OZONE layer -- its history?
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian (and
avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
layer that wraps our earth? Was it formed through billions of years?
Was natural selection present during its formation? Seems to me that
such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
This might be a very short thread -- or then, again, maybe I'm missing
something.
zoe
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Boikat
>
> Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
>
> I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
> enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian (and
> avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
> Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
> and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
>
> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> layer that wraps our earth?
http://xtreme.gsfc.nasa.gov/CAMPAIGN_DOCS/ATM_CHEM/ozone_formation.html
> Was it formed through billions of years?
Yes.
> Was natural selection present during its formation?
In that there was living organisms in the form of
blue green algae, yes, since they were living and
reproducing organisms that lived in a dynamic
environment, natural selection would be a factor.
> Seems to me that
> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>
Since all the known life forms were aquatic (one
celled) at that time, and were therefore protected
by water and muck while generating O2 that would
become ozone, that was not a problem. Also, the
"dry cracked worlds" owe their dry cracked nature
to their distance from the sun and their mass,
rather than the ozone layer. Ozone's contribution
and relevance to life as we know it, is the
filtering of UV rays, not keeping the atmosphere
or water from leaking out into space. That is
purely a function of mass (the gravity of the
planet) and distance from the sun (Temperature).
> This might be a very short thread -- or then, again, maybe I'm missing
> something.
>
> zoe
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
Boikat
Daneel
<snip>
> layer that wraps our earth?
It's not really the 'evolutionary model', but biology (of
algae and other unicellulars) and a little physics that is
called for.
A little physics tells us that if normal oxygen molecules
(O2) are abudant, ozone (O3) will be produced in the
higher atmosphere.
Biology tells us that there are oxygen-producing creatures
that can live even without an ozone layer, because they
live in shallow water which is thin enough for visible
radiation to support their photosynthesis, but thick
enough for UV radiation to be absorbed.
> Was it formed through billions of years?
If you ask paleontology when creatures vulnerable to UV
radiation (and creatures using O2) apppear in the fossil
record, the answer will indicate that it indeed formed
through billions of years.
> Was natural selection present during its formation?
Yes, because life must have appeared before it.
> Seems to me that
> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays,
The ozone layer protects not from all the Sun's rays,
but only from UV radiation (which, unlike radiation of
longer wavelengths, is capable of breaking up organic
molecules).
But the ozone layer is not the only thing that can
protect life against it. As indicated above, water can
protect by absorbing radiation of different wavelengths
to a different degree. Earth or deep seawater can also
act as protectors, but only for unicellulars that use
something other than the Sun's radiation as an energy
supply; like the heat of deep-sea vents, for example.
> or else we would be like
> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
The dry and cracked planets aren't dry and cracked
because they lack an ozone layer, but for various other
reasons:
- smaller mass (leads to faster evaporation into space,
most likely cause of Mars's drying out)
- being too hot for water (all H2O was in evaporated
state, and escaped thus into space more readily)
- being too cold for water (all H2O is in the form of
stone-frozen [and cracked :)] ice, like on moons of
Jupiter)
- having an atmosphere with runaway greenhouse effect
(which leads to fast evaporation of lighter
molecules like H2O into space, see Venus)
Also, there are planets in the Solar System that are
not dry and cracked: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune are 'gas planets', that is, their small and
solid cores are surrounded by broad layers of liquid
and these by even broader layers of high-pressure
gases. (H2O included.)
> This might be a very short thread -- or then, again, maybe I'm missing
> something.
You miss a good scientific education, but that is
probably not your fault.
see you
Daneel [a#323 | U. of Ediacara student #000666]
! DO NOT send emails to my DejaNews adress, but to !
! "ustokos!cs.elte.hu", after replacing "!" with "@". !
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Daneel
> [...] keeping the atmosphere
> or water from leaking out into space. That is
> purely a function of mass (the gravity of the
> planet) and distance from the sun (Temperature).
It's not that simple.
Greenhouse gases play a role, as they can cause runaway
greenhouse effect, which heats up the atmosphere independently
of the Sun's distance - this is why Venus is depleted of water.
Beyond distance from the Sun and the greenhouse effect,
planetary temperatures also depend on albedo (how much they
reflect and how much they absorb from solar radiation).
Beyond atmospheric temperature, mass and density, the speed of
atmospheric loss to space also depends on the strength of the
planetary magnetic field, and on the strength of the solar
wind (<-secondary role of distance from the Sun).
DJ Nozem
(snip)
>A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
>layer that wraps our earth? Was it formed through billions of years?
>Was natural selection present during its formation? Seems to me that
>such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
>protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
>the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
The ozone layer protects us earthlings from the harmful ultraviolet
rays the sun emits. As far as I know depletion of it has no effect on
the temperature of our planet. Global heating and ozone layer
depletion are two separate effects of atmospherical pollution, please
don't confuse the two.
>zoe
Existence is futile - Everything is going to be -
Nothing was meant to be - We give meaning to eachother
DJ Nozem #1465 zwag...@multiweb.nl
Andrew MacRae
|Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
|A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
|layer that wraps our earth?
Dissociation and recombination of oxygen at high altitudes, mostly
due to ultraviolet light, if I remember correctly.
|Was it formed through billions of years?
It is in an equilibrium state -- it is constantly forming and
being destroyed. The ozone that is there now has not accumulated over
billions of years, but an ozone layer has probably has been around for at
least as long as free oxygen has been available in significant
concentrations in the atmosphere, and that is since about 2.5 billion
years ago, or somewhat earlier. Its presence is inferred, so it is pretty
hard to be certain about what exact state it was in. Maybe it was not
present, even for most of the Precambrian.
|Was natural selection present during its formation?
With the caveats described above, life was probably around long
before much free oxygen was, so probably yes.
|Seems to me that
|such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
|protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
|the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
Nope. There are plenty of environments where ultraviolet light is
almost irrelevant to life, such as when protected by a thickness of water,
or living in deep sea vents, or even within the crust of the Earth. The
same may have been true for early life on Earth. There is also the
likelihood that the earliest atmosphere on the Earth was more opaque to
ultraviolet rays than ours is now, because of more carbon dioxide, water
vapour, methane, etc.
|This might be a very short thread -- or then, again, maybe I'm missing
|something.
You are missing two things: 1) the atmosphere of the early Earth
may have been different in terms of ozone, yes, but differences in other
respects may have made ozone irrelevant (there is more than one way
ultraviolet light to be diminished by an atmosphere); 2) there are plenty
of environments where life can exist and ultraviolet light is attenuated
or absent.
-Andrew
mac...@agc.bio._NOSPAM_.ns.ca
Boikat
>
> Boikat wrote:
> > [...] keeping the atmosphere
> > or water from leaking out into space. That is
> > purely a function of mass (the gravity of the
> > planet) and distance from the sun (Temperature).
>
> It's not that simple.
>
> Greenhouse gases play a role, as they can cause runaway
> greenhouse effect, which heats up the atmosphere independently
> of the Sun's distance - this is why Venus is depleted of water.
>
> Beyond distance from the Sun and the greenhouse effect,
> planetary temperatures also depend on albedo (how much they
> reflect and how much they absorb from solar radiation).
>
> Beyond atmospheric temperature, mass and density, the speed of
> atmospheric loss to space also depends on the strength of the
> planetary magnetic field, and on the strength of the solar
> wind (<-secondary role of distance from the Sun).
>
> see you
>
> Daneel [a#323 | U. of Ediacara student #000666]
I sit, stand and roll over corrected! :}
Petteri Sulonen
> Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
>
> I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
> enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian (and
> avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
> Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
> and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
>
> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> layer that wraps our earth? Was it formed through billions of years?
> Was natural selection present during its formation? Seems to me that
> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>
> This might be a very short thread -- or then, again, maybe I'm missing
> something.
The ozone layer is formed by the Sun's ultraviolet rays bombarding our
oxygen-rich atmosphere. The rays break up ordinary oxygen (O=O, two oxygen
atoms connected with a double bond, or O2 for short) like this (formulae
written in longhand, so shuddup any chemistry purists around):
O=O -> 0: + :O
Now, atomic oxygen is really really reactive. It doesn't stay atomic for
very long, if there's anything at all around that it can react with. And,
of course, there is:
O=O + :0 -> O3
O3, of course, is ozone (the bonds are tricky to represent in ASCII; IIRC
it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did any
chemistry).
In other words, the ozone layer has been around about as long as there has
been oxygen in the atmosphere. Of course, some of the O3 also gets broken
up by the bombardment, floats further down into the atmosphere and
degrades to O2 (and, lately, gets converted to O2 by the CFC's and stuff
we spray up there). The natural process replenishes it rather slowly (in
the human scale of things, very quickly in the geological time frame
though).
So, the ozone layer appeared when oxygen appeared. Oxygen appeared when
monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2 and H2O
into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted to the
seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful effects of UV
radiation.
"Natural selection" of course has nothing to do with the ozone layer
(except indirectly, in that photosyntesizing organisms were a result of
natural selection). It's an inevitable consequence of an oxygen-rich
atmosphere.
Does that answer your question?
-- Petteri
PS. I tip my hat once again to your attitude -- you're mistaken, of
course, but you seem honestly mistaken -- and you're not offensive or
sanctimonious about it. We could use more creationists like you here! Now,
if you actually demonstrate a capability to adjust your views when
presented with convincing evidence... ;-)
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
Eric Gunnerson
<zoe_a...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8aiubc$r3n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
>
> I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
> enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian (and
> avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
> Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
> and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
>
> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> layer that wraps our earth? Was it formed through billions of years?
> Was natural selection present during its formation? Seems to me that
> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
Your questions presumes that the ozone layer came *after* life, while it is
possible that it existed (at least to some extent) before, since ozone is
produced in volcanic eruptions.
If not, then presumably all organisms either needed to be UC-resistant or
protected from UV light. The latter could be easily accomplished by putting
a bit of ocean between the organism and the surface.
hy...@tamu.edu
> The ozone layer protects us earthlings from the harmful ultraviolet
> rays the sun emits. As far as I know depletion of it has no effect on
> the temperature of our planet.
Actually it does. Ozone is an important greenhouse gas that
absorbs in an infrared "window" where neither CO2 nor H2O
have prominent spectral lines. Thus the decrease of ozone
actually tends to cool the planet. I've read some preliminary
estimates that the decline in O3 has erased about 0.25
centigrade degrees of greenhouse warming.
William Hyde
Dept of Oceanography
Texas A&M University
hy...@rossby.tamu.edu
Terry Eden
news:8ajil3$n...@news.dns.microsoft.com...
> Your questions presumes that the ozone layer came *after* life, while it
is
> possible that it existed (at least to some extent) before, since ozone is
> produced in volcanic eruptions.
>
> If not, then presumably all organisms either needed to be UC-resistant or
> protected from UV light. The latter could be easily accomplished by
putting
> a bit of ocean between the organism and the surface.
UV radiation (and radiation in general) aids mutation. Which can be used to
explain why there are sudden spurts in early evolution. No Ozone layer =
more UV radiation = more mutations.
Terry
Robert Parson
Petteri Sulonen <psul...@zeos.spamblock.net> wrote:
>O3, of course, is ozone (the bonds are tricky to represent in ASCII; IIRC
>it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
>someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did any
>chemistry).
FWIW it's bent, but not into a triangle; the bond angle at the central
oxygen is about 127 degrees. The O-O bonds are intermediate in strength
between single and double bonds.
>In other words, the ozone layer has been around about as long as there has
>been oxygen in the atmosphere. Of course, some of the O3 also gets broken
>up by the bombardment, floats further down into the atmosphere and
>degrades to O2 (and, lately, gets converted to O2 by the CFC's and stuff
>we spray up there). The natural process replenishes it rather slowly (in
>the human scale of things, very quickly in the geological time frame
Actually it's fairly quick even on human scales - the characteristic
lifetime of an ozone molecule in the stratosphere is a couple of years
at most (that's the timescale for exchanging air between stratosphere
and troposphere, and much of the ozone decomposes before this.) The
thickness of the ozone layer is determined by the balance between the
rate of photochemical production and the rate of all of the destruction
processes, natural and anthropogenic.
>So, the ozone layer appeared when oxygen appeared. Oxygen appeared when
>monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2 and H2O
>into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted to the
>seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful effects of UV
>radiation.
Note also that ozone isn't the only thing that absorbs solar UV.
Ordinary oxygen absorbs wavelengths shorter than 240nm, and nitrogen
starts to absorb at about 100 nm. Ozone's unique role is in absorbing
the longer wavelengths, between 240 and 320 nm. These photons aren't
especially destructive in general; they're pretty soft as UV goes.
They are destructive in today's terrestrial biosphere because DNA and
some other biological molecules happen to absorb strongly in this region.
Thus 280-nm UV is a very powerful mutagenic agent, but it's not something
that's going to tear up arbitrary organic molecules.
Furthermore, while the primordial atmosphere contained very little O2
(and thus essentially no O3), it probably _did_ contain polyatomic
molecules that are now only present as traces, such as methane. These
also absorb strongly in the UV. And as others have pointed out, a
few meters of water will absorb UV as well.
DJ Nozem
>In article <38d10be7...@news.soneraplaza.nl>,
> D...@multicrap.nl (DJ Nozem) writes:
>> On 13 Mar 2000 09:39:04 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> The ozone layer protects us earthlings from the harmful ultraviolet
>> rays the sun emits. As far as I know depletion of it has no effect on
>> the temperature of our planet.
> Actually it does. Ozone is an important greenhouse gas that
> absorbs in an infrared "window" where neither CO2 nor H2O
> have prominent spectral lines. Thus the decrease of ozone
> actually tends to cool the planet. I've read some preliminary
> estimates that the decline in O3 has erased about 0.25
> centigrade degrees of greenhouse warming.
So it actually has an opposite effect....thanks for the information.
Abner Mintz
> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> layer that wraps our earth?
"You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
"That said - what science says is that the ozone layer
most probably formed soon after the first blue-green
algae started releasing large amounts of oxygen into
the atmosphere. Before then, there wasn't enough
oxygen to form an ozone layer."
> Was it formed through billions of years?
"Odds are it formed fairly quickly."
> Seems to me that
> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in order to
> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be like
> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
"Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
a rough time of it though ..." :)
Abner Mintz
> O3, of course, is ozone (the bonds are tricky to represent in ASCII; IIRC
> it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
> someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did any
> chemistry).
"It's not triangular. I can't remember if it's linear
(180 degrees) or L-shaped (90 degrees), but I'd put my
money on L-shaped from the way the orbitals work out."
Landis D. Ragon
Is anyone else suddenly reminded of a line from "The Holy Grail"?
--"And that, my lord, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped."
Or is it just me?
--
Landis Ragon (dS = dq/T)
Chief Elf in the Toy Factory.
"I've got a little list--I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed--who never would be missed!"
-- Gilbert and Sullivan : "The Mikado"
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Daneel <dan...@my-Deja.com> wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> <snip>
> > A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> > layer that wraps our earth?
>
> algae and other unicellulars) and a little physics that is
> called for.
>
> A little physics tells us that if normal oxygen molecules
> (O2) are abudant, ozone (O3) will be produced in the
> higher atmosphere.
>
> Biology tells us that there are oxygen-producing creatures
> that can live even without an ozone layer, because they
> live in shallow water which is thin enough for visible
> radiation to support their photosynthesis, but thick
> enough for UV radiation to be absorbed.
>
>
> radiation (and creatures using O2) apppear in the fossil
> record, the answer will indicate that it indeed formed
> through billions of years.
>
>
>
> > such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in
order to
> > protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays,
>
> but only from UV radiation (which, unlike radiation of
> longer wavelengths, is capable of breaking up organic
> molecules).
>
> But the ozone layer is not the only thing that can
> protect life against it. As indicated above, water can
> protect by absorbing radiation of different wavelengths
> to a different degree. Earth or deep seawater can also
> act as protectors, but only for unicellulars that use
> something other than the Sun's radiation as an energy
> supply; like the heat of deep-sea vents, for example.
>
> > the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>
> because they lack an ozone layer, but for various other
> reasons:
> - smaller mass (leads to faster evaporation into space,
> most likely cause of Mars's drying out)
> - being too hot for water (all H2O was in evaporated
> state, and escaped thus into space more readily)
> - being too cold for water (all H2O is in the form of
> stone-frozen [and cracked :)] ice, like on moons of
> Jupiter)
> - having an atmosphere with runaway greenhouse effect
> (which leads to fast evaporation of lighter
> molecules like H2O into space, see Venus)
>
> Also, there are planets in the Solar System that are
> not dry and cracked: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
> Neptune are 'gas planets', that is, their small and
> solid cores are surrounded by broad layers of liquid
> and these by even broader layers of high-pressure
> gases. (H2O included.)
>
missing
> > something.
>
> probably not your fault.
>
lol -- you're so right, Daneel, but am trying to catch up as time
allows. Thanks for responding.
zoe
> see you
>
> Daneel [a#323 | U. of Ediacara student #000666]
>
> ! DO NOT send emails to my DejaNews adress, but to !
> ! "ustokos!cs.elte.hu", after replacing "!" with "@". !
> ************************************************************
> This is for the NSA: USA, Clinton, New York, Washington,
> White House, Capitolium, Pentagon, Islam, Allah, Hezbollah,
> Hamas, Abu Nidal, Bin Laden, terrorist, nuclear, atomic,
> semtex, anthrax, bomb, suicide, assassinate
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> In article <8aiubc$r3n$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
wrote:
>
> >
> > A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> > Was natural selection present during its formation? Seems to me that
> > such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in
order to
like
> > the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
> >
missing
> > something.
>
> oxygen-rich atmosphere. The rays break up ordinary oxygen (O=O, two
oxygen
> atoms connected with a double bond, or O2 for short) like this
(formulae
> written in longhand, so shuddup any chemistry purists around):
>
> O=O -> 0: + :O
>
> Now, atomic oxygen is really really reactive. It doesn't stay atomic
for
> very long, if there's anything at all around that it can react with.
And,
> of course, there is:
>
> O=O + :0 -> O3
>
IIRC
> it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
> someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did
any
> chemistry).
>
putting it that way makes it very easy to understand, Petteri. Thanks
> In other words, the ozone layer has been around about as long as
there has
> been oxygen in the atmosphere. Of course, some of the O3 also gets
broken
> up by the bombardment, floats further down into the atmosphere and
> degrades to O2 (and, lately, gets converted to O2 by the CFC's and
stuff
> we spray up there). The natural process replenishes it rather slowly
(in
> the human scale of things, very quickly in the geological time frame
> though).
>
> So, the ozone layer appeared when oxygen appeared.
would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's. Was
that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the presence
of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
Oxygen appeared when
> monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2 and
H2O
> into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted to the
> seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful effects
of UV
> radiation.
Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the stratosphere,
would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
molecules?
>
> "Natural selection" of course has nothing to do with the ozone layer
> (except indirectly,
I like that "indirectly" part. That's what I'm interested in, how
processes impact on each other.
in that photosyntesizing organisms were a result of
> natural selection). It's an inevitable consequence of an oxygen-rich
> atmosphere.
>
here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before O3
could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the first
place?
> Does that answer your question?
kinda and kinda not. They say a little learning is a dangerous thing,
and from the little I've read since this question came to mind, I'm
probably sticking both feet in my mouth with every other word.:=)
Thanks for helping me remove them -- the feet, I mean.
>
> -- Petteri
>
> PS. I tip my hat once again to your attitude -- you're mistaken, of
> course, but you seem honestly mistaken -- and you're not offensive or
> sanctimonious about it. We could use more creationists like you here!
Now,
> if you actually demonstrate a capability to adjust your views when
> presented with convincing evidence... ;-)
hey, I'm open. As I'm sure you are...;=)
zoe
>
> Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
>
>
Abner Mintz
> would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's. Was
> that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the presence
> of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
"There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
(i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
be many O2 around. This would also mean very little
ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
with first would be ... low."
> Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the stratosphere,
> would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> molecules?
"Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
> here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
> quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before O3
> could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
> photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the first
> place?
"First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
(They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
Derek Stevenson
> Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
>
> I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
> enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian
(and
> avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
> Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
> and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
[snip]
Minor misconception, here -- you're conflating Deja and Usenet.
Deja is an archive and, more recently, an access point for Usenet, which
is the collection of hundreds of thousands of newsgroups. Usenet is much
older and much, much larger than Deja. The vast majority of the people
you interact with in t.o., a.a., and most of Deja's other "forums' are
not "Dejians" at all.
Don't confuse the world with the window you see it through.
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
rpa...@rintintin.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) wrote:
> In article <psulonen-130...@dialup4-19.iptelecom.net.ua>,
> Petteri Sulonen <psul...@zeos.spamblock.net> wrote:
>
IIRC
> >it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
> >someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did
any
> >chemistry).
>
> oxygen is about 127 degrees. The O-O bonds are intermediate in
strength
> between single and double bonds.
>
there has
> >been oxygen in the atmosphere. Of course, some of the O3 also gets
broken
> >up by the bombardment, floats further down into the atmosphere and
> >degrades to O2 (and, lately, gets converted to O2 by the CFC's and
stuff
> >we spray up there). The natural process replenishes it rather slowly
(in
> >the human scale of things, very quickly in the geological time frame
>
> lifetime of an ozone molecule in the stratosphere is a couple of
years
> at most (that's the timescale for exchanging air between stratosphere
> and troposphere, and much of the ozone decomposes before this.) The
> thickness of the ozone layer is determined by the balance between the
> rate of photochemical production and the rate of all of the
destruction
> processes, natural and anthropogenic.
>
when
> >monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2
and H2O
> >into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted to
the
> >seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful effects
of UV
> >radiation.
>
> Ordinary oxygen absorbs wavelengths shorter than 240nm, and nitrogen
> starts to absorb at about 100 nm. Ozone's unique role is in absorbing
> the longer wavelengths, between 240 and 320 nm. These photons aren't
> especially destructive in general; they're pretty soft as UV goes.
> They are destructive in today's terrestrial biosphere because DNA and
> some other biological molecules happen to absorb strongly in this
region.
> Thus 280-nm UV is a very powerful mutagenic agent, but it's not
something
> that's going to tear up arbitrary organic molecules.
>
> Furthermore, while the primordial atmosphere contained very little O2
at the point that the supposed primordial atmosphere contained very
little 02, was there a problem then with the UV-C rays? That form of
radiation, I gather, from what I'm reading, are the most dangerous
rays, but are presently totally screened out by the presence of 02.
> (and thus essentially no O3), it probably _did_ contain polyatomic
> molecules that are now only present as traces, such as methane. These
> also absorb strongly in the UV. And as others have pointed out, a
> few meters of water will absorb UV as well.
>
> >"Natural selection" of course has nothing to do with the ozone layer
> >(except indirectly, in that photosyntesizing organisms were a result
of
> >natural selection). It's an inevitable consequence of an oxygen-rich
> >atmosphere.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
should the surviving mutants emerge with the ability to early ward off
UV rays rather than depending on O3 to do it for them?
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
Was
> > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
presence
> > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
>
> "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> be many O2 around.
but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that would
allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
supposed algae?
This would also mean very little
> ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
> with first would be ... low."
>
> > Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the
stratosphere,
> > would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> > ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> > molecules?
>
> "Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
> probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
> stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
> else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
>
okay. But then that leaves us dealing with the far more harmful UV-C
rays.
> > here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
> > quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before
O3
> > could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
> > photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the
first
> > place?
>
> "First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
> and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
> (They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
> that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
> kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
> OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
> killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
> accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
>
but reproduction, according to the evolutionary theory, should produce
offspring better able to deal with their environment. Why then are we
concerned at the depletion of ozone in our atmosphere today? By now we
should have mutated to the point of being UV-impregnable.
zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> > layer that wraps our earth?
>
> the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
> for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
> is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
>
including the evolutionary model. The creationist world view needs a
reasonable answer to all science, too, and not with just a
simplistic "God did it" which is on equal footing with "billions of
years did it." Neither first cause if falsifiable. The ozone layer
may be accounted for by some other part of science, but it still has to
be reckoned with in presenting a reasonable paradigm for the way things
are.
> "That said - what science says is that the ozone layer
> most probably formed soon after the first blue-green
> algae started releasing large amounts of oxygen into
> the atmosphere. Before then, there wasn't enough
> oxygen to form an ozone layer."
> > Was it formed through billions of years?
>
> "Odds are it formed fairly quickly."
will you accept "instant"? :=)
>
> > Seems to me that
> > such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in
order to
> > protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be
like
> > the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>
> "Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
> needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
> coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
> a rough time of it though ..." :)
>
Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and eventually,
in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
lol, Derek, thanks for the window-washing. I can see more clearly now
that the dust is gone. Hi, you Usenetian, you...
btw, my window is a large picture window with a wonderful view. :=)
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <psulonen-130...@dialup4-19.iptelecom.net.ua>,
[snip]
> > So, the ozone layer appeared when oxygen appeared.
>
> would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's. Was
> that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the presence
> of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
I think there would have been small amounts of O2 floating around even
very early, but very little: O2 isn't thermodynamically stable with just
about anything, so it tends to disappear from the atmosphere rather
quickly (by geological standards) unless constantly replenished by
something.
As I said below, the oxygen-rich atmosphere appeared with
photosynthesizing organisms.
> Oxygen appeared when
> > monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2 and
> H2O
> > into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted to the
> > seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful effects
> of UV
> > radiation.
