Slashdot Mirror
Antarctic Lake Actually Two in One
Scoria writes "USA Today reports: Scientists have discovered that Lake Vostok, a liquid freshwater lake which has been isolated from the world beneath 4 km of ice for approximately 500,000 years, contains two separate basins. They believe that the basins, which are divided by a ridge that limits water exchange, may host individual ecosystems that are home to ancient microbes."
It's really one giant organism in the process of dividing....
wbs.
Huh?
...must be worth destroying in the name of science. Someone ready the drill!
...because there's something in there that'll try to kill us all.
Stop the world; I need to get off.
Nah ... they already covered that one in an episode of X-Files.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So what. A few million will die so I can grow immunity and live. No biggie.
Just becaus something is a microbe doesn't make it harmful to humans. How exactly would they have evolved to spread by or do damage to humans if they've been separated from us for that long?
ResidntGeek
We humans aren't going to have any immunity to these microbes that have been isolated for 500000 years.
1 - What tells you these microbes are necessarily harmful to humans? lack of contact with them for half a million years suggests humans may not be their carrier hosts of choice actually.
2 - There are already thousands of deadly yet-unknown diseases lurking right here on the surface, in remote rainforests, waiting to be released by idiotic poacher. One or two more from the bottom of an underice lake won't make much difference.
3 - So what? humanity will either evolve natural defenses, or science will help the natural process, and there are way too many humans on this planet already. I can't remember who said that Gaia (the planet Earth considered a complex living entity) has a form of AIDS disease that's running amok and depleting its resources from within, and it's called Humanity.
Is that in human terms (thousands of years) or microbe terms (billions of years)?
All I got reading the article was that the fresh water has been isolated for 500,000 years and the ridge that separates them limits water exchange, resulting in isolated environments in which two different biomes may have formed.
Isn't the wording of the post a bit along the lines of NASA polit-speak? Unique environments, geothermal heating -- voila NEW LIFE FORMS! Let's submit a budget request for a probe to an ice world to look for life!
And those isolated microbes have been isolated from contact with us as well, so they wouldn't know what to do with us. Organisms and their parasites & diseases co-evolve.
And terrorists? Come on! What terrorist would go out to freakin' Antarctica, drill a couple of kilometers down, just to get what basically amounts to mineral water someone left in a fridge for 500000 years? If you're actually scared of that, you should probably live in fear of terrorists raiding your fridge.
Jeez, some people will see a terrorist connection in everything... no wonder laws like the PATRIOT act can be passed without public uproar.
RUN! :-)
The conditions in a near-freezing lake at high pressure are very different to those in the human body. So, although it's possible that such microbes would thrive in the human body AND cause lethal illness, it is very unlikely. Then again, there's Murphy's Law (anything that can happen, will)...
I hope whoever's studying these lakes takes appropriate precautions against both accidental release and theft by terrorist organizations.
That's rather alarmist, don't you think?
The odds that a microbe that spent the last few eons living in an arctic lake beneath several kilometers of ice would thrive and wreck havoc in a 37C human body strike me as infintesimly small. Further to that, the chances that Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, or Cobra itself are going to infiltrate the artic and spirit away with these microbes are too ridiculous to entertain.
That a liquid freshwater lake can survive that far underneath Antarctica? I would've imagined it to have either frozen, or at least be saltwater, which would enable it to stay liquid in low temperatures. If geothermal heat is responsible, then why isn't the ice around it melting, or is it just one of those finely balanced peculiarities of nature?
Just in time for the premier of Stargate:Atlantis. Beautiful. What a promo.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
I've studied creation science (science without evolutionary assumtions) and I'm just wondering how many other /.'ers are skeptical about the determination that the two basins haven't been touched for 500,000 yrs.
How do the scientists determine this in a way using the scientific method?
Someone explain
Thank you Dave Raggett
drive 100 miles toward the center of whatever continent you live on and you'll find that the earth is no where near over-populated.
Over-population isn't defined by the lack of personal space between two human beings, it's defined by the sustainability of their exploitation of the planet.
As of today, there are 6+ bn people on Earth, about a third of which (the rich ones) already manage to over-exploit most of the planet's resources and destroy parts of it. I let you imagine what it would be if all 6 bn would start consuming even a third of what an average westerner consumes.
This planet should host about 1 to 1.5 bn people comfortably and sustainably. Any more than that is too much.
... Vostok bottled water, a pleasant alternative to Evian. ;-)
Do you like German cars?
a la Deception Point?
Kinda similar.
They should use this lake to test ideas for drilling into the ice of Europa.
>>Further to that, the chances that Al Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, or Cobra itself are going to infiltrate the artic and spirit away with these microbes are too ridiculous to entertain.
I can see the reflection of the snow in old chrome-dome's facemask now as he flys around Antartica barking out orders....
"GET ME THOSE MICROBES!!"
And only the Joe-Team can stop him. GO JOE!
wbs.
Huh?
I can't remember who said that Gaia (the planet Earth considered a complex living entity) has a form of AIDS disease that's running amok and depleting its resources from within, and it's called Humanity.
It was George Carlin.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Oblig. Reply: "But I'm Mr. Freeze you insensitive clod!"
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Actually the water isn't half a million years old... it's much older than that. By a few billion years at least.
It's only been in the fridge for half a million years.
wbs.
