Scientists Discover New Clue to Chemical Origins of Life
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Originally posted by BroInChrist:
Evolution-scientists are stuck because their worldview of naturalism cannot supply them the answers concerning the origins of life. But creation-scientists do not have this problem.yup
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Originally posted by BroInChrist:
I have answered the question of "who created God" many times in this forum. Please show where I was stuck. Truth is, many refuse to believe not because we cannot answer their questions but because they refuse to accept the answers from the Bible. On one hand they demand that Christians answer their questions but on the other hand they refuse to accept the answers that are based on the Bible. They clearly shows their insincerity in wanting to know the truth.
I had also refuted it too much time here ... hence, brother, let's ignore such troll onwards
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 17, 2012) — A University of Arkansas biologist has created a sketch of what the first common ancestor of plants and algae may have looked like. He explains that primitive organisms are not always simple.
Fred Spiegel, professor of biological sciences in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, suggests what microscopic parts would have been present in this common ancestor based on findings by Dana Price of Rutgers University and his colleagues, who examined the genome of a freshwater microscopic algae and determined that it showed that algae and plants are derived from one common ancestor. This ancestor formed from a merger between some protozoan-like host and cyanobacterium, a kind of bacteria that use photosynthesis to make energy, that "moved in" and became the chloroplast of this first alga. Price and his colleagues show that today's algae and plants have to be descended from this first alga, but they give no idea what it looked like.
For many years, scientists have speculated that the original ancestor of plants and algae must have originated from a protozoan-like organism and cyanobacteria. They theorized that at some point in the distant past the cyanobacteria became part of the other organism and created the first alga, which in turn created the opportunity for the growth into the biodiversity found in plants that we see today.
However, other scientists argued that the diversity and complexity of plants and algae suggest multiple events where different organisms merged. They pointed out that some members of the plant kingdom have simple structures and therefore must be more primitive than others.
Price and his colleagues' studied the genome of an obscure alga called Cyanophora. Their results strongly suggest that the first alga arose about a billion to a billion and a half years ago. This alga became the ancestor to the group of algae containing Cyanophora, plus the group of algae that includes the red seaweeds, plus the group that includes the green algae and the land plants. Together, these organisms form the super group called Plantae.
Based on this research, Spiegel has put forth a hypothetical snapshot of what the common ancestor of Plantae, the "first alga," might have looked like.
"The common ancestor of Plantae was an organism with very complex cells and a complex life cycle," Spiegel said. While some members of the super group Plantae may have less complex cells and life cycles, this does not mean they pre-date the common ancestor. "They're simpler because they lost parts, not because they originated that way."
My comments on the above article are as follows:
1. The so-called primitive organisms are complex. This goes against the Darwinian belief that the further we go back in time, the more primitive organisms are simple. But so-called primitive organismas are anything but simple. In fact even the simple cell is so complex that it just could not have evolved at all. See http://creation.com/how-simple-can-life-be
2. Due to the indoctrination of evolutionary dogma, scientists BELIEVE by faith that there MUST be a common ancestor to all living things, so they can only speculate on what it could be or might be. They have excluded from their thinking the possibility that living things never evolved but were created to reproduce after their kind.
3. The last paragraph is intriguing. If the organisms are simpler because they lost parts, then it suggests DEVOLUTION, not evolution. This is the loss of genetic information, but for evolution to be true there must be a gain in NEW genetic information. See http://creation.com/mutations-new-information
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 20, 2012) — Studying the origin of life at its building blocks offers a unique perspective on evolution, says a researcher at Michigan State University.
Robert Root-Bernstein, MSU physiology professor, will answer the question of why a physiologist studies the origin of life at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Feb. 16-20 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Paleontologists study ancient life and reason that each species is a modification of the previous generation. Geneticists embrace this theory and trace the lineage of genes. Root-Bernstein wondered if there could be another level of paleontology embedded in the molecules that reflect evolution from the earliest stages of life and found in prebiotic chemistry, the study of chemical reactions that may have sparked the beginnings of life.
