Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum When did life start on Earth?

There is at least a partial answer in the iron mines of Western Australia. ScienceDaily:Iron in Primeval Seas Rusted by Bacteria is a story about the fact that the major iron mines in WA and Africa were produced by the action of oxygen on the iron dissolved in sea water some 4 billion years ago. Anoxygenic phototrophic iron-oxidizing bacteria have been implicated in the formation of the earliest iron ore deposits. The microbes lived without oxygen and converted dissolved iron into the form that was deposited to form the earliest levels of the current iron ore. At a slightly later time cyanobacteria started producing free oxygen which completed the process.

So it appears that there was abundant life on Earth at around 4 billion years ago. That is a pretty fast start up considering that the Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago. And of course there was a period immediately after the formation when there couldn't have been any life because of the almost continuous bombardment of the Earth while the last of the major bits and pieces of rock were cleared out of the Earth's orbit.

Then there was another bombardment around 3.9 billion years ago. It isn't clear whether life managed to survive through this time, but we now know that life is pretty tough, once it gets going. My opinion is that it probably could.

Anyway you look at it though we have evidence of abundant life on Earth back to around 4 billion years ago.

Bill Gill

the article is about how iron oxide deposits were possibly made
and there's no mention as to how old Life on Earth is.

the word Life is found 1 time in the article however, although
when found it only references the History of Life on Earth.



as for the dating methods used , we must consider the validity
of these methods.

this is the part that I found interesting



why wouldn't it be possible for a littoral explosion to occur
as cool sea waters flow down toward the hot magma which releases oxygen from the sea water along with the reduced iron
that travels back to the sea floor?

can sheer heat and pressure crack hydrogen from salt water?

we already know that it can , through a membrane.
in an explosion the sea water would be forced into the surrounding rock , separating the hydrogen from the sea water
adding fuel to the explosion in the form of hydrogen.

also some hydrogen would be separated and trapped in the rock and the now free oxygen would travel to the sea floor with the reduced iron.

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

First thing, I didn't say that the article was about life on Earth. I was making the point that since the presence of the iron deposits required the presence of life. I was using the stated age of the deposits to demonstrate the early appearance of life on Earth.

Well, to back up my statements I have just been running through Google looking for more about the age of the deposits. So far I can't find anything that actually points to the oldest deposits being around 4 billion years old, which is what it said in the link. That kind of casts into doubt my assumption that life must have been available by that time. The oldest times I can find right off hand for life on Earth are in the range of 3.6 to 3.8 billion years ago. So this seems to be a safe time for the formation of life. Of course if the 4 billion years for the first iron deposits is true it pushes life back by another 200 to 400 million years. There is pretty good evidence of life on earth in large quantities by 3.7 billion years ago.

Now then about your other mechanisms for producing oxygen. I wonder if there could be enough water cracked to release the amount of oxygen required to produce the amount of iron ore we have. Keep in mind that as soon as hydrogen came into contact with any oxygen it would start reverting to water. What would cause hydrogen be sequestered in the rocks while the oxygen was being released into the water? At first glance it seems that both would be held or released pretty much the same. Thinking just a little bit further, it is harder to contain hydrogen than it is oxygen. Hydrogen will leak through almost anything, so it would seem that the hydrogen might be released more easily than the oxygen.

Bill Gill

nope , you need a flame or a spark or a fuel cell to produce
water from hydrogen and oxygen.

Im sure there would have been ample oxygen in the oceans water to
make the abundant iron oxide deposits found today , they are still being made on the oceans floors.

I don't put any faith in the dating methods used today.

so when you claim that something is 4 billion years old that carries about as much weight with me as you saying that I should just believe it because it is proven to be correct by other dating methods.

which I also don't put any faith in.

you seem to be saying that you can show that life
was responsible for creating free oxygen



I'm going to say that there was no life on earth when free oxygen was first created.



you show me a 4 billion year old bacteria and explain to me
how it survived so that you could show it to me and then I will
understand your logic if I can gain faith in your dating method.

Sorry Paul. You started off with what seemed to be a reasonable response. Now you have gone off into antiscience, so there is no reasonable response. I will drop this line unless some response comes in that is worth discussing.

Bill Gil

Pressure.

Besides, if what you suggest actually happened, there wouldn't be nice sedimentary layers all over the globe.

sam

Pressure?



water under pressure remains a liquid at higher temperatures.

