The energy expansions of evolution

Nature ^ | April 28, 2017 | Olivia P. Judson

[LibWhacker]

I particularly liked the little spiral timeline. It's packed with informative little gems: The width of each colored area (corresponding to one of the five sources of energy living things make use of), and consequently the utilization of that source, begins at a distinctive point in the past and the width/utilization gradually increases up to the present day. In other words, once a new energy source is discovered by life, old sources aren't abandoned as new ones are found, but all sources, including the new ones and the old ones, are used to a greater extent than ever. This is going to come as a surprise to the Left's snowflakes who expect once we perfect solar, say, we'll "switch" from fossil fuels. That's not how life (nature) works. I look forward to the day one of the flesh eaters discovers it likes little fleshy snowflakes!

[sparklite2]

Interesting stuff.

[ifinnegan]

Social Darwinist neo paganism, eh? Interesting.

[kvanbrunt2]

bkmk

[boycott]

From the time Earth formed, around 4.56 billion years ago

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wild ass guess.

[Getready]

Uh...pardon me energy epochist author person...what chemical mechanism was involved in harnessing the “new” energy sources? How did the organism prevent oxygen from oxidizing any living systems newly evolved chemistry or new membranes, enzyme systems.Fire,a fast oxidizer, usually disintegrates its substrate.Why would slow oxidation be a source of energy but not a source of disruption? Why do we take antioxidant compounds? Why do we use hydrogen peroxide to disinfect wounds?The uv light from sunlight can easily destroy microorganisms...it is used in sterilizing whole “clean” rooms on a commercial and medical basis...it is very useful as a destroyer of life...not a builder...heat also speeds up reactions and many of the reactions lead to disorder more often than order, on average...thats why we use autoclaves to “heat sterilize” different products.uh...pasteurization,cooking food,ring a bell?...pretty graphics though...

[Louis Foxwell]

He leaves out elan vitale.

[grey_whiskers]

Go to the link ("Nature" hyperlink, not the "this is an exceprt" hyperlink, which is broken) and read the article.

A mixture of pseudo intellectual posturing and showboating.

Using fire as an energy source is cooking (it is "predigestion" which delivers more energy than raw food, and widens the variety of foods eaten), with additional references made to (I'm not kidding!) manufacturing of tools, iron smelting, and the internal combustion engine.

I'm appalled at what passes for research anymore. And this is in Nature.

SJW converged.

[zeestephen]

Thanks, LibWhacker.

I read the entire essay at Nature.

The idea of understanding Evolution from an energy perspective is something I had never clearly thought about before.

[zeestephen]

I think you must have read past important parts of the author’s statements about fire.

Foremost, fire would not be possible on Earth without life, i.e. organic fuels and organic derived oxygen.

Additionally, fire changed the evolution of plant life on Earth, which is the primary energy source for almost all animal life.

Fire has also beneficially altered vast areas of soil, and it affects the mixture of gases in the oceans and the atmosphere.

Before 1800, malnutrition and hypothermia were the second and third leading causes of human death in all previous human history.

So, fire may not be epochal, but it is certainly significant in the history of human survival, and the migration of humans to almost every corner of the Earth.

[knarf]

Nor I, but as I read the brief opener in this thread, I couldn't shake the thought that evolutionists would like to call energy "life", but if they did, it would confuse the narrative of evolution.

[killermosquito]

Evolutionits believe that matter plus energy plus time equals Life. Life requires information which cannot be created using a random mixture of matter and energy over vast periods of time.

[killermosquito]

Evolutionits = Evolutionists

[raygunfan]

EXACTLY

[misanthrope]

Very interesting article.
Thank you for posting.

[grey_whiskers]

That's all irrelevant.

No living organism directly utilizes fire as a primary biological energy source.

Mankind uses fire as a tool.

The clickbait framing presented fire as a biological development.

