Posted on 07/21/2006 8:08:04 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Ten years ago, an international team of scientists reported evidence, in a controversial cover story in the journal Nature, that life on Earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago—400 million years earlier than previously thought. A UCLA professor who was not part of that team and two of the original authors will report in late July that the evidence is stronger than ever.
Craig E. Manning, lead author of the new study and a professor of geology and geochemistry in the UCLA Department of Earth and Space Sciences, painstakingly mapped an area on Akilia
Island in West Greenland where ancient rocks were discovered that may preserve carbon-isotope evidence for life at the time of their formation. Manning and his co-authors—T. Mark Harrison, a UCLA professor of geochemistry, director of UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, and University Professor at the Australian National University; and Stephen J. Mojzsis, assistant professor of geological sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder—conducted new geologic and geochemical analysis on these rocks. Their findings will be reported in the new issue of the American Journal of Science. Harrison and Mojzsis were co-authors on the Nov. 7, 1996, study in Nature.
"This paper shows, with far greater confidence than we ever had before, that these rocks are older than 3.8 billion years," said Manning, who has conducted extensive research in Greenland. "We have shown that the rocks are appropriate for hosting life.
"Everything from the basic geology to the analysis in the original report (in Nature) has been challenged," said Manning, who has expertise in areas that have become central to the debate, including the chemistry of water and the interaction of water and rock. "The chemical evidence for life has been challenged, as have been the minerals to determine whether life was present, whether the rocks have the origin that was originally attributed to them, and whether the rocks were as old as originally envisioned. We didn't go to Greenland in response to the criticism. We went to learn the age of the rocks and to make a better geologic map of the area than any that existed."
At the time of the 1996 Nature paper, there was no reliable map showing the geology of the area, Manning said. So he created one.
"I wandered around that outcrop for two-and-a-half weeks—it's not a big area—with a clipboard, maps, a compass and grid paper. We mapped it like an archeologist would map it," Manning said. "It became clear that these rocks that hosted life line up into two beautiful, coherent layers. They are not randomly distributed, as you might expect if the alternative interpretation is right. I'm very confident about that. I went to Greenland with some skepticism, but I became more and more confident as time went on that the original interpretation was right."
"It could have gone any way," Harrison said. "We could have placed the claim on much firmer footing, or we could have proved ourselves wrong. We found a much more compelling cross-cutting relationship in the rocks than we originally thought."
The new research is a comprehensive response to the critics, Harrison said.
"We've been holding our fire rather than fire away at each criticism in a piecemeal way," he said. "We've gone back to Greenland and done the study from the ground up, with much more data than existed at the time of the original paper. I'm much more confident today than I was in 1996 about the likelihood that this is evidence of early life. This is not 'smoking gun' evidence—we are not seeing fossils—but in every case, the model has come through with flying colors."
Manning agrees, saying he is confident the rocks contain evidence of ancient life, but "it's not a slam dunk."
Why is there doubt? After more than 3.8 billion years, the rocks are severely damaged.
"They have been folded, distorted, heated and compressed so much that their minerals are very different from what they were originally," Harrison said.
Why Akilia Island in Greenland?
"Akilia Island was not the best place to search for evidence of early life; it's simply the place where it turned up," Harrison said.
"There's nothing special about Akilia Island," Manning said. "If life was there, it should have been abundant on Earth 3.83 billion years ago. The only place where that's been tested so far, also in Greenland, has come up positive."
One of the key methods for dating the rocks is by carefully analyzing cross-cutting intrusions made by igneous rocks, Manning said, adding, "Whatever is cross-cut must be older than that which is doing the cross-cutting. We went there to find these cross-cutting relationships, which we did."
The research on the Akilia rocks is federally funded by the National Science Foundation (http://www.nsf.gov/) and the NASA Astrobiology Institute (http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/), a partnership between NASA, 12 major U.S. teams and six international consortia.
Scientists look for evidence of life in ancient rocks like those from Akilia Island by searching for chemical suggestions and isotopic evidence. The very strong isotopic evidence for ancient life found in the 1996 study included a high ratio of one form of carbon—an isotope—to another, which provides a "signature of life," Mojzsis said.
The carbon aggregates in the rocks have a ratio of about 100-to-one of 12C (the most common isotope form of carbon, containing six protons and six neutrons) to 13C (a rarer isotopic form of carbon, containing six protons and seven neutrons). The light carbon, 12C, is more than 3 percent more abundant than scientists would expect to find if life were not present, and 3 percent is very significant, Harrison said.
