Super Ice Age 'Gave Evolution A Kick-Start'

Independent (UK) ^ | 4-10-2003 | Charles Arthur

[blam]

Super ice age 'gave evolution a kick-start'

By Charles Arthur Technology Editor
10 April 2003

The appearance of the Earth's first multicelled organisms – which ultimately gave rise to humans – may have been triggered by the end of a super ice age in which the planet was a "snowball" for millions of years, scientists say.

The "snowball" theory suggests that about 750 million years ago the Earth was covered with ice up to a kilometre thick, even in what are now the tropics. By comparison, the last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago, glaciers reached only as far south as where New York is today.

Over the next 140 million years the temperature swung between freezing and heatwaves about four times – creating the opportunity for new organisms to evolve as nutrient-rich oceans were uncovered by retreating ice.

Evidence suggests it was only after this "snowball" period that multicelled organisms appeared. The oldest such fossils, called Ediacarans, have been dated to the same time as the "snowball" period ended.

The end of this ice age could have been the ideal opportunity for an explosion of new life, Andy Knoll, a palaeontologist from Harvard University, told New Scientist magazine. At such times, "you don't have to be good to win the game of evolution, you only have to be better than the other players", he said.

[blam]

The Cold Snap That Civilized The World

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[Puppage]

[billorites]

I live in New Hampshire.

We haven't seen grass since before Thanksgiving.

I saw a crocus 10 days ago, but it's under a half-foot of snow tonight.

If we weren't having a decent day in Iraq I'd be out of sorts.

[aimhigh]

...may have been triggered by the end ....

Evolutionary theory number 3,657,....

[blam]

"We haven't seen grass since before Thanksgiving."

I've had to cut mine twice already this year. Ugh!

[Walnut]

I'm from Cape Cod and we picked a daffodil the day before the snow. its soooo depressing. I want heat and I want it now. I can't wait for the ice age to be done with(smile)
We do love NH .

[billorites]

"We do love NH "

And NH loves our 'lil buddies in Massachusetts.

Jimmy Carter and the UN promise to come supervise your elections in 2004.

[Walnut]

No don't say that Not if I can help it

[Finny]

bookmark

[DensaMensa]

Ho hum. Give a monkey (or an evolutionist) a piano and endless time and either may accidently play a piano concerto.

[Dimensio]

You got that right. Creationism is one theory that never changes, even when it is found to run completely contrary to reality.

[f.Christian]

g3 ...

evolution, as I have said many times is ANTI-SCIENCE.

The central point of science is the discovery of causes and effects and materialist evolution denies it. It proposes random events as the engine of the transformation of species.

This is totally unscientific, it is an attack on science which in order to expand human knowledge and human health and living standards needs to find the causes and effects of how our Universe functions.

Randomness answers nothing and leads to no discoveries.

In fact it opposes scientific inquiry and is a philosophical know-nothingism.

That is why evolution has been popular with the masses and virtually ignored by scientists.

It is ... pseudo-science --- for morons.

With a few words such as 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' it seeks to make idiots think they are knowledgeable.

We see the idiocy of evolution and evolutionists daily on these threads. That is why they all repeat the same stock phrases, throw a few links (because they cannot even understand the concepts being discussed), but never give any facts showing their theory to be what they claim it is - the center of science. If it was, they should have no problem doing so. It is not, that's why they cannot.

sop ...

The theory of evolution is just that - a theory.

g3 ...

It may be a theory, but it is not a scientifically supported theory which is what evolutionists claim it to be. Anybody can have a theory about anything. It is whether a theory is valid that is the point. So you have not given any evidence for your side. All you have done is indulge in rhetoric, but you have not shown that evolution is science or have in any way refuted my statement that evolution cannot in fact be science because of its central proposition that 'evolution just happens'.

Such is not science.

539 posted on 03/13/2003 8:59 PM PST by gore3000

[f.Christian]

"Bolshevik monopoly" ...

tyranny (( taliban // jihad )) ---

brainwashing (( conservatism // Truth )) ...

indoctrination (( liberalism // atheism // evolution // communism )) !

[merak]

The "snowball" theory suggests that about 750 million years ago the Earth was covered with ice up to a kilometre thick, even in what are now the tropics. By comparison, the last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago, glaciers reached only as far south as where New York is today.

According to standard theories, the earth and the sun both would have been hotter a billion or so years ago than they are now. You can't have your cake and eat it too in science any more than in other walks of life.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Russian Sage]

So, the theory seems to be that when it got real cold, they snuggled together to keep warm.

Needs a bit more work.

[f.Christian]

Did you get that backwards ... I thought the molecules had spring fever --- break (( topless )) !

[gore3000]

The appearance of the Earth's first multicelled organisms – which ultimately gave rise to humans – may have been triggered by the end of a super ice age in which the planet was a "snowball" for millions of years, scientists say. -article-

Methinks that if the earth had been a snowball up until 750 million years ago, we would long ago have found evidence of it. This looks like a stupid scientist trying to get a little headline on a slow news day.