Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

puritan lad · Post by **puritan lad** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:18 am

Life didn't have billions of years to evolve afterall, appearing a very short time after the conditions on earth would have been suitable for life...

http://www.earnedmedia.org/cpr0420.htm

sandy_mcd · Post by **sandy_mcd** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:17 am

puritan lad wrote:Life didn't have billions of years to evolve afterall, appearing a very short time after the conditions on earth would have been suitable for life...http://www.earnedmedia.org/cpr0420.htm

Could you elaborate on what this means? When were the conditions on Earth first suitable for the formation of life, i.e., subtract 3.5 billion years from this and see how much time was available? Your reference seems to suggest a few hundred million years was necessary for primitive life. Would these bacteria be considered primitive? If so, then conditions for life would have to be ready around 3.8 to 4.0 billion years ago. Is this contradicted by some other evidence you have?
Also, what is new about this report that deserves a press release? I looked up the author's name and found a paper http://homepage.mac.com/yuee/H/Uenoetal04.pdf which references other papers from 1983 referring to ~3.5 Ga microfossils.
I would suspect that the "billions of years necessary for the first appearance of life" idea was discarded by mainstream scientists many years ago.

BGoodForGoodSake · Post by **BGoodForGoodSake** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:21 am

puritan lad wrote:Life didn't have billions of years to evolve afterall, appearing a very short time after the conditions on earth would have been suitable for life...

http://www.earnedmedia.org/cpr0420.htm

This conclusion really doesn't make sense.
Methane is a byproduct of a chemical reaction. It's akin to bacterial scat.

What it tells us is that we may now possibly have evidence for sulfate metabolizers and methane producers dating back 3.5 billion years.

What this discovery does is push back the first indication of methane producing microbes back 700 million years.

However there is nothing precluding this from being possible.
In fact methane producing microbes are exactly what many interplanetary probes are searching for. And many hypothesize, it is these types of organisms which are expected to appear very early as soon as conditions are favorable.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:46 am

If life began as soon as the conditions on Earth were sustainable for it then this seems to support a) an evolutionary origins of life, or b) direct creation? The RTB creation model predicts if designed by God, life's origin would occur very early on in Earth's history. This new data supports claims offered up for RTB's creation model in Rana's book Origins of Life.

There was talk of first life-forms occurring early on in one of RTB's Creation Update. To listen: [url=pnm://broadcast.reasons.org/rtbradio/cu20060404.rm?start=00:03:55.7]First life-forms were early, metabolically complex[/url]

Kurieuo

thereal · Post by **thereal** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 8:51 am

Can you provide a link to any actual journal publications associated with this press release; I really can't understand how the authors of this article arrive at any of the conclusions they are making...it doesn't make much sense.

sandy_mcd · Post by **sandy_mcd** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:09 am

Kurieuo wrote:If life began as soon as the conditions on Earth were sustainable for it then this seems to support a) an evolutionary origins of life, or b) direct creation? The RTB creation model predicts if designed by God, life's origin would occur very early on in Earth's history. This new data supports claims offered up for RTB's creation model in Rana's book Origins of Life.

Neither; or more properly either, depending on what you want to/are precondioned to believe.

It seems to primarily minimize the role of chance in the origin of life. If a number of unlikely events are necessary for the accidental formation of life, it is most likely that some large amount of time would pass before these events occur.

1) Evolution - just goes to show the inevitability of life as a chemical/biologic process.
2) RTB - consistent with this model. [Aside: I hate listening/watching online presentations even moreso than TV. I don't see how RTB can predict God would have created life soon after conditions were suitable; it seems to presume that someone kows an awful lot about how God does things.]

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:20 am

sandy_mcd wrote:1) Evolution - just goes to show the inevitability of life as a chemical/biologic process.

I had added an extra bit in my previous post that this wouldn't mean much to those already convinced of evolution, but I removed it as I thought this was already self-evident

. I have grown accustom to any results being able to support "evolution".

sandy wrote:2) RTB - consistent with this model. [Aside: I hate listening/watching online presentations even moreso than TV. I don't see how RTB can predict God would have created life soon after conditions were suitable; it seems to presume that someone kows an awful lot about how God does things.]