Carbon inclusions in the rocks were analyzed with UCLA's high-resolution ion microprobe—an instrument that enables scientists to learn the exact composition of samples. The microprobe shoots a beam of ions, or charged atoms, at a sample, releasing from the sample its own ions, which are then analyzed in a mass spectrometer. Scientists can aim the beam of ions at specific microscopic areas of a sample and analyze them.
While critics noted there are ways to make light carbon in the absence of life, Harrison considers those possibilities to be "extremely unlikely," especially in light of another discovery of rocks in Western Greenland, not far away, of the same age, and a similar ratio of 12C to 13C.
The scientists see light carbon inclusions in a phosphate mineral called apatite, which is also the material of which bones and teeth are made.
The form of life the researchers believe they have discovered was probably a simple microorganism, although its actual shape or nature cannot be ascertained, Mojzsis said, because heat and pressure over time have destroyed any original physical structure of the organisms.
Harrison said of UCLA's ion microprobe and the research: "The individual samples are very small, and no other instrument would have been sensitive enough to reveal precisely the isotopic composition and location of the carbon inclusions in the rock."
It is unknown when life first appeared on Earth, which is approximately 4.5 billion years old.
The residue of ancient life that the scientists believe they have found existed prior to the end of the "late heavy bombardment" of the Moon by large objects, a period which ended approximately 3.8 billion years ago, Harrison noted.
"Life is tenacious, and it completely permeates the surface layer of the planet," Mojzsis said. "We find life beneath the deepest ocean, on the highest mountain, in the driest desert and the coldest glacier, and deep down in the crustal rocks and sediments."
An unanswered question is how life originally could have arisen from lifeless molecules and evolved into the already sophisticated isotope fractioning life forms recorded in the Akilia rocks.
The American Journal of Science is the oldest scientific journal in the United States that has been published continuously, dating back to the 19th century. While the journal is being published in late July, it will carry a date of May 2006.
California's largest university, UCLA enrolls approximately 38,000 students per year and offers degrees from the UCLA College of Letters and Science and 11 professional schools in dozens of varied disciplines. UCLA consistently ranks among the top five universities and colleges nationally in total research-and-development spending, receiving more than $820 million a year in competitively awarded federal and state grants and contracts. For every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA, the university generates almost $9 in economic activity, resulting in an annual $6 billion economic impact on the Greater Los Angeles region. The university's health care network treats 450,000 patients per year. UCLA employs more than 27,000 faculty and staff, has more than 350,000 living alumni and has been home to five Nobel Prize recipients.
Yes. The tree of life is a symbol for the grace of eternal life. Part of the punishment for the first sin was to deprive humanity of the grace, which the death and resurection of Christ has restored.
I agree. However, I don't see how the trees symbolize Christ himself. Christ restores the grace of eternal life. He is not, however, the grace itself.
The Heavenly Father does not 'foresee' random events He controls events and gives to some the free will to choose what ever they choose to believe
Well, hold on a minute. If God directly controls all events, then there cannot be free will. For there to be free will, there must be some things that God allows to happen as they may, without his direct intervention. If you allow for this to be true with man's will, why cannot you allow for this to be true with certain events in the history of nature?
Quantum mechanics essentailly proves that randomness is an essential part of the universe. There are certain things, such as the positions of particles, that in principle cannot be determined certainty. If you wish to deny the reality of randomness, you must also reject modern physics in addition to modern biology.
Why non temporal?... You lost me.. How could time be geometric?.. or even spatial?.. Be gentle...
Time is like a cactus.
So are most people... rubbing off the spines can be a lot of work..
Time is geometry - one of four dimensions we perceive: x,y,z and t for time.
And there may be more than one dimension of time (Vafa's F-theory, Wesson's 5D/2T, etc.)
For a neat animated introduction to special relativity: postulates of special relativity
Groovey website with totally strange observations... I liked it..
Since there is no 1st, 2nd or 3rd dimension really... they all exist as one thing or they don't exist at all.. including time..
They are a unit, thingly as a unit, if they exist at all.. The 1st dimension cannot and does not exist by itself.. as the other(2nd,3rd) dimensions do not exist by themselves either.. Whether they exist at all is only observed by an observer.. A Spiritual observer observeing spiritually may observe things totally different.. than as x,y,z and t.. Thats what I mean by the "spiritual dimension"...
Don't know if I have made myself clear, if indeed I ain't crazy to start with.. Something about the speed of light and time offends me on some level.. Its just that the speed of light is just too slow for this x,y,x,t universe.. almost a joke.. Drives me toward another paradigm..
God is a Spirit and we are spirits.. only seems logical that a spiritual universe is at the base of everything.. What we see as humans just might be a spectre(an observation) of what really is.. and is really possible..