>
> Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the stratosphere,
> would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> molecules?
I'm sure that some O3 would be formed right away. However, I think it
would almost immediately oxidize some of the organic molecules floating on
the sea surface and turn back to O2. However, keep in mind that the
reaction proceeds rather slowly, and would only have measurable effects
once there was a good deal of oxygen in the atmosphere. The oxygen
wouldn't stay where it was produced; it would quickly diffuse into the
rest of the atmosphere. (The composition of the atmosphere 10 kilometers
up isn't very different from the composition at sea level, barring local
effects like dust and pollution.) This diffusion happens a good deal more
quickly than the formation of the ozone layer -- and the ozone would form
at the point where there's a high enough density of oxygen. I suspect
(you'll have to ask a meteorologist to confirm this!) that in a less
oxygen-rich atmosphere the ozone layer would be at a lower altitude (where
higher pressure would compensate for the lower percentage of oxygen).
> > "Natural selection" of course has nothing to do with the ozone layer
> > (except indirectly,
>
> I like that "indirectly" part. That's what I'm interested in, how
> processes impact on each other.
>
> in that photosyntesizing organisms were a result of
> > natural selection). It's an inevitable consequence of an oxygen-rich
> > atmosphere.
> >
> here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
> quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before O3
> could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
> photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the first
> place?
That's pretty easy. They were in the surface waters of the sea (the
seashore, probably). Water is an excellent UV shield.
> > Does that answer your question?
>
> kinda and kinda not. They say a little learning is a dangerous thing,
> and from the little I've read since this question came to mind, I'm
> probably sticking both feet in my mouth with every other word.:=)
> Thanks for helping me remove them -- the feet, I mean.
Nothing like that noticed. No honest question is a dumb one.
[snip]
> hey, I'm open. As I'm sure you are...;=)
OK. In that case, one of us is likely to change their world-view pretty
drastically... ;-)
-- Petteri
Petteri Sulonen
> Petteri Sulonen wrote:
> > O3, of course, is ozone (the bonds are tricky to represent in ASCII; IIRC
> > it's a triangular molecule with a single bond as each "side"; please
> > someone set me straight if I'm wrong; it's been 6 years since I did any
> > chemistry).
>
> "It's not triangular. I can't remember if it's linear
> (180 degrees) or L-shaped (90 degrees), but I'd put my
> money on L-shaped from the way the orbitals work out."
Thanks. That's right. It's L-shaped, I remember now. That's also why it's
so damn reactive -- the bonds are those wacky "1 1/2" ones which leave a
bunch of very unhappy electrons.
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <38CF4D...@earthlink.net>,
> abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> > > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> > > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
> Was
> > > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
> presence
> > > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
> >
> > "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
> > oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> > (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> > found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> > be many O2 around.
>
> but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that would
> allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> supposed algae?
[snip]
I'm pretty sure those would be screened out by water too.
[snip]
> but reproduction, according to the evolutionary theory, should produce
> offspring better able to deal with their environment. Why then are we
> concerned at the depletion of ozone in our atmosphere today? By now we
> should have mutated to the point of being UV-impregnable.
Well, as the ozone layer and the oxygen atmosphere took care of the UV
problem way back when, why should we have evolved UV-resistance after
that? In fact, even if those early algae and bacteria _had_ evolved such
resistance (and it's quite possible that they did), the trait would
probably have evolved out, as it presented no survival advantage, and some
otherwise advantageous mutations would have diminished the resistance.
Unnecessary features (and not just directly harmful ones) tend to evolve
out because of this.
(The appendix, for example, has _not_ evolved out of humans, because of a
"barrier": if it became a little smaller than it is now, blood couldn't
circulate in it properly, which would mean that it would be even _more_
vulnerable to life-threatening infection. It _has_ evolved to the point
where it's as small as it can safely be. However, it's unlikely that a
single mutation (or even a combination of a few mutations) could cause it
to disappear altogether -- so we're stuck with it.)
Petteri Sulonen
[snip rest which has been addressed in other posts]
> Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and eventually,
> in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
> entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
It depends entirely on who you ask. The odds are in 10 -- 15 million years
or so, once the ozone layer has been replenished (now you know how it
happens :-)) and evolution would have filled the suddenly-vacated niches,
nobody would notice. It would be just another mass extinction in the mass
extinction-ridden history of the planet.
However, *I* would mind. I think *you* would too. It might be selfish, but
the best "objective" reason to take measures to protect the ozone layer
(and nature in general) is that without them the Earth would become a very
unpleasant place for *us*.
cz...@ecn.ab.ca
: > "You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
: > the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
: > for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
: > is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
: but, Abner, ALL science HAS to be considered in any world view,
: including the evolutionary model.
Why? Just because you say so? Don't make baseless assertions.
: The creationist world view needs a reasonable answer to all science,
: too, and not with just a simplistic "God did it" which is on equal
: footing with "billions of years did it."
Strawman. "Goddidit" is the parroting of a party line. "Billions..."
was arrived at through the application of logic, observation, and
experimentation.
: Neither first cause if falsifiable.
Untrue. Evolution is easy to falsify. Methinks you're perhaps a bit
fuzzy on the concept of falsifiability.
: > "Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
: > needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
: > coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
: > a rough time of it though ..." :)
: Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and eventually,
: in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
: entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
It'd be just fine and dandy for the majority of the Earth's biomass.
Let's not get all anthropocentric, now.
--
*************************************************************
In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a
degree that it would be perverse to withold provisional
assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise
tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time
in physics classrooms.
-Stephen Jay Gould
*************************************************************
RMumaw
*If* they had the ability to ward off UV rays (i.e. more than currently
seen in similar organisms), it would have to be through surviving
mutants as they wouldn't "know" that an O3 layer would eventually form
from biological O2 production.
Abner Mintz
> Thanks. That's right. It's L-shaped, I remember now. That's also why it's
> so damn reactive -- the bonds are those wacky "1 1/2" ones which leave a
> bunch of very unhappy electrons.
"Actually, the resonance of those 1 1/2 order bonds is
what holds it together so it has any duration at all.
Remember, resonance causes greater stability."
Abner Mintz
>>> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
>>> layer that wraps our earth?
Abner Mintz wrote:
>> "You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
>> the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
>> for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
>> is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
> but, Abner, ALL science HAS to be considered in any world view,
> including the evolutionary model.
*sighs* "The periodic table has to be considered by
biology, but that doesn't mean that the periodic table
has to be explained by biology. The periodic table is
explained by chemistry and (at a deeper level) by physics."
"Now do you see? Not every theory has to *explain* every
single thing in science. The theory of evolution doesn't
have to explain the ozone layer any more than it has to
explain the periodic table, relativity, or gravity, or
quantum mechanics, or cosmology. It's a theory of evolution,
not a theory of everything."
"It so happens that the ozone layer is not a problem for
evolution (for reasons already explained) - but that's
not the same as being explained by the theory of evolution.
Ozone is not a population of living creatures passing
on their genes from generation to generation, which is
what evolution is about."
> The ozone layer
> may be accounted for by some other part of science,
"It is."
> but it still has to
> be reckoned with in presenting a reasonable paradigm for the way things
> are.
"That's not what the theory of evolution is. The
theory of evolution is about how the frequency of
allelles in a population changes over time. No
more, no less."
"Do you expect the ozone layer to be explained by
the theory of gravity? If not, then why do you
expect it to be explained by the theory of evolution?"
>> "That said - what science says is that the ozone layer
>> most probably formed soon after the first blue-green
>> algae started releasing large amounts of oxygen into
>> the atmosphere. Before then, there wasn't enough
>> oxygen to form an ozone layer."
>>> Was it formed through billions of years?
>> "Odds are it formed fairly quickly."
> will you accept "instant"? :=)
"It seems unlikely."
>>> Seems to me that
>>> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in
>>> order to
>>> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be
>>> like
>>> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>> "Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
>> needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
>> coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
>> a rough time of it though ..." :)
> Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and eventually,
> in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
> entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
"OK by what standards? People would be pretty upset
about it, until we finished going extinct. But there
would still be life on earth under those circumstances
- it just wouldn't be human life. You and I wouldn't
like it, but the algae wouldn't care."
Abner Mintz
>>> would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
>>> water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
>>> molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
>>> vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
>>> Was
>>> that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
>>> presence
>>> of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
Abner Mintz wrote:
>> "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
>> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
>> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
>> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
>> be many O2 around.
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that would
> allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> supposed algae?
"To some degree. Any shielding helps. Our
atmosphere isn't a perfect shield of cosmic
radiation (witness the relative background
radiation levels in D.C. and Denver), but
it's enough for us to keep going."
>> This would also mean very little
>> ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
>> with first would be ... low."
>>> Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the
>>> stratosphere,
>>> would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
>>> ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
>>> molecules?
>> "Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
>> probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
>> stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
>> else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
> okay. But then that leaves us dealing with the far more harmful UV-C
> rays.
"Yes. I have yet to see the problem - the levels of
radiation getting through to underwater algae might
kill or mutate some of them, but a quickly-reproducing
algae wouldn't have any problems with that. We're not
talking 'instantly lethal' radiation here."
>>> here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
>>> quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before
>>> O3
>>> could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
>>> photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the
>>> first
>>> place?
>> "First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
>> and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
>> (They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
>> that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
>> kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
>> OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
>> killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
>> accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
> but reproduction, according to the evolutionary theory, should produce
> offspring better able to deal with their environment. Why then are we
> concerned at the depletion of ozone in our atmosphere today? By now we
> should have mutated to the point of being UV-impregnable.
"What makes you think that we should have mutated to be
UV-impregnable? That's not what the theory of evolution
says at all. Perhaps you are under some misconceptations
- let me see if I can help."
"First of all, the theory of evolution does not violate
the laws of physics. There is no magical 'immune to
radiation' gene any more than there is a 'immune to
thermodynamics' gene. There may be genes for radiation
resistance, but they would all work through some
mechanism. So lets look at the mechanisms that would
allow the little buggers to survive in a UV-intensive
environment, going from unlikely to likely."
"The most extreme would be rewriting the code of life
itself for increased radiation resistance in the form
of tougher/more redundant coding. For instance,
triplex 'DNA'. This would work ... but the cost would
be enormous, both short-term and long-term! It might
not be possible to make such a jump at all; if it
*was* possible, then the intermediate stages would
probably be pretty inefficient at reproduction, and
that's bad if you have competitors. Even if you
made the jump and survived, you'd evolve very slowly
from that point onwards, and so if you had any
competitors, they'd quickly out-evolve you and you'd
be lunch. In short, this route isn't likely to happen
if there was any other more workable mechanism for
survival, due to astronomical start-up and maintenance
costs to the organism."
"So, are there any more workable mechanisms? Sure!
Shielding! The organism could evolve thick cell
walls, perhaps incorporating some element that
absorbs ultraviolet efficiently. This is more
likely than the above, since the organism already
has cell walls to work with, it's just a matter
of altering them. Altering an existing item is
always easier for evolution than just starting from
scratch. So, what are the benefits and costs of
shielding? Well, it would be more UV-resistant, but
the efficiency will depend on the shielding. It
may require rare elements to work well (i.e. now
the organism needs new nutrients which may be hard
to get). It will definitely come at a high metabolic
cost to the organism, both to grow the shielding and
to maintain it (i.e. repair it, moving it around for
mobile organisms, etc.). This one has high start-up
and maintenance costs, though it's better than the
first one. Still, let's see if we can do better."
"How about repair mechanisms? The organisms could
evolve ways to repair the damaged DNA. And ...
this one we have. I know of no organism that doesn't
have repair capability. Odd, that ... you'd almost
think we needed it at some time in our evolutionary
history ..." :) "The level of radiation resistance
that simple organisms can get can be frightening.
A friend of mine works at a nuclear reactor. They
occasionally have severe algae problems in the water
cooling systems, and have to use extremely nasty
chemicals (you should see the warning signs! There's
less warning signs around the core!) to clean it out.
Obviously the radiation isn't doing a great job of
killing the algae off ... Of course, repair mechanisms
aren't perfect, so you'll still get deaths and mutations,
but at a much lower rate. Anything else the organism
can do?"
"Well ... reproduce! And reproduce fast! And faster
still, if there is enough food around! This one's
a winner in the evolutionary sweepstakes - fast
reproduction is a good niche any time there is
a reasonable food supply. What does it matter if
10% of your population is killed or mutated each
day if you're capable of replacing yourself at more
than 10% each day? Simple organisms are really
good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
Radiation isn't a problem any more."
"It's like with rabbits. Rabbits don't develop
defenses, like the armadillo or porcupine.
Rabbits just develop ... rabbits. It's really
hard to kill off rabbits - the individual rabbit
dies, but the others just fill the ranks and
keep on coming. Ask the Australians how hard
it is to kill something with no defense against
you except high reproduction rate."
"So, of the four mechanisms discussed, immunity
to radiation (mechanism 1) turned out to be
much less efficient than radiation resistance
mechanism #2 (shielding), which turned out to
be less efficient that radiation resistance
mechanism #3 (repair mechanisms), which turned
out to be less efficient than just outreproducing
the radiation losses (mechanism 4). So we'd
expect to see high reproduction rates and
some repair mechanisms in those organisms as
the most likely outcome. And the primitive
organisms we see nowadays that are most like
the ones that would have been around before
the ozone layer have ... high reproduction rates
and a surprising degree of radiation repair.
And it works just fine. Ask the algae in the
nuclear reactors."
"Now do you see why your expectation that evolution
would lead to radiation-immune creatures is
unsupported? Evolution doesn't say things
necessarily evolve to become *immune* to threats
(are rabbits immune to foxes?). They just have
to evolve to become more likely to, as a species,
survive the threat (as rabbits, as a whole,
survive in areas with foxes). Evolution is
about the population genetics changing in ways
so it can survive in its environment, not about
immunity to harm for individuals in that species."
Abner Mintz
> should the surviving mutants emerge with the ability to early ward off
> UV rays rather than depending on O3 to do it for them?
"Not if it was easier (in a metabolic sense or in
a evolutionary barrier sense) to repair the damage,
or just reproduce fast enough to replace the losses.
See my previous post for details."
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
Was
> > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
presence
> > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
>
> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
> with first would be ... low."
>
okay, but once the O2 begins increasing, wouldn't those UV rays be
right there, waiting to pounce, and, voila, we've got ozone close to
the ground where it doesn't belong?
> > Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the
stratosphere,
> > would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> > ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> > molecules?
>
> "Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
> probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
> stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
> else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
>
> > here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
> > quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before
O3
> > could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
> > photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the
first
> > place?
>
> "First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
> and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
> (They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
> that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
> kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
> OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
> killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
> accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
>
btw, is this speculation, or hard science?
zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> In article <8aocdv$q7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
wrote:
>
> > abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> > > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there
was
> > > > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > > > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air
as
> > > > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply
O=O's.
> > Was
> > > > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
> > presence
> > > > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
> > >
> > > "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
> > > oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> > > (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> > > found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> > > be many O2 around.
> >
would
> > allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> > than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> > supposed algae?
>
>
> I'm pretty sure those would be screened out by water too.
>
Petteri, would you accept a creationist's statement that they're pretty
sure about whatever?
> [snip]
>
> > but reproduction, according to the evolutionary theory, should
produce
> > offspring better able to deal with their environment. Why then are
we
> > concerned at the depletion of ozone in our atmosphere today? By now
we
> > should have mutated to the point of being UV-impregnable.
>
> Well, as the ozone layer and the oxygen atmosphere took care of the UV
> problem way back when
well, I'm thinking that a UV problem may have developed BEFORE the
ozone layer and oxygen atmosphere could develop in order to take care
of the said UV problem, meaning the ozone layer has now become a
problem to itself and any supposedly developing life by being in the
troposphere instead of the stratosphere.
, why should we have evolved UV-resistance after
> that?
I guess I meant if ozone is formed low to the ground, would we have
mutated into creatures that can live on ozone?
In fact, even if those early algae and bacteria _had_ evolved such
> resistance (and it's quite possible that they did), the trait would
> probably have evolved out, as it presented no survival advantage, and
some
> otherwise advantageous mutations would have diminished the
resistance.
>
> Unnecessary features (and not just directly harmful ones) tend to
evolve
> out because of this.
>
> (The appendix, for example, has _not_ evolved out of humans, because
of a
> "barrier": if it became a little smaller than it is now, blood
couldn't
> circulate in it properly, which would mean that it would be even
_more_
> vulnerable to life-threatening infection. It _has_ evolved to the
point
> where it's as small as it can safely be. However, it's unlikely that a
> single mutation (or even a combination of a few mutations) could
cause it
> to disappear altogether -- so we're stuck with it.)
>
I thought there must be some use for the appendix -- you have found it!
zoe
> -- Petteri
>
> Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
I'm kinda thinking that we have no info on what the UV-C rays would
really do to this planet since they're completely filtered out by the
oxygen in the atmosphere. We can only speculate that H2O was
sufficient protection to the alleged algae. My speculation would be
that the UV-C rays are VERY harmful to living organisms and would kill
them off before they even had a chance to reproduce, far less mutate.
> >> This would also mean very little
> >> ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
> >> with first would be ... low."
>
> >>> Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the
> >>> stratosphere,
> >>> would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> >>> ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> >>> molecules?
>
> >> "Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
> >> probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
> >> stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
> >> else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
>
> > okay. But then that leaves us dealing with the far more harmful UV-C
> > rays.
>
> "Yes. I have yet to see the problem - the levels of
> radiation getting through to underwater algae might
> kill or mutate some of them, but a quickly-reproducing
> algae wouldn't have any problems with that. We're not
> talking 'instantly lethal' radiation here."
how does quantity defeat the effects of an ever-present UV? If a life
form produced three offspring and the three offspring immediately
produced three more each, all 13 would be greeted by the harmful C rays
and eventually perish. I don't see how speedy reproduction would
protect exploding population growth from the radiation. They're all
there, aren't they, under the sun's baleful eye?
Unless you're saying that mutation is quickly occuring so that later
breeds are becoming resistant to the harmful effects of UV, not to
mention the low-lying smog of ozone...
I was figuring, I guess, that in order to survive, the fast-growing
algae would have to develop some resistance to the harmful effects of
UV-C.
>
> "First of all, the theory of evolution does not violate
> the laws of physics. There is no magical 'immune to
> radiation' gene any more than there is a 'immune to
> thermodynamics' gene. There may be genes for radiation
> resistance, but they would all work through some
> mechanism. So lets look at the mechanisms that would
> allow the little buggers to survive in a UV-intensive
> environment, going from unlikely to likely."
>
> "The most extreme would be rewriting the code of life
> itself for increased radiation resistance in the form
> of tougher/more redundant coding. For instance,
> triplex 'DNA'. This would work ... but the cost would
> be enormous, both short-term and long-term! It might
> not be possible to make such a jump at all; if it
> *was* possible, then the intermediate stages would
> probably be pretty inefficient at reproduction, and
> that's bad if you have competitors. Even if you
> made the jump and survived, you'd evolve very slowly
> from that point onwards, and so if you had any
> competitors, they'd quickly out-evolve you and you'd
> be lunch. In short, this route isn't likely to happen
> if there was any other more workable mechanism for
> survival, due to astronomical start-up and maintenance
> costs to the organism."
>
so scrap that.
> "So, are there any more workable mechanisms? Sure!
> Shielding! The organism could evolve thick cell
> walls, perhaps incorporating some element that
> absorbs ultraviolet efficiently. This is more
> likely than the above, since the organism already
> has cell walls to work with, it's just a matter
> of altering them. Altering an existing item is
> always easier for evolution than just starting from
> scratch. So, what are the benefits and costs of
> shielding? Well, it would be more UV-resistant, but
> the efficiency will depend on the shielding. It
> may require rare elements to work well (i.e. now
> the organism needs new nutrients which may be hard
> to get). It will definitely come at a high metabolic
> cost to the organism, both to grow the shielding and
> to maintain it (i.e. repair it, moving it around for
> mobile organisms, etc.). This one has high start-up
> and maintenance costs, though it's better than the
> first one. Still, let's see if we can do better."
okay, I'm with you so far...
I'm thinking that it's that 10% that you'd be relying on to survive and
carry on the race. The 90% would be killed, but you'd have a hardy few
mutating and hanging in there. Those are the ones of interest. Using
the speedy reproduction model, that 10% would have to reproduce at an
increased rate in order to allow 90% of that 10%'s offspring to be
killed and so on. So what you'd end up with is a small population of a
very specialized life form that can deal with its UV-ridden
environment.
But the repair/fast reproduction model could do it, I'm thinking.
However, at this point, I'd call it -- semantics as usual -- I'd call
such ability to repair and evolve "adaptation," a less loaded term than
evolution. This creationist could live with that.
Simple organisms are really
> good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
> food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
> enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
> is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
> up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
> one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
> up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
> Radiation isn't a problem any more."
>
hmmm, did I miss something earlier in my post when I thought I'd
hopefully debunked the speedy reproduction idea?
> "It's like with rabbits. Rabbits don't develop
> defenses, like the armadillo or porcupine.
> Rabbits just develop ... rabbits. It's really
> hard to kill off rabbits - the individual rabbit
> dies, but the others just fill the ranks and
> keep on coming. Ask the Australians how hard
> it is to kill something with no defense against
> you except high reproduction rate."
well, no, I don't think you can compare the limited resources of a
human being against the burgeoning rabbit world to that of the
omnipresent UV rays against the first "struggling life forms."
>
> "So, of the four mechanisms discussed, immunity
> to radiation (mechanism 1) turned out to be
> much less efficient than radiation resistance
> mechanism #2 (shielding), which turned out to
> be less efficient that radiation resistance
> mechanism #3 (repair mechanisms), which turned
> out to be less efficient than just outreproducing
> the radiation losses (mechanism 4). So we'd
> expect to see high reproduction rates and
> some repair mechanisms in those organisms as
> the most likely outcome. And the primitive
> organisms we see nowadays that are most like
> the ones that would have been around before
> the ozone layer have ... high reproduction rates
> and a surprising degree of radiation repair.
> And it works just fine. Ask the algae in the
> nuclear reactors."
your logic and reasoning is splendid...once we get away from the
premise :=)
>
> "Now do you see why your expectation that evolution
> would lead to radiation-immune creatures is
> unsupported?
no, Abner, you've got me confused again. I thought that's what
evolution was all about, the survival of the fittest. The fittest
would be those that have developed coping mechanisms for their
circumstances, not so? Therefore, creatures exposed to radiation, if
they're to live and keep evolving, would have to develop an immunity to
radiation in order to survive.
Evolution doesn't say things
> necessarily evolve to become *immune* to threats
> (are rabbits immune to foxes?). They just have
> to evolve to become more likely to, as a species,
> survive the threat
isn't the species made up of individual components, each having the
ability to survive, in order for that species as a whole to survive.
Can we compartmentalize the individual from its species as a whole?
Bear with me -- I'm struggling with this.
(as rabbits, as a whole,
> survive in areas with foxes). Evolution is
> about the population genetics changing in ways
> so it can survive in its environment, not about
> immunity to harm for individuals in that species."
>
>
thanks for taking time, Abner, to enlighten me on the position of the
evolutionist.
Zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
wrote:
>
> > In article <psulonen-130...@dialup4-19.iptelecom.net.ua>,
> [snip]
>
> > > So, the ozone layer appeared when oxygen appeared.
> >
> > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
Was
> > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
presence
> > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
>
> very early, but very little: O2 isn't thermodynamically stable with
just
> about anything, so it tends to disappear from the atmosphere rather
> quickly (by geological standards) unless constantly replenished by
> something.
>
> As I said below, the oxygen-rich atmosphere appeared with
> photosynthesizing organisms.
>
> > Oxygen appeared when
> > > monocellular organisms evolved photosynthesis (which converts CO2
and
> > H2O
> > > into sugar, releasing O2). Before this time life was restricted
to the
> > > seas; the surface of the water screened it from the harmful
effects
> > of UV
> > > radiation.
> >
stratosphere,
> > would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
> > ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
> > molecules?
>
> would almost immediately oxidize some of the organic molecules
floating on
> the sea surface and turn back to O2. However, keep in mind that the
> reaction proceeds rather slowly, and would only have measurable
effects
> once there was a good deal of oxygen in the atmosphere. The oxygen
> wouldn't stay where it was produced; it would quickly diffuse into the
> rest of the atmosphere. (The composition of the atmosphere 10
kilometers
> up isn't very different from the composition at sea level, barring
local
> effects like dust and pollution.) This diffusion happens a good deal
more
> quickly than the formation of the ozone layer -- and the ozone would
form
> at the point where there's a high enough density of oxygen. I suspect
> (you'll have to ask a meteorologist to confirm this!) that in a less
> oxygen-rich atmosphere the ozone layer would be at a lower altitude
(where
> higher pressure would compensate for the lower percentage of oxygen).
>
the UV rays should penetrate into the troposphere and start doing its
03-forming at a lower level, wouldn't you say?
> > > "Natural selection" of course has nothing to do with the ozone
layer
> > > (except indirectly,
> >
> > I like that "indirectly" part. That's what I'm interested in, how
> > processes impact on each other.
> >
> > in that photosyntesizing organisms were a result of
> > > natural selection). It's an inevitable consequence of an oxygen-
rich
> > > atmosphere.
> > >
> > here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
> > quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before
O3
> > could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
> > photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the
first
> > place?
