Why Is There No Fossilized Evidence For First Life?

[QuestioningMind]

Doesn't lack of hard evidence make any theory softer? And does being make softer often result in defaulting to being dogmatic, to compensate? Why is this current theory treated as dogma, while being soft on original claim evidence? This does not add up to the philosophy of science, but rather some form of political-religious dual standard.

On the other hand, even if we cannot show direct evidence, if a theory is sound enough, it should offer us a way to simulate this needed evidence in a lab. But that current theory fails there also, meaning the current theory has even deeper conceptual flaws.

This is not a question of Creationism verses Evolution, but a flawed Evolutionary theory that needs a major science update. Half baked theory needs to be placed in its proper perspective, or else the needed changes will be avoided by instituting a religious dogma that is not allowed to change.

Water has all the tricks needed to be central to a genuine model for life. The water and oil effect, alone, allows water to manhandle all large organic molecules, like DNA and protein, until they assume their needed water friendly shapes. Water is uniquely designed for the tasks of life. If we dehydrate bacteria all life ends. If add any other solvent it remain dead. If we add water life returns. We can take apart any cell, and as long as there is water, the organics pieces can be examined in their alive state. Take away water or add another solvent all bets are off.

Water can form four hydrogen bonds and each hydrogen bond is like a binary switch, that can move information. How do you think cells stay and act integrated? It is because the main leader; water, has its finger in every pie; folding and packing, and water can also self organize, thereby integrating all the pies that its fingers touch. If we take away water, not only does the integration of life stop, but also all the pies stop. Water offer a way to model life and evolution in one variable, that implies all the organic variables. Back box falls very short of a 3-D water model.

There is no current established theory for abiogenesis. There are several promising hypotheses at this point, but there's still work to be done to qualify any one of them as the established theory. Abiogenesis and evolution are two different things. One deals with the origins of life, for which there is no established theory, the other explains the observed diversity of life, and is an established theory.

 

[shunyadragon]

Doesn't lack of hard evidence make any theory softer? And does being make softer often result in defaulting to being dogmatic, to compensate? Why is this current theory treated as dogma, while being soft on original claim evidence? This does not add up to the philosophy of science, but rather some form of political-religious dual standard.

On the other hand, even if we cannot show direct evidence, if a theory is sound enough, it should offer us a way to simulate this needed evidence in a lab. But that current theory fails there also, meaning the current theory has even deeper conceptual flaws.\

My problem with this and other cynical posts concerning abiogenesis and evolution is you are motivated by an anti-science agenda toward the sciences of evolution and abiogenesis, and not remotely interested in acquiring knowledge about these sciences. Your argument is based on the fallacy of arguing from ignorance that natural abiogenesis is false, because science has limited knowledge of abiogenesis at present,

 

[shunyadragon]

An interesting discovery that revealed the oldest earliest simple animals.

This Strange, Fleshy Blob Is One of Earth's Earliest Animals

Life on Earth is pretty complicated these days, but it wasn't always so.

www.sciencealert.com

This Strange, Fleshy Blob Is One of Earth's Earliest Animals​

Nature21 October 2024
ByJess Cockerill

Artistic rendering of what scientists believe the fleshy blob might have looked like. (Walker Weyland)
Life on Earth is pretty complicated these days, but it wasn't always so. The fossil record hints at simpler times, millions of years ago, when each organism consisted of just one cell.

But around 575 million years ago – for reasons we can only guess at – more complex life forms with multiple cells began to appear in the fossil record. We call them the Ediacaran biota.

The traces of one of these early complex creatures has just been unearthed in the South Australian outback, and its intricate design rivals all other fossils before it. Behold, one of Earth's earliest animals:

An artist's impression of Quaestio simpsonorum's body in foreground and the impression left in the organic mat behind. Note the mottled purple texture of the organism is a stylistic interpretation, not based on fossil evidence. (Walker Weyland/Evans et al., Evolution & Development, 2024)
Ok, so it's a flattened, circular blob with a mysterious question mark shape for a butt crack.

A collaboration between US scientists and paleontologists from the South Australian Museum brings us this remarkable prehistoric lump, Quaestio simpsonorum.

They know it's an animal because of the features it shares with living members of the kingdom: multiple cells, the ability to move, and a body plan organized into different halves.

And they found not one, but more than a dozen of these things, along with trace fossils – the imprints of their blobby bodies preserved forever in the now-petrified mat of microscopic algae and bacteria that Quaestio once lurked in.

Some of these impressions show slightly offset outlines distinct from the harder edges of the animal's imprint, evidence that these were among the first animals capable of moving on their own.

"One of the most exciting moments… was when we flipped over a rock, brushed it off, and spotted what was obviously a trace fossil behind a Quaestio specimen – a clear sign that the organism was motile; it could move," Harvard University evolutionary biologist Ian Hughes says.

A little smaller than the size of a human palm, the Quaestio's distinctive question-mark shape – for which it was named – distinguishes a left and right side, a sign of bilateral symmetry, along with a crucial asymmetrical twist.

"There aren't other fossils from this time that have shown this type of organization so definitively," Florida State University geologist Scott Evans says.

Asymmetry is a component of modern-day animals, including humans, and Quaestio might just be the first to evolve this mathematically complicated quirk.

"Studying the history of life through fossils tells us how animals evolve and what processes cause their extinction, be it climate change or low oxygen," says paleontologist Mary Droser, lead scientist for Nilpena Ediacara National Park, where the fossil was discovered.

As the site of Earth's oldest fossil animals, the Ediacara biota, the national park is being considered for UNESCO World Heritage Site listing, to protect the valuable records of our Earth's living history it contains.

"We're the only planet that we know of with life, so as we look to find life on other planets, we can go back in time on Earth to see how life evolved on this planet," Droser says.
This research was published in Evolution & Development.
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[Jimmy]

My problem with this and other cynical posts concerning abiogenesis and evolution is you are motivated by an anti-science agenda toward the sciences of evolution and abiogenesis, and not remotely interested in acquiring knowledge about these sciences. Your argument is based on the fallacy of arguing from ignorance that natural abiogenesis is false, because science has limited knowledge of abiogenesis at present,

On the contrary. I have a great interest in science. I believe all of existence started around 1979. But I can have more than one interest. I can separate the my interest in God and my interest in science.

 

[shunyadragon]

On the contrary. I have a great interest in science. I believe all of existence started around 1979. But I can have more than one interest. I can separate the my interest in God and my interest in science.

This post reflects a rather bizarre unrealistic rejection of science.

 

[Jimmy]

This post reflects a rather bizarre unrealistic rejection of science.

Not really. I like to probe, through science, into why god made existence the way he did.

 

[shunyadragon]

Not really. I like to probe, through science, into why god made existence the way he did.

Ditto . . . . This post reflects a rather bizarre unrealistic rejection of science.

 

[Jimmy]

Ditto . . . . This post reflects a rather bizarre unrealistic rejection of science.

I’m a bizarre guy

 

[IndigoChild5559]

When abiogenesis first occurred and life arose from non living matter there is no record. Why not?

Life refers to those carbon based forms which reproduce themselves. The reason there is no fossils, the reasons there CANNOT be fossils, of the first life forms is because they would have been self replicating molecules, not cells. There is no such thing as a fossil of a molecule.