RE: Evolution of Man
Hi Soapy Sam,
Thanks for getting back to me, seems you’ve attracted another party that likes exploring your thoughts and understanding your viewpoints:).
So mate, your answers made think again, and I have no problem with the ‘flask’ experiment but as you say “nobody knows how life got started” – I also can easily accept the possibility that our planet had been seeded via external events - intelligent or otherwise (whatever that means) – but none of these contribute towards the exclusion of an adherence to a pre-ordained ‘grand design’ (unless I’m still missing something obvious – which frankly is not hard for me to do :D.)
Now I may have got this wrong (see I told ya:))but as I understand it, the “RNA World” theory doesn’t really stand-up I think, for it to truly be the precursor for life's last common ancestor to survive and replicate it would need two properties that it patently does not posses – & the proffered argument to this one criticism is “well maybe it did once” – which is cool – but absolutely no more compelling than “well maybe some intelligence possessing entity called ‘dude’ conceived and started life man.”
So the theory for it to really work has shifted and now claims that there would have to be a related ‘something’ that existed prior to RNA & DNA. But surely you must agree, for this to be true then - we must be running horribly close to actually running out of time – even if we roughly accept the theories of how life evolved in relation to the given and accepted timescales – well for this planet anyway. 😮
And talking of timescales, the Precambrian and then the prolific explosion of life evidenced in Cambrian periods surely pose some issues it terms of how they fit the “gradual evolution of life” theory don’t they SS? With things like the lack of evidence for the gradual and evolving creation of say the trilobite’s eye, got to be one of the earliest ‘eyes’ in fossil records – yet here we have a nigh on perfect lens design - that the world of optical physics still marvels at.
I do accept, as you say, “Once we have a variety of replicators, natural selection takes off.” But isn’t the creation of these “replicators” the crux of the whole problem?:)
Your point about viruses is interesting as I have no knowledge on what you say, so I’m keen to research it but the link to crystalline structures you use is a ‘red herring’ for me at the moment, as the construction information needed is nowhere near as complex or massive as that needed for molecules to create “something that starts to look like life.” With regard to ‘mutation’, ‘sexual selection’ & ‘evolution’ – I see no real difference – just seems like semantics to me the only difference being perceived desirability.
On the “memes” idea, I always feel it has many parallels with and is often analogous to some ancient scriptures as well as the ideas of the “collective conscious” & those of “thought entanglement”.
But, going back to RNA & DNA, if we perceive them as the hardware or firmware (as this is surely as good an analogy as any other) of all life as we know it (the machines)… we are still left with the ‘fantastically proportioned ’ problem of the (quite) enormous amounts of “complex data” that they carry – which for the purposes of creating life – would have to be (and most comfortably suits being) described as the ‘software’… and if we accept that, then we also both accept that software is not spontaneous – it has to be originated by intelligence no? – Yet we still arrive back at the scientific response for this question “where did this software come from” - as being “well we think it just happened” – which again is no more compelling than the creationist answer of – “well we think some ‘dude’ wrote it” – only the creationist answer is starting to look more likely to me – as the more we reduce and explore matter – the more we discover that there is a certain ‘je ne ces quois ’(sp) that seems to forever elude us!
Rgds,
roger
RE: Evolution of Man
Venetian,
Hello pal, and yes you do know me :)(caught me!) Hmmm! you got me at it again... what the hell does make the heart 'beat'? And yes, the shaping and folding involved in the creation of cells is marvellous & must require some very intricate and specific instructions... one slip or slightly misshaped - and the whole shooting match is lost no?
Soapy Sam,
(Sorry to bug you again, but wanted your thoughts) I was reading your comments about old civilisations & I too, (like ‘V’) believe strongly in the existence of advanced civilisations having existed in deep history. Maybe I’m just an old romantic and deeply in love with the idea that the ‘amazing’ stories of the ‘Veda’ embrace some truth :).
My hope being that everything from powered flight complete with manuals of what to bring to eat and how to deal with bird-strike during flight, together with the devestating descriptions of the use of weapons with quite awesome power and terrible consequences – do indeed indicate that these are not merely the musings of (very early) Sci-Fi dreaming Vedic novelists (as that is what they have been written off as by so called ‘experts’) – but in fact genuine expressions of some tangible, amazing and quite advanced technology that had existed.