Huh?
Lets wipe out America's white trash majority.....I could do without seeing another episode of Jerry Springer anyway.
...only to find it really came from Sidcup.
Perhaps it could be down to the pressure of 4km of ice causing sufficient heating at lower levels for freshwater to be liquid.
;)
But I'm no geologist (or physicist)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
2 - There are already thousands of deadly yet-unknown diseases lurking right here on the surface, in remote rainforests, waiting to be released by idiotic poacher.
Really? Can you substantiate this?
3 - So what? humanity will either evolve natural defenses,
Not in time we won't. The success of a selective force requires that unfit organisms not replicate, which implies that the soonest evolution will have an effect is the next generation.
There's a lot of stuff any given individual doesn't have immunity to. That's why we have an amazingly effective immune system, to create such immunity.
...of what scientists believe the life may look like down there.
Is it easier to deal with ice than venturing into deep sea? I have read that many interesting creatures are in deep sea where we cannot quite reach.
Either way, I'm equally excited to know that something else we don't know might be within reach, pretty much like others being excited by aliens.
Nice Fearmongering. Hmmm Let's see, story about possible unknown microbes. Nope not scary. Oh I know add terrorism to the mix.
Sheesh get a life
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"This planet should host about 1 to 1.5 bn people comfortably and sustainably. Any more than that is too much."
On what do you base this? Idiot.
Technology is always improving. Before agriculture there must have been simpletons like you saying that the known earth could support 1 to 1.5 k people.
This planet should host about 1 to 1.5 bn people comfortably and sustainably. Any more than that is too much
I put the estimates closer to 100-500 billion. Yes, I pulled that number outta my ass just like you did yours.
I can live on about 1/10th of the food I currently eat. Just in the US alone that would feed an extra 2.9 billion people.
Multiply that times every other Westerner and you could feed pretty much everyone else on the planet with no problem. If you count the food being wasted on this planet, that's another 5-10 billion right there. Efficiency and irritation-style technology improvements would take care of the rest.
We currently waste a lot of space and resources so we don't have to live in the boring parts of the planet.
I can't remember who said that Gaia (the planet Earth considered a complex living entity) has a form of AIDS disease that's running amok and depleting its resources from within, and it's called Humanity.
It was George Carlin.
Or Agent Smith.
In a related note:
Washington - Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a warning about a possible Al-Queda threat involving biological weapons from Antartica. "Although we have no specific information about time, place, or means; we are issuing this warning because of CIA reports regarding increased "communications chatter" of such a plot"
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Just remember - every new supermicrobe is another potential blockbuster disaster movie.
There's more known nasty viruses and bacteria that have yet to be used in any harmful way. What makes you think a terrorist organization would be interested in visiting the Antarctic in the very remote hope that there could, possibly, be some kind of ancient bacteria... maybe?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I hope none of the scientists get the idea of shrinking Adam down so they could take him back to civilization to study. Second Impact won't be pretty.
This sig space intentionally left blank.
You also have to consider that we may have evolved to a state of relative immunity to the effects of these microbes. For the same reasons you can't stick an 8-track tape in a CD player, it could just be a moot point overall.
The fact that it isn't saltwater isn't very surprising at all. Almost all glacial ice is freshwater. When saltwater is frozen for a very long time, the salt actually works its way out of the ice, leaving fresh water ice. Since the lake is in the middle of one huge, relatively old piece of ice it is not surprising at all that it is not salt water.
Also, it is not too peculiar that all the ice isn't melting. If you have a few small heat sources in the middle of several kilometers of ice, you'd expect it to melt a small area of ice around it. Since the heat requirements grows exponentially to melt a larger volume of ice and there are several kilometers of ice to melt, it would take a very large heat source to melt enough ice to either melt up to the surface or to the ocean.
<Bitching>I love how I press submit and get an error. I try it again and it tells me that I have to wait xx seconds before posting again. If I couldn't post due to an error, why do I have to wait to try again?</Bitching>
If I drive fast enough at the red light, it'll appear green.
Bottle it! Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. Let's siphon some off into lake Erie and see what happens..where'd I leave that roach..
Where can I buy the bottle of Scotch to match?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Poor saps thought they could survive isolated from the world under a two mile sheet of ice. Hah!
Just imagine all those wonderful ice castles buried under tons of ice!!!
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Sez you. Who gets to die?
I said "half million year old lake water".
I didn't realize I'd have to diagram it for people to understand, so here goes.
-(half million year old lake) water-
Clearer?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
If you're actually scared of that, you should probably live in fear of terrorists raiding your fridge.
Ahh in Australia our government is prepared for that, we got special Fridge Magnets
Do these microbes have to have any sort of host? For all we (here at /.) know they are completely harmless things similar to green algae. In fact that would be the more likely situation.
00110100 00110010
Or Agent Smith.
No, Agent Smith said that humanity IS a virus.
Watch it again, and pay attention next time.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The flash animation at the site said that the water in the lake gets replaced every 13,300 years.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
It seems, at least according to this Wikipedia entry, that there is not yet an scientific consensus on why Lake Vostok remains liquid.
Wikipedia: Lake Vostok.
Thanks! I nearly forgot to clean out my fridge! Would hate to assist terrorists looking for some microbes. Must get that green thing out of the back.