"By studying modules built from very simple chemicals, I'm hoping that it will lead to an understanding of a molecular paleontology in modern systems," he said. "Whether it's a human or a bacterium, we're all made from the same basic modules that have more than likely been around since the beginning of time."
"I study molecular complementarity mainly because I'm a pattern seeker, even when I was an undergraduate," Root-Bernstein said. "I hope to help answer how life evolved to take advantage of molecular complementarity so that the two concepts are virtually synonymous."
My comments on the above article are as follows:
1. It is mentioned that scientists reasoned that each species is a modification of the previous generation. But this is hardly controversial. What is controversial is whether such modifications can turn a cow into a whale, or an ape into a man. Evolutionists then throw in heaps of time, reasoning that given enough time, time can do wonders and miracles which otherwise might need some kind of divine intervention. It's one thing to try to work backwards and break things down to their simpler forms and study their components. But this still leaves unanswered the question of how they were put together in the first place.
2. The scientist mentioned that we were all MADE from the same basic stuff that were around right from the very beginning of time. Being made presupposes a Maker, doesn't it? And where did all those basic stuff come from? And if there is a pattern to be discovered, does that point to a divine intelligence at work? It is interesting to note that many evolutionists (who are highly intelligent) spend thousands of hours studying about evolution just to conclude that no intelligence was involved at all in the origins of life.
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ScienceDaily (Feb. 21, 2012) — Atmospheric oxygen really took off on our planet about 2.4 billion years ago during the Great Oxygenation Event. At this key juncture of our planet's evolution, species had either to learn to cope with this poison that was produced by photosynthesizing cyanobacteria or they went extinct. It now seems strange to think that the gas that sustains much of modern life had such a distasteful beginning.
So how and when did the ability to produce oxygen by harnessing sunlight enter the eukaryotic domain, that includes humans, plants, and most recognizable, multicellular life forms? One of the fundamental steps in the evolution of our planet was the development of photosynthesis in eukaryotes through the process of endosymbiosis.This crucial step forward occurred about 1.6 billion years ago when a single-celled protist captured and retained a formerly free-living cyanobacterium. This process, termed primary endosymbiosis, gave rise to the plastid, which is the specialized compartment where photosynthesis takes place in cells. Endosymbiosis is now a well substantiated theory that explains how cells gained their great complexity and was made famous most recently by the work of the late biologist Lynn Margulis, best known for her theory on the origin of eukaryotic organelles.
In a paper "Cyanophora paradoxa genome elucidates origin of photosynthesis in algae and plants" that appeared this week in the journal Science, an international team led by evolutionary biologist and Rutgers University professor Debashish Bhattacharya has shed light on the early events leading to photosynthesis, the result of the sequencing of 70 million base pair nuclear genome of the one-celled alga Cyanophora.
Bhattacharya leads the Rutgers Genome Cooperative that has spread the use of genome methods among university faculty. Using data generated by the Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx in his lab, Bhattacharya, his lab members Dana C. Price, Cheong Xin Chan, Jeferson Gross, Divino Rajah and collaborators from the U.S., Europe and Canada provided conclusive evidence that all plastids trace their origin to a single primary endosymbiosis.
My comments on the above article are as follows:
1. Any evolutionary account of origins must explain the presence of oxygen in our atmosphere. But there is none that can explain how evolution could have done it over millions of years. So it is speculated that there was a GREAT oxygenating event that would have quickly added the oxygen into our atmosphere. But this theory is problematic. See http://creation.com/origin-of-oxygen-more-complex-than-imagined
2. Evolutionists are also trying to explain the origin of photosynthesis. Question is, can evolution produce such a process in incremental steps? Again the evolutionary scenario is plagued with insurmountable problems. See http://creation.com/shining-light-on-the-evolution-of-photosynthesis
3. Did cells gain their complexity over time, or were they already complex to begin with? Not only that, it doesn't explain how cells came to exist in the first place. Evolutionists have to ASSUME the existence of the very things that are supposed to be the products of evolution. But this clearly begs the question in many ways. See also http://creation.com/loopholes-in-the-evolutionary-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-summary
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13 February 2012 - Debate bubbles over the origin of life: Could life have originated in geothermal ponds? by Brian Switek
How life began is one of nature’s enduring mysteries. Fossil and biological clues have led scientists to estimate that cells originated on this planet about four billion years ago, but exactly what catalysed their emergence has remained elusive.