I can’t talk about the mines that ‘V’ mentions but your request to him reminded me of some stuff that bothers me; and (as you are clearly familiar with both geology and modern rock drilling/cutting technology) wanted to know what your considered opinion is on a couple of things that some consider to be anomalies that exist within this arena.
The ones that intrigue me the most ‘SS’ concern the cutting and shaping of very hard rock or crystal. What are your thoughts on the creation of the Mitchell Hedges Skull? Or the fabrication of the stone vases with long narrow necks and rounded bellies found in Egypt? Described as exceptionally hard...& possessing a “great finesse and elegance of shape, they are of supreme perfection” – what I mean is how was the internal “perfection” created in them?
Or indeed the creation of the granite sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid, what I mean is the explanation given by the “Egyptology” experts is pounding, grinding, rubbing etc…but it’s perfect internal dimensions, angles and beautifully flat surfaces don’t seem to add up to me…
The ‘mistake’ marks on the drill holes and cuts – where ‘bits’ have slipped or the ‘cutting’ blade have patently been retracted – seem to ‘speak’ of something other worldly or ultra modern powered technology don’t you think?
What I mean is the internal cutting of that sarcophagus seems to been done at an exceptionally ‘quick’ rate – and if this is true…. Where indeed are these tools (it ain’t no copper blade with a wooded handle) - or did they in fact invent and employ geopolymer mixtures and actually create and fashion their own granite from scratch?
PS. Sorry that’s not a “couple” is it (could we call it a “baker’s brace” perhaps as it’s only three:D)?
Rgds,
roger
RE: Evolution of Man
Conspiritualist,
Just a few odds and ends from me.
So many years I’ve been reading about the Vedic accounts of flying machines, seeming nuclear warfare, etc. But I’ve never read the originals (albeit in translation which from Sanskrit will be quite a problem for anyone to accurately translate, and a shame, but it’s all I can handle.) Any idea what the original texts are, and if they are translated?
On ancient mines and archaeological anomalies, William C. Corliss has these two compilations – these are the amazon links, and reviewer comments are a bit interesting. On mines and other things:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/091555433X/ref%3Dnosim/kkorg-20/002-3111870-7800837
On other archaeological anomalies:
He has further volumes on geological anomalies that would no doubt interest Songstress. It sure is one wacky universe when you read the many thousands of cases he’s compiled of events or phenomena contrary to prevailing views of what can be. He so far has at least 24 volumes in print, which is 40% of his collected data.
The dialogue about the physical RNA and then the input of ‘life’ reminds me of the Hindu idea of prakriti (which is all matter and energy, which left alone would be just one homogonous ‘something’ devoid of action, shape, or movement from or to anything) and purusha, the non-material Spirit or Life which interjects into prakriti to give it shape, action, and all the diversity. But prakriti cannot itself ‘know’ purusha or even know of it intellectually, and prakriti includes our intellectual minds. The intellect cannot know, conceptualise, or experience the non-material ‘One’. (Yet man does conceptualise of God/Spirit/soul – because this is the purusha in him doing it, not the mere intellect which is too mechanical or logical rather than intuitive.)
I guess what I’m getting at there is that there’s a limit in fact to what science or intellect can ever know or reveal – it’s a limited methodology. As one book on raja yoga has it that I’m reading, a teacher quoted in it says to a pupil that she can never experience or know what he has to show her by intellect i.e. discussing, reading, etc. She’ll HAVE to get into the practices in order to know these things. Then she’ll even be able to work ‘miracles’. But scientists can never demonstrate these miracles because they never take on board the disciplines of the practices.
Put another way, gnosis is a better way of ever knowing something than debate, outer ‘proof’, or prevailing scientific views.
You know, if you look back over the history of science or of human knowledge, say going back 500 years, or even just 100, it’s a tale of ‘facts’ being continuously overturned, and of one theory being overwhelmed by another. The logic you can glean from that is that it’s just incredibly thin ground to stand on to say, “NOW we know the truth. NOW we have the theories which shall never be overturned.” It just doesn’t work like that, not only in my view but historically. To believe in and trust current scientific doctrine is truly incredibly thin ground to me. It never prevails for too long. That’s the one true thing that can be said of it. But to make it work, in most branches of science, scientists ‘believe in’ the current theories as though they were fact – until they are not.
