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Scientists find evolution of life
EurekAlert ^ | 10/30/03

Posted on 10/30/2003 5:04:39 PM PST by Dales

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- A trio of scientists including a researcher from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has found that humans may owe the relatively mild climate in which their ancestors evolved to tiny marine organisms with shells and skeletons made out of calcium carbonate.

In a paper titled "Carbonate Deposition, Climate Stability and Neoproterozoic Ice Ages" in the Oct. 31 edition of Science, UC Riverside researchers Andy Ridgwell and Martin Kennedy along with LLNL climate scientist Ken Caldeira, discovered that the increased stability in modern climate may be due in part to the evolution of marine plankton living in the open ocean with shells and skeletal material made out of calcium carbonate. They conclude that these marine organisms helped prevent the ice ages of the past few hundred thousand years from turning into a severe global deep freeze.

"The most recent ice ages were mild enough to allow and possibly even promote the evolution of modern humans," Caldeira said. "Without these tiny marine organisms, the ice sheets may have grown to cover the earth, like in the snowball glaciations of the ancient past, and our ancestors might not have survived."

The researchers used a computer model describing the ocean, atmosphere and land surface to look at how atmospheric carbon dioxide would change as a result of glacier growth. They found that, in the distant past, as glaciers started to grow, the oceans would suck the greenhouse gas -- carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere -- making the Earth colder, promoting an even deeper ice age. When marine plankton with carbonate shells and skeletons are added to the model, ocean chemistry is buffered and glacial growth does not cause the ocean to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But in Precambrian times (which lasted up until 544 million years ago), marine organisms in the open ocean did not produce carbonate skeletons -- and ancient rocks from the end of the Precambrian geological age indicate that huge glaciers deposited layers of crushed rock debris thousands of meters thick near the equator. If the land was frozen near the equator, then most of the surface of the planet was likely covered in ice, making Earth look like a giant snowball, the researchers said.

Around 200 million years ago, calcium carbonate organisms became critical to helping prevent the earth from freezing over. When the organisms die, their carbonate shells and skeletons settle to the ocean floor, where some dissolve and some are buried in sediments. These deposits help regulate the chemistry of the ocean and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, in a related study published in Nature on Sept. 25, 2003, Caldeira and LLNL physicist Michael Wickett found that unrestrained release of fossil-fuel carbon dioxide to the atmosphere could threaten extinction for these climate-stabilizing marine organisms.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: crevolist
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To: gore3000
Glenn Morton may be well known at home at dinner time, but whatever he claims is not credible evidence.

Because...?

There are over 40 phyla that arose during the Cambrian -

Really? Please name them, and provide a citation to your source.

none, zero, nada after it.

Oh really? Then you shouldn't have trouble producing a reference to a Cambrian appearance of any of the following phyla: Ctenophora, Platyhelminthes, Aschelminthes, or Bryozoa. And those are just the animals. After you've answered that, we can move on to the plant phyla you claim first appeared somewhere during the Cambrian.

Just because someone has a website does not mean that whatever he writes is evidence of anything.

Or posters to online political forums.

But that's why he includes citations to a few dozens primary sources which support his information. Go look them up if you don't believe Morton himself.

The evidence comes from fossils and the fossils are all in the Cambrian.

Is it truly your contention that there are no preCambrian or postCambrian fossils?

Show me a Cambrian Bryozoan, please.

Further, the evidence keeps piling on against evolution in this regard, a couple of years ago fish with vertebras and eyes were found in the Cambrian.

Yes, so?

Knowing what we know nowadays about genetics it is absolutely impossible for in the short period covered by the Cambrian for all these phyla to have arisen from totally unrelated phyla.

Who claims that they did?

This has not been seen in the entire period after the Cambrian, not a single new phyla has arisen since.

None, eh? Would you like to stick by that, or shall I refute it?

To ask us to believe that in 5-10 million years all these evolved from each other is asking for too much gullibility.

Yes, which is why science does not assert such a thing.

201 posted on 10/30/2003 11:47:21 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: gore3000
Gould contradicted himself as much as Clinton.

Not that I've seen. But feel free to provide actually support for your claim. Be sure to actually quote him instead of "paraphrase" him, and provide a citation to the original source(s).

