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.
You're a Hindu?
Not the last time I looked! :-)
p.s. I could pass for Jewish! (LOL silly joke)
Yes first. The first living soul of man. It gives no detail regarding how the flesh that soul was associated with came about.
"1 Tim 2:13 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
Again, formed not evolved.
Formation does not exclude evolution.
" Maybe you will believe Jude.
"Jude 1:14 14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying,...
Would that be the seventh evolved species from the mythical Adam species?
Enoch came after Adam and is the same species.
"Let's try Luke.
Luke 3:38 38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God. THe significance of this is?
"The Old testament maybe?
1 Chron 1:1-4 1 Adam, Sheth, Enosh, 2 Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, 3 Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, 4 Noah,
Nope, the father of Sheth, not an evolutionary organism."
Again, same species.
"Now to the Bio of Adam, the mystical Genesis.
Gen 5:5 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.
The myth of the first man Adam died at 930 years old.
No man lived 930 years on this Earth.
" Now to the question of the mythical Adam's progeny and their intermarrying. He had other sons and daughters. Thats where all those grandkids came from.
Gen 5:4
4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:
The ages given here mean something else, they do not mean the flesh of the person actually lived that long.
BTW, I am not really into football. I think it's a bit tame for me. However, did anyone else catch the that fabulous knitting contest on channel 1024 last night? It sure kept me on the edge of my seat towards the end!
Now, curling, that's a sport a guy can relate to!
Ever seen one of them curling stadiums they have in Canada? Now that's scary.
ROTFLMAO! :-) Not sure which would be more boring for me. Knitting or curling! LOL!
There is also a clear correlation to the oppression and loss of freedom of a society by a theistic form of government. Belief does not necessarily foster good government. Take a look at the Middle Ages as an example.
Thankfully JR must admit that my perspective on these Science threads is in line with his agenda of holding back the Elitism that is a result of power run amok.
I did not follow you argument here.
The first representation of freedom on this planet was brought about by people who took the Holy Bible seriously regarding our rights deriving from an All Powerful God. No man has the right to revoke rights that are outside of their realm of sovereignty.
Not true. Ancient Greeks wrote about freedom and democracy long before Christianity.
A belief in the Theory of Evolution shatters all of these constructs. No one who has study the Bible to the point that they are literate in both the Old and New Testaments can say that the Bible leaves room for the Theory of Evolution to be true.
How does a belief in evolution shatter the concepts of our constitution? I agree with your second sentence. If you take the bible as a scientific document, it most certainly does not agree with the modern theories of the age and workings of the universe.
Those claiming theistic evolution are ignorant of what the Bible says. Or they have chosen to believe that many passages of the Bible are not true. In my opinion these leave them on very shaky ground in their ability to witness regarding the need for Jesus to Die on the Cross to conquer the death that was brought on by sin. Evolution is a theory of death going back billions of years. The Bible teaches death began with a CHOICE by a Free-Will agent created by God.
I do not claim theistic evolution.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ atoned for that Choice of disobedience by Adam. His death was a ransom for sin and its punishment "the wages of sin is death", and His resurrection returns entry into our eternal destiny in heaven with God when we shed this mortal tent as He did on the Cross.
IMHO, the Bible itself undertakes an evolution from beginning to end as the people's understanding of the world around them changed.
I second these sentiments.
As expounded upon by David Frum a few years back in DEAD RIGHT, there are different camps in Conservativism, reflecting the different aspects and facets of the philosophy. Unfortunately, even here at Mr. Jefferson's University (Mr. Libertine, Mr. European Enlightenment, Mr. Proto-Libertarian to the rest of you) the very mention of Conservatism to 96.68% of the people I come into contact with immediately brings up the 'scoffing' arguement invoking inbred, toothless, christian snakehandlers, livin'-in-the-holler..........and THATS just from the Americans!
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