DAVID: Watch your timing! The BB was 13.7 billion years ago. The sun appeared 5 billion years ago and the formed planets about 4.5 billion years ago. So the 500 million you are tossing about is in Earth age and puts us at 4 billion years ago for the atmosphere discussion. Life definitely apppeared about 3.6 billion years ago, but possibly as early as 3.8 billion years ago. That's as quick as 200 million years to make life from non-life.

Oops! Thank you, David. I did know that, honestly! But as my wife will testify, when I get caught up in these threads, I lose all track of time.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130141855.htm

It appears that 500 million years after the Big Bang (assuming the Big Bang happened), the Earth’s atmosphere was more like it is today than the other scientists thought.

Watch your timing! The BB was 13.7 billion years ago. The sun appeared 5 billion years ago and the formed planets about 4.5 billion years ago. So the 500 million you are tossing about is in Earth age and puts us at 4 billion years ago for the atmosphere discussion. L ife definitely apppeared about 3.6 billion years ago, but possibly as early as 3.8 billion years ago. That's as quick as 200 million years to make life from non-life.

Ah well, life is still fun when you’re stuck on Square One.

I would say square One plus a quarter. Knowing what the air was like is important to the various theories.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130141855.htm

Another sensational discovery which tells us…well, what exactly? “Many scientists studying the origins of life on Earth simply picked the wrong atmosphere.” It appears that 500 million years after the Big Bang (assuming the Big Bang happened), the Earth’s atmosphere was more like it is today than the other scientists thought. Even if the new findings are correct – how many of us are in a position to say? – the atmosphere we have now is “NOT currently understood to be a great starting point for life.” However, this gives more substance to the theory that “perhaps those building blocks for life were not created on Earth, but delivered from elsewhere in the galaxy.” Perhaps. So what the headline calls a “key discovery” in fact tells us absolutely nothing about the ORIGIN of life. “Setting the Stage for Life” doesn’t help much either, because you needn't be a genius to work out that since we have life on this planet, at some time or the other the atmosphere will have allowed life on this planet. Ah well, life is still fun when you’re stuck on Square One.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130141855.htm

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/11/life-dna-cells-science-vents

http://www.science20.com/stars_planets_life/calculating_odds_life_could_begin_chance

Here is a very complete critique from the ID view:

http://www.arn.org/docs/odesign/od171/ribo171.htm

DAVID: Folly, foolishness, futility mixed with a taint of scientific research, or does study of 'conserved' genes paint a real and proper picture of the first organism?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228404.300-life-began-with-a-planetary-megaorga...

Perhaps my questions are stupid, because I’m way out of my depth, but I’m willing to learn!

Your questions are not stupid; the article is so stupid that one wonders why the editors allowed it. It may be possible to make guesses from studying 'conserved' genes, ones that are demonstrated that are from the deep past, but it is assumption piled on assumption. Life began from something much simpler than we see now, and it split into three families, but if it started as a complete cell, that is extremely complex a start judging by the simplest cell we see now.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228404.300-life-began-with-a-planetary-megaorga...

Quote: “Once upon a time, 3 billion years ago, there lived a single organism called LUCA. It was enormous: a mega-organism like none seen since, it filled the planet's oceans before splitting into three and giving birth to the ancestors of all living things on Earth today. This strange picture is emerging from efforts to pin down the last universal common ancestor - not the first life that emerged on Earth but the life form that gave rise to all others.”

As usual, I need help on the science, although I’m reassured by David’s scepticism. Here are some statements I don’t understand – so please put me right.

First, though, a complaint. The headline tells us: LIFE BEGAN WITH A PLANETARY MEGA-ORGANISM, but now we learn that LUCA wasn’t the first life that emerged, so life didn’t begin with the mega-organism. Misleading headline.

“It was around 2.9 billion years ago that LUCA split into the three domains of life: the single-celled bacteria and archaea, and the more complex eukaryotes that gave rise to animals and plants (see timeline). It's hard to know what happened before the split.”

And it must be equally hard to know what the first forms of life actually were, what happened to them, why they didn’t survive, or why they didn’t merge with this extraordinary mega-organism, or even merge to form it (in which case, they would all be LUCAs). What evidence have the researchers provided that bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes didn’t already exist before the birth of the ocean-filling organism? And what evidence have they provided that there ever was such a thing?