Fact is though that he fought against Darwinists most of his life

No he didn't, but I look forward to your attempt to support this.

and he insisted that the Cambrian species could not be explained by gradual evolution.

Define "gradual". And quote him on that too, please.

As to his theory, it is just an excuse for lack of evidence and part of the totally unscientific credo of evolutionists that 'lack of evidence is not evidence of lack'.

We've given plenty of actual evidence.

Such may be okay in the Art Bell show, but it is not science, never was, never will be.

Which is why evolutionary science does not proceed in the manner you describe.

202 posted on 10/30/2003 11:50:39 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: gore3000
In an ice covered sea, the life we know existed before the Cambrian would have been impossible. Could not have lasted a year.

Why not?

203 posted on 10/30/2003 11:51:06 PM PST by Ichneumon
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Placemarker.
204 posted on 10/31/2003 3:17:31 AM PST by Junior ("Your superior intellects are no match for our puny weapons!")
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To: Semper
Did the creator establish evil, death, disease, sin, etc. Was this done by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, perfect and good supreme being? If so, one of two things must not be true, He must not be all good or He must not be all powerful. Evil appears to be just as powerful as good (plus or minus a little) - and who created evil anyway? If man can exercise free will to choose between two powers, good (God) or evil (the devil) then there are two gods, two forces in the universe, not one as the Bible says. Does that make sense to you? Is it really that simple?

Youre getting into questions of authority. The creator has delegated authority to certain other parties before certain choices were made which constitute treason against Him. Lucifer had authority as the primary archangel before inquity was found in him, and a war of rebellion ensued. He was not satisfied with being second under his Creator. After his removal from the presence of God, he was confined to this plane of existence which we now occupy.

So the question follows, if God is omniscient, and He knew of this rebellion before the first Word was ever spoken, why did he do it? Because He didnt want to be the only One. He found it good to create others like Himself.

Adam was the first of a new creation, a race of beings created in His very image.(The angels were not.) So, again, He gave authority over the earth, or this dimension, or this plane of existence, to Adam. Again, treason, so the authority fell by default to Lucifer, previously second in command under Adam. (Adam was specifically commisioned by God to guard against Lucifer.)

Jesus Christ showed up and restored authority back to God (which He is) and man (which He also is).

So now believers, under His authority, have the supreme authority in the earth. Unfortunately, we are born as natural beings, and we have to go through a process of learning to live as supernatural beings after our conversion. So the world is better, but still not perfect. But at least theres hope. So God is not the author of evil, and yes, Satan, or Lucifer, is indeed the god of this present age. But so are Christians, and there have been a number of us throughout history who really knew it and walked in it.

So, thats the big picture of theology. I didnt include scripture references for brevitys sake. (And my apostrophe key is broken, just so you spelling fascists know.)

205 posted on 10/31/2003 4:10:23 AM PST by ovrtaxt ( http://www.fairtax.org **** Forget ANWR. Drill Israel !)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
the plankton absorb excess to keep the active amount in the atmosphere more nearly steady

Do you mean "the plankton absorb excess which keeps the active amount in the atmosphere more nearly steady"?

The sentence as originally constructed suggests that absorbing the CO2 is somehow a function of the plankton, rather than a marvellous coincidence.

Reason I am asking is that some people believe in the Gaia Hypothesis, that various interworkings of things like plankton, seawater and CO2 operate on some kind of feedback system.

206 posted on 10/31/2003 4:27:29 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: CobaltBlue
However - even if you believe that God created all the Cambrium species - how does that refute the argument that species have evolved since the Cambrium?

It was a pretty good question but asking it so many times was due to a glitch. Still, no reply, which is a pity . . . .

207 posted on 10/31/2003 4:29:29 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Semper
Actually understanding good and evil is quite simple.

"Evil" can only result from free will. Only man can do evil, because only man has free will. Evil is deliberately doing the wrong thing. That which you call "the devil" is a created being who has turned away from God, but created beings can never be equal to God.

The other "ills" that befall living things are part of the greater good. For example, if a crocodile ate your child, you wouldn't like that, but the crocodile needs to eat, so that's not evil. Similarly with disease. You don't like getting West Nile, but it's good for the West Nile virus.

