Darwin- would he have changed his theory?

It most certainly had implications for his theory........because it cuts the time evolution had to work down from a potential infinitum to 4 billion years.

It speaks to gradualism........especially in the case of the Cambrian Explosion, which, as far as I know, PE doesn't even explain.

SPALFour billion years is enough time for evolution to occur though,so how does this support your contention?

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[W]hen people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together

He didn't say taking myth at face value......he said that there was not benefit to applying myth to science at all, if I recall correctly. And he's wrong, as I demonstrated.The ancient, venerated documents have NEVER been proven to be conclusively incorrect in any fashion..........they've only been validated in various ways, like the ones I named.

in what ways? you've made some vague asserations not back by any real evidence.If there is actual evidence in there - could you point it out to me? What post is it in?

Obviously they can, since they're mined in the Andes.........this is simply fact. I have no desire to do this. You don't want to believe me, that's up to you.........but even if I WAS just making all this up about Atlantis, it doesn't change the FACT that about 10,000 years ago, the whole world, from an anthropological point of view, was deluged by floods........

Charles, if you want to create a seperate thread, I'll participate in it.........didn't want to leave an impression to the contrary.Even aside from Atlantis, there's still the Trojans and the Hittites.

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Obviously they can, since they're mined in the Andes.........this is simply fact.

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But where? What's it called? If you are presenting it as a fact, you will be able to supply this data, if you can't it's a claim.

But not for first life to form, by itself..........and perhaps not to reach the level of sentient life forms. We know that for about 3 billion years, life didn't evolve past the single-celled. The next 500 million years only produced jelly fish and sponges and the like.........then, KAPOW, suddenly, all at once, there was more evolutionary variation occuring all at once than had occured over the last 3.5 billion years......and so, it took 3.5 billion years to get from cell to jelly fish........a geological INSTANT to get from jelly fish to AT LEAST 20 of the 30 phila in existance......and only 500 million to get from there to us..........doesn't make sense, and PE can't explain it.This message has been edited by SirPimpsalot, 10-22-2004 07:50 AM

Charles, it's all a matter of whether you believe me or not........because, if you can't find anything about it on the web, I can't tell ya anything else........all I know is that the documentary stated, as fact, that a natural alloy of gold and copper is mined in the Andes, and even showed a bunch of it.

so we will leave it as an unproven claim for the moment - if you ever turn up any proof, let us know.

Unproven? After an exhaustive 5 minutes, two man internet search, yes..........

SPALWhy does it not make sense? You also have the time-line a little off As the evidence stands this chart approximates the dates of life in orderr of their appearance. It is obvious that life does require time to accomplish the stages neccesary to the development of complex creatures such as ourselves but once the multicellular level is reached the process is quite accelerated and this does make sense.

Right. PE doesn't "explain" the Cambrian so-called explosion. After all, they're two completely unrelated subject areas. OTOH, gradual is as gradual does - PE is an explanation of why some lineages show stasis followed by relatively rapid radiation. In addition, it explains the observed "abrupt" appearance of some new species in the fossil record. However, the mechanics of PE are basically gradualism in a small population - gradual change over a few thousand years in an isolated group rather than continuous change over millions of years in a continental or widely-spread population. This was already recognized (at least the stasis part) by Darwin in his writings.Further discussion of PE needs to be taken to another thread. There are (or were) a couple of PE threads open that we can take this to.

We don't know what the chance is, but across the earth and with half a billion years even unlikely things can be very likely to happen (see below). Who said anything about RNA? The simplest replicator is likely to be much simpler. What are you talking about, for one protein? I'm talking about the arrangements of amino acids that produce a replicator.Yes, I did the math. Suppose our something has a 1 in 10¹¹ chance of happening in a given trial. Now, suppose that there are one hundred sites on the earth at which it can occur and that a trial occurs once every 3.65 days (which are extremely conservative guesses. In half a billion years that's 10²10²(5*10⁸) = 5*10¹² trials. That makes the chance of our 'unlikely' event happening at least once during the course of the journey very close to 1. A lipid is a fat or oil, essentially. They can be significantly simpler molecules than an amino acid.(edit: see here http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/lipids.htm )This message has been edited by Mr Jack, 10-22-2004 08:53 AM