In an 1871 letter to botanist Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin wondered whether life might have begun “in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc. present.” Since then, scientists have come to conclude that life began in hydrothermal vents in the deep sea, but a controversial study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that Darwin might have been on the right track.
The study, led by Armen Mulkidjanian of Germany’s University of Osnabrück, suggests that inland pools of condensed and cooled geothermal vapour have the ideal characteristics for the origin of life. The conclusion is based mainly on the chemistry of modern cells. Citing an observation made in 1926 by biochemist Archibald Macallum that the composition of the cytoplasm of modern cells differs greatly from that of seawater, and assuming that cells have changed little over the past four billion years led the researchers to propose that modern cell chemistry would provide clues about the type of environment in which life emerged.
Central to the hypothesis are the ions of particular metals — the new study is a follow-up to a 2009 paper in which Mulkidjanian and Michael Galperin suggested that the first cells developed in zinc-rich environments. “In all living cells,” Mulkidjanian says,“the cytoplasm is rich in potassium, zinc, manganese, and phosphate ions, which are not widespread in marine environments, and has lower amounts of sodium ions than outside.”
Such conditions, the researchers argue, are found only where hot hydrothermal fluid brings the ions to the surface — places such as geysers, mud pots, fumeroles and other geothermal features. Within these fuming and bubbling basins, water laden with zinc and manganese ions could have collected and cooled in shallow pools which had drifted away from the geothermal "hot spots" as the Earth's crust shifted. Such pools could have been amenable to the development of life. Frustratingly, though, there is very little likelihood of finding direct evidence of such “hatcheries”, as Mulkidjanian calls them, in the fossil record. Mulkidjanian notes that the primordial ponds would have been extremely acidic and therefore not preserved signs of the first life. He adds, however, that the ancient conditions could be modelled in the lab, “so at least some steps of the proposed scheme could be tested, and we are eager to promote such experiments and see their results”
The study is already generating strong disagreement among other early-life experts. Nick Lane, a biochemist at University College London, UK, points out that the geothermal-pool hypothesis is problematic both biologically and geologically. “There was almost certainly very little land 4 billion years ago and terrestrial systems would have been unstable, short-lived, and severely limited in distribution,” Lane says.
Such conditions would have made it difficult for early life to gain a foothold, he says. Lane also notes that the study has a significant conceptual flaw. “To suggest that the ionic composition of primordial cells should reflect the composition of the oceans is to suggest that cells are in equilibrium with their medium, which is close to saying that they are not alive,” Lane notes. “Cells require dynamic disequilibrium — that is what being alive is all about.”
Molecular biologist Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says that “geothermal active areas provide numerous advantages” and are a plausible staging area for the origin of life, but points out that we can’t be sure that the chemistry of modern cells reflects the chemical conditions in which the first cells emerged. He disputes Mulkidjanian's claim that the high potassium-to-sodium ratio in modern cells is a sign of deep history, saying that instead, “it could still be that cells evolved the ability to generate and maintain a high potassium-to-sodium ratio in their cytoplasm for functional reasons, independent of the nature of their initial or early environment.”
So rather than reflecting prehistoric environments, modern cell chemistry may indicate what sets life apart.
My comments on the above article follows:
1. The origins of life is always a hotbed of research, debate, and controversy. The implications arising from this are many. The two views is only Creation OR evolution. There is no third view. Either life in the universe was created by a supernatural act of God or it created itself.
2. Whereas Charles Darwin pondered whether life began in a warm little pool, it only pushes back the question of origins as to where the warm little pool comes from, where those chemicals come from, and how these chemicals could have come together and why. The genetic code is a piece of information. Information is put together by intelligence. So who put the information required for life together?
