Posted on 03/05/2012 12:08:48 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
CALGARY — It seems an inglorious beginning, but some scientists are now convinced humanity's origins can be traced to an ancient, flat, fishlike worm.
A team of researchers subjected the 505-million-year-old Burgess shale fossils of Pikaia gracilens to the latest technology and found evidence that could settle a decades-long debate about the primitive species.
Notably, that they had the seeds of a spine.
"We can see and discern the positive location of the notochord and the nerve chord. This was not obvious at all, you needed these techniques to see it," said Jean-Bernard Caron, the curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Caron is the co-author of a study to be published Monday in the British journal, Biological Reviews. The lead author was English paleontologist Simon Conway Morris.
The earliest explorers of the Burgess shale collected specimens of Pikaia in 1911. But the creature was overlooked as an ancestor of the earthworm.
"They had no idea it might be something more important to us then, at first sight," Caron said.
(Excerpt) Read more at vancouversun.com ...
Yes, yes, it’s always something ridiculous. A chimp, a worm, an amoeba.
I know better.
No, you cannot live as you like if your evolutionary success has been underpinned by the formation of stable, successful and inter-dependent, non-parasitic societies, which itself is underpinned by the ethics of reciprocity - to not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
It nevertheless escapes me how expanding our understanding of the physical processes of this world somehow impacts the premise that there is a Creator.
I could never muster up enough faith to believe in evolution. My hat is off to the true believers of that religion. If only more Christians could have that kind of faith....
“Some” scientists are convinced. Probably the same ones that are convinced increased taxes will make the ocean recede.
This thread is begging for a Helen Thomas pic.
Because for some it is “magic” or NOTHING.
Unless God created the world using magical mystical miraculous means - they think there is no need for a God if God used the natural laws HE designed to carry it out.
The Bible says that I am formed “from dust” and “to dust” I will return. I was also formed via cellular processes involving DNA. Was my creation “from dust” less literal than the creation of Adam “from dust”, or is it possible that cellular processes involving DNA were also involved in the creation of Adam?
I wonder how impressed God is with that idea?
According to Creationists the Heavens proclaim that God cannot really be trusted - as he made a universe that consistently looks billions of years old using any of several independently measured features - but he was just foolin’; because it is really only a few thousand years old.
Creationism is very much like “last Thursday-ism”; the idea that the entire world was created with a false memory and a false past just last Thursday.
Great! Even if correct, any measure or estimate using the “true” age of the universe (last Thursday) will lead nowhere and to nothing; while an estimate using the “incorrect” age that the universe only “appears” to be - will be accurate, explain data, and lead to further discovery and application.
So Creationism, even if “correct” is absolutely useless in terms of explaining data, making predictions, and enabling further discovery.
Science is of use.
Creationism is useless.
Probably more impressed than with those who seek to make Him a liar.
Science answers the question "How?" while faith answers the question "Why?". Neither is dispensible.
If I run into such a one, you can be sure I'll let 'em know.
If one assumes natural means were used, that is useful because natural means are understandable, measurable, predictable and replicable.
If one assumes miraculous means were used, that is of no use because they are not understandable, measurable, predictable or replicable.
Right now a star is forming off in the universe. To my mind that star is just as “created by God” as our own - and it makes sense to me that the same means were utilized in both instances.
If one assumes our Sun was formed via gravity and nuclear fusion - then measurements and predictions of other stars formed via that mechanism will be applicable to our own star.
If one assumes that our star was formed via miraculous means - then measurements and predictions of other stars formed via gravity and nuclear fusion should be of no use in predicting the behavior of our Sun.
Parasitic flatworms having external suckers for attaching to a host.
First name Sandra???
"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where 'their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.'"
Have always wondered what that means--maybe the DNA helix?
Yer preachin’ to the choir, amd.
Why I have yet to have my religious faith called into question, my conservative bonafides denied, and told why I am just like HitlerStalinSanger. ;)
The clowns that think-up these pipe dreams are far from being scientists.
The objectivity that is required for science requires something that all of them lack: Honesty.
Satan setting the trap:
>> I have always found this approach to Creationism to be awfully limited, and ultimately dishonoring to the Creator... as though a person is saying “God can only have created the world in the way I understand and believe Him to have done it. Period.” <<
That is the classic strawman that the liars that wish to be considered “scientific” here usually employ. But of course no creationist has ever offered “God can only have created the world in the way I understand and believe Him to have done it. Period.”
What creationists usually state is that YHWH did it in the manner that he stated in his word, and the more than 100 places in his word that clearly state that evolution was not used, are completely accurate.
The lost, dishonest unbelievers that sham as scientists of course reject that emotionally, and hatefully.
Quite a pickle until you realize just who is in control :o)
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