Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (2405)	10/24/2000 11:50:43 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

Re: Besides that, if life began in the sea, where fossils are most likely to form, then where are all the pre-Cambrian fossils? Well, I may not be a paleontologist but I do have some notion.... I think the pre-Cambrian era takes us back, hmmmm...say, one or two billion years? That is, in an era where besides jellyfishes, amoebae, and trilobites, there weren't many sophisticated life forms (like vertebrates). Now, how would you expect a jellyfish to fossilize --it's made of 99% water? On the other hand, if creationist loonies are correct then how come scientific dating testifies that life popped up several billion years ago? The day some archeologist digs up a bespectacled skull that belongs to a 50,000-year old caveman then, maybe, we might reconsider "evolution" --even more so if the caveman wears a wrist watch....

To: Greg or e who wrote (2405)	10/24/2000 12:24:28 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 28931

The Cambrian "explosion" was a result of an evolutionary advance of the exoskeleton. This fundamentally changed the odds of a creature leaving a fossil. Also absent or near absent in the fossil record is traces of slugs (there are some indirect fossils of marine varieties, but not terrestrial ones). These ancient animals have no hard body parts at all. It is like trying to make a fossil of a piece of banana. Before the pre-Cambrian (Vendian) there was a domination of soft-bodied organisms. The algal mats and stromatolites were well known pre-Cambrian fossils extending back another couple billion years but they have no soft body parts left as fossils, only the chemical precipitates they left. We recognize these structures only because modern equivalents still build their homes in tropical Australia the way they did in the pre-Cambrian. TP is not a geologist as far as I know. He is smart and well read. But no one who is trained in geology ever talks about gradualism. The term was Punctuated Actualism when I was in school. The evolution of grasses CAUSED the explosion of the Age of Mammals. The geological timescale is rife with such events. The geologic timescale has changed since I was in school precisely due to the discovery of certain important Proterozoic fossils. I think it is possible that under periods of stress that the mutation rate jumps. This could be by ozone layer failure, solar radiation spikes or just environmental stress. There was a study that I'd read about the mutation rate in drosophila when exposed to near fatal levels of temperature. Just temperature. There is an Arrhenius-like activation energy that ties the mutation rate to temperature as well. Everyone knew ionizing radiation and mutagenic chemicals could cause this but this was by non-ionizing thermal energy. So, Greg, how does a guy who is familiar with the fossil record buy into the literal truth of the seven day creation? I know some liberal literalists say "God's day is not the same as ours." But isn't that cheating?