3. The conclusion of the new study is based on the chemistry of modern cells which ASSUMED that cells have changed little over 4 billion years. Is this itself a reasonable tenet of evolution? Note also that it is admitted that there is NO solid evidence of this so-called warm pools amicable to life. Thus it becomes a matter of faith....in evolution. And if the conditions can be succesfully replicated in a laboratory it only proves the point that intelligence is required for life!
4. The last statement is very revealing. Our study of life only concludes that a lot sets life apart from nonlife. The best conclusion, and the only viable one, is that life in the universe is created, not evolved.
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2012) — Creating some of life's building blocks in space may be a bit like making a sandwich -- you can make them cold or hot, according to new NASA research. This evidence that there is more than one way to make crucial components of life increases the likelihood that life emerged elsewhere in the Universe, according to the research team, and gives support to the theory that a "kit" of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by impacts from meteorites and comets assisted the origin of life.
In the study, scientists with the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., analyzed samples from fourteen carbon-rich meteorites with minerals that indicated they had experienced high temperatures -- in some cases, over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. They found amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins, used by life to speed up chemical reactions and build structures like hair, skin, and nails.
In the new research, the team hypothesizes the amino acids were made by a high-temperature process involving gas containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen called "Fischer-Tropsch" -type reactions. They occur at temperatures ranging from about 200 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit with minerals that facilitate the reaction. These reactions are used to make synthetic lubricating oil and other hydrocarbons; and during World War II, they were used to make gasoline from coal in an attempt to overcome a severe fuel shortage.
Researchers believe the parent asteroids of these meteorites were heated to high temperatures by collisions or the decay of radioactive elements. As the asteroid cooled, Fischer-Tropsch-type (FTT) reactions could have happened on mineral surfaces utilizing gas trapped inside small pores in the asteroid.
FTT reactions may even have created amino acids on dust grains in the solar nebula, the cloud of gas and dust that collapsed under its gravity to form the solar system. "Water, which is two hydrogen atoms bound to an oxygen atom, in liquid form is considered a critical ingredient for life. However, with FTT reactions, all that's needed is hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen as gases, which are all very common in space. With FTT reactions, you can begin making some prebiotic components of life very early, before you have asteroids or planets with liquid water," said Burton.
In the laboratory, FTT reactions produce amino acids, and can show a preference for making straight-chain molecules. "In almost all of the 14 meteorites we analyzed, we found that most of the amino acids had these straight chains, suggesting FTT reactions could have made them," said Burton.
The team believes the majority of the amino acids they found in the 14 meteorites were truly created in space, and not the result of contamination from terrestrial life, for a few reasons. First, the amino acids in life (and in contamination from industrial products) are frequently linked together in long chains, either as proteins in biology or polymers in industrial products. Most of the amino the amino acids discovered in the new research were not bound up in proteins or polymers. In addition, the most abundant amino acids found in biology are those that are found in proteins, but such "proteinogenic" amino acids represent only a small percentage of the amino acids found in the meteorites. Finally, the team analyzed a sample of ice taken from underneath one of the meteorites. This ice had only trace levels of amino acids suggesting the meteorites are relatively pristine.
My comments on the above article follows:
1. Evolutionists seeking for the cause of life's origins are constantly "cheating". Since they knew life could not have come about by itself, they then play with the idea that life was created in space and then sent down to earth. But what they will not acknowledge would be that there is a Creator-God.
2. Evolutionists BELIEVE many things about the origins of life. This is the same with creationists who also BELIEVE that God is the creator of life. But one wonders why the former is considered "scientific" while the latter is labeled as "religious" and then dismissed out of hand.
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2012) — In the beginning -- of the ribosome, the cell's protein-building workbench -- there were ribonucleic acids, the molecules we call RNA that today perform a host of vital functions in cells. And according to a new analysis, even before the ribosome's many working parts were recruited for protein synthesis, proteins also were on the scene and interacting with RNA. This finding challenges a long-held hypothesis about the early evolution of life.
