Quest for Noah's ark

[Wong & Owens]

Ach!  I take back your high marks, Kid! 

 

If your grade school teacher's take on things was a Mechanistic, Divine Hand setting it in motion, then there's still hope.  If, on the other hand, the view is a teleological one (i.e., that humans or any other slice of evolutionary time were somehow a preordained end-point), then it is completely irreconcilable with modern evolutionary theory.

 

Just enjoy being a happy accident, and being conscious of the incredible unlikelihood of our very existence. 

Jim--

 

I seem to agree with you point-for-point regarding this topic, so I'm curious, what/who do you think is responsible for starting it all? A god? aliens? Little Richard?

[Queen Prawn]

If your grade school teacher's take on things was a Mechanistic, Divine Hand setting it in motion, then there's still hope.  If, on the other hand, the view is a teleological one (i.e., that humans or any other slice of evolutionary time were somehow a preordained end-point), then it is completely irreconcilable with modern evolutionary theory.

No, the first one - just setting things in motion.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I DO believe the New Testament. I know I'll tak some heat on this for "picking and choosing," but that's how I feel. As far as my defense of this whole NOah/ark thing, I'm just going on what I've watched and read.

You won't take heat from me on that at least. Even as Cdub has taken a lot of time to patiently explain to us that there is a clear continuity between OT and NT, in my past life as a spiritual person (now recovering ) I felt very comfortable in embracing the central Christian messages of the New Testament, while kind of taking most of the OT stories with a grain (or is that a pillar? Sorry, I like that joke a Lot).

[Flash Tizzle]

Evolution buffs: I would appreciate your comments on the Hemoglobin debate, and how it assumes some sort of divine intervention might of been necessary for humans to properly evole:

 

... human hemoglobin is a string of 574 amino acids of 20 varieties. There are 10E 654, different ways to combine these amino acids. That is kind of meaningless all by itself, but consider this: It is thought by evolutionary proponents that life began 2,500 million years ago, which is still a very long time. However, the number of seconds since life began is 10e 17. The number of seconds since the big bang 5000 million years ago is 10E 18. The number of stars in the universe is 10E 22. The number of atoms in the universe 10E 80. The improbability of hemoglobin occurring by random selection is 10E -654. I'm not a math major, but that looks like 0 to me.

[mreye]

Evolution buffs: I would appreciate your comments on the Hemoglobin debate, and how it assumes some sort of divine intervention might of been necessary for humans to properly evole:

 

... human hemoglobin is a string of 574 amino acids of 20 varieties. There are 10E 654, different ways to combine these amino acids. That is kind of meaningless all by itself, but consider this: It is thought by evolutionary proponents that life began 2,500 million years ago, which is still a very long time. However, the number of seconds since life began is 10e 17. The number of seconds since the big bang 5000 million years ago is 10E 18. The number of stars in the universe is 10E 22. The number of atoms in the universe 10E 80. The improbability of hemoglobin occurring by random selection is 10E -654. I'm not a math major, but that looks like 0 to me.

I've never seen that. Very interesting. I am so glad I'm through with school and word problems.

[Wong & Owens]

Evolution buffs: I would appreciate your comments on the Hemoglobin debate, and how it assumes some sort of divine intervention might of been necessary for humans to properly evole:

 

... human hemoglobin is a string of 574 amino acids of 20 varieties. There are 10E 654, different ways to combine these amino acids. That is kind of meaningless all by itself, but consider this: It is thought by evolutionary proponents that life began 2,500 million years ago, which is still a very long time. However, the number of seconds since life began is 10e 17. The number of seconds since the big bang 5000 million years ago is 10E 18. The number of stars in the universe is 10E 22. The number of atoms in the universe 10E 80. The improbability of hemoglobin occurring by random selection is 10E -654. I'm not a math major, but that looks like 0 to me.

My head just exploded.

[Steff]

OK, if I apologize for offending you, will please elaborate on why you would disregard an ocean-sized container of evidence that says you and Bonzo are cousins?  Does the adam and eve story actually make any sense to you?

Woah.. hold the phone people....

 

You mean the Adam & Eve story isn't true......................