Genetic diseases are part of the process that allows individuals to be different. Without the possibility of an ancephalic child, there is no possibility of Mozart or Michaelangelo. So that's not evil, either.
208 posted on 10/31/2003 4:41:16 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Dales
So what's it gonna be?

Are we going to burn into a cinder or are we going to freeze into a single block of ice?

Apparently we walk a fine line between being and nothingness and the smallest component of this elaborate house of cards can be our undoing.

All of us deserve a gold star on our forehead for having the shear determination and courage to wake up each morning and face the grim uncertainty of existence.

Think I'll buy a bagel and contemplate my navel.

209 posted on 10/31/2003 4:41:40 AM PST by Pietro
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To: CobaltBlue
However - even if you believe that God created all the Cambrium species - how does that refute the argument that species have evolved since the Cambrium?

We can go even further back than that. If God created life the evolutionist assumption that all change is due solely to materialistic forces cannot be sustained.

210 posted on 10/31/2003 4:46:17 AM PST by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: Ichneumon
From the Scientific American article you dismissed out of hand apparently without reading:

I read that garbage and my objection to it has not been refuted - life could not exist in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years if they were covered with ice. The article is therefore nonsense.

As to models, they cannot prove what we do not know because they cannot be tested and cannot take account of influencess which are unknown. Models are only useful as shortcuts for what we already know. Even then they need to be tested in real life.

211 posted on 10/31/2003 4:52:22 AM PST by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: ovrtaxt; Semper
The Catholic version of this is different. There is no coherent account of this in Scripture, it's all scattered about, and the bits and pieces are put together and interpreted differently, so that the Jewish version of what's in the Old Testament isn't the same as the Catholic, which isn't the same as that of the various Protestant churches, which don't agree among themselves (big surprise there).
212 posted on 10/31/2003 4:53:25 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: gore3000
life could not exist in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years if they were covered with ice. The article is therefore nonsense

Bacteria live under the ice in the Antarctic. You know that, right?

213 posted on 10/31/2003 4:58:21 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Ichneumon
As I said, Gould contradicted himself all the time and like all evolutionists spoke about both sides of his mouth. He and Eldredge made up punk-eek because the fossil record - specifically the Cambrian fossil record - totally disproved gradual evolution.
214 posted on 10/31/2003 5:00:52 AM PST by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: Wonder Warthog; DannyTN
I was pleased to see a thread which combined questions of religious belief with questions of belief in Global Warming.

Both an be disputed for lack of evidence and require a certain amount of faith one way or the other.

My tendency, as a student of Pascal's wager, is to err on the side of saftey and say that the benefits of belief with respect to the expenditure required to do so is a much better value than the dangers of disbelief and the consquences of being wrong.
215 posted on 10/31/2003 5:01:30 AM PST by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit (Oil is America`s addiction.)
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To: CobaltBlue
Bacteria live under the ice in the Antarctic. You know that, right?

Not photosynthetic bacteria which we know existed throughout the hundreds of millions of years in question. You need light for photosynthesis. The article is garbage. SciAm has turned into a totally valueless source.

216 posted on 10/31/2003 5:05:55 AM PST by gore3000 ("To say dogs, mice, and humans are all products of slime plus time is a mystery religion.")
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To: gore3000
Yes, photosynthetic bacteria. Light goes through ice.
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/current/event/osu.html
217 posted on 10/31/2003 5:10:58 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: gore3000
More about microbes in Antarctic ice.
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast12mar98_1.htm
http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast03may_1m.htm
218 posted on 10/31/2003 5:14:19 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
"My tendency, as a student of Pascal's wager, is to err on the side of saftey and say that the benefits of belief with respect to the expenditure required to do so is a much better value than the dangers of disbelief and the consquences of being wrong."

Safety?? And what might constitute "safety"??? There is a great deal of evidence that a warmer earth will actually be SAFER (i.e more benign for life) than the current state. See the "Medieval Warm Period", which was significantly warmer than today, and in which the conditions were much more conducive to living things.

The so-called "negative consequences" of global warming are ASSUMPTIONS not backed by evidence.

I tend to worry one heck of a lot more about the "quick switch" into the next (and overdue) Ice Age than about "global warming".