This has huge scientific potential but not for the reasons most slashdotters are positing. For scientists studying the genome, it's largely about calibrating their evolutionary rulers, and less about super alien organisms.
Unlike large animals which can be geographically isolated and evolve undisturbed, free living microbes (as opposed to those that need a specific animal or plant host) probably range freely and easily by the fact that they carry easily on the wind or the skin of migrating animals or move with the major currents that circulate the globe. Even if only one microbe makes it to a local it can begin to reproduce, since it doesn't rely on sexual replication, it isn't inconvenienced by having to find a mate also flung into some far foreign environment.
All of this is to say, these microbes will have had what in microbe evolution is something fairly rare, an environment completely free from competition from other global varieties seeking to fill the same ecological niche. I doubt they will have mutated far from their other global cousins, but the rate of change of DNA is probably what really matters to scientists, as for long time periods we would only be making guesses about genomic drift in microbes.
Given the extreme environment these microbes inhabit, there may also be some extreamophile surprises for cold adaptation.
Another possible study will be how quickly the isolated community looses defenses to protozoa and other microscopic predators that may not now be present in their extremely isolated pocket of liquid water beneath the ice.
Letter To Iran
One day Slashdotters will have mentioned Al Quada and Cobra in the same sentence so much that we will hear about them in the next "terrorist threat" from Homeland Security.
/. them into existence! Maybe we can work on the Decepticons next. Can't wait for people afraid if their really large 80's style boomboxes that are acutally transmission devices to possible terrorists because its really Soundwave and his little friends i can't recall the names of.
"Thats right Americans and fellow Coalitioners... watch out for any suspiciously uniformed or marked individuals from Cobra.. They are said to wear a snake insignia or tattoo.."
We will
We do have a body temperature of 98.6 degrees when they have spent the last 500,000 years at near freezing.
Wow, you must be really large! Come to think of it most Americans are humongous; so, perhaps you are right.
I think the numbers should say, that the earth could contain at most 1.5 billion modern Americans. It could probably support 100-500 billion Indians (the asian kind).
Regardless, I think people under estimate how important the "empty" spots on the planet are. These empty spots help preserve resources for future generations.
Probably this have not scientific basis, but i suspect to find such kinds of approachs to what is hidden there in internet in the next few days.
Some freak no doubt!
Seriously, all of that New Age, man-hating "philosophy" is a lot of garbage. There is no "planet Earth" existing as a complex living organism; there is no "great plan"; there is no "natural harmony." Things simply are what they are. Existence is just that, and there is nothing more to be said about it, howsoever groovy it may seem to be mesmerized by "Mother Nature."
There's no reason to feel one has to apologize for being human and living on this Earth.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I, for one, welcome our new microbial overlords.
Sorry, had to be said.
irritation-style technology improvements
What, some kind of leading-edge jock itch?!
1/10th's actually a fair number. Ranching Beef, for example is about 10% efficient. Every 1 lb steak you skip represents 10 lbs. of grain that could be available to feed people instead of cattle, IF we can work out ways to distribute it.
Who is John Cabal?
2 - There are already thousands of deadly yet-unknown diseases lurking right here on the surface, in remote rainforests, waiting to be released by idiotic poacher.
Really? Can you substantiate this?
SARS? From cherval cats in China, I think. Not exactly remote rainforests either.
If there is 2 Miles of Ice below Antarctica, does that mean that the surface is at 10,000+ ft?
"As of today, there are 6+ bn people on Earth..."
So yesterday there were 6 billion or less people on Earth? Such a historic day...we should have had cake or something--baloons at the very least.
Actually, I'm thinking the people studying it will be bottling it and selling it for $200 a bottle to the same people who don't realize that bottled water is often worse for you than what comes out of the tap. Microbes be damned.
Y'all got taken in. Obviously this "news" story is movie hype for Alien vs. Predator (8/15 release). If you had gone to the movies this weekend you would have seen the trailer (scientists find pyramid buried 1000s of feet under Antarctic ice cap, it contains Alien-style aliens which emerge from their pods and eat you.
Well let me turn this one around on you. Most "evil rich western" countries are rich precisely because they DONT HAVE BOOMING POPULATIONS. Most of the "developed world" suffers from lower fertility and an aging population that barely replaces itself. It's not because they've all decided to embrace zero population growth, it's because there is an inverse relationship between standard of living and the size of a family. (Standard of living is related to other things to, but there is a definite correlation here).
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
How do you know when a terrorist has been in your fridge?
<drum-sting>
WMD in the butter!
</drum-sting>
Well, probably not in time to save you, but in a couple of generations, humanity will be immune to said organisims
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, "Make us your slaves, but feed us." - Dostoevsky
How in the hell are they going not to contaminate the lake if they're going to put a drill into it someday ?
More like drink it and get the case of ameobic dysentery from hell. You think drinking the water in Mexico is bad because your body can't deal with the unfamiliar microbes? heh
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Not to mention Ebola and HIV (probably a mutated version of SIV)...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Depends... just because a bug didn't evolve to thrive on us doesn't mean that it will be benign. I believe that there a some bacteria that don't attack humans, but the waste products the produce are toxic. Kind of an incidental danger.