The "RNA world" hypothesis, first promoted in 1986 in a paper in the journal Nature and defended and elaborated on for more than 25 years, posits that the first stages of molecular evolution involved RNA and not proteins, and that proteins (and DNA) emerged later, said University of Illinois crop sciences and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, who led the new study. "I'm convinced that the RNA world (hypothesis) is not correct," Caetano-Anollés said. "That world of nucleic acids could not have existed if not tethered to proteins."
The ribosome is a "ribonucleoprotein machine," a complex that can have as many as 80 proteins interacting with multiple RNA molecules, so it makes sense that this assemblage is the result of a long and complicated process of gradual co-evolution, Caetano-Anollés said. Furthermore, "you can't get RNA to perform the molecular function of protein synthesis that is necessary for the cell by itself."
Proponents of the RNA world hypothesis make basic assumptions about the evolutionary origins of the ribosome without proper scientific support, Caetano-Anollés said. The most fundamental of these assumptions is that the part of the ribosome that is responsible for protein synthesis, the peptidyl transferase center (PTC) active site, is the most ancient.
In the new analysis, Caetano-Anollés and graduate student Ajith Harish (now a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University in Sweden) subjected the universal protein and RNA components of the ribosome to rigorous molecular analyses -- mining them for evolutionary information embedded in their structures. (They also analyzed the thermodynamic properties of the ribosomal RNAs.) They used this information to generate timelines of the evolutionary history of the ribosomal RNAs and proteins.
These two, independently generated "family trees" of ribosomal proteins and ribosomal RNAs showed "great congruence" with one another, Caetano-Anollés said. Proteins surrounding the PTC, for example, were as old as the ribosomal RNAs that form that site. In fact, the PTC appeared in evolution just after the two primary subunits that make up the ribosome came together, with RNA bridges forming between them to stabilize the association.
The timelines suggest that the PTC appeared well after other regions of the protein-RNA complex, Caetano-Anollés said. This strongly suggests, first, that proteins were around before ribosomal RNAs were recruited to help build them, and second, that the ribosomal RNAs were engaged in some other task before they picked up the role of aiding in protein synthesis, he said.
"This is the crucial piece of the puzzle," Caetano-Anollés said. "If the evolutionary build-up of ribosomal proteins and RNA and the interactions between them occurred gradually, step-by-step, the origin of the ribosome cannot be the product of an RNA world. Instead, it must be the product of a ribonucleoprotein world, an ancient world that resembles our own. It appears the basic building blocks of the machinery of the cell have always been the same from the beginning of life to the present: evolving and interacting proteins and RNA molecules."
"This is a very engaging and provocative article by one of the most innovative and productive researchers in the field of protein evolution," said University of California at San Diego research professor Russell Doolittle, who was not involved in the study. Doolittle remains puzzled, however, by "the notion that some early proteins were made before the evolution of the ribosome as a protein-manufacturing system." He wondered how -- if proteins were more ancient than the ribosomal machinery that today produces most of them -"the amino acid sequences of those early proteins were 'remembered' and incorporated into the new system."
Caetano-Anollés agreed that this is "a central, foundational question" that must be answered. "It requires understanding the boundaries of emergent biological functions during the very early stages of protein evolution," he said. However, he said, "the proteins that catalyze non-ribosomal protein synthesis -- a complex and apparently universal assembly-line process of the cell that does not involve RNA molecules and can still retain high levels of specificity -- are more ancient than ribosomal proteins. It is therefore likely that the ribosomes were not the first biological machines to synthesize proteins."
Caetano-Anollés also noted that the specificity of the ribosomal system "depends on the supply of amino acids appropriately tagged with RNA for faithful translation of the genetic code. This tagging is solely based on proteins, not RNAs," he said. This suggests, he said, that the RNA molecules began as co-factors that aided in protein synthesis and fine-tuned it, resulting in the elaborate machinery of the ribosome that exists today.
My comments on the above article as follows:
1. Evolutionists who are stuck with naturalistic explanations have their own pseudo-biblical origins. While the Bible says "In the beginning God created.." evolutonists substitute God with ribonucleic acids.
2. The evolutionists have a chicken-and-egg issue. Which come first, RNA or Proteins? Because one can't precede the other it seemed that the easy way out is to assume that both were already around.
