Quote:
Originally Posted by Cindy Claveau  It's not that simple, Beau. You make it sound like we were amoebas once, then suddenly walked on land 
When one species disappears from the record and one slightly similar but fundamentally different appears, is that speciation or magic? We may have difficulties recovering fossils of soft tissue creatures, but we do have evidence of a trail generally moving from prokaryote to metazoa to the first vertebrates -- a process that literally took billions of years. The one central, incontestible conclusion we can draw from that? It's that every form of life on this planet is derivative. Everything descended from a predecessor, and if you go back far enough the candidates for "original predecessor" become fewer and fewer until the only conclusion left is that we did, indeed, descend from the original cellular life forms.
Here's a good example of what I mean when I talk about how the mechanisms involved are still being discussed and debated -- this is a good counter-argument to the notion that scientists are close-minded about Evolution. There's debate, there's new evidence, there's more debate - but nobody is questioning the fact that human life owes its primal origins to microscopic creatures, whatever they might have been: New cellular evolution theory rejects single cell beginning
Please note: Woese isn't just throwing an idea out there to see if it sticks. He's done research, found evidence he feels supports his idea, and then published it for peer review. If other biologists can replicate his work and find that it answers questions better than the traditional theory, his work will be adopted. Or maybe his work will be adapted to compensate for its own holes before being adopted - that's part of the scientific method. It isn't just any idea that is worthy. It's only ideas with proof behind them and which are openly debated. If they withstand the tests, they're in. Otherwise they are tossed in the bin with Cold Fusion.
But no matter what the decision is regarding Woese's work, there really are only two choices when considering our first primal ancestors: Either we are like every other form of life on Earth and descended through natural means from more primitive life (including cellular organisms) or we appeared by magic.
To paraphrase a common Creationist canard, "you can't make something from nothing". |
This is why I brought up the Tree Of Life Project. It is ued to back up these claims and it is filled with far reaching ideas.
I may have told this story once before but I was at Yale Peabody Museum with my daughter. They had an exhibit this summer on The Tree Of Life. During a quiz thing for kids it gave three animals and a plant and asked which one is closer related to a house cat. My daughter picked a squirl, it was the most obvious choice.
They said the plant was the best answer. When I asked why I got some insane technical answer that answered nothing for me.
The example you give here, seems like research with a predetermined conclusion. Science is working backwards. What type of genetic research can he do to prove we all derived from single cell organisms. I am going to Google and read more, I am curious.
On this topic. How far back can we prove with hard evidence? What is the most primitive fossil we can trace back to the evolution of man with no question what so ever?