[BroJoeK]

from the article: "From the time Earth formed, around 4.56 billion years ago..."

boycott: "wild ass guess."

raygunfan: "EXACTLY"

No, not "exactly" and far from "wild ass guess".
In fact there are multiple data sources confirming such estimates, including this partial list of radio-metric materials:

Parent Isotope	Stable Daughter Product	Est. Half-Life
Uranium-238	Lead-206	4.5 billion years
Uranium-235	Lead-207	704 million years
Thorium-232	Lead-208	14.0 billion years
Rubidium-87	Strontium-87	48.8 billion years
Potassium-40	Argon-40	1.25 billion years
Samarium-147	Neodymium-143	106 billion years
Rhenium-187	Osmium-187	41.6 billion years

Dates from these methods are consistent with each other and with dating from other methods, such as comparing mass & luminosity of the Sun with other stars and measuring Calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions in meteorites.

"Statistics for several meteorites that have undergone isochron dating are as follows":[36]

Item	Meteorite	Radiometric material	Age of Earth
1.	St. Severin (ordinary chondrite)	1. Pb-Pb isochron	4.543 ± 0.019 billion years
		2. Sm-Nd isochron	4.55 ± 0.33 billion years
		3. Rb-Sr isochron	4.51 ± 0.15 billion years
		4. Re-Os isochron	4.68 ± 0.15 billion years
2.	Juvinas (basaltic achondrite)	1. Pb-Pb isochron	4.556 ± 0.012 billion years
		2. Pb-Pb isochron	4.540 ± 0.001 billion years
		3. Sm-Nd isochron	4.56 ± 0.08 billion years
		4. Rb-Sr isochron	4.50 ± 0.07 billion years
3.	Allende (carbonaceous chondrite)	1. Pb-Pb isochron	4.553 ± 0.004 billion years
		2. Ar-Ar age spectrum	4.52 ± 0.02 billion years
		3. Ar-Ar age spectrum	4.55 ± 0.03 billion years
		4. Ar-Ar age spectrum	4.56 ± 0.05 billion years

Of course, by its nature science is never 100% irrefutable, but when evidence piles up from many sources, all pointing to consistent conclusions... well, that's as good as science ever gets.

[boycott]

No, not “exactly” and far from “wild ass guess”.

---

So the science is settled? Sort of like global warming?

I know there was a man named Jesus that walked this earth about 2000 years ago and I believe in his death, burial, and resurrection. The age of the earth doesn’t really change that belief.

All that said, the age of the earth is still a wild ass guess. There are way too many potential variables to even guess.

[PeterPrinciple]

have argued that the transition from non-life to life

---

Spontaneous generation has continually been proven wrong. Accepted scientific principle. Life begats life.

But, if you don’t like the results you rename it and call it something else:

In the years following Louis Pasteur’s experiment in 1862, the term “spontaneous generation” fell into increasing disfavor. Experimentalists used a variety of terms for the study of the origin of life from non-living materials. Heterogenesis was applied to once-living materials such as boiled broths, and Henry Charlton Bastian proposed the term archebiosis for life originating from inorganic materials. The two were lumped together as “spontaneous generation”, but disliking the term as sounding too random, Bastian proposed biogenesis. In an 1870 address titled, “Spontaneous Generation”, Thomas Henry Huxley defined biogenesis as life originating from other life and coined the negative of the term, abiogenesis, which was the term that became dominant.[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

[BroJoeK]

boycott: "So the science is settled?
Sort of like global warming?"

By definition, science is never "settled" and always subject to change whenever new data or better ideas require that.
But "global warming" is not even science, it's politics subject to the whims of voters, media masters and super-computer projections.
Nothing "settled" about it.

Age of the Earth calculations are a different matter entirely.
They are real science and confirmed repeatedly by multiple methodologies.
More importantly nothing scientific seriously falsifies such estimates.

Of course, if you wish to assume that all of science is built on false premises, well, that's your prerogative.

boycott: "I know there was a man named Jesus that walked this earth about 2000 years ago and I believe in his death, burial, and resurrection.
The age of the earth doesn’t really change that belief."

Exactly!
No need for me to say more.

boycott: "All that said, the age of the earth is still a wild ass guess.
There are way too many potential variables to even guess."

Except that it's not and there aren't.
In fact, there are multiple -- dozens -- of scientific methodologies which confirm not only the Earth's age, but ages of various rocks & fossils and all are consistent.
Sure, scientists are human and make mistakes, sometimes, but there are no confirmed data points -- none, zero -- which seriously falsify the usual models.

Of course, if you reject science's premises, then it's conclusions necessarily make no sense.
But within it's own internal logic there really isn't that much doubt about long-standing scientific ideas.