3. Throughout the article we see words rightfully associated with intelligent design, words that should not sit well with evolutionary theory at all.
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BIC, thanks. God bless you.
Feel sad that HIV is created. Why.
We must stay strong.
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Yawn!!!!
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2012) — New research reported in San Diego on March 27 at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) provides further support for the idea that comets bombarding Earth billions of years ago carried and deposited the key ingredients for life to spring up on the planet.
Jennifer G. Blank, Ph.D., who led the research team, described experiments that recreated with powerful laboratory "guns" and computer models the conditions that existed inside comets when these celestial objects hit Earth's atmosphere at almost 25,000 miles per hour and crashed down upon the surface. The research is part of a broader scientific effort to understand how amino acids and other ingredients for the first living things appeared on a planet that billions of years ago was barren and desolate. Amino acids make up proteins, which are the workhorses of all forms of life, ranging from microbes to people.
"Our research shows that the building blocks of life could, indeed, have remained intact despite the tremendous shock wave and other violent conditions in a comet impact," Blank said. "Comets really would have been the ideal packages for delivering ingredients for the chemical evolution thought to have resulted in life. We like the comet delivery scenario because it includes all of the ingredients for life -- amino acids, water and energy."
Comets are chunks of frozen gases, water, ice, dust and rock that astronomers have termed "dirty snowballs." These snowballs, however, may be 10 miles or more in diameter. Comets orbit the sun in a belt located far beyond the most distant planets in the solar system. Periodically, comets break loose and hurtle inward, where they may become visible in the sky.
Billions of years ago, however, swarms of comets and asteroids bombarded Earth with the remnants still visible as craters on the moon. Scientific evidence suggests that life on Earth began at the end of a period 3.8 billion years ago called the "late heavy bombardment" that involved both comets and asteroids. Before that, Earth was too hot for living things to survive. The earliest known fossils with evidence of life date from 3.5 billion years ago. So how could life originate so quickly when there was little evidence of water or the amino-acid building blocks for making proteins?
Blank and colleagues at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., set out to check whether amino acids could remain intact after a comet's descent through Earth's atmosphere. Previous analyses of comet dust samples returned to Earth by a NASA spacecraft eliminated any doubt that amino acids do occur in comets.
In one set of experiments, they used gas guns to simulate the enormous temperatures and powerful shock waves that amino acids in comets would experience on upon entering Earth's atmosphere. The gas guns, devices that weigh thousands of pounds, hit objects with high-pressure blasts of gas moving at supersonic speeds. They shot the gas at capsules filled with amino acids, water and other materials.
The amino acids did not break down due to the heat and shock of the simulated crash. Indeed, they began forming the so-called "peptide bonds" that link amino acids together into proteins. The pressure from the impact of the crash apparently offset the intense heat and also supplied the energy needed to create the peptides, she explained. In other experiments, Blank's team used sophisticated computer models to simulate conditions as comets collided with Earth.
Blank suggested that there may well have been multiple deliveries of seedlings of life through the years from comets, asteroids and meteorites.
My comments on the above article follows:
1. Evolutionists who despair on how life could have formed from nonliving matter on earth are looking up to the heavens for the answer. No they are not looking for God, but for cosmic handouts aka panspermia.
2. Because they know it is IMPOSSIBLE for life to have formed by itself on earth, evolutionists are wishing that comets will come with galatic packages containing all that is necessary for life.
3. But does this solve the origin of life issue? Nope. They only pushed the issue far out to a galaxy far far away.
4. Lastly, evolutionists desperately multuply their probabilistic resources by ASSUMING that there were multiple galatic deliveries of life's ingredients by galatic postmen, comets.
5. It is far easier and takes less faith to believe that there is a God who created the universe and life on earth, just like what the Bible teaches!
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Originally posted by BroInChrist:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2012) — New research reported in San Diego on March 27 at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) provides further support for the idea that comets bombarding Earth billions of years ago carried and deposited the key ingredients for life to spring up on the planet.