I'm not certain why you would say that pressure would be a reason
why the below could not occur.



perhaps you would elaborate on this further.

sorry Bill

I didn't realize until lately ( the past few years )that science had assumption as its foundation.

clearly the assumption's about the dating
of things shows that science is not really
what science claims to be.

mostly when it comes to anything written in religious text.

otherwise anything is possible , LOL.

what a putrid joke science has become.

more like a huge Bullshit club.

“...as cool sea waters flow down toward the hot magma...” made me think of an undersea vent, where the pressure is high. But the water still becomes vapor, in either a littoral or benthic setting, rather than splitting into hydrogen and oxygen, doesn’t it?


So Paul, everything is based on assumptions, at some level. Do you reject the utility of Euclidian geometry, just because it is based on assumptions? The assumptions don’t even need to be “true” in some ultimate sense, as long as they produce consistent and useful results—as with Newtonian mechanics. Do you call Newtonian mechanics by some disparaging name (even if the assumptions are just approximations close enough for the purposes of daily life), just because the assumptions aren’t really true?

But lets say you’re correct. What is your point? What does your perspective mean about the past, about evolution, or about now and the future?

~

sam



I would think that at least 99% of the water involved would
become vapor , but I would also think that a portion of that
water would become cracked into hydrogen and oxygen.

water has been cracked using pressure and a porous membrane.

and rocks are porous !

of course this is an assumption that has not become fact so
I have no solid foundation to build upon , only assumption.

sam



The finding of pliable blood vessels, blood cells and proteins in dinosaur bone is consistent with an age of thousands of years for the fossils, not the 65+ million years claimed by the paleontologists.



DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.

425 million years , thats 100 years x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 4 + 25 million more years ...



some scientist seem to be striving to disprove religion at all
cost , most are later found to use non scientific methods or they favor the method that suits their agenda.

so you see the nice sedimentary layers all over the globe arent
all that nice from a evolutionist stand point , the layers
more aggressively support a global flood being the culprit that
caused the sediment layers to be laid down and the inclusion of
anomalies in these layers provide more scientific evidence of a flood than evolution or time being the reason that these layers were laid down as they were.

it basically all boils down to whether science chooses to
arrive at its conclusion's scientifically or chooses to remain
a bullshit club to further their non scientific religious hate agenda.

Paul, maybe in some places the conditions were juxtaposed just so, for some time, so that some water could get turned into oxygen (you'd think it'd be easy to find out about on google); but do you think that process would operate widely, and totally replace another, apparently widespread process, with well-vetted explanations?
===

Y'know....

Isaac Newton wrote "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

Those "giants" are solid foundations because they have been checked and rechecked, and tested and retested, as well as outperforming many proposed alternative foundations. Some alternative mechanisms or processes (which you might think of) may contribute another piece to some foundation or another; but it's not likely that any one "piece" can fundamentally change the foundation, or even more rarely replace the whole foundation.

Paradigm shifts happen, but they don't usually replace the pre-existing view; rather they supplement it. Epigenetic effects don't prove "genetics" wrong, but they show it is more complex than the earliest, most basic observations revealed--understandably. Wouldn't it is easier to change a foundation, or see any flaws, after learning the details of how it fits together and works?

There are a lot of "solid foundations" out there to learn about (climbing the shoulders), and the view is pretty amazing from each. It's an effort to climb, and takes some time, but it's hard to find folks who've done so saying it ain't worth it.

~
p.s.
Paul, of course anybody trying to prove or disprove religion (do you mean "disprove religion" or disprove God?) could not use scientific methods--science is only capable of proving/disproving things about the material world. But what "scientists" are you talking about; could you name one?

sam



This picture is derived from Greek mythology, where the blind giant Orion carried his servant Cedalion on his shoulders.



Its most familiar expression is found in the letters of Isaac Newton:
If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
However, the metaphor was first recorded in the twelfth century and attributed to Bernard of Chartres.

The attribution to Bernard is due to John of Salisbury. In 1159, John wrote in his Metalogicon

Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size.

It is a very shrewd and just remark, and the important and original point was the dwarf could see a little further than the giant. That this was possible was above all due to the cathedral schools with their lack of a well-rooted tradition and their freedom from a clearly defined routine of study.

standing on the shoulders of giants might not allow you to see
what is directly below you , what is supporting you as you see
what you see.









and who checked them?
people being supported by those giants?

from what I have seen when they really are checked many of
those "giants" take a bow and fall.



https://www.youtube.com/results?search_q...ube.Pk04hHP2jNA

heres a few more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_participants_in_the_creation%E2%80%93evolution_controversy

People
Richard Dawkins is a noted atheist and outspoken critic of religion and creationism.