Of course, none of this means people should be paranoid, just caution when dealing with the stuff.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
-kgj
Well, yeah, Cobra is ridiculous, but SPECTRE could pull it off!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
We humans aren't going to have any immunity to these microbes that have been isolated for 500000 years.
Actually, the reverse is probably true. These things have been isolated from the wild wild world for so long they probably be no match for the predators that await them.
Any expensive evolutionary defenses and weapons will have been bred out as they are unneeded and wasteful.
Think about it logically, who are you going to be more afraid of meeting on the street, somebody who grew up shielded from the outside world thier entire life, given all the food and shelter they ever needed but no knowledge of how the world works, or somone who grew up on the mean streets of detroit having to fight every day just to survive?
There is a reason why you don't just toss your pets into the forest when you are done with them and expect them to survive the night. Things brought up without enemies are very very weak when confronted with new threats.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
No I'm not going to flame you for being religious.
What I am going to say is that Creation Science is in no way scientific. However, creationism is a theory of how things happened, just not a scientific one. (Science has become used to describe anything these days whether or not it uses scientific methodology (e.g. Political Science)).
The reason why creation can not be science is that it cannot be proven (or disproven). The theory of evolution focuses why it's true. Creationism tries to "prove" itself by disproving evolution rather by by its own merits (and thus win by default). Creationism is also extremely broad (every logical world could have been created with creationism, so it fails to explain why the world is this way and not some other way).
Let's get historical. A lot of people bash Darwin and haven't bothered to even read his books or know his arguments, so I'll use one he used. Darwin found that throughout his travels in the world there were never amphibians on islands surrounded by saltwater, unless introduced by humans (in which case they thrived). Darwin also knew that the amphibians died when they tried to swim in salt water. The most likely explanation was that since no frogs were there when the island formed, no frogs could ever be on the island since they couldn't swim. Creationim's explanation would be that God created amphibians on large land masses but not small ones because it was part of his plan. From there, I'd like to know how or why this is part of God's plan.
I don't see a good way of explaining why God decided that amphibians shouldn't be on oceanic islands.
There's many more examples like this. Let's not forget the theory of Gravity fails on the quantum level, but no one's about to discard it. Evolution isn't perfect, but without it, biology wouldn't exist (why would we believe that experiments on other animals would be relevant to humans? God could've created all the animals completely differently...but also could not have.)
Creationism is too broad and is compatible with any state of the world. As such, there's nothing one can find in the world to disprove it. Since it cannot be disproven, it's not a scientific theory.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"Come on! What terrorist would go out to freakin' Antarctica, drill a couple of kilometers down, just to get what basically amounts to mineral water someone left in a fridge for 500000 years? If you're actually scared of that, you should probably live in fear of terrorists raiding your fridge."
Yeah, I moved out of an apartment once where I left the fridge duct taped shut for the good of all mankind. When the food started speaking to me, not saying, "Eat me!" I became worried.
I've learned that fast food restaurants are a good thing. At least I don't have to be the one to clean them up...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why aren't environmentalists up-in-arms about this type of arctic drilling? This is a pure, untouched ecosystem that's going to be contaminated by people for no real reason except for curiosity.
Don't those 500,000 year old microbes have just as many rights as the spotted owl, salmon, and those lizards in the West somewhere?
Stop this microbe genocide now, and prevent all drilling - whether it's for commerce (oil) or science!
This is a childish post and obvious troll/flamebait. Please stop moderating such worthless posts up. And yes, I had mod points before posting this.
heh, I think its funny. Too bad you don't have a sense of humor.
What? No way. This planet should host as many people as it can up to the point of sutainability (which we aren't even close to now). If the US had to, we could remain self-sufficient, completely cut off from the rest of the world, with probably twice (if not more) the current population. Other countries, therefore, could do it as well. And whatever you may think, the vast majority of people in this country are living "comfortably and sustainably". Ask the REALLY poor people in Africa if they think the average poor person here has a tough life (ie, no problem getting food, free emergency healthcare, no problem getting a job, possessing a car, tv, clothing, free education, a roof over their head, etc, etc).
And if you really think the planet is overpopulated, please help contribute to the solution and kill yourself (or at least go get a vasectomy).
- I presume you are americam;
- I presume you don't value bottled water.
Fair enough, you can buy shit with sugar in for half the price of bottled water. Maybe all this sugar is also what keeps you going. Again, fair enough.The simple point about bottled water is that it tastes actually quite nice, and certainly much better than tap water. It has other uses too:
If you want to make yourself a decent espresso (illy maybe?) and use tap water, then you've just ruined it. This is also true for tea although I'm out of depth, here.
Use waters with neutral tastes such as evian or volvic (those you can find pretty much everywhere in Europe, I presume in the US as well) but avoid contrex... unless you like it of course.
bundaegi is good for you
But what if I am??
blah, blah, blah
But, deep down, inside, where it really counts...
You *know* that there is either a virus or fungus spoor that will cause the 5th (or is it the 6th?) extinction, locked in the ice somewhere down there.
Happy trails! :D
I couldn't find an easier job, so I just signed up for the first winter over at Dome C on the high Antarctic Plateau, only 550km from Vostok. On the program of the fun will be: reaching ground level with a 3200m ice core (they are almost there), temperatures of -84C in winter and lots more. Unlike Vostok, Dome C doesn't have a lake underneath. I'll try to keep my site updated.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
They might be excited at the idea of two isolated environments with a known time of divergence from a common base. It provides a very nice test bed for various observations about evolution, if they really have been seperated for an extended period of time from each other and the outside world both.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I can't remember who said that Gaia (the planet Earth considered a complex living entity) has a form of AIDS disease that's running amok and depleting its resources from within, and it's called Humanity.