219 posted on 10/31/2003 5:16:11 AM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: Wonder Warthog
You are right, there is no real saying what may happen. But, I can say with certainty that we are well adapted in terms of the location of our farms, our cities and other infrastructure, to the current climate. Thus, changes will have unforseen and costly consequences.

I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America. Your extrapolation to assume that warming will have positive consequences for the entire planet are oh so naive.

My guess is that these consequences will ultimately cost more than it will to switch to non-carbon dioxide emitting forms of energy - not to mention the positive national security implications.

Sorry pal, you are placing a wager that is way to high for my blood.
220 posted on 10/31/2003 5:26:44 AM PST by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit (Oil is America`s addiction.)
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To: Wonder Warthog
You are right, there is no real saying what may happen. But, I can say with certainty that we are well adapted in terms of the location of our farms, our cities and other infrastructure, to the current climate. Thus, changes will have unforseen and costly consequences.

I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America. Your extrapolation to assume that warming will have positive consequences for the entire planet are oh so naive.

My guess is that these consequences will ultimately cost more than it will to switch to non-carbon dioxide emitting forms of energy - not to mention the positive national security implications.

Sorry pal, you are placing a wager that is way to high for my blood.
221 posted on 10/31/2003 5:32:00 AM PST by Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit (Oil is America`s addiction.)
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America.

Actually, there is physical evidence, as well. Tree rings. Ice cores.

222 posted on 10/31/2003 5:47:22 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America.

Actually, there is physical evidence, as well. Tree rings. Ice cores.

223 posted on 10/31/2003 5:47:23 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America.

Actually, there is physical evidence, as well. Tree rings. Ice cores.

224 posted on 10/31/2003 5:47:40 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: CobaltBlue
It . . . is . . . . happening . . . . again!
225 posted on 10/31/2003 5:48:16 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
Sorry about the duplicate posts. Memo to self, only click "send" once.
226 posted on 10/31/2003 5:50:11 AM PST by CobaltBlue
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To: AndrewC
Nice to see you. By the way, one of the words for "a stranger passing through" is "quidam". It took me a long time to find that bit of info, but at one time it was interesting.
227 posted on 10/31/2003 5:50:31 AM PST by js1138
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To: jennyp
Thank you for your reply! I wish you had the luxury of attending the session, but I do understand the priorities. Hugs!
228 posted on 10/31/2003 5:59:27 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: CobaltBlue
Yes, "which keeps" would have been better. The (local to the plankton) absorbing of CO2 does have the side effect of keeping atmospheric concentrations more nearly constant. There is a feedback system, but the feedback can be positive or negative.

229 posted on 10/31/2003 6:09:28 AM PST by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Rocky
So there were glaciers at the equator.

But they all disappeared because of man and production of green house gases.

SUV=BAD

230 posted on 10/31/2003 6:11:21 AM PST by alaskanfan
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To: Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit
"I appreciate you optimism based on shaky middle age records from Europe before they were even aware of the existence of North America."

You display your absolute complete ignorance with this comment. The records of the "Medieval Warming Trend" are NOT from "Middle Age Records"--they are based on scientific measurements from ice cores, pollen samples from sediments, archealogical data (physical measurements on human remains from the period), and the like. These records are far more "science-based" (i.e. based on MEASUREMENTS) than the MODEL-BASED global warming theories.

"Your extrapolation to assume that warming will have positive consequences for the entire planet are oh so naive."

Oh, certain (probably small) areas of the planet will undoubtedly have some negative consequences. So did the Medieval Warm Period (droughts in the desert Southwest, for instance). But, for the most part, the scientific historical record says that the positive effects outweighed the negative effects in geographical extent.

"Sorry pal, you are placing a wager that is way to high for my blood."

So you support the establishment of a global socialist bureaucratic order to "prevent global warming"?? That is what it is really all about, you know.

231 posted on 10/31/2003 6:33:52 AM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: JethroHathAWay
Looks like I missed all the fun......oh well.....hehe
232 posted on 10/31/2003 7:06:33 AM PST by FourtySeven
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To: Physicist
"That's as may be, but science is about discovering how to explain the explainable."

The ideal scientist should have a passionate dispassion about the conculsions of his theories. It is what it is, nothing added or subtracted. As much attention, experimentation, and theory, press, and horn blowing, should be expended to prove life and species as having been spontaneous as has been exhausted on proving it's not.