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

Jim--

 

I seem to agree with you point-for-point regarding this topic, so I'm curious, what/who do you think is responsible for starting it all?  A god?  aliens?  Little Richard?

Damned if I know, but I like the Little Richard Theory quite a bit. I apologize in advance to everyone who would rather gnae their own leg off rather than reading this. But, hey, I was asked.

 

Seriously, the biggest pain sometimes is that scientists have to live and die by the same sword. Which means that if we cannot find physical evidence from the time of the first life on Earth we can only speculate. The problem with the fossil record is that even rocks are not eternal, and the geological cycles and processes like subduction at tectonic plate margins means that the rocks that would have held fossil evidence of the very first terran life may not exist anymore.

 

As far as where life originated, while I have romantic notions about panspermic (extraterrestrial) sources, I don't really buy it. Nor do I buy the classic Urey and Miller lightning/chemical soup/ammonia atmosphere shallow sea origin either. Right now the smart money may be on the first life starting at deep ocean hydrothermal vents and centering around chemosynthetic microbial life somewhat similar to bacteria. We would never have dreamed this scenario until such communities were first discovered in 1977 (so Urey and Miller are off the hook), but it solves a lot of problems. Oceans protect from harmful early Earth UV rays which would have been intense given the early atmosphere. Removed from the sun, and with no organic input to the early deep sea (no life to settle out there), a chemosynthetic origin is attractive. And because the larger deep sea (away from teh vents) is an extremely stable environment, there was the possibility of tens of millions of years of quiet organic experimentation.

 

Literally, just today, a paper published in Science (probably the most respected journal tehre is) presented very good evidence for Archean (even more primitive than bacteria, and some still exist, in geysers, thermal ocean vents and other extreme environments) life that lived in tubes within volcanic rock at least as far back as 3.5 billion years ago. This was before there was anything they could have consumed as heterotrophs, and it occurred in an extreme environment on the ocean floor, so photosynthesis was out of the question. Like modern hot vent and methane seep organisms, these were apparently chemosynthetic organisms that used reduced compounds from the mineral rock as a carbon and/or energy source.

 

There is good evidence for similar life back to about 3.9 billion years, and based on those fossils the researchers in that case think that they can extend back to maybe 4.2 billion years for a likely origin of prokaryotic (the primitive kind) life. For a long time, we have put the first eukaryotes (the modern kind of life, including protists, algae, and everything beyond that) at around 1.5 billion years, but there is strong and growing evidence that it started at least another billion years earlier than that.

 

I love science and being a scientist because we aren't married to any of this. If a hypothesis holds up to scrutiny for a century but then gets refuted with sound science, you chuck the old hypothesis. Careers and entire schools of thought are turned on their ear with some regularity, but that's what we signed up for.

 

Science Rocks!

[Flash Tizzle]

I've never seen that. Very interesting. I am so glad I'm through with school and word problems. 

If you were confused by E it means to number of 0's after a number. 10 E 17 of course is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 quintillion.

 

I have no idea how they calculated those numbers and was hoping somebody (flasoxjim?) has a rebuttal. Remember hearing this in Genetics last year and searched google for the exact question.

[Wong & Owens]

As far as where life originated, while I have romantic notions about panspermic (extraterrestrial) sources, I don't really buy it.  Nor do I buy the classic Urey and Miller lightning/chemical soup/ammonia atmosphere shallow sea origin either.  Right now the smart money may be on the first life starting at deep ocean hydrothermal vents and centering around chemosynthetic microbial life somewhat similar to bacteria.  We would never have dreamed this scenario until such communities were first discovered in 1977 (so Urey and Miller are off the hook), but it solves a lot of problems.  Oceans protect from harmful early Earth UV rays which would have been intense given the early atmosphere.  Removed from the sun, and with no organic input to the early deep sea (no life to settle out there), a chemosynthetic origin is attractive.  And because the larger deep sea (away from teh vents) is an extremely stable environment, there was the possibility of tens of millions of years of quiet organic experimentation.

Right, but who/what do you think put the organisms here in the first place? Even if you think the entire universe was creatde by a series of bio-chemical-electrical-reactions, waht do you think put the pieces or the process in motion at the beginning?

