The Big Bang Theory is dead.

[Polymath257]

I said I question or wonder about many of the conclusions or assertions made about categorizing fossils as well as dating them. I will look forward to reading more about the dating of various finds and what and how the scientists drew their conclusions.
It's not quite like music. For instance if a piece is in the key of G Major virtually every musician knows what that means. There is no guesswork, no particular variance. But if a fossil or artifact is found I'd like to know more as to how it is categorized.

Every *musician* knows this, yes. But I am not a musician and I don't know it.

Every paleontologist will know the basics concerning categorizing fossils and how to date them. This is well established and not controversial at all among those who actually study this material.

Now, are there doubts at times? Sure. There can be doubts about how to classify species alive today.

But it is also interesting to consider *why* such doubts can exist. if it was a hard 'classify into kinds' problem, it would not be nearly as tricky as it is.

Instead, the simple fact that species change over time means that the dividing lines between species are somewhat arbitrary. The fact that the changes are gradual makes it so that different people will put the dividing lines in different places.

This is similar to what happens with languages. If you go back 2000 years, NOBODY spoke modern English. But, over time, the languages changed and split and even sometimes merged. There was no 'first person' who spoke modern English. But we can say that today many people do so and 2000 years ago nobody did.

 

[Polymath257]

No matter. Based strictly on the mathematical possibllites, no wonder scientists say it must have taken billions of years.

No, that is NOT the reason scientists say it took billions of years. They say that because the evidence from the fossils says so.

Now that we're mentioning that, why is that? I can only guess why they say it took so long... I won't venture the guess right now, I'll wait for what I think is probably the answer from scientifically oriented persons who put their trust in their positions.

Well, because the rocks we find that show the process have been found to be certain ages. We know that simple life existed 3.8 billion years ago. That is not conjecture. Could it have existed before? yes. We may not have found the rocks preserving the fossils of earlier life.

We know that multicellular life didn't show up until a bit over 1 billion years ago. is it possible it happened slightly before? Yes. We may find rocks with multicellular life going back 1.5 billion years ago. But earlier than that is very unlikely because the conditions on Earth would not have allowed it. So we *know* it took over 2 billion years between the first life and the first multicellular life.

Furthermore, as proclaimed by some as I have read, abiogenesis could have produced more than one thing to produce different items. Such as a compound to produce plants, maybe later conveniently another compound to produce animals.

Huh? No, this is not even close to correct. Plants and animals are complex forms of life that arose *after* the development of complex cells. That was *billions* of years after abiogenesis was over.

Or maybe they both came from one original cell. Hmmm, who knows? According to science. And so forth. In other words, it's simply too incredible for me to believe it happened that way. By chance.

There's that word 'chance' again. NOBODY says it happened by chance. It happened by the laws of chemistry and physics as applied to the materials that existed on the early Earth.

But it doesn't matter any more because statistically I wonder how scientsts figure plants and animals came up, whether one came from another cellular structure that popped up from the process of abiogenesis, or if somehow animal life came from one cell evolving and then plant life came from another cell produced by abiogenesis.

Neither. Complex cells (those with nuclei and other organelles) developed first. Some of those cells became symbiotic with some bacteria that could do photosynthesis and that lead to plants. Others developed into animals (both happening over the course of millions of years).

If the God outlined in the Bible is too much for some to believe in, the possibilities of abiogenesis leading to evolution is virtually not there.

Once again, we understand much of the chemistry of life. We understand *some* of the chemistry of the early Earth. There is no reason to think there is a discontinuity between the two. In particular, there is no reason to assume an outside intervention of a process that is likely to happen anyway.

 

[Polymath257]

Can you explain why it is said that millions, if not billions of years passed for abiogenesis followed by evolution occurred in order to produce the first plants and animals? How do scientists know?

Those are different questions. That it took that long is simply a matter of looking at the fossil evidence.