In short, Sam, I agree that we need the scientific method, but I don't remotely have as much faith in what it proclaims to be 'fact' as yourself - though as I've commented before, science itself is not actually saying these things are fact - they are only treated as though they were. The 'facts' are slippery over time and change. That's just basic to the history of science.
It would make a great new thread to list examples or quotes of how science deals with the anomalies. I find some of the case histories absolutely hilarious (the explanations are so tortured and stretched, as well as outrageous).
RE: Evolution of Man
Gents- I'm presently stuck on a drilling rig, so research opportunities are limited. I'll add these names to the list. (It's a long one) of stuff to find out about.
Yes ,we are way off topic, but as it seems to be just us here we'll go on till we're caught.
Roger- RNA on it's own lacks the ability to generate and maintain modern life, but that is not necessarily so for the sort of very simple early life we are talking about. Remember that the arms race had just begun. The competition was not so great. And there wasn't much free oxygen about either, but it's hard to see how DNA could get going without RNA. Graham Cairns-Smith made a strong case for silicates as precursor templates for organic molecules. The involvement of chain silicates in lung cancers is a graphic illustration that complex biological interaction can and does happen with silicate dusts, even in modern animals with all their defences.
I would be the last person to claim we know the answer to how life began. We don't. But what we have established is that purely chemical means are feasible. At no stage of research so far has any evidence turned up for an elan vital, or any need for one.
200 years ago, "God did it"was as good a guess as any. By the 18th century, Darwin (Erasmus) was guessing about all life coming from "A single filament". He knew a lot about animals and a lot about chemistry. Now we are pretty sure that if God did it, he could have used organic chemistry from early on, but that organic chemistry can be bootstrapped by inorganic means. Of course we can always postulate a mysterious outside agency- but that, as we all know, just pushes the question down one level on the stack. Where did the agency come from?
"The Cambrian Explosion" is another "fact" whose time has come- and gone. It looked real back in the 1960s, but we now recognise that there are plenty signs of life from the preCambrian. (Indeed it has been repeatedly subdivided since my student days as a result, in a good example of the changing "facts" David refers to.) Ediacaran fossils are now recognised from all over the world. We still don't know a lot about them, but they were around a long time. The trouble is that as we go further back, the gaps in the record which bother David so much get bigger. Vastly bigger.
Soft bodied creatures don't preserve well. Older rock by definition has been through far more destructive processes than younger. The chance of fossils surviving at all is less. As our techniques for finding them improve we struggle with that, but if we lack a "complete" record of hominid fossils from 6mya to the present, the chance of finding a complete record of precambrian ones is (let's face it)-nil.
The oldest terrestrial rocks (I) know of are over 3.8 billion years old. (Plus or minus a margin of error nearly as long as the entire span of time since the Eocambrian.)
They may well contain fossils. But the problem is akin to the Martian "Biota" found in meteorites. How can we tell the byproducts of alien life from those of chemical processes? This question gets harder as we go further back and "life"and "chemical process" essentially merge.
ORIGINAL: venetian
... if you look back over the history of science or of human knowledge, say going back 500 years, or even just 100, its a tale of facts being continuously overturned, and of one theory being overwhelmed by another. The logic you can glean from that is that its just incredibly thin ground to stand on to say, NOW we know the truth. NOW we have the theories which shall never be overturned. It just doesnt work like that, not only in my view but historically. To believe in and trust current scientific doctrine is truly incredibly thin ground to me. It never prevails for too long. Thats the one true thing that can be said of it. But to make it work, in most branches of science, scientists believe in the current theories as though they were fact until they are not.
In short, Sam, I agree that we need the scientific
RE: Evolution of Man
Hi Sam,
You're not off topic...
For the record, they were still chucking 'the Cambrian explosion' at us when I did my geology degree in 1988. I now know that there has been some new research and thought and it might be so, that life existed in some form prior to the Cambrian Period. Some algae for example, in the pre-cambrian.
So you are on the rigs? I was offered a job as a mudlogger on one of the Texaco rigs, but turned it down! Splat! ha!
Love,
Patsy.
xxxxxx