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.
Which would explain the constant 'hunger' of those who dine on it.
Nah, that's the easy part. Supposing you believe the Bible to be the word of God; forget 99% of what you've heard from various pulpits and read the book of Acts for a description of the Lord's church. Find a group of believers that conform to those standards and worship in that manner. Voila!.
As usual, you've got it backwards. It's not that God has to conform to our beliefs, but that we conform to God's.
The substance was there but you are either too dimwitted or too dissembling to acknowledge it and I don't have the patience this morning to deal with either in such a hostile debate. Sorry.
Strawman argument. This statement of yours is not true.
Just because scientists' description of their work doesn't explicitly mention God, doesn't mean they don't believe in God.
Scientists say the life explosion might just have easily occurred two billion years earlier - or not at all.....
They suggest ...
We believe that there was a change...
It might have been a continental break-up, or even an asteroid impact....
If so, then the Earth would have been ....
early explosion would have meant that by now the Earth could have developed..
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No religious beliefs required...yes evolution is pure science... Of course, I MAY be wrong...
Why? Why would a divine being want to conceal clear evidence of his own existence? Why, having created an intelligent being, would you want you own existence not to be subject to that being's intelligent inquiry?
but if you're honest with yourself and put away your disdain for 'religion', then you'll have to at least see that just as any religion is made up of it's 'believers', so is this doctor's.
I have no particular disdain for religion, and I'm inclined to resent your ad hominem. Nor have you shown that this hypothesis is in any way equivalent to a religious belief. A hypothesis necessarily allows for its own possible falsity; what religion starts by saying "now all this could be wrong, but ..."?
You are ignorant.
You're hanging your hat on an irrelevancy. The Iliad and the Odyssey are FICTION written around an historical event; the sacking of Troy. Homer essentially wrote a NOVEL! You are the ONLY person I have ever found who thinks they are meant to be historical texts! Of course the Greeks overlooked embellishments!
Now, your point is not made and you are grasping at straws. I don't care whether this is a rhetorical victory... I care that you are writing inanity and considering the case closed.
Once again, like the scientists of the thread, you seek any explanation or deflection that can possibly keep you from acknowledging God.
Still looking for gods, I see.
God certainly had the power to make us all believe in Him without resorting to giving His own life and passing the faith through 12 men. He chooses to work this way and, hey, He's God... He can.
My own fallible understanding of Him would lead me to answer your question by asking "what is the purpose of faith?" If God can be reduced to a mathmatically formula, then what jewel is found in fellowship? If there is no faith, then there is no real acceptance. Let's put this in human terms... we don't have relationships with each other that are impirically static. How rewarding would that be? In order to have a relationship, there has to layers of discovery... once everything there is to know is known what point is there to further exploration? A relationship without mystery (even some small mystery) isn't alive.
All may come to Him but not all choose to. It is a choice to make, not a formula to complete. I asked earlier who is God in this scenario (and it applies to your question), the one who Created all that is and exerts sovereignty or the one who was created who DEMANDS proof?
You don't believe because God doesn't conform to man's understanding of science... just who is God here anyway?
I still don't care what you think.
The next time I encounter you on a thread, please remind me of this. You've just shown me that conversing with you is a monumental waste of time.
Off the top of my head, I can only think of Global Warming, nutrition, and some studies of human behavior that are motivated as you say. But I don't think most non-scientists realize how much science is done now. Grants from the gov are barely a pimple on the amount of money spent in industry.
So I have to disagree with you. It's a creationist fiction.
That simply defers the question. Why would a divine being, having created the facility for rational thought, want or value faith? 'Faith' as the rational expectation that someone who has been true in the past will continue to be true is fine and virtuous; 'faith' as the acceptance of an assertion, on the mere say so of someone else, is not virtuous.
You don't believe because God doesn't conform to man's understanding of science... just who is God here anyway?
I don't believe or disbelieve in a divine being. There is no data on the question that I consider of any value; since the question in my opinion is of no urgency, I simply defer any speculation until I see some evidence.
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