WHY it took that long is a harder question. Among other aspects of this is the fact that both plants and animals (as well as fungi, by the way) have complex cells as opposed to the simple cells seen in bacteria. It seems that the formation of complex cells is a difficult transition (requiring symbiosis of several different simple cell types) and so took a rather long time to happen.

 

[Polymath257]

OK, so you accept that humans evolved from fish.

Well, there were a number of stages between the two. amphibians, mammal-like reptiles, mammals, primates, etc. It was definitely NOT a simple case of a fish turning into a human.

I do not. I do not see any evidence beyond conjecture about this.

Have you looked at the evidence? The record of mammals is spotty at times (since the first mammals were mostly small) so that leads to some uncertainty about details. But the fish to amphibian transition is well documented in the fossils. So is the development of mammal-like reptiles. And the last couple million years of human evolution is very detailed.

If you or scientists do, please post the evidence that it happened as posited. The best I saw is that fish "NEEDED" to develop air breathing mechanisms to escape from predators. Now they're saying the fish NEEDED to do this. Well, some fish anyway. Might as well say humans NEED to fly and will develop wings or mechanisms to get them to fly -- and guess what? I'm sure some believers in evolution will say, Yes, that certainly is a possibility. Have -- a nice day -- enjoy the blue sky if you have nice weather today.

Whether or not that was 'needed', the fact is that it did happen. We have the fossils showing the transitions.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I can only guess why they say it took so long.

Since you wrote, "must have taken billions of years," I'll assume that you are talking about abiogenesis followed by evolution or evolution alone.

Really? After the thousands of words written to you, you don't know why science says that evolution occurred over billions of years?

If you or scientists do, please post the evidence that it happened as posited.

Why? It's all been done for you already several times over. Such answers are not for you, because you don't study and assimilate them. It's hard to tell whether you understand what you read, but you don't learn either what is written or what you think the words said if you've misunderstood them. It's difficult to decide what your purpose is in asking such questions. Maybe you believe it is to learn. If so, have you noticed that that isn't happening? Maybe you just like pleasant discussion and don't mind that you don't learn.

you accept that humans evolved from fish. I do not. I do not see any evidence beyond conjecture about this.

Yes, you said so repeatedly, and the answer is still the same. Uniformed opinions are of little value to others. What you don't see reflects on you and how unprepared you are to grow in your scientific understanding, not what evidence exists or what its proper interpretation is. Most or all of science must be nothing more than conjecture to you, although I'll be that you don't reject (but also don't understand) the conjectures that don't contradict your faith-based beliefs.

This is not meant to be an insult to you. You don't mind being scientifically unsophisticated, and as is also true for much of the world, such understanding has no value to you. But it's interesting that you don't seem to understand that that makes your statements that you don't believe it and can't see evidence for it nothing but a statement about what you haven't learned.

 

[John53]

Can you explain why it is said that millions, if not billions of years passed for abiogenesis followed by evolution occurred in order to produce the first plants and animals? How do scientists know?

I don't understand what you're asking. How about giving an example of what you claim is said.

 

[John53]

OK, so you accept that humans evolved from fish. I do not. I do not see any evidence beyond conjecture about this. If you or scientists do, please post the evidence that it happened as posited. The best I saw is that fish "NEEDED" to develop air breathing mechanisms to escape from predators. Now they're saying the fish NEEDED to do this. Well, some fish anyway. Might as well say humans NEED to fly and will develop wings or mechanisms to get them to fly -- and guess what? I'm sure some believers in evolution will say, Yes, that certainly is a possibility. Have -- a nice day -- enjoy the blue sky if you have nice weather today.