Well, relatively speaking, I consider humanity more like a cancer than like AIDS.
- "They misunderestimated me."
Personally I wouldn't be so suspicious of Creationist "science" if it wasn't so closely aligned with one particular religious group and not only that that one particular culture as well - the US religious right. For example evolution is widely accepted in many different religions and cultures which is a good thing as science is supposed to be fairly agnostic. However belief in Creationist "science" is not wide-spread except amongst the American religious right and is closely tied with their religious beliefs and culture. Even other Christian nations such as those in Europe simply do not have the fervent belief in Creationist "science" as Americans do. And the nations most closely aligned to America in culture, religion and ethnicity - Canada, England and Australia - the "anglo-saxon" nations also seem to lack strong support for this belief. Other religions such as Chinese religions are perfectly OK with evolution. For example you don't see Chinese Creationist scientists. And before people go it's because of the Communists, the Chinese had this argument centuries ago and came up with the answer that it doesn't matter if a creator exists or not because you can't prove/disprove it either way not to mention that even trying is pathetic because it is saying that the human mind has the ability to understand the ultimate secrets of the universe when it can't even understand its own actions. Not to mention the Chinese creation myth doesn't care either way if there is a creator. The point is Creationist science doesn't seem to have any widespread appeal outside of *one* specific relgious and cultural group and its arguments about Creationism seem to be specifically tailored to *one* Creation myth.
> Creationim's explanation would be that God created amphibians on large land masses but not small ones because it was part of his plan. From there, I'd like to know how or why this is part of God's plan.
Another example on this, more approachable to the regular Joe: So who has butt pubes? Are they any good for anything? Even more, aren't they quite bugging and quite often pretty revolting? So butt pubes are, all in all, an absolutely absurd and disgusting nuisance. Would any intelligence, any thinking being, make the major part of humanity almost completely naked, but punishing them at the same time with a hairy, crap catching anus? Who would seriously think about things like that? Can such a sick mind exist?
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
Pour salt on it for christ's sake
Lots and lots and lots and lots of salt
The let the rain wash the slime away
With the addendum : If you see Kurt Russell and Tim Curry, it's too late...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
This is the first time i've heard it. Those evil creatures!
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
I don't see a good way of explaining why God decided that amphibians shouldn't be on oceanic islands.
That's easy: Mysterious ways.
See, whenever you notice somthing like that, its mysterious ways. Don't even bother trying to investigate it, its divinely mysterious.
Why would god need a spaceship, or an ark? Mysterious, don't bother...
You can't take the sky from me...
Creationism in itself does not contain any kind of anti-evolution agenda
BwahahahAHAHAHAHAhahahahaAHAHAHAHahaha!
That's rich...
Evolution cannot be proved or disproven by the scientific method either.
It can and it has.
The theory is based on observation: Living things change over time, and have gotten more complex. You look at fossils, you see this.
That's a fact. Not an opinion in a book, an observable fact.
Then there is the theory of the how: Through natural selection of random mutations. That is simple and elegant, and has also been confirmed through observation and experimentation. Bacteria evolves to adapt to the chemically hostile environments we create for them. It works at first, killing off most of them, but then the survivors reproduce and you end up with a new strain, better adapted through natural selection.
Evolution is not a scientific theory, because it cannot be verified through use of the scientific method.
That is obviously a lie.
Here's a truth:
Creation is not a scientific theory, because it cannot be verified through use of the scientific method.
You can't take the sky from me...
Maybe creationism is a more complete story but I think it is a story you'd find in the fiction section of any good bookshop.
Obviously we don't and may never have all the evidence to explain evoloution fully but we can apply the scientific method to prove or disprove the various building blocks of the evoloution theory.
Has any part of creationism been proved or disproved scientifically ?
Bush: "Vostok represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America. We must wipe out any forign alien bacteria in Vostok because they may be plotting against us! I call for congress to give me thirty billion dollars to fund operation Infinite Justice^2 so we can launch a crusade an wipe out the Weapons of Microbial Destruction in Vostok!"
Now watch me make this drive....
In Soviet Union, ancient microbes get infected by YOU!!
There is no such thing as 'chocohol' or 'workahol'.
Considering the state of my fridge, I'd be WAAY more worried about terrorists trying to exploit it!
(Moldy mystery meat==the next phase of WMD?) };->
The U.S. really needs an English to Wisdom dictionary.
That's simply wrong. You can very easily verify predictions about organisms from the evolution theory: Take the adaption of micro organisms to new antibiotics as an example. The outcome (new tribes of micro organisms will appear which are resistant against antibiotics, and their occurance will be more intensively if you use antibiotics in small doses which don't kill everything at once) can be easily controlled. There are enough model organisms like bacteria or algae, which reproduce fast enough to allow the set up of a changing environment and measure the genetic adaption by mutation and genetic drift.