[Flash Tizzle]

Here's an interesting website that debates the topic of macro evolution. It also includes the hemoglobin debate (word for word from another website) in which a biologist attempts to answer the question of hemoglobins transformation. The response is too long to post here, but through the link (about 1/4 down page) it begins with the letter titled "Jerry, Leroy Ortiz writes"......

 

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/alt.mail/evolution.html

[FlaSoxxJim]

Right, but who/what do you think put the organisms here in the first place?  Even if you think the entire universe was creatde by a series of bio-chemical-electrical-reactions, waht do you think put the pieces or the process in motion at the beginning?

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Divine agents are not testable by science and are out of the realm of scientific speculation. Science cannot prove OR disprove (see, we admit it) the existence of a Divine Agent. What we can do is come up with reasonable alternatives to a Divine Agent that ARE testable.

 

That said, yes, I personally believe that the physical universe begat the biological universe in through non-divine means.

[sox4lifeinPA]

You won't take heat from me on that at least.  Even as Cdub has taken a lot of time to patiently explain to us that there is a clear continuity between OT and NT, in my past life as a spiritual person (now recovering ) I felt very comfortable in embracing the central Christian messages of the New Testament, while kind of taking most of the OT stories with a grain (or is that a pillar? Sorry, I like that joke a Lot).

you're a funny guy there, jim

 

just want to add that I'm on the fence about this and many stories in the Old Testament. I may be at odds with my church and with other Christians, but I don't believe the earth was created in just 7 days. I don't think we are all decendents of Adam and Eve. In my here and now world, it's hard to believe all of this. maybe my faith isn't strong enough. I DO believe the New Testament. I know I'll tak some heat on this for "picking and choosing," but that's how I feel. As far as my defense of this whole NOah/ark thing, I'm just going on what I've watched and read.

 

I'm behind you, mreye... well, figuratively. I think the OT stands right in line with what the NT claims. The OT was solid in formation well before Jesus proclaimed himself as the son of man. There are references throughout the NT to quotes from the OT. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about the details of the OT needing to be 100% true. If someone claims to believe the NT, which is ridden with stories of miraculous healings and people being raised from the dead, I'm not sure how much more far off a story about a boat filled with Animals is.

 

God is mysterious, that's for sure

[sox4lifeinPA]

I'm very open to the idea that God's timing could be well outside of our concept of time. Who's to say how we actually got here. 95% of physical evidence will never be discovered because of natural disasters, human interference, etc. Speculation abounds on either side.

 

Good on Jim trying to understand life from a scientific standpoint. I just hope our search never ends with either side. otherwise we might become the scared, ignorants that Ghost talked of....

[Soxy]

I think the OT stands right in line with what the NT claims. The OT was solid in formation well before Jesus proclaimed himself as the son of man. There are references throughout the NT to quotes from the OT.

Without the OT there would be no NT. Jesus grew up steeped in the Judaic traditions (especially, and most obviously, the Hebrew Prophet tradition with his strong focus on social justice). Picking only the NT is dangerous, as I think PA is saying, because it removes the context and background and really would chop off our understanding of who Jesus was and why he did what he did. Sorry, personal pet peeve there--you can't have the New without the Old--and gah! There is just so much more richness and fullness of understanding when looking at them together.

 

That's all.

[sox4lifeinPA]

Without the OT there would be no NT. Jesus grew up steeped in the Judaic traditions (especially, and most obviously, the Hebrew Prophet tradition with his strong focus on social justice). Picking only the NT is dangerous, as I think PA is saying, because it removes the context and background and really would chop off our understanding of who Jesus was and why he did what he did. Sorry, personal pet peeve there--you can't have the New without the Old--and gah! There is just so much more richness and fullness of understanding when looking at them together.

 

That's all. 

Chisoxy for soxtalk president!

[mreye]

I'm behind you, mreye... well, figuratively.

[mreye]

If someone claims to believe the NT, which is ridden with stories of miraculous healings and people being raised from the dead, I'm not sure how much more far off a story about a boat filled with Animals is.