RTB are Day-Age creationists, and base their model upon their interpretation of the Bible. Unless you wish to argue no one is allowed to have an interpretation in order to not offend others who differ, then I think their political correctness isn't really an issue.

Yet, it does seem to me that life beginning early on would support a creator since the complexities involved for simple bacteria to evolve would take some time. It is easy to say it shows the "inevitability of life [evolving] as a chemical/biological process", it is another thing to explain why it is inevitable and how this inevitability is possible.

Don't get me wrong—I don't care to start a debate about evolution vs. creation. I was originally just adding further clarification on puritan's behalf.

Kurieuo

PS. The abstract of the Nature article can be found at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 04584.html

puritan lad · Post by **puritan lad** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:31 am

To clarify, I guess one could adopt "Theistic Evolution" from the RTB model. It is the spontaneous, naturalistic origin of life that has alot to explain in this area.

aa118816 · Post by **aa118816** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:57 am

Sandy,

For life to spontaneously "self organize" or come together through chemical evolution you need a tremendous amount of time. This is not something that has been discarded by scientists. This is why panspermia is becoming a more important theory in the origin of life research programs. RTB states that when the Spirit moved over the Earth after it was formless and void, the Spirit seeded the planet. They see early life, just after the planet became habitable, as the seeds spread by the Spirit. This is textually accurate and not much of a leap.

Dan

BGoodForGoodSake · Post by **BGoodForGoodSake** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:13 am

aa118816 wrote:Sandy,

For life to spontaneously "self organize" or come together through chemical evolution you need a tremendous amount of time. This is not something that has been discarded by scientists. This is why panspermia is becoming a more important theory in the origin of life research programs. RTB states that when the Spirit moved over the Earth after it was formless and void, the Spirit seeded the planet. They see early life, just after the planet became habitable, as the seeds spread by the Spirit. This is textually accurate and not much of a leap.

Dan

The point being that the earliest evidence for this type of life on Earth (sulfate metabolizing bacteria) has already been found and dated to 3.5 billion years. The discovery of (likely organic in origin) bubbles of methane also occurring at 3.5 billion years ago does not alter this timeline.

Both are archaeobacteria and are similar lifeforms.
The discovery of methane producing bacteria dating to this period is not at all surprising.

In light of these facts the conclusions reached by the article do not make sense.

There also seems to be an assumption that methane producing bacteria would be complex lifeforms. This cannot be a valid assumption.
Especially because some of the most primative forms of life produce methane. It is because of this that methane producing bacteria was expected to have existed at 3.5 billion years in the pastm only that previous to this discovery we didn't have any evidence for it.

Methanogens

Another Link

ray · Post by **ray** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:53 pm

Whatever happened to the theory that makes the most sense. God made it all the way it is. He made everything compete. Nothing can date the earth back a billion years. Even the methods used to date rocks to hundreds of thousands of years have been proven totally unreliable. Thinking that life could evolve from a lake of chemicals requires a much greater belief than that of having God make everything as it is.

Ray

Tim S · Post by **Tim S** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:15 pm

Why is it assumed that methane gas indicates the presence of microbes? The atmospheres of the gas-giants in our solar system contain methane.

BGoodForGoodSake · Post by **BGoodForGoodSake** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:41 pm

Tim S wrote:Why is it assumed that methane gas indicates the presence of microbes? The atmospheres of the gas-giants in our solar system contain methane.

It's not assumed.

Analysis of gas composition leads one to beleive that this methane was biological in origin.

Let me know if you want me to go into more detail.

Tim S · Post by **Tim S** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 4:01 pm

BGoodForGoodSake wrote:
Tim S wrote:Why is it assumed that methane gas indicates the presence of microbes? The atmospheres of the gas-giants in our solar system contain methane.
It's not assumed.

Analysis of gas composition leads one to beleive that this methane was biological in origin.

Let me know if you want me to go into more detail.

Thanks! No need. I checked another site that explained.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060325/fob1.asp

Canuckster1127 · Post by **Canuckster1127** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 6:39 pm

Essentially then ..... what we have here is .......

ummmm ......

errrrrrr ......

Fossilized Flatulance?

Evidence for God from Science

Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

Re: Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

Re: Discovery of Methane Puts Evolution 'On the rocks'

origins

methane?

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Re: methane?

Re: methane?