume, as Fischer does, that these guys figured out how to do it.
Oxygen research; one type cyanobacteria source
by David Turell , Monday, April 03, 2017, 15:37 (2579 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTE: "Cyanobacteria are planetary-scale engineers, capable of splitting water. They invented the most challenging chemistry on the face of the planet. We would love to be able to do their water-splitting chemistry as effortlessly as they do to make fuels, and these guys figured out how to do it two and a half billion years ago," Fischer says."
David's comment: One might assume that this mutation, as a one-of, was a direct intervention by God to create the oxygen-rich atmosphere we have today.
dhw: Alternatively one might assume, as Fischer does, that these guys figured out how to do it.
The chemistry with quantum effects is very complex. not by chance!
Oxygen research; one type cyanobacteria source
QUOTE: "Cyanobacteria are planetary-scale engineers, capable of splitting water. They invented the most challenging chemistry on the face of the planet. We would love to be able to do their water-splitting chemistry as effortlessly as they do to make fuels, and these guys figured out how to do it two and a half billion years ago," Fischer says."
David's comment: One might assume that this mutation, as a one-of, was a direct intervention by God to create the oxygen-rich atmosphere we have today.
dhw: Alternatively one might assume, as Fischer does, that these guys figured out how to do it.
DAVID: The chemistry with quantum effects is very complex. not by chance!
If these guys figured it out for themselves, to quote Fischer, it was not by chance. Maybe your God gave them the intelligence to figure it out. You keep forgetting that some scientists disagree with your firm belief that bacteria have either been preprogrammed by your God or given direct instructions whenever they make a new discovery.
Oxygen research; one type cyanobacteria source
by David Turell , Tuesday, April 04, 2017, 13:37 (2578 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Alternatively one might assume, as Fischer does, that these guys figured out how to do it.
DAVID: The chemistry with quantum effects is very complex. not by chance!
dhw: If these guys figured it out for themselves, to quote Fischer, it was not by chance. Maybe your God gave them the intelligence to figure it out. You keep forgetting that some scientists disagree with your firm belief that bacteria have either been preprogrammed by your God or given direct instructions whenever they make a new discovery.
"Another article quoting Fischer makes the point that Fischer has no idea where the oxygen-making genes came from. He wonders about horizontal gene transfer, but from whom? 'Whom' doesn't exist!
https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/bacteria-s-evolution-sheds-light-on-great-oxygenatio...
"Interestingly these sister taxa seem not to have been able to carry out photosynthesis of any kind, indicating that these taxa split from the known cyanobacteria before the latter evolved the ability to photosynthesise.
"This leads the researchers to conclude the ancestors of modern cyanobacteria gained this capacity by “lateral gene transfer” – the transfer of genetic material between extant organisms, in contrast to vertical gene transfer, which is the process of parents conferring genetic material to offspring.
"Genes for parts of the photosynthetic process must have come from some other microbe, the authors argue, and then these evolved further within the ancestors of Oxyphotobacteria. Remarkably, this indicates that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved in only one branch of the cyanobacterial family.
"This is the first time anyone has been able to establish how the oxyphotobacteria might have evolved. As Fischer says: “It’s a big deal that we can now say with some certainty that lateral transfer was important.”
"It is also a big deal that it is these bacteria responsible for the Great Oxidation Event.
"This explosion in abundance of molecular oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere had profound consequences. The first was the extinction via oxygen-toxicity of many types of anaerobic bacteria. The second was the production of the environment conducive to the evolution of the most recent and familiar of the three domains of life, the eukaryotes, to which all plants, animals and fungi belong.
"Fischer suggests that while it might be tempting to think the genes for oxygenic photosynthesis came, via lateral transfer, from one of the six phyla of extant bacteria capable of non-oxygen producing photosynthesis, “it seems just as possible that whoever gave Cyanobacteria the genes for photosynthesis went extinct long ago'”.
Comment: Darwin theory brings the only solution, "lateral gene transfer". Not allowed to think of God's saltation as a possibility. Note Fischer does not specifically say the bacteria thought it up all by themselves. Figuring out how to do it, in Fischer's words now become LGT, talking out of both sides of his mouth to stick with Darwin.