Don't mean to be argumentative but what I write here "I sense" and have little words to express it .. Was actually hoping I might fertilize something in your mind.. But you do seem "wired" with the x,y,z,t concept.. I am not.. I can be wrong with no embarrassment..
Hi hosepipe! Naw, not "wired." All x, y, z, and t are, it seems, are the dimensions humans just naturally perceive. This doubtless arises from the structure of our sense of ourselves as "body bound"; or if you will, as dependent on our perceptive apparatus. I don't believe that there are necessarily only four dimensions. In fact, I'm pretty certain there are more, others that we don't directly perceive. String theory expects this, though it imagines that the extra dimensions are spatial. I suspect there may be "extra " dimensions, however, that are temporal....
Here’s a way to imagine an “extra time dimension” that I think you might find interesting, from Wolfhart Pannenberg. He is professor of systematic theology at the University of Munich, and a man of Lutheran confession:
…I assert that eternity is contemporaneous with all time. With that, the concept of eternity itself is described by statements of time. With a musical parable one might speak of eternity as the sounding together of all time in a sole present. Elsewhere I have developed this concept of eternity from the human experience of time, from the relativity of the distinction of past, present, and future corresponding to the relativity of the directions in space. In view of the relativity of the modes of time to the aspect of the human being experiencing time, this resulted in the assumption that all time, if it could be, so to speak, surveyed from a “place” outside the course of time, would have to appear as contemporaneous. This assumption is confirmed by a unique phenomenon of the human experience of time through the experience of an “expanded” present in which not only the punctiliar now but everything on which a position may be taken still or already is considered as present. The concept of eternity as the sounding together of all time … is distinguished from the Greek idea of changeless existence, as founded on Parmenides and Plato. There the idea of eternity is constituted by the contrast to the world of the senses, to time and change. Understood in the sense of the suggestions above, the concept of eternity comprehends all time and everything temporal in itself – a conception of the relationship of time and eternity that goes back to Augustine and is connected to the Israelite understanding of eternity as unlimited duration throughout time.The above is from Pannenberg’s Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993, p. 100f.The worldview of the theory of relativity also can be understood in the sense of a last contemporaneousness of all events that for us are partitioned into a temporal sequence. The four-dimensional continuum of space and time can be represented symbolically – projected as a three-dimensional image – as a cylinder or (under consideration of the progressive expansion of the world) as a cone or sphere. In these images, the entire world process is conceived as a single present. However, it could appear in this manner only from a point of view that would not coincide with any position in the world process.
Eternity so described must not be viewed as the mere sum of that which is scattered in time. Eternity can also be thought of as the production of the content of time which at the same time remains contained in it – in eternity. On this basis the creation of the world would be identical with the creation of the total process of time, and this act could be described as the moment of the independent confronting of the finite moments of the [4D] space-time continuum. Thus creation can be conceived, on the ground of the theory of relativity, as an eternal act that comprises the total process of finite reality, while that which is created, whose existence happens in time, originates and passes away temporally.
My take as well. Thank you both for your comments.
When you attach a descriptive header to a block of text, it's customary to place it on a separate line.
WoW... what an interesting view, thanks... You were correct.. Wolfy resonates on some of my wavelenghs.. Although he explains it as a bit of a "Rube Goldberg" mechanically.. my mind/concept/observation goes more or less that way..
My driving factor is I think.. That with eternal "beings" time would not be such a big deal(being eternal).. The way it is with beings that will "die someday"(humans).. For to them(humans) time is a very important and limiting fact/factor.. and would impact about everything they thought about.. in their ugh!.. algorithms..
If its true (as the bible specifies) that God and literally ALL humans are already eternal.. meaning all live forever "somewhere".. (i.e. heaven/hell).. Then time is and would be a very earthy thing.. at least the importance of "time"..
Thats where I get my love of the word "timing" supplanting "time".. For timing is always important.. The music of the ages demands it.. and the wavelenghs of harmony seek it out.. What good is a stopped metronome..
The God of the bible offers heaven or hell.. I think you know where I'm going with this.. The God that invented heaven and hell for earthly minds to conjecture just might be saying something toward physics, don't you think?.. Since they are both metaphores of something else.. But WHAT?...
Thanks for Dr. Pannenberg's musings.. although not the same as my own, they did relate somewhat... its somehow comforting to observe another Moonbat(me/Wolfy) in operation..
LOLOL!!!! Without "timing," nothing would ever happen!!!! I guess that's because we live in a contingent universe, as they say.... :^)
I'm so glad you enjoyed Dr. Pannenberg's remarks, hosepipe. His Toward a Theology of Nature is a most impressive (not to mention thought-provoking) work -- I highly recommend it.