>
> That's pretty easy. They were in the surface waters of the sea (the
> seashore, probably). Water is an excellent UV shield.
>
okay. Can't fault that logic.
> > > Does that answer your question?
> >
> > kinda and kinda not. They say a little learning is a dangerous
thing,
> > and from the little I've read since this question came to mind, I'm
> > probably sticking both feet in my mouth with every other word.:=)
> > Thanks for helping me remove them -- the feet, I mean.
>
> Nothing like that noticed. No honest question is a dumb one.
>
> [snip]
>
> > hey, I'm open. As I'm sure you are...;=)
>
> OK. In that case, one of us is likely to change their world-view
pretty
> drastically... ;-)
>
lol -- I really am enjoying my world-view. Are you? Hope so. One
does not give up one's pleasures too easily. But, of course, pleasure
at the expense of truth is no pleasure in the long run.
zoe
> -- Petteri
>
> Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
cz...@ecn.ab.ca () wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> : > "You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
> : > the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
> : > for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
> : > is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
>
> : but, Abner, ALL science HAS to be considered in any world view,
> : including the evolutionary model.
>
If you think about it for a bit, Czar, you'd see it's not a baseless
assertion.
>
> : The creationist world view needs a reasonable answer to all science,
> : too, and not with just a simplistic "God did it" which is on equal
> : footing with "billions of years did it."
>
> Strawman. "Goddidit" is the parroting of a party line. "Billions..."
> was arrived at through the application of logic, observation, and
> experimentation.
"Billions" is also the parroting of the TOE party line. Given enough
time, anything can happen.
>
> : Neither first cause if falsifiable.
>
> Untrue. Evolution is easy to falsify.
I didn't say "evolution", Czar. I said the solution of "billions of
years" is unfalsifialbe.
Methinks you're perhaps a bit
> fuzzy on the concept of falsifiability.
Methinks you're dressing me up in your fuzziness.
>
> : > "Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
> : > needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
> : > coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
> : > a rough time of it though ..." :)
>
> : Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and
eventually,
> : in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
> : entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
>
> It'd be just fine and dandy for the majority of the Earth's biomass.
> Let's not get all anthropocentric, now.
I'm glad, for your sake, that you're willing to lay down and die for
the algae.
zoe
>
> --
> *************************************************************
> In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a
> degree that it would be perverse to withold provisional
> assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise
> tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time
> in physics classrooms.
> -Stephen Jay Gould
> *************************************************************
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >>> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the
ozone
> >>> layer that wraps our earth?
>
> >> "You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
> >> the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
> >> for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
> >> is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
>
> > but, Abner, ALL science HAS to be considered in any world view,
> > including the evolutionary model.
>
> biology, but that doesn't mean that the periodic table
> has to be explained by biology. The periodic table is
> explained by chemistry and (at a deeper level) by physics."
>
> "Now do you see? Not every theory has to *explain* every
> single thing in science. The theory of evolution doesn't
> have to explain the ozone layer any more than it has to
> explain the periodic table, relativity, or gravity, or
> quantum mechanics, or cosmology. It's a theory of evolution,
> not a theory of everything."
>
The ToE has to adjust its beliefs depending on what relativity,
gravity, ozone, entropy and every other law dictates must happen.
evolution does not happen in a vacuum.
> "It so happens that the ozone layer is not a problem for
> evolution (for reasons already explained) - but that's
> not the same as being explained by the theory of evolution.
> Ozone is not a population of living creatures passing
> on their genes from generation to generation, which is
> what evolution is about."
>
yes, but if ozone or lack thereof can affect the passing on of our
genes, then ozone becomes a problem for evolution.
> > The ozone layer
> > may be accounted for by some other part of science,
>
> "It is."
>
> > but it still has to
> > be reckoned with in presenting a reasonable paradigm for the way
things
> > are.
>
> "That's not what the theory of evolution is. The
> theory of evolution is about how the frequency of
> allelles in a population changes over time. No
> more, no less."
alleles don't change in a vacuum. They change because of outside
forces.
>
> "Do you expect the ozone layer to be explained by
> the theory of gravity? If not, then why do you
> expect it to be explained by the theory of evolution?"
>
not looking for ozone to be explained by any theory or law. I'm
looking for its effects on evolution.
> >> "That said - what science says is that the ozone layer
> >> most probably formed soon after the first blue-green
> >> algae started releasing large amounts of oxygen into
> >> the atmosphere. Before then, there wasn't enough
> >> oxygen to form an ozone layer."
>
> >>> Was it formed through billions of years?
>
> >> "Odds are it formed fairly quickly."
>
> > will you accept "instant"? :=)
>
> "It seems unlikely."
>
> >>> Seems to me that
> >>> such a protective layer would need to be formed pretty fast in
> >>> order to
> >>> protect the planet Earth from the sun's rays, or else we would be
> >>> like
> >>> the rest of the dry, cracked planets in our solar system.
>
> >> "Sorry, you're jumping to conclusions - ozone isn't
> >> needed for life. Water does fairly well as a protective
> >> coating for underwater life. Life on land would have
> >> a rough time of it though ..." :)
>
> > Then it's okay if we develop a hole in the ozone layer, and
eventually,
> > in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
> > entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
>
> "OK by what standards? People would be pretty upset
> about it, until we finished going extinct. But there
> would still be life on earth under those circumstances
> - it just wouldn't be human life. You and I wouldn't
> like it, but the algae wouldn't care."
>
How dreary...I'm glad it doesn't have to be that way...
zoe
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <psulonen-150...@dialup2-3.iptelecom.net.ua>,
> psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> > In article <8aocdv$q7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> wrote:
[snip]
> > > but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that
> would
> > > allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> > > than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> > > supposed algae?
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > I'm pretty sure those would be screened out by water too.
> >
>
> Petteri, would you accept a creationist's statement that they're pretty
> sure about whatever?
Nope. However, unlike the creationist's statement, you can *check* mine.
I'm 100% certain that the data of UV-C penetration into water is available
at your local university library. I, being a historian, not a physicist
(although somewhat informed about physics), don't personally know the
figures -- but someone does, and can provide them. Any links, Maff?
[snip]
> > Well, as the ozone layer and the oxygen atmosphere took care of the UV
> > problem way back when
>
> well, I'm thinking that a UV problem may have developed BEFORE the
> ozone layer and oxygen atmosphere could develop in order to take care
> of the said UV problem, meaning the ozone layer has now become a
> problem to itself and any supposedly developing life by being in the
> troposphere instead of the stratosphere.
Um... I don't follow you here. Could you rephrase that?
> , why should we have evolved UV-resistance after
> > that?
>
> I guess I meant if ozone is formed low to the ground, would we have
> mutated into creatures that can live on ozone?
As has been shown to you, the ozone close to the ground wouldn't have
stayed there for long -- in the first place, not much would have formed
(as the atomic oxygen created by radiation would have found something else
to react with first) and in the second place, the ozone that DID form
would also quickly react with something and degrade into ordinary oxygen.
An "ozone atmosphere" can't exist; it's too reactive.
[snip]
> > (The appendix, for example, has _not_ evolved out of humans, because
> of a
> > "barrier": if it became a little smaller than it is now, blood
> couldn't
> > circulate in it properly, which would mean that it would be even
> _more_
> > vulnerable to life-threatening infection. It _has_ evolved to the
> point
> > where it's as small as it can safely be. However, it's unlikely that a
> > single mutation (or even a combination of a few mutations) could
> cause it
> > to disappear altogether -- so we're stuck with it.)
> >
> I thought there must be some use for the appendix -- you have found it!
There's no *use* for it; it's harmful, in fact. It's a relic. However, it
can't evolve out because the intermediate stages would be even *more*
harmful.
Petteri Sulonen
[snip]
> > "To some degree. Any shielding helps. Our
> > atmosphere isn't a perfect shield of cosmic
> > radiation (witness the relative background
> > radiation levels in D.C. and Denver), but
> > it's enough for us to keep going."
> >
>
> I'm kinda thinking that we have no info on what the UV-C rays would
> really do to this planet since they're completely filtered out by the
> oxygen in the atmosphere. We can only speculate that H2O was
> sufficient protection to the alleged algae. My speculation would be
> that the UV-C rays are VERY harmful to living organisms and would kill
> them off before they even had a chance to reproduce, far less mutate.
That's easy to test, silly! Just take a jar with water and algae, radiate
it with UV-C at the level they'd be getting without an oxygen atmosphere,
and see what happens. I bet someone somewhere has already done this! Maff?
[snip]
> > "Yes. I have yet to see the problem - the levels of
> > radiation getting through to underwater algae might
> > kill or mutate some of them, but a quickly-reproducing
> > algae wouldn't have any problems with that. We're not
> > talking 'instantly lethal' radiation here."
>
> how does quantity defeat the effects of an ever-present UV? If a life
> form produced three offspring and the three offspring immediately
> produced three more each, all 13 would be greeted by the harmful C rays
> and eventually perish. I don't see how speedy reproduction would
> protect exploding population growth from the radiation. They're all
> there, aren't they, under the sun's baleful eye?
Of course they'd _eventually_ perish. However, if they survived long
enough to produce another three offspring each, they'd be 27 life forms
left once the original 13 died.
> Unless you're saying that mutation is quickly occuring so that later
> breeds are becoming resistant to the harmful effects of UV, not to
> mention the low-lying smog of ozone...
Nonono. You still haven't demonstrated that UV-C actually *does* kill off
everything including that which is under one foot of water.
I don't *know* it, but I'm *pretty sure* that UV-C isn't as deadly as
that. Even far more energetic radiation (X rays and gamma rays, for
example) isn't "immediately lethal". Again, I'm sure someone has done the
experiments about this. Anyone got some data on (1) how deep UV-C
penetrates into water and (2) how lethal it is to micro-organisms?
[snip]
> > "Well ... reproduce! And reproduce fast! And faster
> > still, if there is enough food around! This one's
> > a winner in the evolutionary sweepstakes - fast
> > reproduction is a good niche any time there is
> > a reasonable food supply. What does it matter if
> > 10% of your population is killed or mutated each
> > day if you're capable of replacing yourself at more
> > than 10% each day?
>
> I'm thinking that it's that 10% that you'd be relying on to survive and
> carry on the race. The 90% would be killed, but you'd have a hardy few
> mutating and hanging in there. Those are the ones of interest. Using
> the speedy reproduction model, that 10% would have to reproduce at an
> increased rate in order to allow 90% of that 10%'s offspring to be
> killed and so on. So what you'd end up with is a small population of a
> very specialized life form that can deal with its UV-ridden
> environment.
Nope. You've ignored Abner's excellent expose on _how_ such UV resistance
could evolve. Salmon, for example, produce hundreds of thousands of
offspring each -- almost all of which die before reaching maturity. Get
this: if the rate of reproduction of a species is greater than the rate of
death, the population increases. If an organism divides once an hour, in
24 hours it'll have theoretically produced about 17 MILLION organisms. If
16,9 million of those die, that still means that that one organism will
have 100,000 live descendants at the time! See?
> But the repair/fast reproduction model could do it, I'm thinking.
> However, at this point, I'd call it -- semantics as usual -- I'd call
> such ability to repair and evolve "adaptation," a less loaded term than
> evolution. This creationist could live with that.
That's a pretty drastic adaptation you're talking about -- considerably
more drastic than, say, producing a brain.
> Simple organisms are really
> > good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
> > food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
> > enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
> > is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
> > up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
> > one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
> > up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
> > Radiation isn't a problem any more."
> >
>
> hmmm, did I miss something earlier in my post when I thought I'd
> hopefully debunked the speedy reproduction idea?
You haven't. Both your premises and your reasoning are flawed.
> > "It's like with rabbits. Rabbits don't develop
> > defenses, like the armadillo or porcupine.
> > Rabbits just develop ... rabbits. It's really
> > hard to kill off rabbits - the individual rabbit
> > dies, but the others just fill the ranks and
> > keep on coming. Ask the Australians how hard
> > it is to kill something with no defense against
> > you except high reproduction rate."
>
> well, no, I don't think you can compare the limited resources of a
> human being against the burgeoning rabbit world to that of the
> omnipresent UV rays against the first "struggling life forms."
Here again: you assert that UV-C (1) penetrates water in great quantities
and (2) that it is instantly lethal to all microbiologic forms of life.
Where did you get this data?
> > "Now do you see why your expectation that evolution
> > would lead to radiation-immune creatures is
> > unsupported?
>
> no, Abner, you've got me confused again. I thought that's what
> evolution was all about, the survival of the fittest. The fittest
> would be those that have developed coping mechanisms for their
> circumstances, not so? Therefore, creatures exposed to radiation, if
> they're to live and keep evolving, would have to develop an immunity to
> radiation in order to survive.
... or reproduce faster than the radiation kills them.
You're omitting one thing here: what is POSSIBLE. For example, there is NO
WAY an organism could evolve invisibility, even though it would have
definite survival advantages. There's simply no way of *BEING* invisible!
(Pretty good approximations _have_ happened, of course.)
> Evolution doesn't say things
> > necessarily evolve to become *immune* to threats
> > (are rabbits immune to foxes?). They just have
> > to evolve to become more likely to, as a species,
> > survive the threat
>
> isn't the species made up of individual components, each having the
> ability to survive, in order for that species as a whole to survive.
> Can we compartmentalize the individual from its species as a whole?
> Bear with me -- I'm struggling with this.
I don't follow you here. What do you mean compartmentalize?
[snip]
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <38CF4D...@earthlink.net>,
> abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
> > > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> > > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
> > > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
> Was
> > > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
> presence
> > > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
> >
> > "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
> > oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> > (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> > found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> > be many O2 around. This would also mean very little
> > ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
> > with first would be ... low."
> >
>
> okay, but once the O2 begins increasing, wouldn't those UV rays be
> right there, waiting to pounce, and, voila, we've got ozone close to
> the ground where it doesn't belong?
See my other post: ozone in the low atmosphere doesn't survive very long.
It finds something to react with. As I said there, ozone is continuously
being produced here too (by natural and human processes) yet it gets
continuously degraded into O2.
[snip]
> > "First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
> > and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
> > (They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
> > that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
> > kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
> > OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
> > killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
> > accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
>
> btw, is this speculation, or hard science?
What do you understand by the terms?
In a sense, *ALL* science is speculation. We see a phenomenon and try to
explain it as best we can. If we don't have or can't have all the data, we
have to fill in the gaps with "speculation". However, the speculation is
REASONABLE if it fits all the data we *do* have and does not introduce
unnecessary complexities.
For example, we know that all the building-blocks for life were present in
the primordial sea. We know that there were shallow coastal waters. We
know that water screens out UV. Therefore, it's reasonable to "speculate"
that life would first have started in those shallow waters, and not, for
example, on solid ground (where it would be exposed to radiation and
furthermore the chemicals would not be in solution -- reactions involving
solids are usually tougher than those in liquids) or in the deep sea
(where it would be out of the light; although of course it _could_ have
started around a source of geothermal and chemical energy, like those
deep-sea vents).
We know radiation causes mutations, and we know that a high rate of
mutations in a fast-reproducing organism produces a higher rate of
evolution. Again, it's reasonable speculation. We can't *KNOW* because we
weren't there -- but we can make a very educated guess.
Petteri Sulonen
[snip]
> well, without the ozone layer being originally located 20 to 30 KM up,
> the UV rays should penetrate into the troposphere and start doing its
> 03-forming at a lower level, wouldn't you say?
They would penetrate deeper, certainly, until the ozone layer actually
forms. However, as the ozone forms, it screens out progressively more of
the UV. Therefore, less and less will be produced in the troposphere. And
ozone in the lower atmosphere, of course, vanishes quickly because it's so
reactive. (Reacts with water, all organic materials, lots of minerals,
etc.) Ozone *IS* continuously formed in the lower atmosphere too (for
example, by lightning) -- but it just vanishes within hours. See?
[snip]
> > OK. In that case, one of us is likely to change their world-view
> pretty
> > drastically... ;-)
> >
>
> lol -- I really am enjoying my world-view. Are you? Hope so. One
> does not give up one's pleasures too easily. But, of course, pleasure
> at the expense of truth is no pleasure in the long run.
Yep, I quite like it. Especially lately as I've spiced up the hard
empiricism with a dose of unfalsifiable metaphor about the human
condition... :-)
Abner Mintz
> I guess I meant if ozone is formed low to the ground, would we have
> mutated into creatures that can live on ozone?
"Unlikely. Even in the heart of a healthy ozone layer,
the concentration of ozone isn't that high - it would
be like a creature evolving to live off of the energy
of turning dissolved gold in seawater into gold metal.
Even if such a metabolism is possible, there isn't
enough dissolved gold in seawater to make it worthwhile
to try - such a mutant would starve to death."
cz...@ecn.ab.ca
: cz...@ecn.ab.ca () wrote:
: > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
: >
: > : > "You seem to be assuming that all science is part of
: > : > the 'evolutionary model'; the ozone layer is accounted
: > : > for by other parts of science, not evolution. Evolution
: > : > is about how life forms change over time, nothing else."
: >
: > : but, Abner, ALL science HAS to be considered in any world view,
: > : including the evolutionary model.
: > Why? Just because you say so? Don't make baseless assertions.
: If you think about it for a bit, Czar, you'd see it's not a baseless
: assertion.
....yet another baseless assertion. Think (if the verb applies) about
it yourself.
: > : The creationist world view needs a reasonable answer to all science,
: > : too, and not with just a simplistic "God did it" which is on equal
: > : footing with "billions of years did it."
: >
: > Strawman. "Goddidit" is the parroting of a party line. "Billions..."
: > was arrived at through the application of logic, observation, and
: > experimentation.
: "Billions" is also the parroting of the TOE party line. Given enough
: time, anything can happen.
There's that strawman argument again.
: > : in time, if we don't stop our present lifestyle, it's okay if the
: > : entire ozone layer disappears, and life reverts to the oceans? :=)
: >
: > It'd be just fine and dandy for the majority of the Earth's biomass.
: > Let's not get all anthropocentric, now.
: I'm glad, for your sake, that you're willing to lay down and die for
: the algae.
And now you're putting words in my mouth. No end to your inherent
dishonesty, is there?
cz...@ecn.ab.ca
: The ToE has to adjust its beliefs depending on what relativity,
: gravity, ozone, entropy and every other law dictates must happen.
: evolution does not happen in a vacuum.
Bullshit. You don't even know what the "ToE" is, do you? Prove me
wrong if you don't like that assessment -- what do you consider to
be the "ToE"?
Abner Mintz
>>> would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
>>> water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
>>> molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
>>> vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
>>> Was
>>> that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
>>> presence
>>> of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
Abner Mintz wrote:
>> "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
>> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
>> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
>> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
>> be many O2 around. This would also mean very little
>> ozone, as the odds of an oxygen atom finding an O2 to react
>> with first would be ... low."
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> okay, but once the O2 begins increasing, wouldn't those UV rays be
> right there, waiting to pounce, and, voila, we've got ozone close to
> the ground where it doesn't belong?
"Gases diffuse pretty quickly in our atmosphere. If the
oxygen concentration has built up enough to get an
ozone layer near the surface (given incoming radiation),
then odds are that the oxygen concentration will build
up enough to get an ozone layer further up ... which
would screen out the radiation from the surface, resulting
in an ozone layer high up and very little near the surface."
"This is what is happening today. Oxygen is produced near
the surface, diffuses upwards, and is irradiated, producing
an ozone layer that protects the air further down. If it
happens like that today, why would it be different back then?"
"If the oxygen was produced quickly at first, you might
get a short-lived surface ozone layer (which wouldn't
affect the underwater algae much - ozone is too reactive
to last long in water), but it would shift upwards
very quickly as the oxygen diffused upwards. I doubt
there would be a surface ozone layer for even a year,
the diffusion rate of gases being as high as they are."
>>> Thing is, since there's no ozone layer yet created in the
>>> stratosphere,
>>> would the UV-B rays (the higher-energy waves) start the process of
>>> ozone forming closer to the earth where it finds its first O=O
>>> molecules?
>> "Before there was a significant O2 concentration, there
>> probably wouldn't *be* an ozone layer - again, any
>> stray oxygen atoms would probably react with something
>> else long before they found one of the rare O2 molecules."
>>> here's another probably uninformed question -- but I think you'll
>>> quickly set me straight. If photosynthesis had to take place before
>>> O3
>>> could be formed, yet DNA is damaged by UV-B, how could
>>> photosynthesizing algae get far enough along to create O2 in the
>>> first
>>> place?
>> "First, water can screen out a fair amount of ultraviolet,
>> and the organisms were almost certainly living underwater.
>> (They probably couldn't colonize the land yet for just
>> that reason!) The ultraviolet which got through would
>> kill some organisms, and mutate others ... but that's
>> OK, as long as more of them get to reproduce than are
>> killed off. In fact, causing a high mutation rate might
>> accelerate the evolution of those simple organisms ..."
> btw, is this speculation, or hard science?
"Which parts? Water being able to screen out a fair
amount of ultraviolet is hard science (if you wish,
go to a university library and look up the transmittance
of water at various wavelengths - or just go to a pool
during the summer and stand in waist-high water for
three hours and compare the sunburn levels developed
by the next day :) ). Death or mutation due to radiation
being OK for survival as long as they reproduce faster
than they are killed off or mutated is hard science,
which I can support with math if you wish - actually,
I'll do so in the next paragraph. A high mutation
rate accelerating the evolution of simple organisms
is supported, but not as solidly, in that evolution rates
can be hard to measure. That's why I said 'might' rather
than 'would'. Fair enough?"
"Now, the mathematical model for showing that
fast reproduction can deal with factors that kill
off or mutate a portion of the population. Let
us assume, for the sake of simplicity, that all
mutants also count as deaths (not true, but
simplifies the math). Reproduction will multiply
the amount of the population by x, where x=1 is
replacement, x>1 is increasing the population,
and x<1 would mean not meeting replacement. Factors
that kill off a proportion of the population will
multiple the amount of the population by y, where
y<1. So if you start off with population N, at
the end of the time period of the above multipliers
you will have a population of Nxy. If xy>1, the
population will increase. If xy=1, it will stay even.
If xy<1, it will decrease."
"So, all you need to survive a factor that gives you,
say, a death rate of 90% (y=.1) is to have a reproduction
factor high enough that xy>1 again. In this case,
the critical number for x is 10. If x=10, and y=.1,
then at the end of the time period, you have as many
as you started with. If x=11 ... you have slow but
steady growth in population."
"An algae could very well live in an area which killed
off 99% of its population per hour as long as it produced
100 or more offspring per hour (not impossible for an
algae with an ample food supply - say, dead algae, and
enough sunlight for it to power the metabolic and
reproductive systems). After all, x=101 and y=.01 would
give you a slow but steady *increase* in population even
with 99% dying per hour."
"Make more sense now?"
Doug Schiffer
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> Morning, Dejians! Top o' the world to you!
>
> I've been scrolling through the mine fields of dejaland :=)and am
> enjoying the excruciating honesty I'm finding here. As a Christian (and
> avid Creationist), I'm definitely expendable in these parts. Whew!
> Wish I had more time to read through all the threads -- lol, the wit
> and repartee, not to mention knowledge, is stimulating.
>
> A quick question: How does the evolutionary model explain the ozone
> layer that wraps our earth? Was it formed through billions of years?
I recently worked on a contract in Boston where we had a UV light source in
the lab. Whenever the UV source was on, ozone was formed. We had to wear
protective eye gear for the UV light source, and the room had to be vented
to prevent excessive ozone buildup.
As I understand it, ozone forms naturally in the upper atmosphere by the
interaction of oxygen molecules and UV rays from the sun. Once formed, the
ozone blocks most of the UV light rays from making it to the lower
atmosphere (and us). It's entirely natural.
What's been happening lately to make the ozone layer thin is that CFCs and
other manmade chemicals have been drifting up into the ozone layer, and are
reducing the efficiency with which ozone forms naturally. Ozone is not
stable, but breaks apart by itself. If you don't make it regularly, it
disappears.
--
"Most confusing of all, though, were probably Marco Polo's claim
that public safety and commercial honesty were far better maintained
in China than in Europe, without Christianity as a basis for morals."
-K. Pomerantz and S. Topik
"The World that Trade Created"
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On 15 Mar 2000 11:06:54 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>In article <38CF4D...@earthlink.net>,
>abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
>> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>> > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there was
>> > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
>> > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air as
>> > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
>Was
>> > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
>presence
>> > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
>>
>> "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
>> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
>> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
>> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
>> be many O2 around.
>
>but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that would
>allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
>than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
>supposed algae?
Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment had
a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air, these
are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds, which also
provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
more significant problem for early life than it is today.
Cleaves HJ, and Miller SL. (1998 Jun 23). Oceanic protection of
prebiotic organic compounds from UV radiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S
A , 95, 7260-3.
Garcia-Pichel F. (1998 Jun). Solar ultraviolet and the evolutionary
history of cyanobacteria. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 28, 321-47.
Cheers! Ian
=====================================================
Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis and Michael James Musgrave
reyn...@werple.mira.net.au http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
a collection of Dawkins inspired weasle programs http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~ianm/whale.htm
Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
Sverker Johansson
> In article <8ajlcn$i84$1...@peabody.colorado.edu>,
> rpa...@rintintin.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) wrote:
[snip]
> > Furthermore, while the primordial atmosphere contained very little O2
>
> at the point that the supposed primordial atmosphere contained very
> little 02, was there a problem then with the UV-C rays? That form of
> radiation, I gather, from what I'm reading, are the most dangerous
> rays, but are presently totally screened out by the presence of 02.
