dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (04/25/85)
>> [Leif Sorenson] >> No present process is >> observed that could support the idea of spontaneous generation. > [Mike Huybensz] > I explained this in a note I posted just yesterday. Briefly, modern life > such as toads, flies, and bacteria does not arise spontaneously because of > their complexity. This complexity is required to survive in a competitive > world. The hypothetical first life forms that arose spontaneously could > be extremely simple because they could survive in an environment without > oxygen, without predation. What makes you think there was no predation then? (I'm not saying that I don't believe it, I'm just wondering why you say this.) >> Let's look at another evidence of creation. Obviously, if all life was >> created on earth simultaneously, then one would expect to find such evidence >> in the fossils. Descending into the Grand Canyon for example, one moves >> downward past the Mississippian, Devonian, Cambrian, etc. geological stratas >> as they have been tagged. The Cambrian layer is the lowest or last stratum >> of the decending levels that has any fossils in it (although every now and >> then someone will find a random fossil in Pre-Cambrian strata). Interestingly >> enough, all lower strata below the Cambrian have no record of life. And yet >> the Cambrian layer is full of all the major kinds of animals and plants found >> today. The life forms in the Cambrian layer compare with the complexity of >> current life forms. > If all life was created on earth simultaneously, we would expect to find > representatives of all types in all the layers. Why don't we find whale and > other extant species bones in Cambrian layers? > Note also, that if you suggest hydraulic sorting, that the above argument > no longer supports simultaneous creation. This appears to be true at first glance. But if the proposition that organisms were created in discrete groups were true, sorting still wouldn't create a connected phylogeny, unless the groups were *very* small. It's still a good point, though. I like it. -- | Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois --+-- | "Danger signs, a creeping independence" |
rlh@cvl.UUCP (Ralph L. Hartley) (04/26/85)
>> [Mike Huybensz] >> I explained this in a note I posted just yesterday. Briefly, modern life >> such as toads, flies, and bacteria does not arise spontaneously because of >> their complexity. This complexity is required to survive in a competitive >> world. The hypothetical first life forms that arose spontaneously could >> be extremely simple because they could survive in an environment without >> oxygen, without predation. > > [Paul DuBois] > What makes you think there was no predation then? (I'm not saying > that I don't believe it, I'm just wondering why you say this.) And no competition either. Think for a minute. What would prey on the FIRST life form? If there were other life forms around, it wouldn't be the first. Now, the second life form is another matter. The evidence from the universality of the genetic code is that only ONE organism arose spontainiously (the recently discovered variations are irrelivant to this point. They are changes in one or two symbols out of 64). All the life formes that later evolved under the presure of compitition and predation (amongst each other) were dicendents of the first one. Ralph Hartley rlh@cvl
mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (04/29/85)
In article <981@uwmacc.UUCP> dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) writes: > > > [Mike Huybensz] > > The hypothetical first life forms that arose spontaneously could > > be extremely simple because they could survive in an environment without > > oxygen, without predation. > > What makes you think there was no predation then? (I'm not saying > that I don't believe it, I'm just wondering why you say this.) What would have preyed on the first life forms? In my sentence above, I'm referring to decomposing organisms such as bacteria and fungi as potential predators (or competitors) that would eliminate any remaining examples of early life forms. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
rafferty@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA (Colin Rafferty) (05/01/85)
> > > [Mike Huybensz] > > > The hypothetical first life forms that arose spontaneously could > > > be extremely simple because they could survive in an environment without > > > oxygen, without predation. > > > > What makes you think there was no predation then? (I'm not saying > > that I don't believe it, I'm just wondering why you say this.) > > What would have preyed on the first life forms? In my sentence above, I'm > referring to decomposing organisms such as bacteria and fungi as potential > predators (or competitors) that would eliminate any remaining examples of > early life forms. What about non-organic predators? Why do all predators have to be alive? The first examples of pre-life were groups of proteins (or amino acids, excuse me if I got that wrong) that were able to stay together in a reasonable fashion. There were things such as rough seas and non-organic substances that could "prey" on them. A modern example of that would be a person dying because of exposure. There is no life form killing him, just nature herself. ---- Colin Rafferty { Math Department, Carnegie-Mellon Unversity } "According to convention there is a sweet and a bitter, a hot and a cold, and according to convention, there is an order. In truth, there are atoms and a void." -Democritus(400 B.C.)
mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (05/03/85)
In article <252@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> rafferty@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA (Colin Rafferty) writes: > > What would have preyed on the first life forms? In my sentence above, I'm > > referring to decomposing organisms such as bacteria and fungi as potential > > predators (or competitors) that would eliminate any remaining examples of > > early life forms. > > What about non-organic predators? Why do all predators have to be alive? > The first examples of pre-life were groups of proteins (or amino acids, > excuse me if I got that wrong) that were able to stay together in a > reasonable fashion. > > There were things such as rough seas and non-organic substances that could > "prey" on them. A modern example of that would be a person dying because of > exposure. There is no life form killing him, just nature herself. Of course there would be losses to the environment, just as there are today. But a substantial amount of the copmplexity of today's life can be explained (either as evolutionary adaptation or creationist provision) as ways of minimizing predation. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh