Posted on 10/16/2003 7:33:43 AM PDT by AntiGuv
The Cambrian Explosion - when life suddenly and rapidly flourished some 550 million years ago - may have an explanation in the reaction of primitive life to some big event.
The explosion is one of the most significant yet least understood periods in the history of life on Earth.
New research suggests it may have occurred because of a complex interaction between components of the biosphere after they had been disturbed by, for example, the break-up of a super-continent or an asteroid impact.
Scientists say the life explosion might just have easily occurred two billion years earlier - or not at all.
Dramatic events
All modern forms of life have their origin in the sudden diversification of organisms that occurred at the end of the so-called Cryptozoic Eon.
Scientists have struggled to explain what might have happened in the previous few hundred million years to trigger such a burst of life.
Certainly, it was a period of history that witnessed the assembly and break-up of two super continents and at least two major glaciation events. Atmospheric oxygen levels were also on the rise.
But what actually caused the Cambrian Explosion is unknown.
Writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Dr Werner von Bloh and colleagues, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, present a new analysis of happened.
They suggest that "feedback" in the biosphere caused it to jump from one stable state without complex life to one that allowed complicated life to proliferate.
"We believe that there was a change in the environment - a slow cooling of the system - that caused positive feedback that allowed the conditions for complex life," Dr von Bloh told BBC News Online.
Self regulation
Using a computer model of the ancient Earth, the researchers considered three components of the biosphere, the zone of life.
These were single-celled life with and without a nucleus, and multicellular life. Each of these three groups have different environmental tolerances outside which they cannot thrive.
The computer model showed there were two zones of stability for the Earth - with or without higher lifeforms - and that 542 million years ago the planet flipped from one to the other.
What caused the flip is not clear. It might have been a continental break-up, or even an asteroid impact.
There is some indication that the Moon suffered a sudden increase in impacts about the same time as the Cambrian Explosion. If so, then the Earth would have been affected as well.
This latest analysis also provides some support for the Gaia hypothesis - the idea that the biosphere somehow acts as a self-sustaining and regulating whole that opposes any changes that would destroy life on Earth.
Intelligent beings
Dr von Blow says that after the Cambrian Explosion there has been a stabilisation of temperature up to the present, and that the biosphere is not playing a passive role.
He also adds that there is an intriguing implication from his research which suggests that had the conditions been only slightly different, the Cambrian Explosion could have occurred two billion years earlier.
An early explosion would have meant that by now the Earth could have developed far more advanced intelligent creatures than humans.
Alternatively it could still be inhabited by nothing more complex than bacteria.
Dr von Bloh says that it will be of great interest when we find other Earth-like worlds circling other stars to see if they have had their own Cambrian explosions yet.
The timing of such events has implications for the search for intelligent life in space, he says.
Then how come there are Christian evolutionists? Do they have two religions? Can one be a Hindu and a Catholic simultaneously? If not, and evolution is a religion, then why can one simultaneously be a Catholic and an evolutionist?
No but you can take it that I ignored responding knowing that any 'evidence' I give would not be deemed suitable for your consideration
So your evidence is three verses from the Bible? OK...
Colossians 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." -- Hamlet
Give me a break (this is a rhetorical device, not a request for a real break). Have you ever read the theories presented on the Big Bang, evolution and other "science"? They are agenda-driven political pieces aimed at finding some solution-- any solution-- but the one presented throughout history. The scientific method of such theories is a joke.
In the case of the meteor crater, you are looking at hard evidence. You can see how such craters have been created elsewhere. Coupled with the physical evidence of a meteorite, you have impirical evidence for the theory that it was created by the impact with a meteorite.
Contrast this with these "cosmic speculation" theories. Where we don't have impirical evidence, assumptions are made to bridge the gaps. In many of these theories (a few noted above), the assumptions dwarf the real evidence to the point you have nothing but science fiction to help explain what they don't understand. Look at how some of this junk science has been altered in recent years... Alar causes cancer... goodbye CA apple crop; the earth is headed toward global cooling... the earth is heading toward global warming; the earth won't support its population by 1960... 1970... 1980... 1990... 2000... global abortion is our only hope; the sun is warming!; the sun is cooling!; carbon dioxide causes global cooling--no wait, it causes warming--no wait! Take your pick.
In the end, you can follow the money for the conclusions. The alar scare was funded by the apple industry's competitors. The global and solar warming and cooling scares are sponsored by environmentalist wackos with anti-capitalist agendas. The population studies are funded by abortion providers.
We study ourselves to death these days with nothing but junk speculation. I have as much disdain for the "scientific community" these days as I do for lawyers... there are some who are good (otherwise we'd be further down the proverbial creek than we are) but the industry is corrupt.
There aren't. Just because I claim to be an Napolean, doesn't mean I am.
So your evidence is three verses from the Bible? OK...
Hey, I told you that you wouldn't like it. But you insisted.
He said, while typing on a computer made possible by semiconductors invented by scientists, on a keyboard made of polymers inventd by scientists, as he sent his disdain over the internet created by scientists.
But not grammar?
At any rate, what are your sources for the curious assertion that the Greeks and Romans did not believe in their gods and goddesses? In particular, your sources for the allegation that "they admitted as much." Please give at least three examples of "them" admitting that they really didn't believe in their gods and goddesses.
Your high school classics teacher doesn't count, unless he or she wrote a book that you can cite. A real book, with footnotes.
There aren't.
Quite a few of them have told me they are. Since they're the best judges of what they themselves believe, I conclude you're simply wrong about this.
At least two Popes have declared that the theory of evolution is not in conflict with Christian teaching.
Hey, I told you that you wouldn't like it.
I don't dislike it, I find it very unpersuasive.
Touche!
You should read a bit more. The big bang theory (there are variants) is strongly supported by evidence. First there's the very visible evidence of the redshift of distant galaxies, which increases with distance. Then there's the cosmic background radiation, predicted by the initial big bang theory, and spectacularly consistent with it. There's a separate line of evidence regarding the proportion of hydrogen and helium in the early universe, again, seen to be consistent with the theory. I'm not up on the 4th line of evidence (galaxy formation and large scale structure) but experts say this too is consistent with (and predicted by) the big bang theory.
There is really no competing theory which can so handily explain all this evidence. I don't care what you think the agenda of all this may be. Take away your alleged agenda, and the evidence remains. What's your theory to explain all these separate lines of evidence?
Science doesn't try to prove or disprove the existence of God. By His very nature, God exists outside of the realm of the natural. If God followed scientific rules and could be classified as Homo Sapien Divinis or somesuch, he wouldn't be God- he's just be a powerful being with no divine properties.
Okay. But just because I dream Im Napoleon doesnt mean I are one. (Jethro Hathaway)
Then I'm Napolean. Glad to meet you.
At least two Popes have declared that the theory of evolution is not in conflict with Christian teaching.
Now who's being unpersuasive.
No... only following your nonsequitor. We've invented a number of items to do what our senses can not. In the end, though, we rely on our senses to interpret the data presented by this equipment.
You can't be. I am. (see post #157)
You forgot while acknowledging that there is a big difference between real science and junk science.
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