There would have been a problem for unprotected life out in the open,
on the surface. But water, for example, is a pretty effective UV
screen as well, so down a few meters in the ocean (where the life
of that time had its home anyway) the lack of ozone is no big deal.
Land life did not turn up until well after the oxygen
(and presumably ozone) was in place.
References to calculations available on request.
--
Best regards, HLK, Physics
Sverker Johansson U of Jonkoping
----------------------------------------------
Definitions:
Micro-evolution: evolution for which the evidence is so
overwhelming that even the ICR can't deny it.
Macro-evolution: evolution which is only proven beyond
reasonable doubt, not beyond unreasonable doubt.
Sverker Johansson
> In article <8ase9r$qf2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> > > In article <8aocdv$q7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> > wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
> > would
> > > > allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> > > > than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> > > > supposed algae?
> > >
> > >
> > > I'm pretty sure those would be screened out by water too.
> > >
> >
> > Petteri, would you accept a creationist's statement that they're pretty
> > sure about whatever?
>
> Nope. However, unlike the creationist's statement, you can *check* mine.
> I'm 100% certain that the data of UV-C penetration into water is available
> at your local university library. I, being a historian, not a physicist
> (although somewhat informed about physics), don't personally know the
> figures -- but someone does, and can provide them. Any links, Maff?
How about:
Cleaves, H J & Miller, S M (1998) 'Oceanic protection of prebiotic
organic compounds from UV radiation', Proc Nat Acad Sci 95:7260-7263
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/13/7260
or
Cockell, Charles S (1998) 'Biological effects of high ultraviolet
radiation on early earth - a theoretical evaluation',
J Theor Bio 193:717-729
http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/jtbi.1998.0738
(These two mainly discuss other ways than water as such for
UV protection.)
[snip]
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > In article <8ajlcn$i84$1...@peabody.colorado.edu>,
> > rpa...@rintintin.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) wrote:
> [snip]
> > > Furthermore, while the primordial atmosphere contained very
little O2
> >
> > at the point that the supposed primordial atmosphere contained very
> > little 02, was there a problem then with the UV-C rays? That form of
> > radiation, I gather, from what I'm reading, are the most dangerous
> > rays, but are presently totally screened out by the presence of 02.
>
> There would have been a problem for unprotected life out in the open,
> on the surface. But water, for example, is a pretty effective UV
> screen as well, so down a few meters in the ocean (where the life
> of that time had its home anyway) the lack of ozone is no big deal.
>
I suppose so, but then wouldn't the lack of ozone and lack of oxygen
allow the UV-C rays through? And from what I'm reading, the C rays
aren't called "death rays" or germicidal rays for nothing. UV-C rays
are used to destroy bacteria, virus, yeast, mold, algae, and other
microorganisms in air, liquids or on surfaces.
> Land life did not turn up until well after the oxygen
> (and presumably ozone) was in place.
>
hmmm, something's missing here, seems to me. If loads of oxygen begins
to develop, there would have to be something else in place (and
instantly, too, a la Behe's irreducible complexity theory) to keep the
oxygen from destroying the chemical building blocks of life. And in
the same breath, if no oxygen is present, there's no ozone protection
from the deadly UV-C rays. Seems like a lot more stuff would have to
happen pretty fast instead of over billions of years, in order for
algae to survive. Bear with me, I'm just a beginner and teetering on
the edge...
> References to calculations available on request.
>
your calculations would be appreciated, Sverker. I'll try my best to
wrap my mind around them, but no promises...
zoe
> --
> Best regards, HLK, Physics
> Sverker Johansson U of Jonkoping
> ----------------------------------------------
> Definitions:
> Micro-evolution: evolution for which the evidence is so
> overwhelming that even the ICR can't deny it.
> Macro-evolution: evolution which is only proven beyond
> reasonable doubt, not beyond unreasonable doubt.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> Petteri Sulonen wrote:
> > In article <8ase9r$qf2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
wrote:
> > > psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
thanks for the links. Have done a cursory scan of Cleaves, but now
that you mention it, I'll give it more time.
> or
>
> Cockell, Charles S (1998) 'Biological effects of high ultraviolet
> radiation on early earth - a theoretical evaluation',
> J Theor Bio 193:717-729
> http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/jtbi.1998.0738
>
looks like I've got some reading to do. Again, I appreciate the leads.
zoe
> (These two mainly discuss other ways than water as such for
> UV protection.)
>
> [snip]
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
> G'Day All
> Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
>
> On 15 Mar 2000 11:06:54 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> >In article <38CF4D...@earthlink.net>,
> >abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> >> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> >> > would oxygen molecules also have been present as long as there
was
> >> > water to vaporize? Somewhere I saw a figure illustrating the H2O
> >> > molecules breaking away from the pack and floating into the air
as
> >> > vapor, and some of the molecules were not H2O's but simply O=O's.
> >Was
> >> > that a mistake in the illustration, (Feynman's) or would the
> >presence
> >> > of water also cause O=O's to be present in the troposphere?
> >>
> >> "There might be some, but not much. You see, the reactive
> >> oxygen atoms would probably react with something else
> >> (i.e. water to form hydrogen peroxide) long before they
> >> found another oxygen atom to form O2; there just wouldn't
> >> be many O2 around.
> >
would
> >allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> >than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> >supposed algae?
>
> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air, these
> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
>
> Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds, which also
> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
well, if our alarm at a 10 % decrease in the ozone layer is any
indication as to the significance of the problem, then I imagine,
the "early, struggling life forms" are in a spot. Aquatic food chains
today are decreasing in population, and UV-B radiation in the tropics
and subtropics is thought to be one of the main causes of smaller
populations of phytoplankton. Solar UV-B radiation, they say, has been
found to cause damage to early developmental stages of fish, shrimp,
crab, amphibians, and sea animals. And this at only 10 % loss. What
must it have been like when there was a 100% absence and 100 % presence
of UV-B and UV-C rays?
zoe
>
> Cleaves HJ, and Miller SL. (1998 Jun 23). Oceanic protection of
> prebiotic organic compounds from UV radiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S
> A , 95, 7260-3.
>
> Garcia-Pichel F. (1998 Jun). Solar ultraviolet and the evolutionary
> history of cyanobacteria. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 28, 321-47.
>
> Cheers! Ian
> =====================================================
> Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis and Michael James Musgrave
> reyn...@werple.mira.net.au http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
> a collection of Dawkins inspired weasle programs http://www-
personal.monash.edu.au/~ianm/whale.htm
> Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Abner, your post is making me think, to the point where I have printed
it and will read more thoroughly when my work days ends. Will get back
to you later.
zoe
In article <38D374...@earthlink.net>,
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> In article <8asic2$t3i$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
up,
> > the UV rays should penetrate into the troposphere and start doing
its
> > 03-forming at a lower level, wouldn't you say?
>
> forms. However, as the ozone forms, it screens out progressively more
of
> the UV. Therefore, less and less will be produced in the troposphere.
And
> ozone in the lower atmosphere, of course, vanishes quickly because
it's so
> reactive. (Reacts with water, all organic materials, lots of minerals,
> etc.) Ozone *IS* continuously formed in the lower atmosphere too (for
> example, by lightning) -- but it just vanishes within hours. See?
>
> [snip]
>
> > pretty
> > > drastically... ;-)
> > >
> >
> > lol -- I really am enjoying my world-view. Are you? Hope so. One
> > does not give up one's pleasures too easily. But, of course,
pleasure
> > at the expense of truth is no pleasure in the long run.
>
> empiricism with a dose of unfalsifiable metaphor about the human
> condition... :-)
>
condition, let me know the title so I can follow or join in. :=)
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
cz...@ecn.ab.ca () wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> : The ToE has to adjust its beliefs depending on what relativity,
> : gravity, ozone, entropy and every other law dictates must happen.
> : evolution does not happen in a vacuum.
>
> Bullshit. You don't even know what the "ToE" is, do you? Prove me
> wrong if you don't like that assessment -- what do you consider to
> be the "ToE"?
>
has to do with the changes that occur in the gene pool that cause life
forms to evolve new characteristics. And this fact is worked into a
theory that says those genetic changes mean we've evolved all the way
from the algae to human beings. Why don't you tell me what you think
it truly is, so I'll raise up no more strawmen to annoy you. :=)
zoe
> --
> *************************************************************
> In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a
> degree that it would be perverse to withold provisional
> assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise
> tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time
> in physics classrooms.
> -Stephen Jay Gould
> *************************************************************
>
>
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <psulonen-170...@dialup3-4.iptelecom.net.ua>,
> psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
[snip]
> > Yep, I quite like it. Especially lately as I've spiced up the hard
> > empiricism with a dose of unfalsifiable metaphor about the human
> > condition... :-)
> >
> that should be interesting. If you start a thread on the human
> condition, let me know the title so I can follow or join in. :=)
OK, I just might. I'm pretty busy this week (and possibly for a quite a
few weeks from then on) so it might have to wait a while... :-)
Petteri Sulonen
> Petteri Sulonen wrote:
> > In article <8ase9r$qf2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> > > > In article <8aocdv$q7r$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> > > wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> > > > > but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that
> > > would
> > > > > allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> > > > > than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> > > > > supposed algae?
> > > >
> > > > [snip]
> > > >
> > > > I'm pretty sure those would be screened out by water too.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Petteri, would you accept a creationist's statement that they're pretty
> > > sure about whatever?
> >
> > Nope. However, unlike the creationist's statement, you can *check* mine.
> > I'm 100% certain that the data of UV-C penetration into water is available
> > at your local university library. I, being a historian, not a physicist
> > (although somewhat informed about physics), don't personally know the
> > figures -- but someone does, and can provide them. Any links, Maff?
>
> How about:
>
> Cleaves, H J & Miller, S M (1998) 'Oceanic protection of prebiotic
> organic compounds from UV radiation', Proc Nat Acad Sci 95:7260-7263
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/13/7260
>
> or
>
> Cockell, Charles S (1998) 'Biological effects of high ultraviolet
> radiation on early earth - a theoretical evaluation',
> J Theor Bio 193:717-729
> http://www.idealibrary.com/links/doi/10.1006/jtbi.1998.0738
>
> (These two mainly discuss other ways than water as such for
> UV protection.)
Thanks!
Abner Mintz
>> "To some degree. Any shielding helps. Our
>> atmosphere isn't a perfect shield of cosmic
>> radiation (witness the relative background
>> radiation levels in D.C. and Denver), but
>> it's enough for us to keep going."
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I'm kinda thinking that we have no info on what the UV-C rays would
> really do to this planet since they're completely filtered out by the
> oxygen in the atmosphere.
"Sorry, but not true. We can measure the transmittance
of water at any wavelength we can generate
experimentally, and that's a very wide variety
of wavelengths. Only if it was impossible for
our current technology to generate UV-C in the lab
would your statement be true. To the best of my
knowledge, we can generate up through the x-ray
spectrum with reasonable control of wavelength ..."
> We can only speculate that H2O was
> sufficient protection to the alleged algae. My speculation would be
> that the UV-C rays are VERY harmful to living organisms and would kill
> them off before they even had a chance to reproduce, far less mutate.
"As I recall, the transmittance of water is pretty
low in the entire UV-range (but it's been years
since, so I could be misremembering). This is
enough basis for me to think your speculation is
not likely to be correct. I am, as always, willing
to bow to facts - if you can find, in a graph of the
transmittance of water (or any similar relevant data)
*evidence* that water does not absorb UV-C efficiently,
then I will look up the quoted reference and evaluate
it, and back down if I am wrong."
"Even if UV-C was not screened out by water, life could
still survive by the ways mentioned below - repair
mechanisms and fast reproduction."
>> "Yes. I have yet to see the problem - the levels of
>> radiation getting through to underwater algae might
>> kill or mutate some of them, but a quickly-reproducing
>> algae wouldn't have any problems with that. We're not
>> talking 'instantly lethal' radiation here."
> how does quantity defeat the effects of an ever-present UV?
"See my previous post on how fast reproduction can
help survive something that kills off a proportion
of the population each time. For instance, all
you need to survive (and thrive!) in the face of
something that kills off 99% of the population each
day is to produce 101 or more offspring each day.
(xy>1, so population increases)."
"Only if there is a *100%* lethality rate will
fast reproduction not work at any rate. You
have yet to show that such an estimated rate
is reasonable."
> If a life
> form produced three offspring and the three offspring immediately
> produced three more each, all 13 would be greeted by the harmful C rays
> and eventually perish. I don't see how speedy reproduction would
> protect exploding population growth from the radiation. They're all
> there, aren't they, under the sun's baleful eye?
"But the UV radiation only causes problems when it strikes the
cell's DNA - and the cell's DNA is a fairly small target. Then
the damage has to be unrepairable (not copable with by the
cell's repair mechanisms)."
"For *every* cell's *DNA* to get hit by *unrepairable*
damage implies an incredible UV-flux ... Can you give
any reason to think that such a flux existed back then?
You can calculate yourself the UV-flux needed with
some simple assumptions - assume no shielding, look up
the size of a cell's DNA, then divide the earth's
surface by the size of the cross-section of the DNA to
get the amount of UV photons needed each day to make
sure that every cell's DNA is struck by a UV-photon.
Then realize that you've still got an under-estimate
because you ignored cell repair mechanisms ..."
"I suspect you'll get an *awful* high number. Now,
use the energy per UV-C photon times the number
of photons in your estimate (which is an under-estimate
of the number needed, as it ignores repair and possible
shielding) to get the amount of UV-C energy we'd have
to receive from the sun each day for every cell on earth
to get it's DNA damaged."
"Are you willing to go to the effort to do the math,
instead of just speculating? Tell me, what numbers
did you get?"
> Unless you're saying that mutation is quickly occuring so that later
> breeds are becoming resistant to the harmful effects of UV, not to
> mention the low-lying smog of ozone...
"No - just have a reproductive x factor high enough
that it overwhelms the death factor y; all you need
is xy>1 for population to increase. You have to
assume that y=100% (complete lethality) for fast
reproduction not to be a possible strategy."
>> "What makes you think that we should have mutated to be
>> UV-impregnable? That's not what the theory of evolution
>> says at all. Perhaps you are under some misconceptations
>> - let me see if I can help."
> I was figuring, I guess, that in order to survive, the fast-growing
> algae would have to develop some resistance to the harmful effects of
> UV-C.
"Afraid not - it might just get by with tuning up
existing repair and reproductive mechanisms. Why
come up with something from scratch when you can
just make what you already have (and which is
already useful for other things) do double duty?
Evolution is about survival, not elegance - the
survival method with the lowest metabolic (etc.)
costs is the one most likely to dominate."
"Scrap that if there is any lower-cost mechanism;
such a thing might survive and then thrive, but
only if all of its competitors got killed off
due to a lack of competing mechanisms."
>> "So, are there any more workable mechanisms? Sure!
>> Shielding! The organism could evolve thick cell
>> walls, perhaps incorporating some element that
>> absorbs ultraviolet efficiently. This is more
>> likely than the above, since the organism already
>> has cell walls to work with, it's just a matter
>> of altering them. Altering an existing item is
>> always easier for evolution than just starting from
>> scratch. So, what are the benefits and costs of
>> shielding? Well, it would be more UV-resistant, but
>> the efficiency will depend on the shielding. It
>> may require rare elements to work well (i.e. now
>> the organism needs new nutrients which may be hard
>> to get). It will definitely come at a high metabolic
>> cost to the organism, both to grow the shielding and
>> to maintain it (i.e. repair it, moving it around for
>> mobile organisms, etc.). This one has high start-up
>> and maintenance costs, though it's better than the
>> first one. Still, let's see if we can do better."
> okay, I'm with you so far...
"Good, good!"
"If it reproduces fast enough, that's all it would need.
If 90% are being killed off each day, but it produces
11 or more offspring, its population will increase each day."
"Which is not to say that other mechanisms *couldn't*
pop up - but they'd have to be at a reasonable
metabolic cost. I suspect that repair would be,
but shielding and immunity would not (for the
reasons discussed above)."
> But the repair/fast reproduction model could do it, I'm thinking.
> However, at this point, I'd call it -- semantics as usual -- I'd call
> such ability to repair and evolve "adaptation," a less loaded term than
> evolution. This creationist could live with that.
"Adaptation *is* evolution. Did the allele frequency
shift in the population? Yes. Well, that's
evolution."
"Perhaps we 'evolutionists' aren't as unreasonable
in claiming that evolution happens as you
creationists might think? If you get into the
real nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory ...
you just became an 'evolutionist' the second
you admitted that the algae could adapt to
its environment. The questions now are about
what versions of evolutionary theory you accept,
not whether you do." :)
>> Simple organisms are really
>> good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
>> food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
>> enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
>> is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
>> up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
>> one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
>> up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
>> Radiation isn't a problem any more."
> hmmm, did I miss something earlier in my post when I thought I'd
> hopefully debunked the speedy reproduction idea?
"Yep - you missed that your argument only worked
if something had a 100% lethality rate. Anything
less, and my argument holds."
>> "It's like with rabbits. Rabbits don't develop
>> defenses, like the armadillo or porcupine.
>> Rabbits just develop ... rabbits. It's really
>> hard to kill off rabbits - the individual rabbit
>> dies, but the others just fill the ranks and
>> keep on coming. Ask the Australians how hard
>> it is to kill something with no defense against
>> you except high reproduction rate."
> well, no, I don't think you can compare the limited resources of a
> human being against the burgeoning rabbit world to that of the
> omnipresent UV rays against the first "struggling life forms."
"UV wasn't omnipresent. It came in in limited doses
called photons. I showed you how to do the math
and figure out a rough estimate of the UV-photon
flux you'd need to get a 100% hit rate (ignoring
shielding, repair, and survivable mutations)."
>> "So, of the four mechanisms discussed, immunity
>> to radiation (mechanism 1) turned out to be
>> much less efficient than radiation resistance
>> mechanism #2 (shielding), which turned out to
>> be less efficient that radiation resistance
>> mechanism #3 (repair mechanisms), which turned
>> out to be less efficient than just outreproducing
>> the radiation losses (mechanism 4). So we'd
>> expect to see high reproduction rates and
>> some repair mechanisms in those organisms as
>> the most likely outcome. And the primitive
>> organisms we see nowadays that are most like
>> the ones that would have been around before
>> the ozone layer have ... high reproduction rates
>> and a surprising degree of radiation repair.
>> And it works just fine. Ask the algae in the
>> nuclear reactors."
> your logic and reasoning is splendid...once we get away from the
> premise :=)
"Sorry, the premise is basic math. Have you
now seen the post where I explained it in
more detail?"
>> "Now do you see why your expectation that evolution
>> would lead to radiation-immune creatures is
>> unsupported?
> no, Abner, you've got me confused again. I thought that's what
> evolution was all about, the survival of the fittest. The fittest
> would be those that have developed coping mechanisms for their
> circumstances, not so? Therefore, creatures exposed to radiation, if
> they're to live and keep evolving, would have to develop an immunity to
> radiation in order to survive.
"No - because such 'fitness' comes at a cost. Nothing's
free. For instance, we humans occasionally get konked
on the head. Sometimes that cracks our skull, and we
are harmed - sometimes even killed. Wouldn't a thicker
skull be useful in reducing this death rate? Sure!
So why doesn't it evolve ..."
"Well, is the skull going to get thicker outwards or
inwards? If outwards - a larger skull size means
either an increased death rate for women giving birth,
or a larger pelvis (sp?) for women to allow the larger
skull to get through, or an increased skull development
after birth. If inwards, then we have decreased brain
size. Each of these has a cost ... the first erases
the advantage, the second may well mess up walking for
women and has increased metabolic cost, the third has
a definite increased metabolic cost, the fourth may
decrease intelligence ... Odds are that each of them
has a higher cost than the occasional cracked skull,
which only comes up rarely, and which can more easily
be avoided by intelligence and dexterity."
"The same with any other change - changes generally
have costs. Evolution encourages shifts towards the
lowest costs needed to survive. If every other creature
on earth developed UV-radiation resistance, X-ray
resistance, gamma-resistance, cosmic-ray resistance,
thickened skulls, armor plating, poison flesh, bad
smell, claws, talons, spines, venom, etc... it
would lumber after the rabbits, who would easily
escape and go on to rule the world, while the other
creatures starved to death because they couldn't get
enough food to support all that armament and defenses."
"Spines are a great defense for plants - but many island
species lose their spines if there are no animals to
eat them, because it costs energy to *make* spines,
and the ones with spines lose out to the spineless
varieties with no animals around. With no animals
around, the spineless are the most fit. If animals
get reintroduced ... the spined are the most fit, and
the spineless lose out. Highest survivability at
lowest cost."
"So if UV-resistance requires shielding, UV-resistance
may lose out to the ones that just repair the damage
or reproduce faster, if such give a similar survival
rate at a lower cost."
>> Evolution doesn't say things
>> necessarily evolve to become *immune* to threats
>> (are rabbits immune to foxes?). They just have
>> to evolve to become more likely to, as a species,
>> survive the threat
> isn't the species made up of individual components, each having the
> ability to survive, in order for that species as a whole to survive.
> Can we compartmentalize the individual from its species as a whole?
> Bear with me -- I'm struggling with this.
"Many species have behaviors where the individual
risks, or sacrifices, its life to help others of
its kind survive. Such cooperative behavior may
be bad for the individual, but good for its
relatives - and thus increase its genes passing
on through its relatives even if not through its
own offspring. Now do you see? Whereas
an individual which survives a long time but which
does not reproduce *or* help its relatives
reproduce successfully is an evolutionary failure."
>> (as rabbits, as a whole,
>> survive in areas with foxes). Evolution is
>> about the population genetics changing in ways
>> so it can survive in its environment, not about
>> immunity to harm for individuals in that species."
> thanks for taking time, Abner, to enlighten me on the position of the
> evolutionist.
"No problem. I suspect that the more you learn, the
more you'll realize that our positions aren't as
crazy as you might think." :)
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On 20 Mar 2000 13:14:15 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>In article <VqHVOC6fE9jSno...@4ax.com>,
>reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
[snip]
>> >but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that would
>> >allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
>> >than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
>> >supposed algae?
>>
>> Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment had
>> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air, these
>> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
>> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
>>
>> Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds, which also
>> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
>> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
>
>well, if our alarm at a 10 % decrease in the ozone layer is any
>indication as to the significance of the problem, then I imagine,
>the "early, struggling life forms" are in a spot.
No, as I have tried to indicate, there were several UV absorbers in
the early environment that make up for the lack of UV.
>Aquatic food chains today are decreasing in population,
Which is a multifactorial effect, including increasing pollution in
the food chains, and changes in water tempratures and changes in
nutrient delivering upwelling currents.
>and UV-B radiation in the tropics
>and subtropics is thought to be one of the main causes of smaller
>populations of phytoplankton.
Only SOME phytoplankton are UV sensitive, the UV sensitivity of the
cyanobacteria (the sorts of things around on the early earth) are
substantially higher, and the most anchient of the cyanobacterial
liniages are fairly UV resistant.
>Solar UV-B radiation, they say, has been
>found to cause damage to early developmental stages of fish, shrimp,
>crab, amphibians, and sea animals. And this at only 10 % loss. What
>must it have been like when there was a 100% absence and 100 % presence
>of UV-B and UV-C rays?
Which was my point, there was NOT a 100% abscence of UV screening,
there was LOTS of UV screening, and there was NOT a 100% presence of
UV-ABC, surface UV was probably around modern levels.
Bonz
message <8b5ql7$n7g$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> :
>> Bullshit. You don't even know what the "ToE" is, do you? Prove me
>> wrong if you don't like that assessment -- what do you consider to
>> be the "ToE"?
>>
>I could tell you what I think it is, but I might be wrong. I think it
>has to do with the changes that occur in the gene pool that cause life
>forms to evolve new characteristics. And this fact is worked into a
>theory that says those genetic changes mean we've evolved all the way
>from the algae to human beings. Why don't you tell me what you think
>it truly is, so I'll raise up no more strawmen to annoy you. :=)
Uh.. if you think that anyone thinks that algae are ancestral to
humans, you have a VERY strange idea of evolution.
い
Bonz alt.atheism #1497
Please deSPAM before sending Email
い
Abner Mintz
> that should be interesting. If you start a thread on the human
> condition, let me know the title so I can follow or join in. :=)
*looks down at stomach* "As with most Americans,
slightly overweight?" :)
Sverker Johansson
> Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > In article <8ajlcn$i84$1...@peabody.colorado.edu>,
> > > rpa...@rintintin.colorado.edu (Robert Parson) wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > > Furthermore, while the primordial atmosphere contained very
> little O2
> > >
> > > at the point that the supposed primordial atmosphere contained very
> > > little 02, was there a problem then with the UV-C rays? That form of
> > > radiation, I gather, from what I'm reading, are the most dangerous
> > > rays, but are presently totally screened out by the presence of 02.
> >
> > There would have been a problem for unprotected life out in the open,
> > on the surface. But water, for example, is a pretty effective UV
> > screen as well, so down a few meters in the ocean (where the life
> > of that time had its home anyway) the lack of ozone is no big deal.