Some suspect scientists, fair or not, of being members of a good ol boys club more interested in getting stroked by their peers, than rocking the boat by looking in unauthorized and unpopular directions, and certainly taking no risk of being toss'ed from membership in the club.

This leads, fair or not, to the perception that scientists, in limiting the scope and direction of their research out of haughtiness, has placed humankind in a postion of having been robbed of needed accurate information and their dollars being wasted on useless but popular pursutes that have been a circular route back to "we don't know", and, "there appears to have been a sudden spontaneous eruption of species".

233 posted on 10/31/2003 7:38:22 AM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: gore3000
And do not talk to me about chemosynthesis, because the life that existed before the Cambrian was photosynthetic bacteria.

Melanocyrillium, 850-million year old "testate amoeba."

234 posted on 10/31/2003 7:52:46 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: gore3000
So yes, the SciAm article you linked to is shameful for a magazine which claims to be scientific but no longer is now that it is under the editorship of a virulent evolutionist.

I'm probably not old enough to remember when it went downhill, then. I'm only 53.

235 posted on 10/31/2003 7:54:33 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: MissAmericanPie
The ideal scientist should have a passionate dispassion about the conculsions of his theories. It is what it is, nothing added or subtracted.

There's no such thing. Scientists are human too; they just tend to get excited by learning new things. I would say that insatiable curiosity and a keen sense of humor are why they become scientists in the first place.

236 posted on 10/31/2003 8:01:11 AM PST by balrog666 (Humor is a universal language.)
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To: VadeRetro; gore3000
The current (November) issue of SciAm has an article that favors gore's position on introns.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000D9CB2-4F2D-1F7F-82D883414B7F0000

How could a leftwing rag like SciAm publish something that criticizes traditional genetics?
237 posted on 10/31/2003 8:10:10 AM PST by js1138
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To: balrog666
insatiable placemarker
238 posted on 10/31/2003 8:26:36 AM PST by longshadow
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To: js1138
... continued at Scientific American Digital

But here's the proof that they're suppressing the truth like the lying materialist evo scum they are.

239 posted on 10/31/2003 8:31:00 AM PST by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
You're still young placemarker
240 posted on 10/31/2003 8:37:09 AM PST by Ogmios (Since when is 66 senate votes for judicial confirmations constitutional?)
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To: balrog666; MissAmericanPie
The individual scientist is free to be biased, opinionated, speculative, or just plain nuts. The integrity of science does not depend on the integrity of the individual. And everyone is eventually at least partially obsolete.

Nothing new would ever be discovered if scientists didn't speculate. Newton speculated about the behavior of objects in a vacuum, although he had never seen anything approaching a perfect vacuum, nor did he have any way of demonstrating that space was a near vacuum, although he assumed such.
241 posted on 10/31/2003 8:50:50 AM PST by js1138
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To: gore3000
If God created life the evolutionist assumption that all change is due solely to materialistic forces cannot be sustained.

That is not an assumption of evolution. Scientific evidence indicates that all life descended from a common ancestor; the LUCA, or last universal common ancestor. Where the LUCA came from cannot be probed by most of the tools of evolution - for example, you can't do phylogenetic analysis on a single unbranched line. I suppose in principle you could do analysis on the LUCA's genes, but except in a few cases (e.g. ribosomal proteins) that may never be practical.

The LUCA could have been transported to earth from another planet, it could have arisen abiogenetically; or it could have been created by a higher being. Deciding between these possibilities doesn't really impact evolution.

242 posted on 10/31/2003 8:51:24 AM PST by Right Wing Professor (Lord High Executioner to the Court of the Mikado)
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To: balrog666
"There's no such thing. Scientists are human too; they just tend to get excited by learning new things. I would say that insatiable curiosity and a keen sense of humor are why they become scientists in the first place."

A good scientist must be both--passionate in pursuit of new ideas, but dispassionate in his examination of the data "testing" those ideas. And yes, achieving that seemingly contradictory state is hard, indeed.

243 posted on 10/31/2003 9:41:12 AM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: js1138
I'm talking about deliberately restricting their speculations in only one direction, the other direction, being off limits.
244 posted on 10/31/2003 9:49:59 AM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: MissAmericanPie
"I'm talking about deliberately restricting their speculations in only one direction, the other direction, being off limits."