I don't really have much problem believing these. If I believe Jesus is the Son of God, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe in his miracles. That's where faith comes in for me.

[FlaSoxxJim]

If you were confused by E it means to number of 0's after a number. 10 E 17 of course is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000  or 1 quintillion.

 

I have no idea how they calculated those numbers and was hoping somebody (flasoxjim?) has a rebuttal.  Remember hearing this in Genetics last year and searched google for the exact question.

OK, I'll rebut.

 

First, you are off by one '0' on your explanation of exponential notation - 10 E17 is a 1 followed by 17 zeros, not a 10 followed by 17 zeros. But hey what'a an order of magnitude between friends, right? (I guess if you consider a 10-win White Sox season versus a 100-win season, that extra zero is meaningful).

 

And while correcting numbers, yiu can update the narrative:

 

2,500 million years ago is the currently speculated origin of eukaryotic life, but the earliest life showed up about 1,500 million years earlier.

 

The big bang, according to a study published late last year, likely occurred 14,000 million years ago, so your number there is off by nearly a factor of three.

 

All that is just housekeeping. As for the rest, the upshot is that this numbers game - and any numbers game - is going to favor an evolutionary argument. Evolution is ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS, incomprehensibly large numbers. Billions of years of piling up the best outcomes of trillions of simultaneous experiments occurring in evgery cell of every organism that ever lived.

 

The hemoglobin "debate" only holds water if Natural Selection were random, and in fact it is completely and absolutely non-random. This is one of the stumbling points for newcomers to evolution. The lolecular mechanisms are more or less random - point mutations, insertions, deletions, inversions, and base pair substitutions within the genetic code occur spontaneously and without regard for the outcome. But that is where the randomness element ends in evolution. Natural Selection is the environment acting as a merciless filter to weed out less fit variants. And the vast majority of mutatioanl events lead to less fit variants. But, given the billions and billions in the trillions and trillions and the (*Argh Claven!!* I sound like that dorky scientist on the Simpson's don't I?)... You get the picture.

 

The first prokaryotes and eukaryotes (protistans) would not have had our hemoglobin, but did have their own highly specialized equivalents from which modern hemoglobin arose. That's 4 billion years of improving gradually improving on HIGHLY CONSERVED proteins by trying out various structural alterations, weeding out the ones that are not of selective advantage, and keeping those that work better. Work by Ross Hardison published in 1999 looked at ancestral hemoglobin forms and demonstrated how newly evolved proteins co-opt thee functional chemistry of older ones and through structural alterations evolve new or enhansed phenotypic function. Hardison and others have also showed that at least as much functional change emerges through evolutionary changes in the timing of expression (turning on/off genes) of hemoglobin-producing genes.

 

Bottom line, The "improbability" of random selection of hemoglobin at 10E-654 is bulls***, because selection has been anything but random for 4 billion years. The mere fact that early life billions of years ago and their extant descendants from today had somewhat simpler but analogous hemoglobin-like molecules suggests that hemoglobin was pretty "easy" to evolve, yet so absolutely vital to life that it has been very highly conserved ever since. To borrow from Richard Dawkins, who borrowed from some Flat-earther, mouthbreather Creationists, Why are we not completely dumbfounded by the existence of Swiss watches and Boeing 747's? Because these were well designed and intentional form-to-function products, of course. The Creationists, being mentally very lazy, will leave the argument at that, God put the whole shebang together because its so unbelievably complex it couldn't be a random thing. Dawkins, being anything but lazy, pointed out what I did above - the raw material of evolution (muttation and variation) is random, but nithing else about evolution is. Nor is it directed or teleological, however. There is no preordained end-point (not even us ), but the twists and turns of Selection are absolutely directed by the selective filters of the environment acting on the phenotype (external manifestation of the genetic makeup) of individuals.

 

It would indeed be amazing if hemoglobin just appeared, in all its glory, out of nowhere. But, that's noy how it happened, and it has never been suggested otherwise by anybodybut someone trying to play a numbers game to descredit evolution.