> >
>
> I suppose so, but then wouldn't the lack of ozone and lack of oxygen
> allow the UV-C rays through? And from what I'm reading, the C rays
> aren't called "death rays" or germicidal rays for nothing. UV-C rays
> are used to destroy bacteria, virus, yeast, mold, algae, and other
> microorganisms in air, liquids or on surfaces.
True enough. Significant amounts of UVC would get down to the
_surface_ of an anoxic earth. But not much further than that.
The point is UVC doesn't penetrate all that deep in ocean water,
so perhaps 50 meters down in the sea ought to be quite safe
(depends on the exact mixture of salts and stuff in the water).
Likewise, there are bacteria today that live under rocks, or
down in the soil, where little UV would penetrate. Those
habitats would have been quite UV-safe even in the Archean.
> > Land life did not turn up until well after the oxygen
> > (and presumably ozone) was in place.
>
> hmmm, something's missing here, seems to me. If loads of oxygen begins
> to develop, there would have to be something else in place (and
> instantly, too, a la Behe's irreducible complexity theory) to keep the
> oxygen from destroying the chemical building blocks of life. And in
> the same breath, if no oxygen is present, there's no ozone protection
> from the deadly UV-C rays. Seems like a lot more stuff would have to
> happen pretty fast instead of over billions of years, in order for
> algae to survive. Bear with me, I'm just a beginner and teetering on
> the edge...
OK, oxygen is nasty stuff. But it took a _long_ time for it
to build up to significant concentration, quite long enough to
evolve defenses. There is a time lag of something like
a billion years between the first fossils that resemble
photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, and the first signs of
macroscopic amounts of free oxygen in either seawater or
atmosphere. This time lag is quite reasonable, given that
there was loads of oxidizable inorganic stuff (notably iron)
sitting around, that rapidly gobbled up any oxygen. Oxygen
couldn't start building up in concentration until the easily
oxidizable stuff ran out. The results of that process are being
dug up in iron mines all over the world today - so-called
"banded iron formations".
Canfield, D E (1999) 'A breath of fresh air', Nature 400:503-504
Canfield, D E & Teske, A (1996) 'Late Proterozoic rise in
atmospheric oxygen concentration inferred from phylogenetic
and sulphur-isotope studies', Nature 382:127-132
> > References to calculations available on request.
> >
>
> your calculations would be appreciated, Sverker. I'll try my best to
> wrap my mind around them, but no promises...
Well, you got a couple of references in a parallel post.
Let's see what else I can dig up.
Here's a site that will calculate the absorption of
various materials for you. Unfortunately, they
only do wavelengths below about 100 nm, which is
extreme UV (would be UVF or so, if I extend the UVA,UVB,UVC
scale):
http://cindy.lbl.gov/optical_constants/
At those extreme UV wavelengths, water is for all practical
purposes opaque (won't penetrate an inch).
At more reasonable wavelengths:
J. H. M. Kouwenberg , H. I. Browman , J. A. Runge , J. J. Cullen , R. F.
Davis , J.-F. St-Pierre
Volume 134, Issue 2, pp 285-293
Marine Biology, Jul 05, 1999
measured that UVB is attenuated a factor 10 for 4 meters depth,
which would mean that a few tens of meters is safe.
Similar values are found by:
Kai Bischof , Dieter Hanelt , Helmut Tüg , Ulf Karsten ,
Patty E. M. Brouwer , Christian Wiencke
Acclimation of brown algal photosynthesis to ultraviolet
radiation in Arctic coastal waters (Spitsbergen, Norway)
Volume 20, Issue 6, pp 388-395
Polar Biol, Dec 04, 1998
I found a couple of more like the above, people who investigate the
impact
of UV on marine life. Seems they care mostly about UVB. But
interpolating
between UVB and "UVF", UVC ought to be quite strongly absorbed in water
as
well.
Abner Mintz
> Abner, your post is making me think, to the point where I have printed
> it and will read more thoroughly when my work days ends. Will get back
> to you later.
"This may sound snarky, but is entirely sincere: Thank
you! All too many times I have put a lot of effort
into answering questions only to have the people who
asked the questions ignore my answers; that can be
very frustrating. Thank you for taking the time to
consider my post carefully."
may...@andrews.edu
snip
> >
> >but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that
would
> >allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more harmful
> >than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> >supposed algae?
>
> Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment had
> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air,
This is not to support zoe's foolish creationist position, but your
comments here sound interesting. What evidence is there for higher
levels of H2S during the earth's formative years? Where did it come
from, and where did it go? Was high volcanic activity a factor?
> these
> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
>
> Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds,
Why were they rich in these compounds? Were these the ones that
precipitated out as BIFs? I don't have access to the references you
listed.
> which also
> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
This is interesting, in that it differs from the more conventional line
of solutions to zoe's ideas, which move in the direction of
ackowledging higher ground levels of UV radiation, while focusing on
the more prosaic screening agents found there (usually water, but in
rare cases, things like rocks and soil have been mentioned). Someone
had worked out an interpolation for how well water absorbs UV radiation
at the "C" wavelengths zoe kept worrying about, and Abner Mintz made an
excellent point about the ability of micro-organisms to survive in
harsh radiation-filled environments (especially when combined with
someone else's claim that the "most ancient" bacteria are more
resistant to UV radiation). It may be that the best answer to zoe's
question is, "Radiation levels were not much higher in those days, but
even if they were, many organisms could still have survived."
--vince
Bonz
message <8b5mvm$ka2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> :
>
>hmmm, something's missing here, seems to me. If loads of oxygen begins
>to develop, there would have to be something else in place (and
>instantly, too, a la Behe's irreducible complexity theory) to keep the
>oxygen from destroying the chemical building blocks of life.
It almost did destroy life altogether. There was a HUGE
extinction when free, atmospheric oxygen became common. Imagine a
whole planet, covered with anaerobes, dying off, retreating to
the muck and into the soils, and aerobic organisms replacing
them.
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On 21 Mar 2000 11:43:44 -0500, may...@andrews.edu wrote:
>In article <VqHVOC6fE9jSno...@4ax.com>,
>reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
[snip]
>> Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment had
>> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air,
>
>This is not to support zoe's foolish creationist position, but your
>comments here sound interesting. What evidence is there for higher
>levels of H2S during the earth's formative years? Where did it come
>from, and where did it go? Was high volcanic activity a factor?
Geochemistry, chemistry of the early atmosphere, and observed sulfate
minerals in early rocks.
See as well as thet references I gave before, see Kasting JF and Brown
LL (1998) The early atmosphere as a source of biogenic compounds. The
Molecular Origin of Life, Cambridge Uni press, pp 35-56.
>> these
>> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
>> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
>>
>> Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds,
>
>Why were they rich in these compounds? Were these the ones that
>precipitated out as BIFs? I don't have access to the references you
>listed.
Because iron (as well as uranium) wasn't locked up in insoluble iron
oxides, and yes, these iron componds ended up as banded iron
formations, most of which formed during the early elaboration of
oxygen. There was a tension here between loss of the protective iron
compounds in the water, and the developing ozone layer at around 2.0
Gyr, but on the balance the nascent organisms were well protected from
UV.
>> which also
>> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
>> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
>
>This is interesting, in that it differs from the more conventional line
>of solutions to zoe's ideas, which move in the direction of
>ackowledging higher ground levels of UV radiation, while focusing on
>the more prosaic screening agents found there (usually water, but in
>rare cases, things like rocks and soil have been mentioned). Someone
>had worked out an interpolation for how well water absorbs UV radiation
>at the "C" wavelengths zoe kept worrying about, and Abner Mintz made an
>excellent point about the ability of micro-organisms to survive in
>harsh radiation-filled environments (especially when combined with
>someone else's claim that the "most ancient" bacteria are more
>resistant to UV radiation). It may be that the best answer to zoe's
>question is, "Radiation levels were not much higher in those days, but
>even if they were, many organisms could still have survived."
I think that is the correct situation.
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
are the terms "perhaps" and "ought to" acceptable for a creationist to
use in a discussion of scientific world views? Just so we're playing
in the same ball field.
> Likewise, there are bacteria today that live under rocks, or
> down in the soil, where little UV would penetrate. Those
> habitats would have been quite UV-safe even in the Archean.
>
makes sense. So there must be some other source of energy for the
supposed mutations to take place? I imagine the colder the
environment, the less activity? Do correct me if I'm off base here.
okay, which brings us back to the point where oxygen is now beginning
to outstrip the oxidizable elements. What would be the first thing
that occurs, once the shortest UV waves start lysing the O-O
molecules? At some point O3 should outstrip the elements that destroy
it and begin to accumulate. Is there some inherent characteristic in
oxygen that gives it the ability to push the forming ozone layer higher
and higher? Or would O2 mix evenly with O3, forming a firmament alien
to what we know today? Seems to me that the layering of our atmosphere
is rather arbitrary...unless any of you know of laws that would cause
this kind of layering? Do enlighten me...I'm listening...
> Canfield, D E (1999) 'A breath of fresh air', Nature 400:503-504
>
> Canfield, D E & Teske, A (1996) 'Late Proterozoic rise in
> atmospheric oxygen concentration inferred from phylogenetic
> and sulphur-isotope studies', Nature 382:127-132
>
> > > References to calculations available on request.
> > >
> >
> > your calculations would be appreciated, Sverker. I'll try my best to
> > wrap my mind around them, but no promises...
>
> Well, you got a couple of references in a parallel post.
> Let's see what else I can dig up.
>
> Here's a site that will calculate the absorption of
> various materials for you. Unfortunately, they
> only do wavelengths below about 100 nm, which is
> extreme UV (would be UVF or so, if I extend the UVA,UVB,UVC
> scale):
> http://cindy.lbl.gov/optical_constants/
>
oops, checked out that link, Sverker, and was instantly over my head.
Let's face it, you're chatting with an artist type, working in the
legal field, far far away from this scholarly stuff. Bear with me.
> At those extreme UV wavelengths, water is for all practical
> purposes opaque (won't penetrate an inch).
>
> At more reasonable wavelengths:
>
> J. H. M. Kouwenberg , H. I. Browman , J. A. Runge , J. J. Cullen , R.
F.
> Davis , J.-F. St-Pierre
> Volume 134, Issue 2, pp 285-293
> Marine Biology, Jul 05, 1999
> measured that UVB is attenuated a factor 10 for 4 meters depth,
> which would mean that a few tens of meters is safe.
> Similar values are found by:
>
> Kai Bischof , Dieter Hanelt , Helmut Tüg , Ulf Karsten ,
> Patty E. M. Brouwer , Christian Wiencke
> Acclimation of brown algal photosynthesis to ultraviolet
> radiation in Arctic coastal waters (Spitsbergen, Norway)
> Volume 20, Issue 6, pp 388-395
> Polar Biol, Dec 04, 1998
>
how far down is the brown algae? Would it need to be in fairly shallow
water in order for photosynthesis to occur?
> I found a couple of more like the above, people who investigate the
> impact
> of UV on marine life. Seems they care mostly about UVB. But
> interpolating
> between UVB and "UVF", UVC ought to be quite strongly absorbed in
water as well.
is there some other element in the mix of hydrogen and oxygen that
absorbs the UVC rays? I take it you mean by "absorb" that the
destructiveness of the rays is diluted or diminished?
Thanks, Sverker, for sharing your knowledge with me.
zoe
>
> --
> Best regards, HLK, Physics
> Sverker Johansson U of Jonkoping
> ----------------------------------------------
> Definitions:
> Micro-evolution: evolution for which the evidence is so
> overwhelming that even the ICR can't deny it.
> Macro-evolution: evolution which is only proven beyond
> reasonable doubt, not beyond unreasonable doubt.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
bo...@mad.scientist.com wrote:
> On 20 Mar 2000 12:26:53 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote in
> message <8b5mvm$ka2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> :
>
> >
begins
> >to develop, there would have to be something else in place (and
> >instantly, too, a la Behe's irreducible complexity theory) to keep
the
> >oxygen from destroying the chemical building blocks of life.
>
> extinction when free, atmospheric oxygen became common. Imagine a
> whole planet, covered with anaerobes, dying off, retreating to
> the muck and into the soils, and aerobic organisms replacing
> them.
>
zoe
> い
>
> Bonz alt.atheism #1497
> Please deSPAM before sending Email
>
> い
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Abner Mintz wrote:
> >> "To some degree. Any shielding helps. Our
> >> atmosphere isn't a perfect shield of cosmic
> >> radiation (witness the relative background
> >> radiation levels in D.C. and Denver), but
> >> it's enough for us to keep going."
>
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > I'm kinda thinking that we have no info on what the UV-C rays would
> > really do to this planet since they're completely filtered out by
the
> > oxygen in the atmosphere.
>
> "Sorry, but not true. We can measure the transmittance
> of water at any wavelength we can generate
> experimentally, and that's a very wide variety
> of wavelengths. Only if it was impossible for
> our current technology to generate UV-C in the lab
> would your statement be true. To the best of my
> knowledge, we can generate up through the x-ray
> spectrum with reasonable control of wavelength ..."
>
yes, I said the above before reading further. You're right.
> > We can only speculate that H2O was
> > sufficient protection to the alleged algae. My speculation would be
> > that the UV-C rays are VERY harmful to living organisms and would
kill
> > them off before they even had a chance to reproduce, far less
mutate.
>
> "As I recall, the transmittance of water is pretty
> low in the entire UV-range (but it's been years
> since, so I could be misremembering). This is
> enough basis for me to think your speculation is
> not likely to be correct. I am, as always, willing
> to bow to facts - if you can find, in a graph of the
> transmittance of water (or any similar relevant data)
> *evidence* that water does not absorb UV-C efficiently,
> then I will look up the quoted reference and evaluate
> it, and back down if I am wrong."
>
this is taking time, Abner. Will find you your graph or info in time,
but until then, would it do to acknowledge that UVC rays are today used
as a germicidal to destroy bacteria and other microorganisms in
liquids, among other places?
But then, I guess that's not acceptable. You want sources, sources,
sources. Okay, one solid piece of data coming up...:=)
> "Even if UV-C was not screened out by water, life could
> still survive by the ways mentioned below - repair
> mechanisms and fast reproduction."
>
> >> "Yes. I have yet to see the problem - the levels of
> >> radiation getting through to underwater algae might
> >> kill or mutate some of them, but a quickly-reproducing
> >> algae wouldn't have any problems with that. We're not
> >> talking 'instantly lethal' radiation here."
>
> > how does quantity defeat the effects of an ever-present UV?
>
> "See my previous post on how fast reproduction can
> help survive something that kills off a proportion
> of the population each time. For instance, all
> you need to survive (and thrive!) in the face of
> something that kills off 99% of the population each
> day is to produce 101 or more offspring each day.
> (xy>1, so population increases)."
>
am I to understand that the surviving 1 is able to reproduce at a rate
equivalent to 100 %?
whew, Abner, my brain's steaming. Sverker, are his calculations
correct?
> "Are you willing to go to the effort to do the math,
> instead of just speculating? Tell me, what numbers
> did you get?"
>
the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak :) I take it you've done
the math and are therefore not speculating?
semantics again. "Evolution" is such a loaded word
today. "Adaptation" is still fairly virgin territory. :)
> "Perhaps we 'evolutionists' aren't as unreasonable
> in claiming that evolution happens as you
> creationists might think? If you get into the
> real nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory ...
> you just became an 'evolutionist' the second
> you admitted that the algae could adapt to
> its environment. The questions now are about
> what versions of evolutionary theory you accept,
> not whether you do." :)
>
I'm trying on "fundy evolutionist" for size. Fundy micro-
evolutionist. :+ What exactly is a "fundy" considered to be, anyway?
I've seen that epithet hurled about on here.
> >> Simple organisms are really
> >> good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
> >> food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
> >> enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
> >> is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
> >> up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
> >> one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
> >> up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
> >> Radiation isn't a problem any more."
>
> > hmmm, did I miss something earlier in my post when I thought I'd
> > hopefully debunked the speedy reproduction idea?
>
> "Yep - you missed that your argument only worked
> if something had a 100% lethality rate. Anything
> less, and my argument holds."
>
true
> >> "It's like with rabbits. Rabbits don't develop
> >> defenses, like the armadillo or porcupine.
> >> Rabbits just develop ... rabbits. It's really
> >> hard to kill off rabbits - the individual rabbit
> >> dies, but the others just fill the ranks and
> >> keep on coming. Ask the Australians how hard
> >> it is to kill something with no defense against
> >> you except high reproduction rate."
>
> > well, no, I don't think you can compare the limited resources of a
> > human being against the burgeoning rabbit world to that of the
> > omnipresent UV rays against the first "struggling life forms."
>
> "UV wasn't omnipresent. It came in in limited doses
> called photons. I showed you how to do the math
> and figure out a rough estimate of the UV-photon
> flux you'd need to get a 100% hit rate (ignoring
> shielding, repair, and survivable mutations)."
>
I meant omnipresent once you surfaced at about three feet of water and
higher.
> >> "So, of the four mechanisms discussed, immunity
> >> to radiation (mechanism 1) turned out to be
> >> much less efficient than radiation resistance
> >> mechanism #2 (shielding), which turned out to
> >> be less efficient that radiation resistance
> >> mechanism #3 (repair mechanisms), which turned
> >> out to be less efficient than just outreproducing
> >> the radiation losses (mechanism 4). So we'd
> >> expect to see high reproduction rates and
> >> some repair mechanisms in those organisms as
> >> the most likely outcome. And the primitive
> >> organisms we see nowadays that are most like
> >> the ones that would have been around before
> >> the ozone layer have ... high reproduction rates
> >> and a surprising degree of radiation repair.
> >> And it works just fine. Ask the algae in the
> >> nuclear reactors."
>
> > your logic and reasoning is splendid...once we get away from the
> > premise :=)
>
> "Sorry, the premise is basic math. Have you
> now seen the post where I explained it in
> more detail?"
>
yes, but I was referring to a premise further removed -- the one that
says that life came into existence through chance not ID.
> >> "Now do you see why your expectation that evolution
> >> would lead to radiation-immune creatures is
> >> unsupported?
>
> > no, Abner, you've got me confused again. I thought that's what
> > evolution was all about, the survival of the fittest. The fittest
> > would be those that have developed coping mechanisms for their
> > circumstances, not so? Therefore, creatures exposed to radiation, if
> > they're to live and keep evolving, would have to develop an
immunity to
> > radiation in order to survive.
>
> "No - because such 'fitness' comes at a cost. Nothing's
> free. For instance, we humans occasionally get konked
> on the head. Sometimes that cracks our skull, and we
> are harmed - sometimes even killed. Wouldn't a thicker
> skull be useful in reducing this death rate? Sure!
> So why doesn't it evolve ..."
>
> "Well, is the skull going to get thicker outwards or
> inwards? If outwards - a larger skull size means
> either an increased death rate for women giving birth,
> or a larger pelvis (sp?)
(sp) correct
for women to allow the larger
> skull to get through, or an increased skull development
> after birth. If inwards, then we have decreased brain
> size. Each of these has a cost ... the first erases
> the advantage, the second may well mess up walking for
> women and has increased metabolic cost, the third has
> a definite increased metabolic cost, the fourth may
> decrease intelligence ... Odds are that each of them
> has a higher cost than the occasional cracked skull,
> which only comes up rarely, and which can more easily
> be avoided by intelligence and dexterity."
>
that's logical...
> "The same with any other change - changes generally
> have costs. Evolution encourages shifts towards the
> lowest costs needed to survive. If every other creature
> on earth developed UV-radiation resistance, X-ray
> resistance, gamma-resistance, cosmic-ray resistance,
> thickened skulls, armor plating, poison flesh, bad
> smell, claws, talons, spines, venom, etc... it
> would lumber after the rabbits, who would easily
> escape and go on to rule the world, while the other
> creatures starved to death because they couldn't get
> enough food to support all that armament and defenses."
>
> "Spines are a great defense for plants - but many island
> species lose their spines if there are no animals to
> eat them, because it costs energy to *make* spines,
> and the ones with spines lose out to the spineless
> varieties with no animals around. With no animals
> around, the spineless are the most fit. If animals
> get reintroduced ... the spined are the most fit, and
> the spineless lose out. Highest survivability at
> lowest cost."
>
you're beginning to make the evolutionary process sound like a stingy,
lazy humbug with great business acumen and foresight. ;=)
Not crazy at all. I can't fault evolutionists on their logic and
ability to form reasonable theories -- once you get away from the First
Cause scenario.
zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
interesting, Maycock, so am printing it and will get back to you later.
zoe
In article <8b88rj$gg9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
may...@andrews.edu wrote:
> In article <VqHVOC6fE9jSno...@4ax.com>,
> reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
>
> snip
>
> > >
> > >but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that
> would
> > >allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more
harmful
> > >than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect this
> > >supposed algae?
> >
> > Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment
had
> > a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air,
>
> This is not to support zoe's foolish creationist position, but your
> comments here sound interesting. What evidence is there for higher
> levels of H2S during the earth's formative years? Where did it come
> from, and where did it go? Was high volcanic activity a factor?
>
> > these
> > are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has
masked
> > the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
> >
> > Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds,
>
> Why were they rich in these compounds? Were these the ones that
> precipitated out as BIFs? I don't have access to the references you
> listed.
>
> > which also
> > provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was
not a
> > more significant problem for early life than it is today.
>
> This is interesting, in that it differs from the more conventional
line
> of solutions to zoe's ideas, which move in the direction of
> ackowledging higher ground levels of UV radiation, while focusing on
> the more prosaic screening agents found there (usually water, but in
> rare cases, things like rocks and soil have been mentioned). Someone
> had worked out an interpolation for how well water absorbs UV
radiation
> at the "C" wavelengths zoe kept worrying about, and Abner Mintz made
an
> excellent point about the ability of micro-organisms to survive in
> harsh radiation-filled environments (especially when combined with
> someone else's claim that the "most ancient" bacteria are more
> resistant to UV radiation). It may be that the best answer to zoe's
> question is, "Radiation levels were not much higher in those days, but
> even if they were, many organisms could still have survived."
>
> --vince
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
> G'Day All
> Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
>
>
> >In article <VqHVOC6fE9jSno...@4ax.com>,
> >reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
> [snip]
> >> >but if there was very little O2 around at this early stage, that
would
> >> >allow the UV-C rays through, and that radiation is even more
harmful
> >> >than the UV-B rays, is how I'm seeing it. Did H2O also protect
this
> >> >supposed algae?
> >>
> >> Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment
had
> >> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air,
> >> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has
masked
> >> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
> >>
> >> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was
not a
> >> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
> >
> >indication as to the significance of the problem, then I imagine,
> >the "early, struggling life forms" are in a spot.
>
> No, as I have tried to indicate, there were several UV absorbers in
> the early environment that make up for the lack of UV.
>
What are these several UV absorbers in the early environment? And I'm
not sure I understand the connection between UV absorbers and how they
make up for the lack of UV.
> >Aquatic food chains today are decreasing in population,
>
> Which is a multifactorial effect, including increasing pollution in
> the food chains, and changes in water tempratures and changes in
> nutrient delivering upwelling currents.
>
> >and UV-B radiation in the tropics
> >and subtropics is thought to be one of the main causes of smaller
> >populations of phytoplankton.
>
> Only SOME phytoplankton are UV sensitive, the UV sensitivity of the
> cyanobacteria (the sorts of things around on the early earth) are
> substantially higher, and the most anchient of the cyanobacterial
> liniages are fairly UV resistant.
>
how do we decide that cyanobacteria were around on the early earth?
> >Solar UV-B radiation, they say, has been
> >found to cause damage to early developmental stages of fish, shrimp,
> >crab, amphibians, and sea animals. And this at only 10 % loss. What
> >must it have been like when there was a 100% absence and 100 %
presence
> >of UV-B and UV-C rays?
>
> Which was my point, there was NOT a 100% abscence of UV screening,
> there was LOTS of UV screening, and there was NOT a 100% presence of
> UV-ABC, surface UV was probably around modern levels.
>
probably?
zoe
> >> Cleaves HJ, and Miller SL. (1998 Jun 23). Oceanic protection of
> >> prebiotic organic compounds from UV radiation. Proc Natl Acad Sci
U S
> >> A , 95, 7260-3.
> >>
> >> Garcia-Pichel F. (1998 Jun). Solar ultraviolet and the evolutionary
> >> history of cyanobacteria. Orig Life Evol Biosph , 28, 321-47.
>
> Cheers! Ian
> =====================================================
> Ian Musgrave Peta O'Donohue,Jack Francis and Michael James Musgrave
> reyn...@werple.mira.net.au http://werple.mira.net.au/~reynella/
> a collection of Dawkins inspired weasle programs http://www-
personal.monash.edu.au/~ianm/whale.htm
> Southern Sky Watch http://www.abc.net.au/science/space/default.htm
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > Abner, your post is making me think, to the point where I have
printed
> > it and will read more thoroughly when my work days ends. Will get
back
> > to you later.
>
> you! All too many times I have put a lot of effort
> into answering questions only to have the people who
> asked the questions ignore my answers; that can be
> very frustrating. Thank you for taking the time to
> consider my post carefully."
>
>
zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
tell me what is the correct one. And if algae is not our beginning,
then what was?
zoe
> ¤¤
>
> Bonz alt.atheism #1497
> Please deSPAM before sending Email
>
> ¤¤
Sverker Johansson
> Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > I suppose so, but then wouldn't the lack of ozone and lack of oxygen
> > > allow the UV-C rays through? And from what I'm reading, the C rays
> > > aren't called "death rays" or germicidal rays for nothing. UV-C rays
> > > are used to destroy bacteria, virus, yeast, mold, algae, and other
> > > microorganisms in air, liquids or on surfaces.