No fish gave birth to a human if that's what your asking. However we do share a common ancestor. Once again show us what you saw because I'm pretty sure it's not what you typed there.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

OK, so you accept that humans evolved from fish. I do not. I do not see any evidence beyond conjecture about this. If you or scientists do, please post the evidence that it happened as posited. The best I saw is that fish "NEEDED" to develop air breathing mechanisms to escape from predators. Now they're saying the fish NEEDED to do this. Well, some fish anyway. Might as well say humans NEED to fly and will develop wings or mechanisms to get them to fly -- and guess what? I'm sure some believers in evolution will say, Yes, that certainly is a possibility. Have -- a nice day -- enjoy the blue sky if you have nice weather today.

How many times has the evidence been posted you think? Many times from my observation. What was the problem with it then?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I don't understand what you're asking. How about giving an example of what you claim is said.

I don't understand either. It seems like the question is why did it take millions or billions of years for evolution to occur after living things originated and the claim is that this lag in time is something scientists are claiming.

It isn't anything I have ever heard and it doesn't make any sense.

It is either ignorance of the material or contrived confusion as sarcasm. I can't tell anymore. I've given up. How many times can the request for evidence be fulfilled before you realize it just doesn't matter?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No fish gave birth to a human if that's what your asking. However we do share a common ancestor. Once again show us what you saw because I'm pretty sure it's not what you typed there.

Fish or any organism needing something and that leading to a change in genotype and phenotype isn't evolution. I can't tell if this is real misunderstanding or not given how much this has been discussed here.

 

[John53]

I don't understand either. It seems like the question is why did it take millions or billions of years for evolution to occur after living things originated and the claim is that this lag in time is something scientists are claiming.

It isn't anything I have ever heard and it doesn't make any sense.

It is either ignorance of the material or contrived confusion as sarcasm. I can't tell anymore. I've given up. How many times can the request for evidence be fulfilled before you realize it just doesn't matter?

It seems to me like they think they have some gotcha moment they're trying to set up.

 

[John53]

Fish or any organism needing something and that leading to a change in genotype and phenotype isn't evolution. I can't tell if this is real misunderstanding or not given how much this has been discussed here.

The fish thing has been explained by several people, some going into great detail so there's no way it can be a genuine question.... trying to set up another gotcha.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It seems to me like they think they have some gotcha moment they're trying to set up.

I always get that feeling too. Like a really ham-handed attempt at "Gotcha!".

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The fish thing has been explained by several people, some going into great detail so there's no way it can be a genuine question.... trying to set up another gotcha.

I know that many of us have gone through the explanations that diffuse that repeated claim to no obvious success. I have difficulty feeling that the confusion isn't contrived given all of that.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The fish thing has been explained by several people, some going into great detail so there's no way it can be a genuine question.... trying to set up another gotcha.

I'm just continually adding to my general understanding of the varying approaches that creationists make in attempting to dismiss science and show that accepting it is all wrong. I see some of it as attempts to segue into a sales pitch at times.

 

[John53]

I'm just continually adding to my general understanding of the varying approaches that creationists make in attempting to dismiss science and show that accepting it is all wrong. I see some of it as attempts to segue into a sales pitch at times.

The good thing is I get to learn a few things from some of the forum members who reply.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The good thing is I get to learn a few things from some of the forum members who reply.

Me too. Plus, I figure correcting misinformation and erroneous information has a wider value to those that are not participating or may run across some of this doing searches. Still, one sort of tires at repeating the same answers to the same person over and over.

 

[YoursTrue]

Fish or any organism needing something and that leading to a change in genotype and phenotype isn't evolution. I can't tell if this is real misunderstanding or not given how much this has been discussed here.

To imagine that i said or implied that fish gave birth to humans is really taking things out of context. Well anyway -- you know the expression -- hope you have a nice day.

 

[YoursTrue]

It seems to me like they think they have some gotcha moment they're trying to set up.

Why? Fish did not eventually evolve to humans through a series of in-betweens?

 

[John53]

To imagine that i said or implied that fish gave birth to humans is really taking things out of context. Well anyway -- you know the expression -- hope you have a nice day.

It sounded that way to me.