There are some attempts to explain certain behaviours of humans and animals with bioevolution and especially with genetics. I agree that those theories are not that easily to check, because it's not easy to create an experimental setup which could used to disprove those theories. Humans and most large animals evolve too slowly in their genetic disposition, so an experiment would run too long to yield usabe answers in the next future. Additionally the human behaviour can be strongly influenced by environmental changes, without causing the underlying genetics to change (upbringing, education, experience). And last but not least: Human behaviour is pretty wide, so any two different humans confronted with a sufficiently complex environment will pretty surely act differently, and both may deal successfully with the situation, so from an evolutionary point of view both are fit for survival.
Most "evil rich western" countries are rich precisely because they DONT HAVE BOOMING POPULATIONS.
While America, Japan and most of "white" europe have declining populations and are under reproduction rates this isn't what makes them rich. The US was a rich country long before it was under the reproductive replacement rate. What causes the lack of booming populations in western civilizations is Women in the workforce, abortion and birth control. These things may be liberating for women, but they are slowly killing western society.
Most of the "developed world" suffers from lower fertility and an aging population that barely replaces itself.
All of the "white" nations aren't replacing themselves. Really, the only places with high birthrates are China, some parts of India, Africa, and Islamic countries.
it's because there is an inverse relationship between standard of living and the size of a family
This is part of the reason, but I think it has more to do with the "liberation" of women and the promotion of birth control.
so many people enjoyed michael moore's F9/11,
most people know most of the content for 1-4 years.
yes, they do have a sense humor.
If this is the case microbes are the least of your worries.
There are those who would argue that teachings that have 'an a priori commitment to naturalism' are just as religious as those who have an a priori commitment to supernatural creation.
Steven Jay Gould communicated the idea above - an affirmation of Lewontin's assertion. Gould concluded that Macroevolution has a strong foundation in naturalism - a philosophy that specifically excludes anything supernatural - and therefore excludes God. This seems to me to be as much of a religious belief as that of creationism.
In case you are not aware, ther recently deceased Gould (May 02) was one of the most intelligent and eloquent proponents of evolution in the present day. He developed the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution to compensate for the gaps in the fossil record. He was not on the fringe of evolutionary theory. I believe that his view is consistent with the majority of scientists who are evolutionists.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
That being said I think the only sane way to believe in creation is to accept that God created a universe/world that works on its own, period. And the key to life working is evolution. So if you're going to believe God created the world 10,000 years ago, you have to accept that He created a world in the middle of its life cycle with no evidence to the contrary.
In nerd terms this would be like if you sent a save game file to a friend, and they were able to start off at that point, even though they didn't actually play the game from the beginning on their computer. Heh, then maybe we are one big saved game from another universe.
But regardless of what you do believe, please remember that the bible as it is today was compiled from a large number of sources in the 4th century by men. This doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, but it does leave room open for debate.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
"GET ME THOSE MICROBES!!"
Doesn't the long lost civilization of cobra-la live down there under those icecaps? They would already have acces to those microbes.
oh no, Golobulus is just waiting for us to crack the ice, it's part of his plan. Then all of the spores will be released into the atmosphere.
Hey, Vostok is "East" in Russian. We might take objection to Bush and the weapons of microbial destruction he spreads when he wipes out.
is very insightful and deserves to be modded up. Just because we have a compilation of sources that says something, doesn't mean that the compilation is infalable. There is room for interpretation, and especially with translation. We know that the universe works on certain principles...a self sustaining system. Meh, that was a bad way of saying "Me Too".
Thank you for making me split my side.
This is a reason given be many for rejection of organized religion in general and Christianity in specific. I would submit two theses to you for your consideration:
1. Far greater good has been done in the name of Christ than evil. This offers no excuse for abuse and evil deeds. Those who do this will stand in judgment. Christ said that it is better to have a millstone attached to you and be cast into the sea than to lead his children astray - how much more punishment is due to those who do evil in His name?
2. It is not wise to judge a philosophy on the basis of a wacko (or several wackos.) It is better to judge a philosophy on this basis: What is the natural outcome of keeping close hold to the explicit teachings of that philosophy?
Christ and his disciples were radicals who challenge the status quo, but they were not bent on power or abusing others.
What is the logical outcome of closely following the teachings of Christ and his disciples as documented in scripture?
What is the logical outcome of a belief that there is no universal arbiter of truth?
Which philosophy would you have dominate the world's peoples?
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Oil tankers. ;)
:)
Too bad those starving people don't have enough money to pay for it, as they are being exploited and/or don't know how to live sustainably.
Solar cooking of good ol' grasshopper pie is a good start.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
The example you list is one in which a type increased in size, on in which it went from one type to another.
Please try another example to convince me.
Regards,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Actually, I liked the parody: perhaps one of the few forms of fair use left undisturbed.
You could've hired me.
I am sure you have seen a bat right? Its a rat with Wings. There are very few other animals like it that fly. Did the rat randomly develop wings?
I have, in fact, seen bats.
You, however, have obviously never heard of flying squirrels.
You can't take the sky from me...
The exploitation issue is the tougher one to fix, and in fact it tends to drive the other one (knowing how to live sustainably). People are more exploitable if they are kept ignorant.
The US and other rich countries tend to lack of sustainability because of "planned obsolescence" and other wasteful practices such as transmitting power over very long distances. The poorest countries tend to lack sustainability because of internal warfare and low tech bad practices - i.e. goat ranching is not stable, long term, because goats tend to spread desertification where they go.