> >
> > True enough. Significant amounts of UVC would get down to the
> > _surface_ of an anoxic earth. But not much further than that.
> > The point is UVC doesn't penetrate all that deep in ocean water,
> > so perhaps 50 meters down in the sea ought to be quite safe
> > (depends on the exact mixture of salts and stuff in the water).
> >
>
> are the terms "perhaps" and "ought to" acceptable for a creationist to
> use in a discussion of scientific world views? Just so we're playing
> in the same ball field.
Depends on how they are used. Depends on what level of uncertainty
is implied. There is a difference between "ought to" meaning
"I have no clue, but I want it to work" and "ought to" meaning
"this is the right order of magnitude, but since there is some
uncertainty in the decimals I won't give a more precise number".
To put it in more definite statements:
* The attenuation length (the distance it takes for the rays to
be weakened by a factor e (2.7...) for UV in water, is on the
order of a few meters. The exact number depends on the wavelength
and on the impurities in the water, but it is not more than 10
meters for any wavelength or composition of interest, and is
significantly less for plausible compositions. It is between
one and two meters for modern ocean waters.
* The UV strength that is safe varies from organism to organism.
But taking present-day surface level as "safe" provides a
reasonable rule-of-thumb.
According to Cockell & Andrady (ref below), the Earth's present
atmosphere decreases UV DNA-damaging dose by a factor 2000.
Finding the depth of water where UV is decreased a factor 2000
by the water would thus be a reasonable definition
of "safe depth". For the actual ocean water measured
by Kouwenberg et al (ref in last post), that would be
less than nine meters down. For the worst case, with
a ten-meter attenuation length, the depth is
10*ln(2000) = 76 meters. So, 9 would be safe with
modern ocean water, and 76 would be safe under any
circumstances. Is "perhaps 50 meters" a reasonable
statement?
Cockell, C S & Andrady, A L (1999) 'The Martian and
extraterrestrial UV radiation environment - 1. Biological
and closed-loop ecosystem considerations',
Acta Astronautica 44:53-62
>
> > Likewise, there are bacteria today that live under rocks, or
> > down in the soil, where little UV would penetrate. Those
> > habitats would have been quite UV-safe even in the Archean.
> >
>
> makes sense. So there must be some other source of energy for the
> supposed mutations to take place? I imagine the colder the
> environment, the less activity? Do correct me if I'm off base here.
True in general.
Some points to consider:
* Mutations is no big problem - many enough occur from straight
copying mistakes, without "need" for damage from outside.
* Even if UV were the only mutational agent, there would be a depth
where the UV would be non-lethal but still high enough to cause some
mutations. As it is on the surface today.
Energy for metabolism is a bigger concern than energy for mutations.
However:
* Visible light penetrates further than UV in the ocean, so light
is available even at the UV-safe depth.
* Deep-ocean vents supply energy and chemicals, without UV.
[snip]
> > OK, oxygen is nasty stuff. But it took a _long_ time for it
> > to build up to significant concentration, quite long enough to
> > evolve defenses. There is a time lag of something like
> > a billion years between the first fossils that resemble
> > photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, and the first signs of
> > macroscopic amounts of free oxygen in either seawater or
> > atmosphere. This time lag is quite reasonable, given that
> > there was loads of oxidizable inorganic stuff (notably iron)
> > sitting around, that rapidly gobbled up any oxygen. Oxygen
> > couldn't start building up in concentration until the easily
> > oxidizable stuff ran out. The results of that process are being
> > dug up in iron mines all over the world today - so-called
> > "banded iron formations".
> >
>
> okay, which brings us back to the point where oxygen is now beginning
> to outstrip the oxidizable elements. What would be the first thing
> that occurs, once the shortest UV waves start lysing the O-O
> molecules? At some point O3 should outstrip the elements that destroy
> it and begin to accumulate. Is there some inherent characteristic in
> oxygen that gives it the ability to push the forming ozone layer higher
> and higher? Or would O2 mix evenly with O3, forming a firmament alien
> to what we know today? Seems to me that the layering of our atmosphere
> is rather arbitrary...unless any of you know of laws that would cause
> this kind of layering? Do enlighten me...I'm listening...
The layering isn't arbitrary. The physics behind is fairly well
understood, though the details are complex. As for the ozone:
The oxygen is formed wherever photosynthesis takes place, near
the surface, but once the oxidizable elements run out the O2 is
long-lived enough to be mixed rather evenly in the atmosphere.
If there is a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, the
UV wavelengths that photolyse O2 won't get very far into the
atmosphere, but will have a high probability of encountering
an O2 molecule already at high altitude. So that's where the
O3 will form. And the O3 is not long-lived enough to get
evenly mixed. Thus there is a natural explanation why the ozone
layer is where it is in today's atmosphere.
In an atmosphere with less oxygen, the UV would penetrate deeper,
and produce ozone also at lower altitudes. It wouldn't be
a thin layer in the same sense. Would make little difference
at or below the surface, though.
IIRC brown algae can manage with low light levels, and can grow
below the "UV-safe depth". Some algae certainly can.
> > I found a couple of more like the above, people who investigate the
> > impact
> > of UV on marine life. Seems they care mostly about UVB. But
> > interpolating
> > between UVB and "UVF", UVC ought to be quite strongly absorbed in
> water as well.
>
> is there some other element in the mix of hydrogen and oxygen that
> absorbs the UVC rays? I take it you mean by "absorb" that the
> destructiveness of the rays is diluted or diminished?
By "absorb" I mean that the UV photons interact with matter
and are converted to other forms of energy. The UV light
disappears as UV light, and won't travel any further to cause
damage at greater depths.
As for other UV-absorbing elements in ocean water, this is
discussed by Canfield in the articles mentioned above, as
well as in:
Canfield, D E (1998) 'A new model for Proterozoic
ocean chemistry', Nature 396:450-453
may...@andrews.edu
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
snip
> >
> > "See my previous post on how fast reproduction can
> > help survive something that kills off a proportion
> > of the population each time. For instance, all
> > you need to survive (and thrive!) in the face of
> > something that kills off 99% of the population each
> > day is to produce 101 or more offspring each day.
> > (xy>1, so population increases)."
> >
> am I to understand that the surviving 1 is able to reproduce at a rate
> equivalent to 100 %?
No. Obviously, if there were more of them, (say, 100%), the total
reproduction rate would be higher. He's trying to set the total
reproduction rate equal to the smallest possible positive integer(given
an "attrition rate" of 99% or some other percentage), rather than
trying to set it equal to the rate that would be produced by a
population unaffected by deaths prior to reproduction (a "100%
population"). Your comment would make more sense if we had been
considering one organism, unaffected by dangerous radiation, compared
to an entire population which is affected by such dangers; then we
might try and say, "Well, maybe the reproduction rate of the
single 'safe' microbe is equivalent to that of the entire population
troubled by radiation." But, of course, the situation is the other way
around (the single microbe is in the radiated environment, and the
entire population you're thinking of [the 100% one] is, by definition,
not).
Of course, he didn't actually do any calculations; he left that as an
exercise for you :-) I would have several problems with his outline,
though: the assumption that there are no spaces between DNA molecules
on the earth's surface, and the idea that one photon at these
wavelengths is necessary and sufficient to destroy a single molecule.
Also the assumption that there's only one "layer" of DNA molecules
(e.g., what if the UV-radiation killed off all the molecules on the
surface of the earth, only to find another layer waiting beneath
that?). FWIW, the first error would cause you to overestimate your
energy flux, the third would cause you to underestimate it, and the
second would vary, depending on how large a photon's "radius of
influence is" (could one photon knock out several DNA molecules? would
it take many photons to knock out a single molecule?).
But he has raised a valid point about the relevance of flux: we may use
UV-C rays today as germicides, but the crucial question is, "What is
the flux? What if they crank up the intensity of the germicidal rays to
billions of photons per square centimeter, while the 'solar,'
or 'natural' flux is some wimpy number like 100 photons per square
centimeter?"
For your question to be taken seriously, at least using the "germicide"
line of reasoning, you would need to show that the two fluxes are
comparable; you would also need to show that the germicides are used to
kill germs at the bottoms of bodies of water many meters deep, and that
the purpose of a germicide is to kill 100% of all germs, rather than
enough to make them manageable by our immune system.
> > "Are you willing to go to the effort to do the math,
> > instead of just speculating? Tell me, what numbers
> > did you get?"
> >
>
> the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak :) I take it you've done
> the math and are therefore not speculating?
No, zoe; again, he did not do the math. Key indicators of this are
statements like, "...I bet you would get a very large number..." etc.
But this doesn't mean he's speculating; his outline was well-reasoned
and concise, and should work pretty well as an order-of-magnitude
calculation, despite the problems I listed.
> > > Unless you're saying that mutation is quickly occuring so that
later
> > > breeds are becoming resistant to the harmful effects of UV, not to
> > > mention the low-lying smog of ozone...
> >
> > "No - just have a reproductive x factor high enough
> > that it overwhelms the death factor y; all you need
> > is xy>1 for population to increase. You have to
> > assume that y=100% (complete lethality) for fast
> > reproduction not to be a possible strategy."
He means y=0%.
What is this? Isn't this assuming a population of 100? I guess he means
11 offpsring for every 100 original organisms.
> > "Which is not to say that other mechanisms *couldn't*
> > pop up - but they'd have to be at a reasonable
> > metabolic cost. I suspect that repair would be,
> > but shielding and immunity would not (for the
> > reasons discussed above)."
> >
> > > But the repair/fast reproduction model could do it, I'm thinking.
> > > However, at this point, I'd call it -- semantics as usual -- I'd
> call
> > > such ability to repair and evolve "adaptation," a less loaded term
> than
> > > evolution. This creationist could live with that.
> >
> > "Adaptation *is* evolution. Did the allele frequency
> > shift in the population? Yes. Well, that's
> > evolution."
> >
> semantics again. "Evolution" is such a loaded word
> today. "Adaptation" is still fairly virgin territory. :)
Tell that to the anti-adaptationists :-) (a group of evolutionists who
mistakenly believe that other evolutionists over-estimate the value
of "adaptation", strictly defined, as opposed to random or neutral
change). Seriously, though, the distinction here is trivial. The
question is not what we should define evolution to be, but whether or
not all life forms are related by common descent(this is what
creationists oppose, regardless of what they call it).
> > "Perhaps we 'evolutionists' aren't as unreasonable
> > in claiming that evolution happens as you
> > creationists might think? If you get into the
> > real nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory ...
> > you just became an 'evolutionist' the second
> > you admitted that the algae could adapt to
> > its environment. The questions now are about
> > what versions of evolutionary theory you accept,
> > not whether you do." :)
> >
>
> I'm trying on "fundy evolutionist" for size. Fundy micro-
> evolutionist. :+ What exactly is a "fundy" considered to be, anyway?
> I've seen that epithet hurled about on here.
A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who believes
in the literal historical and scientific truth of all Christian
scriptures. There might be some more technical
social/demographic/historical definition, involving relationship to
mainstream American Protestanism, but, in practice fundies are as
described above.
> > >> Simple organisms are really
> > >> good at this - one blue-green algae, given ample
> > >> food supplies, is capable of reproducing into
> > >> enough algae to cover the earth in a month. (Which
> > >> is one reason why the ozone layer may have sprung
> > >> up so fast - ask if you are interested.) This
> > >> one doesn't even require any new parts - just speed
> > >> up your reproduction cycle, and your all set.
> > >> Radiation isn't a problem any more."
> >
> > > hmmm, did I miss something earlier in my post when I thought I'd
> > > hopefully debunked the speedy reproduction idea?
> >
> > "Yep - you missed that your argument only worked
> > if something had a 100% lethality rate. Anything
> > less, and my argument holds."
Not quite; zoe's argument would work if xy < 1. Or at least it could
work, then, if the population decreased so quickly that the organisms
would be gone before an ozone layer had a chance to form. Given the
length of time during which we know that the earth was dominated by
anaerobes, it seems that xy < 1 would come close to being the critical
condition (even if the population is decreasing very slowly, over
billions of years, it will eventually die out).
I don't see how the other premise is relevant.
It works out that way, yes.
First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
--vince
may...@andrews.edu
Hydrogen sulfide was apparently more abundant in those days, as
indicated by sulfate deposits (and possibly other measures of ancient
seawater chemistry). Another absorber was iron, found as dissolved ions
in the oceans. When oxygen appeared, the iron atoms hooked up with
oxygen atoms, and the iron/oxygen combinations sank down to the bottom
of the oceans to form what are called "banded iron formations." Nobody
else has mentioned these absorbers, but Ian seems to know what he's
talking about. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the references he
cites, so I can't do any more detailed checking than that right now.
> And I'm
> not sure I understand the connection between UV absorbers and how they
> make up for the lack of UV.
You're not reasoning correctly, here. Think about it.
> > >Aquatic food chains today are decreasing in population,
> >
> > Which is a multifactorial effect, including increasing pollution in
> > the food chains, and changes in water tempratures and changes in
> > nutrient delivering upwelling currents.
> >
> > >and UV-B radiation in the tropics
> > >and subtropics is thought to be one of the main causes of smaller
> > >populations of phytoplankton.
> >
> > Only SOME phytoplankton are UV sensitive, the UV sensitivity of the
> > cyanobacteria (the sorts of things around on the early earth) are
> > substantially higher, and the most anchient of the cyanobacterial
> > liniages are fairly UV resistant.
> >
> how do we decide that cyanobacteria were around on the early earth?
There are fossils of them. Cyanobacteria are presumably the same thing
as "stromatolites," or "blue-green algae" which formed great masses of
layers in the Precambrian, before grazing by snails in later epochs
reduced them to a mere shadow of their former selves. They're still
around today, hiding out in certain restricted environments where the
snails can't reach them.
> > >Solar UV-B radiation, they say, has been
> > >found to cause damage to early developmental stages of fish,
shrimp,
> > >crab, amphibians, and sea animals. And this at only 10 % loss. What
> > >must it have been like when there was a 100% absence and 100 %
> presence
> > >of UV-B and UV-C rays?
> >
> > Which was my point, there was NOT a 100% abscence of UV screening,
> > there was LOTS of UV screening, and there was NOT a 100% presence of
> > UV-ABC, surface UV was probably around modern levels.
> >
>
> probably?
I don't know where he got "modern levels" from, since it seems unlikely
that iron and H2S would have exactly the same absorbtion effect as
ozone. But the point is, there would have been significant absorbtion.
We can't assume 100% transmittance of UV-rays in those days.
Sverker Johansson
> abner...@earthlink.net wrote:
> > Abner Mintz wrote:
> > >> "To some degree. Any shielding helps. Our
> > >> atmosphere isn't a perfect shield of cosmic
> > >> radiation (witness the relative background
> > >> radiation levels in D.C. and Denver), but
> > >> it's enough for us to keep going."
> >
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > I'm kinda thinking that we have no info on what the UV-C rays would
> > > really do to this planet since they're completely filtered out by
> the
> > > oxygen in the atmosphere.
> >
> > "Sorry, but not true. We can measure the transmittance
> > of water at any wavelength we can generate
> > experimentally, and that's a very wide variety
> > of wavelengths. Only if it was impossible for
> > our current technology to generate UV-C in the lab
> > would your statement be true. To the best of my
> > knowledge, we can generate up through the x-ray
> > spectrum with reasonable control of wavelength ..."
We can generate about a million times further out
than that, to high-energy gamma rays.
No. The surviving one is able to get enough kids to
replace the 99 killed, plus some more. Not necessary to
replace also the kids that the killed ones would've had.
In more human terms:
Suppose there is a newly-founded settlement with
ten newly-wed couples (20 people). Suppose that
some natural disaster kills off nine of the couples.
The remaining couple goes on to have 22 kids.
Repeat this once every generation. Will the population
of the village increase or decrease?
UVC-flux at the Earth without any atmospheric protection:
8.3 W/m2
(Cockell & Andrady 1999, ref in some other post of mine)
Energy per UVC photon:
E = hc/lambda = 7e-19 J
Flux of photons:
1.1e19 per square meter per second
Size of bacteria:
varies widely, but let's say a few microns.
Area of bacteria:
1e-11 m2
Flux through one of them:
1e8 UVC photons per second
Generation time of bacteria:
a few hours, i.e. around 10,000 seconds
Photon flux per generation through one microbe:
1e8*10,000 = 1e12 photons
Size of DNA in cell:
Don't know, but a _lot_ larger than one part in 1e12.
In any case, the effective size of a photon is larger
than a DNA molecule.
Probability that the DNA in a microbe is hit by
a UVC photon if unshielded by ozone or other stuff:
effectively 100%
Probability that a UV photon hitting DNA will interact
and cause irrepairable damage:
Has been measured, but I can't find the numbers. There are
refs in Cockell & Andrady to experiments with microbes.
Conclusion:
Unshielded UVC from the sun is quite adequate for sterilization.
Corollary:
Shielding is needed.
But the various references I've looked at see several
possibilities for shielding on ancient Earth,
including the water that we've been discussing.
[snip]
> I'm trying on "fundy evolutionist" for size. Fundy micro-
> evolutionist. :+
Why not? Though the label "fundy evolutionist" is one
that fundy creationists like to use to refer to rabid
religion-haters who abuse science to bash Christianity
in general. Somehow I doubt that applies to you.
> What exactly is a "fundy" considered to be, anyway?
> I've seen that epithet hurled about on here.
Fundamentalist. Somebody who naively accepts every word
of the King James Bible as the literal truth, without
worrying about complications like context or translation
or interpretation. Somebody who doesn't use common sense
in reading the Bible.
[snip]
> > "Spines are a great defense for plants - but many island
> > species lose their spines if there are no animals to
> > eat them, because it costs energy to *make* spines,
> > and the ones with spines lose out to the spineless
> > varieties with no animals around. With no animals
> > around, the spineless are the most fit. If animals
> > get reintroduced ... the spined are the most fit, and
> > the spineless lose out. Highest survivability at
> > lowest cost."
> >
> you're beginning to make the evolutionary process sound like a stingy,
> lazy humbug with great business acumen and foresight. ;=)
Stingy and lazy sounds right - the ones getting the most
for the least effort and cost get ahead.
But where is the need for foresight?
[snip]
> Not crazy at all. I can't fault evolutionists on their logic and
> ability to form reasonable theories -- once you get away from the First
> Cause scenario.
I agree, the existence of a First Cause isn't logical :->
Sverker Johansson
> bo...@mad.scientist.com wrote:
> > On 20 Mar 2000 13:29:42 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote in
> > message <8b5ql7$n7g$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> :
> >
> > >> Bullshit. You don't even know what the "ToE" is, do you? Prove me
> > >> wrong if you don't like that assessment -- what do you consider to
> > >> be the "ToE"?
> > >>
> > >I could tell you what I think it is, but I might be wrong. I think it
> > >has to do with the changes that occur in the gene pool that cause
> life
> > >forms to evolve new characteristics. And this fact is worked into a
> > >theory that says those genetic changes mean we've evolved all the way
> > >from the algae to human beings. Why don't you tell me what you think
> > >it truly is, so I'll raise up no more strawmen to annoy you. :=)
> >
> > Uh.. if you think that anyone thinks that algae are ancestral to
> > humans, you have a VERY strange idea of evolution.
> >
> well, I'm here to learn, Bonz. If that is a strange idea of evolution,
> tell me what is the correct one. And if algae is not our beginning,
> then what was?
I'd say your description of ToE was not bad at all, for its size.
Certainly above par for creationists :-> Replace the algae with a
one-celled non-photosynthesizing eukaryote, or go straight for the
last common ancestor of all life, and we'll be happy. The fact of
ongoing evolution, together with loads of other facts about the
life and history of this planet, is woven together into the inference
that all life did come from such a common ancestor
(which wasn't algae, but that's quibbling).
Derek Stevenson
[snip]
> > > how does quantity defeat the effects of an ever-present UV?
> >
> > "See my previous post on how fast reproduction can
> > help survive something that kills off a proportion
> > of the population each time. For instance, all
> > you need to survive (and thrive!) in the face of
> > something that kills off 99% of the population each
> > day is to produce 101 or more offspring each day.
> > (xy>1, so population increases)."
> >
> am I to understand that the surviving 1 is able to reproduce at a rate
> equivalent to 100 %?
>
> > "Only if there is a *100%* lethality rate will
> > fast reproduction not work at any rate. You
> > have yet to show that such an estimated rate
> > is reasonable."
> >
> > > If a life
> > > form produced three offspring and the three offspring immediately
> > > produced three more each, all 13 would be greeted by the harmful C
> rays
> > > and eventually perish. I don't see how speedy reproduction would
> > > protect exploding population growth from the radiation. They're
all
> > > there, aren't they, under the sun's baleful eye?
You seem to be having a hard time accepting this as a viable survival
strategy. Haven't you seen any of the innumerable nature documentaries
where the baby turtles hatch by the thousands and swarm down the beach
to the water, while the announcer solemnly points out that only a
handful will make it to adulthood? And yet there are still turtles.
The principle is *exactly* the same.
[snip]
> > > But the repair/fast reproduction model could do it, I'm thinking.
> > > However, at this point, I'd call it -- semantics as usual -- I'd
> call
> > > such ability to repair and evolve "adaptation," a less loaded term
> than
> > > evolution. This creationist could live with that.
> >
> > "Adaptation *is* evolution. Did the allele frequency
> > shift in the population? Yes. Well, that's
> > evolution."
> >
> semantics again. "Evolution" is such a loaded word
> today. "Adaptation" is still fairly virgin territory. :)
Sorry if you don't like the word. It means what it means, and its use is
appropriate here.
You're coming off like one of those Victorians who coined the
term "white meat" so that they wouldn't have to use the word "breast"
(such a loaded word) to refer to that part of the chicken.
[snip]
> > > well, no, I don't think you can compare the limited resources of a
> > > human being against the burgeoning rabbit world to that of the
> > > omnipresent UV rays against the first "struggling life forms."
> >
> > "UV wasn't omnipresent. It came in in limited doses
> > called photons. I showed you how to do the math
> > and figure out a rough estimate of the UV-photon
> > flux you'd need to get a 100% hit rate (ignoring
> > shielding, repair, and survivable mutations)."
> >
> I meant omnipresent once you surfaced at about three feet of water and
> higher.
How do human beings survive, faced with the hard vacuum and lethal
radiation that are omnipresent in the universe?
Same answer.
[snip]
> > > your logic and reasoning is splendid...once we get away from the
> > > premise :=)
> >
> > "Sorry, the premise is basic math. Have you
> > now seen the post where I explained it in
> > more detail?"
>
> yes, but I was referring to a premise further removed -- the one that
> says that life came into existence through chance not ID.
Ah. Sorry, but the notion that those are the only two possibilities is
*your* premise, not ours.
[snip]
Ian Musgrave & Peta O'Donohue
Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
On 22 Mar 2000 01:05:43 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>In article <YLfWOFd1+FRCu+...@4ax.com>,
>reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
>> G'Day All
>> Address altered to avoid spam, delete RemoveInsert
>>
>> On 20 Mar 2000 13:14:15 -0500, zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>
>> >In article <VqHVOC6fE9jSno...@4ax.com>,
>> >reyn...@RemoveInsert.werple.mira.net.au wrote:
[snip]
>>>> Not only can water screen out UV, but the early earth environment had
>>>> a lot of hydrogen sulfide and its reaction proucts in the air, these
>>>> are UV absorbers, and the higher levels of hydrogen sulfide has masked
>>>> the reduction of ozone in northern industrialized nations.
>>>>
>>>> Not only that, the seas were rich in iron compounds, which also
>>>> provide protection form UV. UV in either the A, B or C bands was not a
>>>> more significant problem for early life than it is today.
>>>
>>>well, if our alarm at a 10 % decrease in the ozone layer is any
>>>indication as to the significance of the problem, then I imagine,
>>>the "early, struggling life forms" are in a spot.
>>
>> No, as I have tried to indicate, there were several UV absorbers in
>> the early environment that make up for the lack of UV.
"absorbing ozone" Geez I need to proff read better (or not get
interupted while writing).
>it's getting late and I'm falling behind here, Ian. Refresh me again.
>What are these several UV absorbers in the early environment?
H2S, and polymeric sulfides including thiols in the air (and possibly
polymeric organics as seen in Titans atmosphere), ferric ions in the
ocean.
>And I'm
>not sure I understand the connection between UV absorbers and how they
>make up for the lack of UV.
"absorbing ozone" Typo, sorry about that.
[snip]
>> Only SOME phytoplankton are UV sensitive, the UV sensitivity of the
>> cyanobacteria (the sorts of things around on the early earth) are
>> substantially higher, and the most anchient of the cyanobacterial
>> liniages are fairly UV resistant.
>>
>how do we decide that cyanobacteria were around on the early earth?
Fossil Stromatolites (structures built by cyano and other bacteria),
Microfossils showing cyanobacteria-like organisms and
carbon12/carbon13 isotope ratios indicative of carbon fixation.
>>>Solar UV-B radiation, they say, has been
>>>found to cause damage to early developmental stages of fish, shrimp,
>>>crab, amphibians, and sea animals. And this at only 10 % loss. What
>>>must it have been like when there was a 100% absence and 100 %presence
>>>of UV-B and UV-C rays?