But those aren't "scientists", they are simply the newest category in "the oldest profession".

245 posted on 10/31/2003 9:59:21 AM PST by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel)
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To: All
Amazing.

Four threads up in two days. Over 400 replies made on them.

Not a single abuse report. Not a single 'ping' to the moderators about abuse. Not a single email about abuse.

You know what that tells me?

It tells me that there was never a reason for all the crap that usually goes on in these threads. Good. Let's keep it this way.

246 posted on 10/31/2003 10:43:59 AM PST by Dales
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To: CobaltBlue
That which you call "the devil" is a created being who has turned away from God,

If everything God created was good, as the Bible states, then how could anything He created turn away from Him (which would be bad)? Since He did not create evil, who did? My point is that you can't logically have a world of both good and evil powers created by an "Only Power" which is "Only Good". You have to believe in two powers or gods and that is contrary to monotheism (Christianity).

"Evil" can only result from free will. Only man can do evil

That means evil is a creation of man. So man can create what God did not? Man has the power to rival God? God created man in His image (good), how can the image of good create evil?

247 posted on 10/31/2003 10:59:14 AM PST by Semper
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To: MissAmericanPie
Scientist seldom speculate in the direction of supernatural causes because the fundamental hypothesis of science is that the laws of nature are constant over time. The search for explanations in science is the search for rules that are consistent over time.

Asking a scientist to assume, as a starting point, that an event is the result of a miracle, is simply not going to happen. It isn't the way science works; it isn't what science does.

This doesn't mean that there aren't miracles, and it doesn't mean that all scientists disbelieve in miracles. It simply means that the definition of science is the search for naturalistic explanations.
248 posted on 10/31/2003 11:05:28 AM PST by js1138
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To: Semper
Evil isn't a thing, and it's not a being. It can't be created. It's a state of mind.

A human being who has no mind, like a child, or a severely retarded person, or a severely brain damaged person, cannot do evil. Animals, which are mindless, cannot do evil.

The Rabbis have a hypothetical that they pose to their students. It's a hot night in Jerusalem, and everybody is sleeping outside. A man is sleeping on his roof, and a woman is sleeping in her courtyard. In the middle of the night, he gets an erection while he is sleeping. Coincidentally, a strong wind blows him off the roof, on top of the woman, and without any intention of his own, in a freak accident he penetrates her. When he realizes what is happening, he is horrified, and jumps up and covers himself. Was this rape?

The answer, of course, is no. The man did not have any evil intention - although for his sake, I hope he has a very good lawyer!
249 posted on 10/31/2003 11:09:42 AM PST by CobaltBlue (Is there a lawyer ping list?)
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To: js1138
I don't believe in miracles, I believe in a command of physics, or something beyond physics, beyond quantum mechanics, that we have not attained to yet, but can and will.

I just hate to see the possibilities delayed because of the fear of looking silly studying magic wands, or clues left us by a book that some maintain isn't the oldest, but certainly covers the history of the father and mother of the chinese, along with the rest of us, and the history of the earth and it's earth ages.

I'm saying that science based some of it's studies on alot of mis conceptions and flawed deductions and directions, evolution as an explination for the mutation of species from one animal into another animal for example, carbon dating that might be a flawed measure in some instances. Start fresh, with a fresh mind, from another direction with different set of conceptions to base their studies on using the clues left in the Bible for instance and plugging in what has been provable when it fits and is needed from past scientific studies.

What would happen if science set aside the assumption that creeping things had to have an earlier start than what scripture maintains, as a "yet to be proven". Science certainly set aside alot of things while they maintained that one animal evolved into another, proping up evolution, why can't they do the same for seeing if the bible will save them alot of time and misdirection? I feel very confident that it would and will if it's given the opportunity.

I have never looked at the bible as just a history book, or a book of fables, or moral lessons, to me it's also futuristic in the most exciting way. I have every confidence that mankind will never end and that what he can accomplish has no limits and that we need have no fear of losing the light of the sun, or expanding out into dark nothingness and I know that science will finally come to that realization itself eventually. I just get exasperated at the limits and the pace of science that I feel sometimes is self inflicted.
250 posted on 10/31/2003 11:40:57 AM PST by MissAmericanPie
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