 

If they want to throw us for a loop, ask how the hell the vertebrate eye arose... or the envenomation apparatus of snakes... or, as PA pondered earlier, the power human written and oral communication. The verdict is still out on all of these, but that just means we'll have jobs for a while.

[1549]

OK, I'll rebut.

 

First, you are off by one '0' on your explanation of exponential notation - 10 E17 is a 1 followed by 17 zeros, not a 10 followed by 17 zeros.  But hey what'a an order of magnitude between friends, right? (I guess if you consider a 10-win White Sox season versus a 100-win season, that extra zero is meaningful).

 

And while correcting numbers, yiu can update the narrative:

 

2,500 million years ago is the currently speculated origin of eukaryotic life, but the earliest life showed up about 1,500 million years earlier.

 

The big bang, according to a study published late last year, likely occurred 14,000 million years ago, so your number there is off by nearly a factor of three.

 

All that is just housekeeping.  As for the rest, the upshot is that this numbers game - and any numbers game - is going to favor an evolutionary argument.  Evolution is ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS, incomprehensibly large numbers.  Billions of years of piling up the best outcomes of trillions of simultaneous experiments occurring in evgery cell of every organism that ever lived.

 

The hemoglobin "debate" only holds water if Natural Selection were random, and in fact it is completely and absolutely non-random.  This is one of the stumbling points for newcomers to evolution.  The lolecular mechanisms are more or less random - point mutations, insertions, deletions, inversions, and base pair substitutions within the genetic code occur spontaneously and without regard for the outcome.  But that is where the randomness element ends in evolution.  Natural Selection is the environment acting as a merciless filter to weed out less fit variants.  And the vast majority of mutatioanl events lead to less fit variants.  But, given the billions and billions in the trillions and trillions and the (*Argh Claven!!* I sound like that dorky scientist on the Simpson's don't I?)... You get the picture.

 

The first prokaryotes and eukaryotes (protistans) would not have had our hemoglobin, but  did have their own highly specialized equivalents from which modern hemoglobin arose.  That's 4 billion years of improving gradually improving on HIGHLY CONSERVED proteins by trying out various structural alterations, weeding out the ones that are not of selective advantage, and keeping those that work better.  Work by Ross Hardison published in 1999 looked at ancestral hemoglobin forms and demonstrated how newly evolved proteins co-opt thee functional chemistry of older ones and through structural alterations evolve new or enhansed phenotypic function.  Hardison and others have also showed that at least as much functional change emerges through evolutionary changes in the timing of expression (turning on/off genes) of hemoglobin-producing genes.

 

Bottom line, The "improbability" of random selection of hemoglobin at 10E-654 is bulls***, because selection has been anything but random for 4 billion years.  The mere fact that early life billions of years ago and their extant descendants from today had somewhat simpler but analogous hemoglobin-like molecules suggests that hemoglobin was pretty "easy" to evolve, yet so absolutely vital to life that it has been very highly conserved ever since.  To borrow from Richard Dawkins, who borrowed from some Flat-earther, mouthbreather Creationists, Why are we not completely dumbfounded by the existence of Swiss watches and Boeing 747's?  Because these were well designed and intentional form-to-function products, of course.  The Creationists, being mentally very lazy, will leave the argument at that, God put the whole shebang together because its so unbelievably complex it couldn't be a random thing.  Dawkins, being anything but lazy, pointed out what I did above - the raw material of evolution (muttation and variation) is random, but nithing else about evolution is.  Nor is it directed or teleological, however.  There is no preordained end-point (not even us ), but the twists and turns of Selection are absolutely directed by the selective filters of the environment acting on the phenotype (external manifestation of the genetic makeup) of individuals.

 

It would indeed be amazing if hemoglobin just appeared, in all its glory, out of nowhere.  But, that's noy how it happened, and it has never been suggested otherwise by anybodybut someone trying to play a numbers game to descredit evolution.

 

If they want to throw us for a loop, ask how the hell the vertebrate eye arose... or the envenomation apparatus of snakes... or, as PA pondered earlier, the power human written and oral communication.  The verdict is still out on all of these, but that just means we'll have jobs for a while. 