>>
>> Which was my point, there was NOT a 100% abscence of UV screening,
>> there was LOTS of UV screening, and there was NOT a 100% presence of
>> UV-ABC, surface UV was probably around modern levels.
>
>probably?
The are uncertanties in total budget of H2S and other potential
absorbers, but values should be no more than +/-10% of modern values.
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
That's reasonable.
is there a way to observe signs of macroscopic amounts of free oxygen
in seawater or atmosphere?
I'm reading up on the atmosphere, as I have time. So far it seems that
knowing how the layers are composed does not rule out arbitrariness.
As for the ozone:
>
> The oxygen is formed wherever photosynthesis takes place, near
> the surface, but once the oxidizable elements run out the O2 is
> long-lived enough to be mixed rather evenly in the atmosphere.
> If there is a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, the
> UV wavelengths that photolyse O2 won't get very far into the
> atmosphere, but will have a high probability of encountering
> an O2 molecule already at high altitude.
that would mean there would have to be a sudden rush of a large
quantity of oxygen in order for there to be high-altitudes O2s to be
lysed. What would cause a sudden fast production?
So that's where the
> O3 will form. And the O3 is not long-lived enough to get
> evenly mixed.
how long must 03 live before it's in a position to evenly mix with the
O2 molecules? (I think its life cycle is a year or two.)
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Folks, may I, with delight, introduce my son, one of the most brilliant
minds around. :=) He travels under his real name, unlike his mom who
loves a pen name. :=) Gals,(ahem)he's a handsome product of several
nations -- American Indian, Chinese, Black, Scottish -- a pooling of
genes that evolved this new and wonderful species...and I'm sure you
can tell by now that I'm inordinately proud of him, in spite of the
fact that his present world view is now opposite to mine...sigh...one
day, further up the road, our minds will meet again, right, Vince? :=)
In article <8ba1dd$8h1$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
I guess the rays don't lose their deadliness as they continue to strike.
FWIW, the first error would cause you to overestimate your
> energy flux, the third would cause you to underestimate it, and the
> second would vary, depending on how large a photon's "radius of
> influence is" (could one photon knock out several DNA molecules? would
> it take many photons to knock out a single molecule?).
>
you're good, Maycock...very thorough...
> But he has raised a valid point about the relevance of flux: we may
use
> UV-C rays today as germicides, but the crucial question is, "What is
> the flux? What if they crank up the intensity of the germicidal rays
to
> billions of photons per square centimeter, while the 'solar,'
> or 'natural' flux is some wimpy number like 100 photons per square
> centimeter?"
>
> For your question to be taken seriously, at least using
the "germicide"
> line of reasoning, you would need to show that the two fluxes are
> comparable; you would also need to show that the germicides are used
to
> kill germs at the bottoms of bodies of water many meters deep, and
that
> the purpose of a germicide is to kill 100% of all germs, rather than
> enough to make them manageable by our immune system.
>
all good falsifiable theories.
> > > "Are you willing to go to the effort to do the math,
> > > instead of just speculating? Tell me, what numbers
> > > did you get?"
> > >
> >
> > the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak :) I take it you've
done
> > the math and are therefore not speculating?
>
> No, zoe; again, he did not do the math. Key indicators of this are
> statements like, "...I bet you would get a very large number..." etc.
> But this doesn't mean he's speculating; his outline was well-reasoned
> and concise, and should work pretty well as an order-of-magnitude
> calculation, despite the problems I listed.
>
> > > > Unless you're saying that mutation is quickly occuring so that
> later
> > > > breeds are becoming resistant to the harmful effects of UV, not
to
> > > > mention the low-lying smog of ozone...
> > >
> > > "No - just have a reproductive x factor high enough
> > > that it overwhelms the death factor y; all you need
> > > is xy>1 for population to increase. You have to
> > > assume that y=100% (complete lethality) for fast
> > > reproduction not to be a possible strategy."
>
> He means y=0%.
>
I'm a bit lost here. Is that what you meant, Abner? Maybe you
misunderstood him, Vince.
well, creationists do say animal and human life forms are related in
one sense -- we all have the breath of life. We say that life forms do
not follow a single line extending from algae to human, but there are
many branches, each reproducing after its own kind and each kind
capable of evolving up to a certain point, without crossing lines. The
gene pool of, say, monkeys, is different from the gene pool of human
beings.
> > > "Perhaps we 'evolutionists' aren't as unreasonable
> > > in claiming that evolution happens as you
> > > creationists might think? If you get into the
> > > real nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory ...
> > > you just became an 'evolutionist' the second
> > > you admitted that the algae could adapt to
> > > its environment. The questions now are about
> > > what versions of evolutionary theory you accept,
> > > not whether you do." :)
> > >
> >
> > I'm trying on "fundy evolutionist" for size. Fundy micro-
> > evolutionist. :+ What exactly is a "fundy" considered to be, anyway?
> > I've seen that epithet hurled about on here.
>
> A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who
believes
> in the literal
literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
historical
yes, archeology is bringing to light places and people that once were
thought to be mythical.
and scientific
only in that the broad picture of science as alluded to in the Bible
can be trusted and built upon.
truth of all Christian
> scriptures. There might be some more technical
> social/demographic/historical definition, involving relationship to
> mainstream American Protestanism, but, in practice fundies are as
> described above.
>
oh, dear, then I must be one of the much-maligned fundies.
it's relevant because the window through which you view the scientific
findings will cause you to interpret those findings according the tint
and frame of your window. It matters. The window of spontaneous
generation is as relevant as the window of intelligent design.
Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone and
because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
apian ancestor. Another person looks at the same tailbone and because
he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor tendons
or muscles or the spinal column.
respectfully,
zoe
Petteri Sulonen
[snip]
> well, creationists do say animal and human life forms are related in
> one sense -- we all have the breath of life. We say that life forms do
> not follow a single line extending from algae to human, but there are
> many branches, each reproducing after its own kind and each kind
> capable of evolving up to a certain point, without crossing lines. The
> gene pool of, say, monkeys, is different from the gene pool of human
> beings.
But the point is... there *are* no lines! The lines between species (or
"kinds" as creationists like to put it) are all in the eye of the
beholder! "Macroevolution" is just a lot of "microevolution". Are lions
and tigers different "kinds"? How about horses and donkeys? Is a slime
mold a plant or an animal? Are chimps and gorillas different "kinds"? How
about humans and chimps? (They are closer relatives than chimps and
gorillas, you know!)
And, by the way, we do not have algae among our ancestors. We do have a
common ancestor with them, though.
[snip]
> > A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who
> believes
> > in the literal
>
> literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
Which parts are those? What if evidence clearly contradicts such literal
bits? (E.g., the bits about four-legged flying insects, ruminating hares,
or bats that are birds?)
> historical
>
> yes, archeology is bringing to light places and people that once were
> thought to be mythical.
Archaeology also demonstrates as mythical many events described in the Bible.
> and scientific
>
> only in that the broad picture of science as alluded to in the Bible
> can be trusted and built upon.
But it can't! There's masses of evidence to the contrary!
> truth of all Christian
> > scriptures. There might be some more technical
> > social/demographic/historical definition, involving relationship to
> > mainstream American Protestanism, but, in practice fundies are as
> > described above.
>
> oh, dear, then I must be one of the much-maligned fundies.
That you are. You're an exceptionally nice one though.
[snip]
> > I don't see how the other premise is relevant.
>
> it's relevant because the window through which you view the scientific
> findings will cause you to interpret those findings according the tint
> and frame of your window. It matters. The window of spontaneous
> generation is as relevant as the window of intelligent design.
But it's NOT relevant to the question we're discussing here -- the
formation of the ozone layer. To THIS subject it doesn't matter if the
cyanobacteria were poofed into existence by God or if they evolved from
other micro-organisms. By pulling in "first cause" and "spontaneous
generation" you're just obfuscating. One thing at a time -- otherwise
pretty soon nobody'll remember *what* we were talking about in the first
place, and this'll degenerate into the usual shouting match!
[snip]
> > First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
>
> Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
> our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone and
> because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
> chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
> apian ancestor. Another person looks at the same tailbone and because
> he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
> interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor tendons
> or muscles or the spinal column.
How about the appendix, then? Or wisdom teeth?
-- Petteri
Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
Johnny Bravo
>> A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who
>>believes in the literal
>
>literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
>
>oh, dear, then I must be one of the much-maligned fundies.
Not quite, that first sentence of yours leaves you out. The fundies
insist that every single word of the bible is 100% true, the most common
variances with reality occur in a world wide flood, a 6k year old earth
and a 6 day creation.
For the most part atheists don't care about others personal worship, but
when people start insisting that their holy text is the one true
scientific explanation of everything we just laugh at them. When those
same people start insisting that their religion is just as valid as
science and start demanding that it be taught in schools, we tend to
object.
One other netequitte point, if there are large amounts of text you are
not responding to, please cut it out to keep your postings shorter. It
enhances readability and people will be more likely to read the post.
--
Best Wishes,
Johnny Bravo
BAAWA Knight, EAC - Lovecraft Writing Division
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all it's contents." - HPL
Sverker Johansson
> Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> > > > zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> > > > > Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
[snip]
> > > > OK, oxygen is nasty stuff. But it took a _long_ time for it
> > > > to build up to significant concentration, quite long enough to
> > > > evolve defenses. There is a time lag of something like
> > > > a billion years between the first fossils that resemble
> > > > photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, and the first signs of
> > > > macroscopic amounts of free oxygen in either seawater or
> > > > atmosphere.
>
> is there a way to observe signs of macroscopic amounts of free oxygen
> in seawater or atmosphere?
Indirectly. Certain minerals won't form in the presence of oxygen.
(They'll get oxidized instead, and form some different mineral.)
If you find these minerals, then you know there wasn't any oxygen
around when they formed. Such minerals are commonly found in
Archean sediments, but not in younger rocks.
I don't have the details handy, but either I can look them up, or
somebody who does have them handy can fill in here.
Understanding how the layers are _formed_ does mean it isn't arbitrary.
Understanding the laws controlling which stuff ends up in which
layer does mean it isn't arbitrary.
> As for the ozone:
> >
> > The oxygen is formed wherever photosynthesis takes place, near
> > the surface, but once the oxidizable elements run out the O2 is
> > long-lived enough to be mixed rather evenly in the atmosphere.
> > If there is a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, the
> > UV wavelengths that photolyse O2 won't get very far into the
> > atmosphere, but will have a high probability of encountering
> > an O2 molecule already at high altitude.
>
> that would mean there would have to be a sudden rush of a large
> quantity of oxygen in order for there to be high-altitudes O2s to be
> lysed. What would cause a sudden fast production?
No need for it to be sudden. Why should there be?
The lifetime of an O3 molecule is short compared with the atmosphere
mixing time. So ozone is formed by photolysis, and broken down,
and re-formed, all the time, from the top of the atmomsphere down to
where all the O2-lysing wavelengths have been used up, which means
down to a certain column density of O2.
Meanwhile, the O2 level can be slowly rising, meaning that the
depth at which that column density is reached is getting
shallower and shallower. The ozone equilibrates much faster than
the O2 increases. So, at all times we'll have an ozone layer that's
in near-equilibrium with the O2 of that time - but the equilibrium
level will be shifting slowly, as the O2 increases. Absolutely
no need for this process to be sudden.
> So that's where the
> > O3 will form. And the O3 is not long-lived enough to get
> > evenly mixed.
>
> how long must 03 live before it's in a position to evenly mix with the
> O2 molecules? (I think its life cycle is a year or two.)
The lower atmosphere mixes much faster (weeks), but slower (years?)
in the stratosphere at the ozone-layer altitude (20-32 km).
And since the ozone layer changes seasonally, the ozone turnover
time must be much shorter than a year.
IIRC the long-lived atmospheric gases (N2, O2 etc) are evenly mixed
up through the ozone layer, but water vapour is not. So the mixing
time for the stratosphere must be somwhere between the residence time
for oxygen and the residence time for water vapour.
In any case, all these times are very short compared with the
geologic times relevant for the original formation of an
oxygen atmosphere.
may...@andrews.edu
>
> Folks, may I, with delight, introduce my son, one of the most
brilliant
> minds around. :=) He travels under his real name, unlike his mom who
> loves a pen name. :=) Gals,(ahem)he's a handsome product of several
> nations -- American Indian, Chinese, Black, Scottish -- a pooling of
> genes that evolved this new and wonderful species...and I'm sure you
> can tell by now that I'm inordinately proud of him, in spite of the
> fact that his present world view is now opposite to mine...sigh...one
> day, further up the road, our minds will meet again, right, Vince? :=)
Moms always have to find a way to embarrass you :-)
snip
>
> FWIW, the first error would cause you to overestimate your
> > energy flux, the third would cause you to underestimate it, and the
> > second would vary, depending on how large a photon's "radius of
> > influence is" (could one photon knock out several DNA molecules?
would
> > it take many photons to knock out a single molecule?).
> >
>
> you're good, Maycock...very thorough...
Sverker actually pushed the calculations through, and it turns out
Abner's ideas about flux were a dead-end. But other solutions remain. I
think it's about time you conceded that this whole ozone idea itself
was a dead-end, i.e., that the formation of the ozone layer does not
present a significant barrier to evolutionary theory.
snip
> > > >
> > > > "No - just have a reproductive x factor high enough
> > > > that it overwhelms the death factor y; all you need
> > > > is xy>1 for population to increase. You have to
> > > > assume that y=100% (complete lethality) for fast
> > > > reproduction not to be a possible strategy."
> >
> > He means y=0%.
> >
>
> I'm a bit lost here. Is that what you meant, Abner? Maybe you
> misunderstood him, Vince.
The unit analysis goes like this: (original organisms)*
(offspring/original organisms)*(survivors/offspring)= survivors.
Offspring and original organsims cancel, leaving survivors. Now we just
divide through by original organisms, which leaves the equation in the
form that Abner had it. x is therefore defined as offspring per
original organisms, y is defined as survivors per offspring, and the
product of these two is equal to the ratio of survivors to original
organisms. So if there is a 100% mortality rate, y must be equal to
zero (no survivors).
snip
> > Tell that to the anti-adaptationists :-) (a group of evolutionists
who
> > mistakenly believe that other evolutionists over-estimate the value
> > of "adaptation", strictly defined, as opposed to random or neutral
> > change). Seriously, though, the distinction here is trivial. The
> > question is not what we should define evolution to be, but whether
or
> > not all life forms are related by common descent(this is what
> > creationists oppose, regardless of what they call it).
> >
>
> well, creationists do say animal and human life forms are related in
> one sense -- we all have the breath of life.
I meant physically related. Part of the elegance of the theory of
evolution is that it explains why organisms look as if they're related,
i.e., why it's easy to lapse into a terminology involving phrases
like "these creatures are related to these other ones." It's because
they *are* related, historically! Creationism has no good explanation
for this to match up with evolution, other than ad hoc statements about
God's omnipotence.
We say that life forms do
> not follow a single line extending from algae to human, but there are
> many branches, each reproducing after its own kind and each kind
> capable of evolving up to a certain point, without crossing lines.
There is no reason to think that evolution will stop after a certain
point.
>The
> gene pool of, say, monkeys, is different from the gene pool of human
> beings.
>
> > > > "Perhaps we 'evolutionists' aren't as unreasonable
> > > > in claiming that evolution happens as you
> > > > creationists might think? If you get into the
> > > > real nitty-gritty of evolutionary theory ...
> > > > you just became an 'evolutionist' the second
> > > > you admitted that the algae could adapt to
> > > > its environment. The questions now are about
> > > > what versions of evolutionary theory you accept,
> > > > not whether you do." :)
> > > >
> > >
> > > I'm trying on "fundy evolutionist" for size. Fundy micro-
> > > evolutionist. :+ What exactly is a "fundy" considered to be,
anyway?
> > > I've seen that epithet hurled about on here.
> >
> > A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who
> believes
> > in the literal
>
> literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
Right. This was a problem I had with Sverker's definition. I think he
was implying that creationists are inept at Biblical exegesis, which is
not the case. The creationists are generally right that the Bible
should not be interpreted figuratively when they say it shouldn't; the
Bible is just wrong, that's all. You can't escape it by saying the
Bible was trying to be figurative. Some people may feel that we may
lose "converts" by being this blunt, but I don't really care. I see no
reason to soft-peddle the facts to make them more palatable. The
evidence against creationism is strong enough that it can be used
effectively without political aid; and even if this wasn't the case, my
position on the issue would probably be the same, since I think the
facts should be allowed to speak for themselves, rather than being
contaminated by political tactics.
> historical
>
> yes, archeology is bringing to light places and people that once were
> thought to be mythical.
In other areas, the archeological record has failed to support
Bibilical accounts. In some cases, the tales are extremely unrealistic,
and absence of external documentation is very suspicious, considering
the conspicuous nature of some of the reported events.
snip
> > >
> > > yes, but I was referring to a premise further removed -- the one
> that
> > > says that life came into existence through chance not ID.
> >
> > I don't see how the other premise is relevant.
>
> it's relevant because the window through which you view the scientific
> findings will cause you to interpret those findings according the tint
> and frame of your window.
In what way? The theory of evolution is the product of an accumulated
body of evidence, rather than the speculations of a particular
worldview.
snip
> > >
> > > Not crazy at all. I can't fault evolutionists on their logic and
> > > ability to form reasonable theories -- once you get away from the
> > First
> > > Cause scenario.
> >
> > First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
>
> Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
> our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone and
> because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
> chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
> apian ancestor.
I don't believe so, Mom. We interpret it as the vestige of a tail,
because that's what it looks like. It's a bunch of tail bones shrunken
down and fused together.
> Another person looks at the same tailbone and because
> he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
> interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor
tendons
> or muscles or the spinal column.
It could anchor things without looking like the remnants of a tail.
Bonz
message <8b9o7j$uai$1...@nnrp1.deja.com> :
>life
>> >forms to evolve new characteristics. And this fact is worked into a
>> >theory that says those genetic changes mean we've evolved all the way
>> >from the algae to human beings. Why don't you tell me what you think
>> >it truly is, so I'll raise up no more strawmen to annoy you. :=)
>>
>> Uh.. if you think that anyone thinks that algae are ancestral to
>> humans, you have a VERY strange idea of evolution.
>>
>well, I'm here to learn, Bonz. If that is a strange idea of evolution,
>tell me what is the correct one. And if algae is not our beginning,
>then what was?
What is "our"? Animals? Mammals? _Homo sapiens_?
Algae are out on one limb. We (animals) are out on another,
different limb. Algae are distant cousins, not ancestors.
い
Bonz alt.atheism #1497
Please deSPAM before sending Email
い
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
bear with me.
> > > > > > Sverker Johansson <l...@hlk.no.hj.spam.se> wrote:
> [snip]
> > > > > OK, oxygen is nasty stuff. But it took a _long_ time for it
> > > > > to build up to significant concentration, quite long enough to
> > > > > evolve defenses. There is a time lag of something like
> > > > > a billion years between the first fossils that resemble
> > > > > photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, and the first signs of
> > > > > macroscopic amounts of free oxygen in either seawater or
> > > > > atmosphere.
> >
> > is there a way to observe signs of macroscopic amounts of free
oxygen
> > in seawater or atmosphere?
>
> Indirectly. Certain minerals won't form in the presence of oxygen.
> (They'll get oxidized instead, and form some different mineral.)
> If you find these minerals, then you know there wasn't any oxygen
> around when they formed. Such minerals are commonly found in
> Archean sediments, but not in younger rocks.
>
okay, that works for signs of no oxygen in rocks. Is there a way to
determine the first signs of free oxygen molecules in seawater or
atmosphere in order to arrive at the billion-year period between early
O2 and the first fossils that resemble photosynthesizing cyanobacteria?
> I don't have the details handy, but either I can look them up, or
> somebody who does have them handy can fill in here.
>
you've been a great help already, Sverker. I'm also looking up stuff
on this, so don't let me hang like a dead weight on you.
> >
> > I'm reading up on the atmosphere, as I have time. So far it seems
that
> > knowing how the layers are composed does not rule out arbitrariness.
>
> Understanding how the layers are _formed_ does mean it isn't
arbitrary.
> Understanding the laws controlling which stuff ends up in which
> layer does mean it isn't arbitrary.
>
understanding how a mechanism works does not eliiminate its maker or
its maker's purposes. If I painted a canvas with an arbitary horizon-
to-canvas-edge width of ten inches and you came along and figured out
what color mixing and use of light and shadow created the appearance of
depth on that canvas, does your understanding how I did it make my
decision any less arbitrary? And if you were to discover that I
arbitrarily made the sky 10 inches wide in order to include a lot of
good stuff below the horizon, would your understanding now make my
decision to paint the way I wanted any less arbitrary?
> > As for the ozone:
> > >
> > > The oxygen is formed wherever photosynthesis takes place, near
> > > the surface, but once the oxidizable elements run out the O2 is
> > > long-lived enough to be mixed rather evenly in the atmosphere.
> > > If there is a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, the
> > > UV wavelengths that photolyse O2 won't get very far into the
> > > atmosphere, but will have a high probability of encountering
> > > an O2 molecule already at high altitude.
> >
> > that would mean there would have to be a sudden rush of a large
> > quantity of oxygen in order for there to be high-altitudes O2s to be
> > lysed. What would cause a sudden fast production?
>
> No need for it to be sudden. Why should there be?
>
> The lifetime of an O3 molecule is short compared with the atmosphere
> mixing time. So ozone is formed by photolysis, and broken down,
> and re-formed, all the time, from the top of the atmomsphere
considering that the troposphere is now forming, the top of the
atmosphere would be close to the ground, where any newly formed free
O2s would be immediately photolysed by the UV.
down to
> where all the O2-lysing wavelengths have been used up, which means
> down to a certain column density of O2.
>
especially if this is occuring over a period of time, there would be no
column density of O2 yet, since the UV rays aren't waiting for a column
to form before beginning to lyse and form O3s.
> Meanwhile, the O2 level can be slowly rising, meaning that the
> depth at which that column density is reached is getting
> shallower and shallower. The ozone equilibrates much faster than
> the O2 increases. So, at all times we'll have an ozone layer that's
> in near-equilibrium with the O2 of that time - but the equilibrium
> level will be shifting slowly, as the O2 increases. Absolutely
> no need for this process to be sudden.
>
can you have equilibration and layering at the same time?
> > So that's where the
> > > O3 will form. And the O3 is not long-lived enough to get
> > > evenly mixed.
> >
> > how long must 03 live before it's in a position to evenly mix with
the
> > O2 molecules? (I think its life cycle is a year or two.)
>
> The lower atmosphere mixes much faster (weeks),
which is all we'd have to start with back in the beginning, is the
lower atmosphere.
but slower (years?)
> in the stratosphere at the ozone-layer altitude (20-32 km).
> And since the ozone layer changes seasonally, the ozone turnover
> time must be much shorter than a year.
>
okay. So less than a year, not a year or two, then. I take that back.
> IIRC the long-lived atmospheric gases (N2, O2 etc) are evenly mixed
> up through the ozone layer, but water vapour is not. So the mixing
> time for the stratosphere must be somwhere between the residence time
> for oxygen and the residence time for water vapour.
>
back then when there was no stratosphere or mesophere, and the
troposphere was just forming, in order for ozone to form, there would
need to be more O2s than O3s so that when an O2 is lysed, the freed Os
can find extra unlysed O2s to team up with in order to form O3s. If
O2s are increasing at a slower rate, can O3s still form? I'm sure I'm
missing something somewhere. Help me out.
zoe
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> In article <8bf0fp$o7s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
wrote:
>
> But the point is... there *are* no lines! The lines between species
(or
> "kinds" as creationists like to put it) are all in the eye of the
> beholder! "Macroevolution" is just a lot of "microevolution". Are
lions
> and tigers different "kinds"?
different species, yes.
How about horses and donkeys?
different species, too, each producing after their own kind.
Is a slime
> mold a plant or an animal?
do we have evidence of a slime mold becoming an animal?
Are chimps and gorillas different "kinds"?
yes, both producing after their own kind. Chimps do not become
gorillas and vice versa. Each produces after its own kind, hence
the "lines."
How
> about humans and chimps?
two different species altogether. Similarity doesn't necessarily mean
relatedness. I resemble a number of people (I've been mistaken for a
violin player, a relative, a friend by strangers)but my similarity
doesn't mean I'm related to any of those mistaken IDs.
(They are closer relatives than chimps and
> gorillas, you know!)
>
meaning, I guess, that they have more similarities to humans than
gorillas? Granted.
> And, by the way, we do not have algae among our ancestors. We do have
a
> common ancestor with them, though.
>
who is the common ancestor again?
> [snip]
>
> > > A "fundy" (short for fundamentalist, of course) is someone who
> > believes
> > > in the literal
> >
> > literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
>
> Which parts are those? What if evidence clearly contradicts such
literal
> bits? (E.g., the bits about four-legged flying insects, ruminating
hares,
> or bats that are birds?)
>
how do the last examples contradict the literalness of whatever parts
you must be thinking of?
> > historical
> >
> > yes, archeology is bringing to light places and people that once
were
> > thought to be mythical.
>
> Archaeology also demonstrates as mythical many events described in
the Bible.
>
I'm sure you have some mythical event in mind. Let me hear it.
> > and scientific
> >
> > only in that the broad picture of science as alluded to in the Bible
> > can be trusted and built upon.