“The latest results suggest LUCA was the result of early life's fight to survive, attempts at which turned the ocean into a global genetic swap shop for hundreds of millions of years. Cells struggling to survive on their own exchanged useful parts with each other without competition - effectively creating a global mega-organism.”

What sort of cells were these, if they weren’t the first forms of life? Where did they come from? Life’s early fight….without competition….Then the happy monster splits up and there is competition again. Why would that happen? A big, accidental oops? And why would a “single organism” split into three separate, readymade forms?

Perhaps my questions are stupid, because I’m way out of my depth, but I’m willing to learn!

No more absurd than any other person, including myself, postulating something that they can not explain or prove in order to prove something that they do not fully comprehend.

;>))

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228404.300-life-began-with-a-planetary-megaorga...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111102190028.htm

dhw: What is my non-talking “Volt”?

DAVID: Don't you drive it?

I drive a VW Golf. Ugh, watt a blunder. Or do you have an electric version over there? Ah well, perhaps this will shed new light on the issue.

I drive a Ford crew cab dually. I know Volts and Golfs are driven here. At least I knew your vehicle had a 4-letter name. What a joule of a pun!

I have a great deal of sympathy with this line of thought, but I do feel that it needs refinement and qualification. When scientists draw philosophical conclusions from their findings, they certainly lose objectivity, but that is the nature of belief, and I don’t think you would deny David or Dawkins their right to believe what they want. Your criticism is therefore of those scientists who set out to prove a theory and ignore all the factors that contradict that theory. The history of science is littered with disgraceful examples of material being suppressed, refused publication, or even faked, and there is never any shortage of scientists prepared to bully their way to grants and glory regardless of “truth”. But it is unfair to cast all scientists in the same mould. You have taken evolution as your example. Darwin (an agnostic) considered vast quantities of information before proposing his theory, and was scrupulous in setting out the “difficulties” it had to surmount. Every aspect of it has since undergone intense scrutiny, and in some cases major adjustments. There are still huge gaps in the theory (e.g. the fossil record, the problem of innovation), but the vast majority of scientists do still believe in the basic tenets, not because they are blinded but because those tenets make perfect sense and have been confirmed by observation (e.g. natural selection). I don’t know how many scientists are actively engaged in direct research on the subject, but I don’t think you can expect them now to sit back, put themselves to one side, and let all of the pieces fall into place. Their job is to test which pieces do and which don’t fall into place. Fossils won’t come knocking on their door, and new organs won’t sprout in their back garden. If the theory of common ancestry is wrong and if – let us say – God created every species separately, the gaps will be forever unfilled and may well increasingly undermine people’s belief, but current research (e.g. on genetics and epigenetics) appears to support the idea that organisms themselves do adapt and innovate of their own accord. In any case, much of this research is relevant to far wider fields than that of evolutionary theory. The pursuit of knowledge is ongoing and multifaceted, and in my view the scientific method of active observation and experimentation should not be denigrated because of the failings of individual scientists.

You have still not explained what you mean by “understanding” and “wisdom”. Your method won’t come up with solutions to medical or technological problems, for instance, but it does work wonderfully well in the creative process. Any playwright or novelist will tell you that the characters must do “as THEY see fit, not as you see fit”. You have, however, agreed that you are distinguishing between science and philosophy, and if so, I don’t think you can expect scientists to become philosophers! To each his own.

I had objected to your linking your theism to appreciation of life’s wonders, and you are prepared to withdraw that comment. The rest of your post is clear up to the final remark that Dawkins’ and the Pope’s “appreciation is tied to the material and social, because the proof or disproof of their pet ideas has material and social consequences.” I can’t read their minds, but I honestly don’t think their wonderment is tied to their beliefs. I think they would both continue to admire the complexity of living organisms, the beauty of a sunset, the rhythms and harmonies of a Beethoven symphony, even if their disbelief/belief in God were proved wrong. We may have to agree to disagree on that.

Finally, thank you for your patience in dealing with my nit-picking.

For David: by “unapologetic theist” I assumed Tony meant that he did not feel the need to apologize for or defend his theism (a mixture of both meanings). Nor would I dream of asking him to! My objection was to the link between theism and appreciation, as above, and he has graciously clarified what he really meant.