Who is John Cabal?
No. Evolution is not an event, evolution is an ongoing process. And you can sit down and watch the process. So we see around us living creatures actually evolving into modified versions of itself, very fast with bacteria and quite slowly with higher life forms.
You can't scientificly prove a single event, that's true. But luckily neither Evolution or the Big Bang are single events. So you can create experiments to check if conclusions you draw from your description of the processes hold true. I agree with you that simply describing how the past has happened doesn't get us a valid scientific theory. But you could reason that it has to have happened in a certain way because of a hypothesis you present. This hypothesis, if it's of any worth, does not simply describe the past, it is also able to predict future events which are quite unlikely to happen if the hypothesis would be wrong.
That's the main problem with Creationism from a scientific point of view: It stops with describing the past and doesn't offer any clues for the future. With Evolution theory you have both: A quite good description of the past and measurable predictions for the future, like the occurance of new variants of the species if the environment changes. You could even use it to predict events in the past of which no information is available right now, and find ways to gather those information.
There is the classical example with the prediction of the interjaw bone, which is common with the humanoid apes (chimpanzee, gorilla...) but was never found with humans. Evolution theory predicted that this bone has to exist at least in a rudimentary way, because humans and humanoid apes should have a common ancestor. Johann Wolfgang Goethe finally found a human skull (from a dead 12year old child) which had the said bone. On the other hand closer inspection of the skulls of humanoid apes found that about 12% of the apes didn't have the interjaw bone. So the quite improbable predictions: "Humans can have an interjaw bone" proved to be true and the True/False distinction "Apes have it" - "Humans don't" was no qualitative distinction anymore, but merely a quantitative difference.
1. What you call 'tweaking' I would call microevolution, and we are in agreement. This is demonstrable using the scientific method.
2. So-called transitional forms. Perhaps they are transitional, perhaps they are unique species that are unrelated to one another. We see that they exist, and have similar forms - but which came first? We have evidence, but what do the facts *mean*? I submit to you that we cannot be certain that they are directly related. Perhaps they are merely similar.
3. What about irreducible complexity? The following example comes from Behe's book "Darwin's black box" - a mousetrap has a certain number of requisite parts to function. Removal of even one of those parts, and it ceases to function as a mousetrap. They have to be present, in the right order, and assembled properly to function. From a functioning mousetrap, you can make modifications for a better release, stronger spring, harder bar, etc.
You can't tweak a non-functioning mousetrap.
In the same way, how does the human eye tweak its way into existence? You need the lens, cornea, optic nerve, something in the brain to proces the input from the optic nerve, sensors, etc.
Irreducible complexity is a BIG problem for evolution, and really has no good explanations, save Gould's punctuated equilibrium, which I see as a clumsy way to fit the facts to his world view.
4. Mutations are almost universally bad for you, but evolution hangs its hat on mutations and time - so much so that there's scarcely enough time in the known universe to account for all of what is needed to explain what we see today.
5. "Holy writings said the earth was flat." Rubbish. They never did. The church was wrong to do what it did, but the Bible never claimed a flat earth.
Ptolemy said the earth was the center, and this was conventional wisdom until Copernicus proved it was wrong. That was my point, but apparently you missed it.
6. Creation science as religious dogma. This one is precious. We all have a worldview bias. Creationists, evolutionists, deists, atheists - all of us. Science is pressed forward by people with a bias. Many times this is a good thing, many times it is not. Please don't give me that 'white coat syndrome' 'we're only about truth' business. Anyone who really believes that has never spent time on a university campus around reseach director PhD's. I submit to you that there's more atheistic dogma in science than there is any other religious dogma.
If science was really about truth, it would be considered unreasonable to have an 'a priori commitment to naturalism.' If the best reasonable explanation is that something supernatural occured, perhaps that's really the answer. Unfortunately that's not in vogue today. Our champions of science from history have been deists. I'm not sure when they decided God was dead. It's definitely a fad.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
They ought to loose some goats on kudzu.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
1. Mutations are not adaptations. Adaptations are mostly beneficial. I submit that mutations are generally bad. Tell my nephew with Down Syndrome that mutations are not generally bad for him.
2. There's a world of difference between acknowledging that bias exists in science, and denying all benefit from good science. Talk about your logical leaps!
Of course I go to the doctor. God heals miraculously sometimes. Most times the miracle is penicillin or the relevant equivalent. God gives us a mind and the ability to reason. These are frequently used in ways that are beneficial. God also heals in ways that don't make sense to science sometimes. Don't believe me? Talk to a doctor who has been around the block a few times - they all know that doctors don't heal - they facilitate the process of healing.
3. It is ridiculous to assert that the Bible should be interpreted in a wooden literal sense. The Bible contains poetry, prose, narrative, and parable. Reading poetry as literal description is foolishness, and a bit of a red herring. If not a red herring, it demonstrates a certain amount of ignorance on your part.
There's a whole discipline related to understanding scripture, but it can be very simplistically comnmunicated as "the plain things are the main things." Use your head!
Some dude did pray for the sun to stop, (Joshua in Joshua chapter 10) and the Bible says that it did. It says something similar in 2 Kings chapter 20 about Hezekiah.