>
> But it can't! There's masses of evidence to the contrary!
>
really? I guess I'll have to make time to read some other threads and
learn what these masses of evidence to the contrary are. Right?
Or should we talk about that in this thread?
> > truth of all Christian
> > > scriptures. There might be some more technical
> > > social/demographic/historical definition, involving relationship
to
> > > mainstream American Protestanism, but, in practice fundies are as
> > > described above.
> >
> > oh, dear, then I must be one of the much-maligned fundies.
>
> That you are. You're an exceptionally nice one though.
>
lol, thanks Petteri, I'll have that comment to cheer my soul when I run
into my next slam.
> [snip]
>
> > > I don't see how the other premise is relevant.
> >
> > it's relevant because the window through which you view the
scientific
> > findings will cause you to interpret those findings according the
tint
> > and frame of your window. It matters. The window of spontaneous
> > generation is as relevant as the window of intelligent design.
>
> But it's NOT relevant to the question we're discussing here -- the
> formation of the ozone layer. To THIS subject it doesn't matter if the
> cyanobacteria were poofed into existence by God or if they evolved
from
> other micro-organisms. By pulling in "first cause" and "spontaneous
> generation" you're just obfuscating.
well, if obfuscating is discerned here, it wasn't deliberate. I'm
simply trying to figure out how the ozone layer got there, which
inevitably leads to first cause -- once you step back to view the whole
picture.
One thing at a time -- otherwise
> pretty soon nobody'll remember *what* we were talking about in the
first
> place, and this'll degenerate into the usual shouting match!
> [snip]
>
> > > First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
> >
dunno, Petteri, these question arise in my mind because I'm interested
in First Cause. Is that okay with you?
> > Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
> > our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone
and
> > because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
> > chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
> > apian ancestor. Another person looks at the same tailbone and
because
> > he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
> > interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor
tendons
> > or muscles or the spinal column.
>
> How about the appendix, then? Or wisdom teeth?
>
one person looks through his evolutionary window and sees the appendix
as a vestige from some past ancestor, no longer needed. Another person
looks through his creationist window and sees reason to believe that
there might very well be some use to the appendix, if not a digestive
use. The appendix is made of lymphatic tissue. Could it be placed
strategically there at the cecum, at the beginning of the large
intestine for purposes other than digestion? The lymph transports
excess fluid, bacteria or viruses to lymph nodes. Maybe there's a need
for some lymphatic tissue to be positioned at the cecum where the waste
material accumulates in that pouch before going through the colon?
Just a question, not a statement of fact, but something to be
investigated maybe?
One person looks through his evolutionary window and sees wisdom teeth
that seem to serve no purpose. We get along fine without them, don't
we? Therefore they're a relic of some earlier time when early man
needed more powerful grinders.
Another person looks through his creationist window and sees a process
of change in bony structure due to diet that causes narrowing of the
jaw and other structural changes (back in college I remember reading
about some research that demonstrated that American Indians, when they
changed their diet to the white man's, their offspring began to develop
narrower nose bridges, crowding of teeth, etc., as a result of the
refined foods they began to eat.) For those of us whose wisdom teeth
manage to succesfully emerge in less restricted jaws, mastication is
better performed than those with fewer or missing teeth. They're not
useless, just more helpful for thorough mastication.
the point is, scientific observations belong to no one. They're just
there until we come along with our world views and interpret them to
fit.
zoe
> -- Petteri
>
> Gutta cavat lapidem non vi, sed semper cadendo. |a.a #1442. EAC, Cmsr
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Remove spamblock and reply by e-mail, or I may not see your post.
>
>
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> >>believes in the literal
> >
> >literal, yes, in those areas that are clearly not figurative.
> >
>
> insist that every single word of the bible is 100% true, the most
common
> variances with reality occur in a world wide flood,
oh, I'm a fundy there! A world-wide flood is not unreasonable if you
stay within the framework of the creation story. In the beginning the
earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the
deep. Apparently the whole earth was wrapped in water. That water
didn't disappear; it was just rearranged. If, at one time, it covered
the entire earth, it should be able to re-cover it entirely.
a 6k year old earth
fundy there too. The earth's materials itself could have been around
for billions of years, but the history of mankind on this earth I hold
to be about 6k years.
> and a 6 day creation.
>
fundy again. One good evidence of a 6-day creation is the presence of
the weekly cycle. No one can explain its ubiquitous presence. It's as
arbitrary as the creation account makes it out to be -- seven literal
evenings and mornings cut out of time and imposed upon us -- First day,
Second day, Third day, Fourth day, Fifth day, Sixth day, and the
Seventh day, after which we start over again. Where did this come from?
<snip>
>
> One other netequitte point, if there are large amounts of text you are
> not responding to, please cut it out to keep your postings shorter. It
> enhances readability and people will be more likely to read the post.
>
appreciate the tips, Johnny. Was that "snip" okay up there? :-)
zoe
> --
> Best Wishes,
> Johnny Bravo
>
> BAAWA Knight, EAC - Lovecraft Writing Division
>
> "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
> of the human mind to correlate all it's contents." - HPL
>
>
Petteri Sulonen
> In article <psulonen-240...@dialup2-26.iptelecom.net.ua>,
> psul...@zeos.spamblock.net (Petteri Sulonen) wrote:
> > In article <8bf0fp$o7s$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, zoe_a...@my-deja.com
> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> > But the point is... there *are* no lines! The lines between species
> (or
> > "kinds" as creationists like to put it) are all in the eye of the
> > beholder! "Macroevolution" is just a lot of "microevolution". Are
> lions
> > and tigers different "kinds"?
>
> different species, yes.
How about tiger-lion hybrids? They can interbreed, and their offspring are
fertile.
> How about horses and donkeys?
>
> different species, too, each producing after their own kind.
OK. What about mules, then?
> Is a slime
> > mold a plant or an animal?
>
> do we have evidence of a slime mold becoming an animal?
It's not a question of whether it "becomes" an animal. It's a creature
that exhibits both plantlike and animal-like "behaviour".
> Are chimps and gorillas different "kinds"?
>
> yes, both producing after their own kind. Chimps do not become
> gorillas and vice versa. Each produces after its own kind, hence
> the "lines."
>
> How
> > about humans and chimps?
>
> two different species altogether. Similarity doesn't necessarily mean
> relatedness. I resemble a number of people (I've been mistaken for a
> violin player, a relative, a friend by strangers)but my similarity
> doesn't mean I'm related to any of those mistaken IDs.
>
> (They are closer relatives than chimps and
> > gorillas, you know!)
> >
> meaning, I guess, that they have more similarities to humans than
> gorillas? Granted.
The point is: even many creationists say (often accidentally) that species
are "related". A cat is related to a lion, for example. As has been
pointed out in this thread before, evolution explains _why_ they look like
they're related. And, by the way, you and those people you resemble _are_
related -- you have a common ancestor. Even a Biblical literalist would
say that -- Noah, if no-one else! ;-)
[snip]
> > Which parts are those? What if evidence clearly contradicts such
> literal
> > bits? (E.g., the bits about four-legged flying insects, ruminating
> hares,
> > or bats that are birds?)
> >
> how do the last examples contradict the literalness of whatever parts
> you must be thinking of?
I'm saying that the Bible makes specific mentions of four-legged flying
insects. We're reasonably certain that there *are* no four-legged flying
insects, and there *were* none at the time the passage was written. I
can't see how this could _possibly_ be interpreted "metaphorically". It's
a specific statement that is contrary to what we know is true. This, I
think, casts at least a modicum of doubt on _any_ claim in the Bible.
> > > historical
> > >
> > > yes, archeology is bringing to light places and people that once
> were
> > > thought to be mythical.
> >
> > Archaeology also demonstrates as mythical many events described in
> the Bible.
>
> I'm sure you have some mythical event in mind. Let me hear it.
There are any number of those. The Flood, of course, is the hugest case.
The exodus of the Jews from Egypt is another -- if anything like it ever
happened, it could not have happened *as described in the Bible*.
> > > and scientific
> > >
> > > only in that the broad picture of science as alluded to in the Bible
> > > can be trusted and built upon.
> >
> > But it can't! There's masses of evidence to the contrary!
>
> really? I guess I'll have to make time to read some other threads and
> learn what these masses of evidence to the contrary are. Right?
> Or should we talk about that in this thread?
Excellent idea. It seems, though, that you were the one who brought up the
"broad picture of science"... ;-)
In any case, it's obvious that many people have no problem reconciling
Christianity and science -- there are many top-notch scientists who are
Christians. Exactly how they do it, I don't know -- since I can't do it,
I'm not exactly qualified to comment on it. There's no real harm in it, as
far as I can tell, anyway.
[snip]
> > > > I don't see how the other premise is relevant.
> > >
> > > it's relevant because the window through which you view the
> scientific
> > > findings will cause you to interpret those findings according the
> tint
> > > and frame of your window. It matters. The window of spontaneous
> > > generation is as relevant as the window of intelligent design.
> >
> > But it's NOT relevant to the question we're discussing here -- the
> > formation of the ozone layer. To THIS subject it doesn't matter if the
> > cyanobacteria were poofed into existence by God or if they evolved
> from
> > other micro-organisms. By pulling in "first cause" and "spontaneous
> > generation" you're just obfuscating.
>
> well, if obfuscating is discerned here, it wasn't deliberate. I'm
> simply trying to figure out how the ozone layer got there, which
> inevitably leads to first cause -- once you step back to view the whole
> picture.
So it does, eventually. As we both seem to agree, however, I think it
would be a better idea to concentrate on what's being said in this thread,
and leave the "broad picture" (whether Biblical or scientific) for another
discussion.
[snip]
> > > > First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
> > >
>
> dunno, Petteri, these question arise in my mind because I'm interested
> in First Cause. Is that okay with you?
Sure! I'm interested in it too! By all means let's start a discussion
about it -- if we could get Peter Walker to participate, it could actually
be a pretty good discussion.
> > > Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
> > > our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone
> and
> > > because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
> > > chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
> > > apian ancestor. Another person looks at the same tailbone and
> because
> > > he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
> > > interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor
> tendons
> > > or muscles or the spinal column.
> >
> > How about the appendix, then? Or wisdom teeth?
> >
>
> one person looks through his evolutionary window and sees the appendix
> as a vestige from some past ancestor, no longer needed. Another person
> looks through his creationist window and sees reason to believe that
> there might very well be some use to the appendix, if not a digestive
> use. The appendix is made of lymphatic tissue. Could it be placed
> strategically there at the cecum, at the beginning of the large
> intestine for purposes other than digestion? The lymph transports
> excess fluid, bacteria or viruses to lymph nodes. Maybe there's a need
> for some lymphatic tissue to be positioned at the cecum where the waste
> material accumulates in that pouch before going through the colon?
> Just a question, not a statement of fact, but something to be
> investigated maybe?
Easy to investigate: just take a look at people who have had their
appendices removed, and see if they have any disruption of lymphatic
circulation. I'd be willing to wager that they don't.
> One person looks through his evolutionary window and sees wisdom teeth
> that seem to serve no purpose. We get along fine without them, don't
> we? Therefore they're a relic of some earlier time when early man
> needed more powerful grinders.
>
> Another person looks through his creationist window and sees a process
> of change in bony structure due to diet that causes narrowing of the
> jaw and other structural changes (back in college I remember reading
> about some research that demonstrated that American Indians, when they
> changed their diet to the white man's, their offspring began to develop
> narrower nose bridges, crowding of teeth, etc., as a result of the
> refined foods they began to eat.) For those of us whose wisdom teeth
> manage to succesfully emerge in less restricted jaws, mastication is
> better performed than those with fewer or missing teeth. They're not
> useless, just more helpful for thorough mastication.
Haha! Again the "microevolution but not macroevolution" bit... I'd still
like to hear: exactly what constitutes the "barrier" between species?
You've already accepted that there is change within species over time.
Given enough time and an isolated population, exactly what prevents
speciation?
> the point is, scientific observations belong to no one. They're just
> there until we come along with our world views and interpret them to
> fit.
Nope. We don't *interpret* the observations. We try to *explain* them. The
theory of evolution explains any number of things, and makes testable
predictions which check out. Creationism explains nothing beyond saying
the magic words "God did it."
Petteri Sulonen
[snip]
> oh, I'm a fundy there! A world-wide flood is not unreasonable if you
> stay within the framework of the creation story. In the beginning the
> earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the
> deep. Apparently the whole earth was wrapped in water. That water
> didn't disappear; it was just rearranged. If, at one time, it covered
> the entire earth, it should be able to re-cover it entirely.
Ah, but *was* the whole earth wrapped in water? Sure, the water around now
could cover everything -- but you'd have to sink the continents or raise
the ocean bottoms. This would be a pretty momentuous event, to say the
least!
> a 6k year old earth
>
> fundy there too. The earth's materials itself could have been around
> for billions of years, but the history of mankind on this earth I hold
> to be about 6k years.
Do you have any independent evidence for this? That is, evidence from
outside the Bible?
What do you make of, for example, the archaeological excavations at Jbeil
(Byblos) in Lebanon, which show continous habitation there for about
10,000 years?
> > and a 6 day creation.
> >
>
> fundy again. One good evidence of a 6-day creation is the presence of
> the weekly cycle. No one can explain its ubiquitous presence. It's as
> arbitrary as the creation account makes it out to be -- seven literal
> evenings and mornings cut out of time and imposed upon us -- First day,
> Second day, Third day, Fourth day, Fifth day, Sixth day, and the
> Seventh day, after which we start over again. Where did this come from?
Could it be ... the lunar cycle? The moon's phases go around in roughly 28
days. 28 is divisible by 7 and 4. Moreover, each of the moon's phases
(new, first quarter, full, last quarter) neatly divides the cycle into 4
-- which leaves each of the periods at 7 days.
[snip]
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
may...@andrews.edu wrote:
>
> snip
> think it's about time you conceded that this whole ozone idea itself
> was a dead-end, i.e., that the formation of the ozone layer does not
> present a significant barrier to evolutionary theory.
>
I'm conceding nothing, young man, other than maybe it's time to move on
to a new topic. Do consider though, that without the troposphere, the
stratosphere, the mesophere and the troposphere instantly in place,
this planet would have been savaged by what occurs in the exosphere,
solar winds and the constant loss of molecules to outer space, among
other things.
> snip
>
>Part of the elegance of the theory of evolution is that it explains
why organisms look as if they're related,
that's too simplistic for me -- "looks as if."
> i.e., why it's easy to lapse into a terminology involving phrases
> like "these creatures are related to these other ones." It's because
> they *are* related, historically! Creationism has no good explanation
> for this to match up with evolution, other than ad hoc statements
about
> God's omnipotence.
>
using "ad hoc" in the sense that you are using it, I'd say that the
phrase "because they ARE related historically" is as ad hoc as "because
they ARE created that way historically."
> We say that life forms do
> > not follow a single line extending from algae to human, but there
are
> > many branches, each reproducing after its own kind and each kind
> > capable of evolving up to a certain point, without crossing lines.
>
> There is no reason to think that evolution will stop after a certain
> point.
>
There is reason to believe that evolution will stop after a certain
point because it has stopped in the real world around us today.
>snip > > > >
> not the case. The creationists are generally right that the Bible
> should not be interpreted figuratively when they say it shouldn't; the
> Bible is just wrong, that's all.
I don't intend to argue the Bible, Vince. Studying it is something
that you need to do, one on one, just between you and God. There's no
need to listen to the cacophony of opinings -- higher criticism this,
higher criticism that. Reading all these human opinions has kept you
from hearing the Bible itself and what God is truly saying there. You
are well able to think for yourself.
snip>
> In what way? The theory of evolution is the product of an accumulated
> body of evidence, rather than the speculations of a particular
> worldview.
>
the theory of evolution is a world view that interprets the accumulated
body of scientic findings as evidence for that view.... Vince, I don't
want to argue with you. I don't want to win some argument. I love you
to death, you know that, and just want you to be happy.
> snip
>
> > > >
> > > > Not crazy at all. I can't fault evolutionists on their logic and
> > > > ability to form reasonable theories -- once you get away from
the
> > > First
> > > > Cause scenario.
> > >
> > > First Cause is irrelevant to these questions.
> >
> > Firt Cause is very much the foundation to these questions. We bring
> > our biases to the scientific observations. One looks at a tailbone
and
> > because he believe that there is no god and everything came about by
> > chance, he will interpret that tailbone to mean it's a vestige of an
> > apian ancestor.
>
> I don't believe so, Mom. We interpret it as the vestige of a tail,
> because that's what it looks like. It's a bunch of tail bones shrunken
> down and fused together.
>
> > Another person looks at the same tailbone and because
> > he believes in an intelligent mind behind the universe, he will
> > interpret that tailbone to mean that it was put there to anchor
> tendons
> > or muscles or the spinal column.
>
> It could anchor things without looking like the remnants of a tail.
>
in one of my earlier paintings, I had two canon guns overlooking the
ocean on a hill at Fort George. Someone commented that they looked
like arctic seals :-) But just because they looked like arctic seals to
someone did not make them seals. I knew what they were supposed to be
and they had to take my word that that's what they were. :-)
zoe --aka rose maycock aka mom
zoe_a...@my-deja.com
Derek Stevenson <dstev...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> You seem to be having a hard time accepting this as a viable survival
> strategy. Haven't you seen any of the innumerable nature documentaries
> where the baby turtles hatch by the thousands and swarm down the beach
> to the water, while the announcer solemnly points out that only a
> handful will make it to adulthood? And yet there are still turtles.
>
oh, yes! a bunch of us (in my teens) were camping and got to watch
these huge sea turtles come lumbering out of the surf on a moonlit
night. They dug large holes with their hind flippers and proceeded to
let fly a veritable egg waterfall. That done, they headed back to the
ocean. We even managed to ride them back into the water. Fun!
> The principle is *exactly* the same.
>
point made.
> [snip]
>
> > semantics again. "Evolution" is such a loaded word
> > today. "Adaptation" is still fairly virgin territory. :)
>
> Sorry if you don't like the word. It means what it means, and its use
is
> appropriate here.
>
> You're coming off like one of those Victorians who coined the
> term "white meat" so that they wouldn't have to use the word "breast"
> (such a loaded word) to refer to that part of the chicken.
>
lol -- "evolution" it is then. My version of it, anyway.
> [snip]
>
> > > > your logic and reasoning is splendid...once we get away from the
> > > > premise :=)
> > >
> > > "Sorry, the premise is basic math. Have you
> > > now seen the post where I explained it in
> > > more detail?"
> >
> > yes, but I was referring to a premise further removed -- the one
that
> > says that life came into existence through chance not ID.
>
> Ah. Sorry, but the notion that those are the only two possibilities is
> *your* premise, not ours.
>
touche...
Abner Mintz
It may take me a while to get back into the conversation,
though - I lost a few thousand posts."
may...@andrews.edu wrote:
>> There is no reason to think that evolution will stop after a certain
>> point.
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> There is reason to believe that evolution will stop after a certain
> point because it has stopped in the real world around us today.
"What makes you think that? The evolution of bacteria,
mice, lizards, birds, mosquitos, various other pest
insects, etc. has been observed."
"The only way to claim that evolution has never been
observed is to claim that all the biologists who have
observed changes in the genetic distribution of various
populations are liars. Are you claiming, for instance,
that the scientists who claim to have developed
antibiotic-resistant bacteria from non-resistant
bacteria are liars? Or that the speciations of
mice in the laboratory, and mosquitos in the wild,
never occured?"
may...@andrews.edu
zoe_a...@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <8bgbc1$7fg$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> may...@andrews.edu wrote:
>
> >
> > snip
> > was a dead-end, i.e., that the formation of the ozone layer does not
> > present a significant barrier to evolutionary theory.
> >
>
on
> to a new topic. Do consider though, that without the troposphere, the
> stratosphere, the mesophere and the troposphere instantly in place,
> this planet would have been savaged by what occurs in the exosphere,
> solar winds and the constant loss of molecules to outer space, among
> other things.
Not necessarily. A primitive, unlayered atmosphere may have been just
as efficient at warding off the solar wind, etc. as our modern one.
Besides, the earth had at least 700 million years or so to be savaged
before the first known forms of life appeared on earth.
> > snip
> >
> >Part of the elegance of the theory of evolution is that it explains
> why organisms look as if they're related,
>
> that's too simplistic for me -- "looks as if."
There is no more complex theory that explains it better, so the theory
is not simplistic.
> > i.e., why it's easy to lapse into a terminology involving phrases
> > like "these creatures are related to these other ones." It's because
> > they *are* related, historically! Creationism has no good
explanation
> > for this to match up with evolution, other than ad hoc statements
> about
> > God's omnipotence.
> >
> using "ad hoc" in the sense that you are using it, I'd say that the
> phrase "because they ARE related historically" is as ad hoc
as "because
> they ARE created that way historically."
The idea of historical, physical descent of one animal type from
another follows from the fact that they have the appearance of
being "related" to each other (e.g., we hear people casually say things
like "Walruses are more closely related to seals than to whales,"
without necessarily meaning anything evolutionary by it). The idea of
creation doesn't naturally produce things with this appearance; that
is, if we didn't know that this is the way the biological world is, we
wouldn't *expect* God to make things this way.
We can only add it in as a modification to the theory, after we've
studied living things; this kind of "after the fact" explanation is
closely related to the definition of the phrase "ad hoc." But
evolutionary theory anticipates that things will look like they're
related; this is a part of the theory even before we look at the
biological world. So the theory of evolution doesn't have to
be "patched up" to match the data, in the way that creation does.
> > We say that life forms do
> > > not follow a single line extending from algae to human, but there
> are
> > > many branches, each reproducing after its own kind and each kind
> > > capable of evolving up to a certain point, without crossing lines.
> >
> > There is no reason to think that evolution will stop after a certain
> > point.
> >
>
> There is reason to believe that evolution will stop after a certain
> point because it has stopped in the real world around us today.
There is no reason to think evolution has stopped. Adaptation and
change are observed even on very short time-scales. Over longer time-
spans, this kind of variation can be expected to accumulate into large-
scale evolutionary change.
> >snip > > > >
>
> > not the case. The creationists are generally right that the Bible
> > should not be interpreted figuratively when they say it shouldn't;
the
> > Bible is just wrong, that's all.
>
> I don't intend to argue the Bible, Vince. Studying it is something
> that you need to do, one on one, just between you and God. There's no
> need to listen to the cacophony of opinings -- higher criticism this,
> higher criticism that. Reading all these human opinions has kept you
> from hearing the Bible itself and what God is truly saying there. You
> are well able to think for yourself.
You don't need higher criticism to see that many of the Biblical
stories are not historical. It's just common sense. But fundamentalists
don't use common sense when they read the Bible; they just assume a
priori that everything mentioned in the Bible actually happened. Why
are they like this? I don't know. I don't see what difference it makes
to core religious beliefs whether or not some of the stories in the
Bible are legends or myths.
What would you think if you told a child that the story of the fox and
the sour grapes was a "fable," and the child subsequently lost all
comprehension of the point of the story? Obviously, whether or not
there actually was a historical fox leaping at a bunch of grapes is
immaterial; the moral of the story is what counts. In your case, your
commitment to Ellen White forces you into acceptance of fundamentalist
beliefs. But I don't see why you couldn't accept that Ellen White made
mistakes, without throwing out all of Adventism. You say you rely on
the Bible and the Bible only, but then you treat White like a second
scriptures, virtually inerrant. She could have been used by God in a
unique way to help bring about his purposes in the Adventist movement;
we might even call it "divine inspiration." But does this have to mean
that every word and concept that she wrote down was perfect and error-
free?
Of course, I'm soft-peddling a bit. The evidence in general suggests
that Adventism, and indeed, Christianity in general, are factually
incorrect in their basic claims about the world. But this is not
*scientific* evidence that suggests this. I would not reject
Christianity on scientific grounds. It fails for other reasons. So I
don't want you to fall into the childish fallacy that the choice
between evolution and creation is a choice between theism and atheism.
It's true that theism happens to be wrong, but that's a separate issue
entirely. I don't want to get them confused.
> snip>
>
> > In what way? The theory of evolution is the product of an
accumulated
> > body of evidence, rather than the speculations of a particular
> > worldview.
> >
>
> the theory of evolution is a world view that interprets the
accumulated
> body of scientic findings as evidence for that view....
It is not a world-view. It makes no claims about the world beyond the
common ancestry of living things. The reason we interpret scientific
findings as evidence for evolution is that evolution best fits the data.
> Vince, I don't
> want to argue with you. I don't want to win some argument. I love you
> to death, you know that, and just want you to be happy.
I'm not eager to argue, either. But I do like to educate creationists
about why their ideas are wrong.
> in one of my earlier paintings, I had two canon guns overlooking the
> ocean on a hill at Fort George. Someone commented that they looked
> like arctic seals :-) But just because they looked like arctic seals
to
> someone did not make them seals. I knew what they were supposed to be
> and they had to take my word that that's what they were. :-)
By chance, your cannons looked like seals. But the resemblance between
the tailbone and the tails of lower animals is too great to be
attributed to chance. One might sooner claim that, by chance, a Boeing
747 formed out of a junkyard :-)
* * (NOTE: to reading-impaired persons, it strikes me that this last
paragraph looks as if it supports creationism; it does not -- the main
idea is that evolution must have molded the tail bone, rather than a
creator acting freely and randomly; the last sentence uses irony to
drive home the point)