The statement about being an 'unapologetic theist' was limited in scope to include and describe me personally. It was not meant to exclude anyone particularly from being able to have the same experience. It was merely descriptive of myself and the experience that I have had. -Are you two confusing each other. Apologetic means two different things:defending a religion or admitting to being sorry. Apologetics simply refers to defending religion (usually Christianity).


> What is my non-talking "Volt"?-Don't you drive it?

I am taking this discussion off the ORIGIN OF LIFE; PRE-PLANNING thread for obvious reasons.
> 
> TONY (b_m): Do not confuse knowledge with understanding, my well spoken friend. Knowledge must be actively sought after, science is the pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge could be summed up as a collection of facts and figures pertaining to a subject, and does not in and of itself imply understanding of that data. The pursuit of knowledge can only lead to more knowledge, not understanding. What it does do however, is open the door for understanding to occur, and one might hope that said understanding would eventually lead to wisdom, though apparently that has not happened in humanity yet.
> 
> We are back in the realm of epistemology, which always requires definitions, so perhaps it's foolish of me to continue the discussion without asking what you mean by "understanding" and "wisdom". I suspect, though, that you're thinking of something like awareness of the essence of things, their purpose, their interrelatedness ... the realm of philosophy as opposed to that of science. (I include religion under the heading of philosophy.) Your criticism of scientists, in that case, is presumably that some of them dare to draw philosophical conclusions from their "knowledge", or colour their "knowledge" with their personal philosophy, but by what criteria do you judge their philosophy, their understanding, their wisdom? Dawkins and David both link their science background to their beliefs, and much as I dislike the strident tones of Dawkins' brand of atheism, and much as I respect David's more gentle and more open brand of theism, I wouldn't dream of saying that Dawkins' humanism is any more or any less "wise" than David's faith in a UI. But all this is too vague, and I may have misunderstood the paragraph above.
> -
You answered most of your own questions. Yes, I am contrasting science and philosophy as you have defined it above. My criticism of science is not that they dare draw conclusions, that is something we are all guilty of. My criticism of scientist is that they break their own rules. They are not objective. They have an ideal, a goal, for example evolution, and they expend all of their energy looking for evolution. The problem with this is that it blinds you. You can't see the forest for the trees. All they will ever find is evolution, because that is all they are looking for. Understanding and wisdom comes from sitting back, putting yourself to the side, and letting all of the pieces fall into place as THEY see fit, not as you see fit. (Sorry for personifying data, but you get the idea.) -As for the rest..-I will just withdraw the comment. I am certainly not in any mood to knit-pick every single syllable I type today. If the thrust of my statement has missed its mark, or somehow seems out of place, then simply ignore it. -The statement about being an 'unapologetic theist' was limited in scope to include and describe me personally. It was not meant to exclude anyone particularly from being able to have the same experience. It was merely descriptive of myself and the experience that I have had. -The short version is, I am not an academic. I am not a scientist, a writer, a doctor, a popular apologetic theologian, or in any other position where subscribing to one particular idea or another and having that idea proven or disproven could have material consequences to me, leaving me free to simply appreciate. Yes, there are others from every walk of life who have that same freedom. But, for those that fall into the categories above, there are always material concerns. -If I am wrong about their being a UI, that's ok. If I am right. That's ok too. If I am mistaken about the way a certain thing works, or one of the theories that I subscribe to is proven dead wrong tomorrow, I have no material or social baggage to keep me from simply marveling at it. Nothing to cause me any concern one way or the other. No grants will be lost, no book deals will drop off, no members of my community will shun me for having a heretical opinion contrary to theirs, my career will not end, the last twenty years of my life will not have been spent trying to prove something now proven totally wrong, and in short my life, other than my personal understanding and appreciation will not change one whit.-If God scheduled an interview with Dawkin's, his reputation would be ruined, his book sales would plummet and all of his fellows would treat him as if he had leprosy. If Dawkins could prove definitively that there was no UI, the Pope(and every other apologetic theist) would be in trouble. Their appreciation is tied to the material and social, because the proof or disproof of their pet ideas has material and social consequences. -Is that clearer?