Did it? I think it did, or it certainly appeared to in that area. Can that be explained by someone who has a commitment to naturalism? Probably not. Does that mean that it didn't happen? I don't know, but I'm inclined to give God the benefit of the doubt because of the consistency that I see in the majority of the rest of the Bible.
4. If the real explanation is something supernatural, how is it unreasonable to consider that the supernatural is a possibility? Doesn't it seem unreasonable to suggest that the supernatural is impossible?
5. Evolutionists do not hold the "proof" that their theory is correct. It is a description that fits many of the facts, but does not fit them all. Creationists have an explanation that fits many of the facts. If you are convinced that evolution is the complete explanation for all the variety and complexity of life, then I submit to you that you probably have not studied this issue much. Evolution is not a great explanation, but it's the best naturalistic explanation that scientists have been able to come up with.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
It was called "Andromeda Strain". Even though it dealt with an "extra-terrestrial" microbe, it would not be hard to imagine that such a microbe in Vostok could be essentially ET in nature.
And "Andromeda Strain" was a good read from Crichton... as his first book, it really gave the reader a good sense of suspense without being overbearing about it like some of his later works did.
-Jellisky
He said he was studying it. He didn't say he was subscribing to it.
Whining about moderation is offtopic, but onmetatopic, so here's some metairony about the parent of this post:
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--
make install -not war
Evolution is not compatible with any state of the world. For example, if there were only one kind of fossil for each creature and there were no creatures different than those existing today (save the ones that died off) evolution wouldn't be accepted. If Australia had the same wildlife that asia had, evolution wouldn't be accepted. If animals who had one body part in common were likely to have others in common (why shouldn't many mammals lay eggs and many reptiles have fur and give live birth?), evolution wouldn't be attractive.
Just because experiments to prove evolution would be unfeasable doesn't mean the theory is false or even unscientific.
Let's get historical again shall we? Ptolemy had a wonderful system of explaining planetary movement, even better than Galileo's. He had a complex system of equations and constants which would spit out right answers. Galileo's wasn't as good, but it was extremely simple. The biggest hole was that the last planet's orbit was irregular, as if another planet was influencing it. Using his theory, Galileo was able to predict the location of another planet which he verified existed (and was promptly imprisoned for his heretical beliefs by the catholic church).
How is this like evolution? Well, Galileo couldn't very well throw a new planet up into space to verify it would behave as he predicted. We can't wait billions of years for animals to evolve. Galileo's theory was simple, while Ptolemy's required lots of constants. Galileo predicted the existance of a planet which he later found. Evolution's predicted the existance of many fossils which have been found (and some which haven't).
(We can also simulate what people like to call microevolution in a lab. Stick a bunch of fruit flies in a jar and spray it full of DDT. Repeat for 3 generations.)
Experimentation is only one part of the scientific methodology. Perhaps you should go read some Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, or Charles Darwin. I may not be a creationist, but at least I bothered reading the Bible.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
I'm not implying causation, I don't have to (though it might be useful). I'm arguing about grandparent's assertion that the developed world uses "more than their share" of the world's resources, can be viewed in the converse (that poor countries are simply overpopulated for their level of wealth). Neither assertion is more factually correct than the other.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I think you mean...
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I don't have time to write a treatise on the nature of knowledge here, but I think you're making a false dichotomy between "knowledge about nature" as collected by scientists, and "knowledge about God" as collected by theologists.
It's disingenuous to suggest that religious beliefs are supported only by blind faith. That is just as unreasonable as saying the same about science.
There are things in the sphere of my religious beliefs that I take on faith. There are things in the sphere of scientific knowledge that you take on faith.
We both work to harmonize what we know in the area of science with the world that we explore. I include religious beliefs, based on far more than mere faith.
If you genuinely believe that religion is based totally on "unreasonable" faith, you you should explore faith with a thoughtful Christian.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Theory = Abstract reasoning; speculation.
If a theory has been sufficiently proven, then it becomes law. Like Newton's Law of Gravity.
Furthermore, ad hominem isn't nice and in this case irrelevant.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
Do all three of these religions not believe in creationism at the roots? They all have very very similiar beliefs including the origins of the world, created by one god.
Then again, browbeating seems to gain as many converts as logical reasoning, for both arguments.
Only if a) the organism is sufficiently fatal, b) it is sufficiently contagious and c) everyone not naturally immune dies off.
If the organism isn't lethal enough, people will survive it and pass on their non-immune genes to the next generation. Just look at chicken-pox or the hosts of other diseases which are still around.
Actually, that works, but either the kudzu gets ahead of the goats and starts pulling down your elevated expressway sections again, or the goats actually overwhelm the kudzu in a bleating suicide wave attack and the resulting gassy, bloated goats make you long for death by kudzu strangulation.
Who is John Cabal?
I know this it terribly naive, but can someone shed some light on this. Inside the liquid part of the earth's core, metals are all liquid. The denser metals would tend to accumulate toward the center. Or at that depth, gravity would be roughly equal in all directions so no gravitational separation of materials with differing densities would occur plus convection currents would keep it all well stirred. However, if that is not true, and since the denser metals tend to be radioactive, could the heat at the earth's core just be a slowly fissioning atomic pile?
Well, then we could burn the kudzu and eat the goats. Or eat the kudzu and burn the goat gas.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?