Kenneth R. Miller, a biology professor from Brown University and author and commentator opposed to the intelligent design movement. Miller as an expert witness for the plaintiff in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Robert T. Pennock is a philosopher now working on the Avida digital organism project at Michigan State University where he is an associate professor. The author of many books and articles critical of intelligent design. He testified as an expert witness for the plaintiff in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Barbara Forrest is a professor in philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University. Her testimony as an expert witness for the plaintiff in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was central to the judge's ruling for the plaintiff. She and scientist Paul R. Gross co-authored the book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press 2004).

Brian Alters is an Associate Professor of Education and Sir William Dawson Scholar at McGill University, where he also holds the Tomlinson Chair in Science Education and is both founder and Director of the Evolution Education Research Centre. He has taught science education at both Harvard and McGill Universities, and is regarded as a specialist in evolution education. Alters testified as an expert witness for the plaintiff in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District.

Kevin Padian is a Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Curator of Paleontology, University of California Museum of Paleontology and President of the National Center for Science Education. Padian's area of interest is in vertebrate evolution. He served as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District where his testimony was repeatedly cited in the court's decision.

Michael Ruse is a philosopher of science, working on the philosophy of biology, and is well known for his work on the argument between creationism and evolutionary biology. Ruse was a witness for the plaintiff in McLean v. Arkansas.
The late Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould figure among the well-known scientists who have been outspoken against creationism.

Wesley R. Elsberry hosts The Panda's Thumb blog which sponsors articles and posts by some of the most active debaters of creationists and Intelligent Design advocates.
PZ Myers, a biologist at the University of Minnesota Morris, and an outspoken critic of creationism on his blog Pharyngula.

Sure Paul, I read wikipedia also. Thanks for the review. That does nothing to answer the point that centuries of wisdom goes into building and testing these foundations. But feel free to choose a newly born foundation that you find on some video, or make up on your own, with no risk of discovering it’s probably been thought of before and disproven already.

You seem to seek some "ultimate truth" in these foundations, which they are not designed to provide; and then when somebody shows you they don't provide it, you assume the foundations must be totally worthless.

Those foundations are there because they work, they provide meaningful answers, and they allow us to predict. They will probably be replaced by another perspective someday, but that doesn't mean they are worthless or false from this perspective now.

sam



they are totally worthless , its not really the false foundations that bother me , its the way these false foundations are used that bothers me.

I could care less if some small group of scientist continue
to claim their validity even as they have been found to be incorrect over and over again , but to have the bullshit
taught to students as a means of weakening religion and
faith knowing that the true reason is just that , then
that does bother me.




1 they dont work.

2 they provide wrong answers.

3 they do allow you to predict wrongly.

4 they will be replaced someday , and when they are replaced
they will be seen as the bullshit that they truly are and the bullshitters will be seen as the bullshitters that they truly are.

That's a sweepingly limited perspective, Paul, and it seems informed by resentment towards some, whomever "they truly are." I think I'll keep learning more, rather than adopt an "everything they tell you is wrong" perspective.
~

edit: Paul, I’d hardly call defending science, against a legal move started by creationists, as the sort of attempt to “disprove religion” (or disprove God) that you were speaking of above. Is there any working scientist, just trying for his own reasons, to disprove religion?

sam



no one in particular , only those who seem to insist that
Creation did not happen and that evolution occurred in place
of Creation.




I know with all the proof of evolution ( none ) you wouldn't
think that Creationist would want Creation to be taught also.



do you mean working for himself or working for someone else?

You can choose to see things devisively, or seek to find the truth common to both sides. If you like, we could pursue the latter; but the former is just a game, too much a waste of time, istm.
~

I don't "choose" to see things a certain way , I use my
logic to determine how I see things.



where should we begin , before or after Creation?

should we start with life or without life?

How about the 4th Day of Creation, when enough oxygen had been produced to change the atmosphere from a thick and hazy "reducing" atmosphere, into a thinner and clear "oxidizing" atmosphere--so that the Sun and Moon could finally "shine upon the earth."

~?