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.
Personally, I suspect liberal Lurkers are astonished by Free Republic. If they come here expecting to see their preconceived notions on full display, they instead will discover that Freepers are very intelligent and the subjects are challenging.
I hate to mention DemocratsUnderground.com - but the first time they noticed the DSL "Freeper Profiles" it created quite a stir. I recall one remark cautioning the other posters over there not to be intimidated. LOLOL!
IMHO, we Christians should approach every debate on this forum (no matter where the thread is located) as an opportunity to witness - not just by our words but also by our conduct:
In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
And [that] they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will. - 2 Timothy 2:24-26
Then would it be wrong to suggest that you may have single handedly created the problem with the o-zone layer?/sarcasm off
It's a mighty strange 'religion' that changes its dogma when new fossils are found, or dna/proteins sequenced.
The reason people like Behe don't get a "peer review" is because those who control such reviews are evolutionists who cannot stand to have anyone challenge their little religion.
Do you have any evidence to support this? Why hasn't someone even *tried*? Especially Dembski, he claims to have solved some major math problem in stats, and also to have discovered a 'law of the conservation of information'. Do you really think that all the reviewers of *math* journals are gunning for him?! On what evidence?
We're talking *math* here, not biology. If he really is being discriminated against, surely he could have a grad student submit it to a journal, or write it up as thesis. Or a retired professor who longer needs grants. Why couldn't someone like Fred Hoyle get it reviewed and published in a reputable journal, assuming it's good enough?
My *guess* remains the same. He knows it's not up to snuff, and that's why it only appears in popular books.
If Behe had submitted his "black box" for an honest review, whether to a journal or not, it would have saved him considerable embarassment.
Anyone, not just scientists, benefits from feedback from experts. Maybe Behe truly thought that all the parts of the humcan clotting cascade are found in all mammals. If he'd run it by a cetologist first, he'd have known better.
To our resident scientists: any thoughts?
You mean because gore3000 was allowed to repeatedly spew vituperation and slander against Jim Robinson, his moderators and this website for the last couple weeks, and to openly cleave to those hostile to Freerepublic and it's members? Nah. I don't see it like that. Jim's a big guy -- sticks and stones and all that. Despite his delusions of grandeur, persecution complex and excessive particularism, gore3000 is a conservative, and JR and the mods generally bend over backwards to give conservatives a second chance. Gore3000 just happened to get a dozen chances, but there's no shame in that. He'll probably even be allowed to return at some point if he can demonstrate that he's gotten a clue.
"The result of these cumulative efforts to investigate the cell – to investigate life at the molecular level – is a loud, clear, piercing cry of "design!" The result is so unambiguous and so significant that it must be ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science. The discovery rivals those of Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schrödinger, Pasteur, and Darwin" (Behe 1996a: 232-233).
How many people have the ego to compare themselves to "Newton and Einstein, Lavoisier and Schrödinger, Pasteur, and Darwin"?
Breathtaking that those close-minded evos don't see the signs of genius here. Shades of Velikovsky!
No evolving there. Notice the word first.
It always amazes me how some evolutionists try to reconcile evolution with the Bible.
There is nothing in the Bible to support evolution and the primary purpose of evolution, beginning with Darwin has been to discredit the Bible.
Evolution is a farce.
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