Jennifer G. Blank, Ph.D., who led the research team, described experiments that recreated with powerful laboratory "guns" and computer models the conditions that existed inside comets when these celestial objects hit Earth's atmosphere at almost 25,000 miles per hour and crashed down upon the surface. The research is part of a broader scientific effort to understand how amino acids and other ingredients for the first living things appeared on a planet that billions of years ago was barren and desolate. Amino acids make up proteins, which are the workhorses of all forms of life, ranging from microbes to people.
"Our research shows that the building blocks of life could, indeed, have remained intact despite the tremendous shock wave and other violent conditions in a comet impact," Blank said. "Comets really would have been the ideal packages for delivering ingredients for the chemical evolution thought to have resulted in life. We like the comet delivery scenario because it includes all of the ingredients for life -- amino acids, water and energy."
Comets are chunks of frozen gases, water, ice, dust and rock that astronomers have termed "dirty snowballs." These snowballs, however, may be 10 miles or more in diameter. Comets orbit the sun in a belt located far beyond the most distant planets in the solar system. Periodically, comets break loose and hurtle inward, where they may become visible in the sky.
Billions of years ago, however, swarms of comets and asteroids bombarded Earth with the remnants still visible as craters on the moon. Scientific evidence suggests that life on Earth began at the end of a period 3.8 billion years ago called the "late heavy bombardment" that involved both comets and asteroids. Before that, Earth was too hot for living things to survive. The earliest known fossils with evidence of life date from 3.5 billion years ago. So how could life originate so quickly when there was little evidence of water or the amino-acid building blocks for making proteins?
Blank and colleagues at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., set out to check whether amino acids could remain intact after a comet's descent through Earth's atmosphere. Previous analyses of comet dust samples returned to Earth by a NASA spacecraft eliminated any doubt that amino acids do occur in comets.
In one set of experiments, they used gas guns to simulate the enormous temperatures and powerful shock waves that amino acids in comets would experience on upon entering Earth's atmosphere. The gas guns, devices that weigh thousands of pounds, hit objects with high-pressure blasts of gas moving at supersonic speeds. They shot the gas at capsules filled with amino acids, water and other materials.
The amino acids did not break down due to the heat and shock of the simulated crash. Indeed, they began forming the so-called "peptide bonds" that link amino acids together into proteins. The pressure from the impact of the crash apparently offset the intense heat and also supplied the energy needed to create the peptides, she explained. In other experiments, Blank's team used sophisticated computer models to simulate conditions as comets collided with Earth.
Blank suggested that there may well have been multiple deliveries of seedlings of life through the years from comets, asteroids and meteorites.
My comments on the above article follows:
1. Evolutionists who despair on how life could have formed from nonliving matter on earth are looking up to the heavens for the answer. No they are not looking for God, but for cosmic handouts aka panspermia.
2. Because they know it is IMPOSSIBLE for life to have formed by itself on earth, evolutionists are wishing that comets will come with galatic packages containing all that is necessary for life.
3. But does this solve the origin of life issue? Nope. They only pushed the issue far out to a galaxy far far away.
4. Lastly, evolutionists desperately multuply their probabilistic resources by ASSUMING that there were multiple galatic deliveries of life's ingredients by galatic postmen, comets.
5. It is far easier and takes less faith to believe that there is a God who created the universe and life on earth, just like what the Bible teaches!
BIC, with all respect, in your item 5. "take less faith to believe". Is that typo?
I thought should take great faith to believe.
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Originally posted by laffin123:
BIC, with all respect, in your item 5. "take less faith to believe". Is that typo?
I thought should take great faith to believe.
No that was no typo. It does take less faith to believe that God created than to believe that the universe made itself by chance random natural processes. In other words, I do not have enough faith to be an atheist. -
Originally posted by laffin123:
BIC, with all respect, in your item 5. "take less faith to believe". Is that typo?
I thought should take great faith to believe.
No that was no typo. It does take less faith to believe that God created than to believe that the universe made itself by chance random natural processes. In other words, I do not have enough faith to be an atheist. -
close and ban