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3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' Were Not Created By Life Forms
sciencehabit writes: What are the oldest fossils on Earth? For a long time, a 3.46-billion-year-old rock from Western Australia seemed to hold the record. A 1993 Science paper (abstract) suggested that the Apex chert contained tiny, wormy structures that could have been fossilized cell walls of some of the world's first cyanobacteria. But now there is more evidence that these structures have nothing to do with life. The elongated filaments were instead created by minerals forming in hydrothermal systems, researchers report (abstract). After the minerals were formed, carbon glommed on to the edges, leaving behind an organic signature that looked suspiciously like cell walls.
After all, when you're fighting a losing battle, even a hand up from science is a welcome blessing.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
fauxcells
Australia has some really old rocks alright. My favourite is this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E... Named after some hills in South Australia. Some weird animals there. (If they are even animals. Or plants. Both?).
If you avoid the truth, you will erroneously discover something else.
And to think, you're the successful product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. I guess this is proof that not every branch or individual is viable.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
... future descendant might try and argue, by the same reasoning, that the "people" (as we currently call them) in this time were not really alive either... that all we actually are is a bunch of organic compounds arranged in a pattern that suspiciously behaves like what they consider to be life, but actually isn't.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I swear some ancient civilization used Australia as a waste dump and testing grounds for some seriously bad sh** - the frigging Platypus is weird enough but folks forget the damned thing is *poisonous*, too - then add in the rest of the the things that are pretty much post-Apocalypse like the other floral and fauna that are incredibly lethal (e.g., the snakes) and it can make you wonder 'wtf happened here??'
Someone already pointed out how the creationists are already going to use this in their favor as evidence that fossils aren't the product or evolution or somesuch.
But it goes both ways. They often rant about how the scientific literature is biased against anything that goes against the evolution dogma. Although these non-life fossils don't really contradict any OTHER fossil evidence, nevertheless, here we have an example of a publication about exactly the sort of thing that the creationists say would never get published.
To me, at least, it doesn't sound like they had "nothing to do with" life - I wonder if it could be a precursor to life. If mineral formations were forming "cell-wall-like" structures made of nonmetals, that sounds like it might have been a naturally forming scaffold for the formation of the earliest cell walls. Natural small enclosures with attraction to carbon and nonmetals seems like they'd make a really good substrate for infinite separate runs of the natural experiment leading up to the first replicating molecules.
From what I understand the 6000 figure comes from adding up the ages of the patriarchs in Genesis, and then tying the events in Genesis to a known historical event.
In order for person x to have existed during event y, Adam was created in year z.
I believe the x is normally Moses and the y is the reign of Ramses II of Egypt, but I could be mistaken.
He effected a bored affect.
No, old does not imply stupid. Look all the stupid racists, classists and chauvinists running around today in various countries.
"3.46-Billion-Year-Old 'Fossils' Were Not Created By Life Forms"
That would make them... rocks. Not fossils.