Hosepipe, your objection to space/time as “real” strikes me as quite similar to the metaphysical naturalists’ objection that consciousness/mind is not “real”.
In both, the object is not corporeal or material. It is not “thingly” in the sense it can be observed by microscope or telescope.
Nevertheless, in both cases, we can observe that the objects actually exist because of the effects manifest on other observable “things”.
On the one hand, we can and do successfully calculate area and cubic feet, launch spacecraft, observe “if then” relationships of motion, force, etc. And on the other hand, we can and do measure that choices are made and things or events result from those choices.
Of course the most blind of the atheists will aver that the mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. An epiphenomenon is a secondary phenomenon which cannot cause anything to happen. So in their view, there is no choice – it is just the physical brain doing its thing. All very deterministic you see – involuntary, no free will, no personal responsibility, etc.
Interestingly, in both cases, the poison pill appears to be causality itself. I say this because causality is what gives us the sense of time passing – A precedes B precedes C. It also is what gives us the sense of mind – awareness precedes choice precedes result.
As I recall, Aristotle explained time with the phenomenon of counting – one, two, three – time is the passing from one event to the next.
Seems to me your objection concerns “what is time in the spiritual realm, the true reality?”
If so, then my first observation would be that both the physical and spiritual realms are creations of God the Father through Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:12-20).
IOW, they are caused by the One who is uncaused. That means there is no sense of causality to God the Father, but there is a sense of causality according to His will – i.e. a sense of time.
Several theological points converge on this observation. For one thing, because God is not Himself caused then therefore what He says, is. He cannot lie or make His command not be so. When He commands, it is done utterly without regard to a sense of time.
Thus when one is received by Jesus, his name is indeed written from the foundation of the world – beyond time. And Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world, He is always slain and always risen, always the lamb and always the lion. And because the Father is not caused, there was no other way to bring Adamic man back home to the spiritual realm. His judgment of “death, death” in Eden is timeless and so must the redemption be timeless.
But getting back to causality…
In this heaven and earth - spiritual and physical realms – causality (or a sense of time passing) is part of God’s will for Creation. But that may not be the case at all for the new heaven and earth (repeating here a post from another thread:
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day [is] with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. – 2 Peter 3:8
The 7000 limit for Adamic man is also a traditional understanding of time in Orthodox Judaism. I have not yet read San Hedrin 97b, but I understand it contains a reference to that very point.
Pseudepigraphral manuscripts explicitly make the connection, most notably Enoch 2 and the epistle of Barnabas 15:1-5.
Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; And God made the works of His hands in six days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it.
Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifyeth a thousand years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end.
And He rested on the seventh day. this He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day. – Barnabas 15:1-5
I said to him: Earth you are, and into the earth whence I took you you shalt go, and I will not ruin you, but send you whence I took you. Then I can again receive you at My second presence.
And I blessed all my creatures visible and invisible. And Adam was five and half hours in paradise. And I blessed the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, on which he rested from all his works.
And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first-created after my work, and that the first seven revolve in the form of the seventh thousand, and that at the beginning of the eighth thousand there should be a time of not-counting, endless, with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours.
And now, Enoch, all that I have told you, all that you have understood, all that you have seen of heavenly things, all that you have seen on earth, and all that I have written in books by my great wisdom, all these things I have devised and created from the uppermost foundation to the lower and to the end, and there is no counsellor nor inheritor to my creations.
I am self-eternal, not made with hands, and without change - Enoch 2 32 and 33:1-3
I heard they found a tag on a rock that said,
"Rock for Sale. 3 day old. Free DVD of Big Bang if 10 rock bought. Guarantee for 4,000,000,000 year."
That must be what I'm talking about here.. I call it the Spiritual Universe.. (needing a term).. In, This Spiritual Universe physical(x,y,z,t) laws are fluid (evidently).. Unless the Spiritual Universe is brought to bear the x,y,z,t universe is not fluid.. Consider... "Speak to that mountain to be removed and cast into the sea and it will happen"... Maybe thats not prose..
I do not think any of us can negotiate these things presently, accurately, but it is fun to try.. Consider another Universe enclosing the one we call "the Universe(x,y,z,t)"... Thats what I'm talking about.. or trying to talk about.. maybe multi-level casuality.. Now would'nt that be something?..
Of a truth we usually end up our discussions on these matters with the semantics.
What you are calling a spiritual dimension, I call the spiritual realm. The term "dimension" has a specific meaning to me.
I know, believe me, I know... Semantics?.. Quite a bugaboo... Only makes me crave for language to become obsolete.. You know where spirits can merge obviating anything so crude as language.. You know... gender is quite a curse too.. The x,y,z,t dimension is one thing the spiritual dimension is quite another.. Ok realm, I can live with that...
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