I have a great respect for your ability to refute arguments, and to stand by what you believe (or lack there of )

 

I recall a previous thread involving creation. I brought up an analogy that the odds of life appearing on a planet are about the same as a tornadoe going through a junkyard and assembling an airplane.

 

I think the numbers Tizzle shows support the airplane analogy.

[1549]

There is actually a lot of archiological evidence that points to a catstrophic flood of the middle east.  There is also lots of archiological evidence for lots of biblical stories.

I have heard this too.

 

This is where my views begin to contradict.

 

On one hand I think the story could be symbolic of a smaller flood and by 2 of every animals it could mean 2 of all the local livestock. This seems more reasonable.

 

On the other hand, the whole point of the story is that it is a miracle. And if there is a God and he did intervine like this, I don't think Noah would have a problem getting an ark, and gathering the animals.

[Soxy]

Science Rocks!

You blinded me with science!

 

Seriously, that's more evolutionary theory/learning than I did in my dang Bio Class on evolution.

 

Anyway, I guess I don't see why evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive.

 

But thanks for the Bio review, Jim. And, GO SCIENCE.

[1549]

This guy claims to know exactly where it is...even has pictures of the site.

Noah's Ark and pictures

 

For you conspiracy Theorists

[FlaSoxxJim]

I brought up an analogy that the odds of life appearing on a planet are about the same as a tornadoe going through a junkyard and assembling an airplane.

 

I think the numbers Tizzle shows support the airplane analogy.

Yep, that airplane bit is a common and useful analogy, and why Gould, Dawkins, I, and others regularly revisit it in the course of evolutionary debate.

 

As far as the odds of life occurring here and apparently nowhere else in a 14 billion year old universe that is more expansive than we can comprehend, I think perhaps the airplane building itself, the roomful of monkeys cranking out the works of Shakespear, etc., are more likely. I mean, last year, astronomers calculated JUST the number of stars in the visible (with kick-ass telescopes) sky at 70 SEXTILLION! That's a 7 with 22 zeros after it, for anyone not yet sick of exponential notation. For all who have pondered the question of whether there are more stars in the sky or grains of sand on the beach, the answer is that just these visible stars are 10X more abundant than all the sand on all the beaches and all the deserts of the entire planet. Mind numbing to say the least.

 

My personal belief (and continued props to all who hold their own differing views and allow others to do the same) is that it is human vanity for us to still consider ourselves to be the center of the universe, particularly since we've been around only for the last eyeblink of the life of the universe. And in fact, given the shear vastness of the universe, there are a lot of respectable people who think that life on other worlds would not be surprising and it would instead be the lack of life elsewhere that would be impossible to comprehend.

 

The shortcoming of the creationist spin on the Evolution = the chances of the airplane self-assembling argument is exactly as I pointed out earlier. But people don't push a button and out pops a plane. It is built component by component in an integrated fashion. And the Wright Brothers didn't build the Concorde, but their simple original design did evolve into the Concorde over the course of about 70 years of gradually improving avionics.

 

Evolution works in very mjuch the same way, with the only real difference being that the Wright Brothers and every airplane manufacturer afterward set out specifically to build a plane, whereas evolution (the "Blind Watchmaker," "Blind Planemaker," etc.) has no specified end-point in mind - never had and never will. Random mutations are tried on for size and if they confer a fitness advantage given the environment at that specific point in time, they are passed onto future generations. In this manner, they have the potential to accumulate and result in measurable change - variation within populations > subspecies > distinct species > distinct higher taxa...

 

It only took 70 years to go from Kittyhawk to Concorde precicely because it is a directed, purposeful, end-point oriented avionic evolution. It only takes a few generations for animal and plant husbandry scientists to develop dramatically different strains of crops and livestock for the same reason. It has taken 4 billion years to get from single-celled pre-bacteria to modern Metazoan forms precicely because there is no direction in mind, and no defined end-point. When the environment (the filter of Natural Selection) changes, so do the rules as to what constitutes a fit variant in a population. As a downy feather-bearing Pro-Aves (a dinosaur well on the path toward true birds), I may have enjoyed new success as local environmental conditions changed and the climate cooled. But if the climate warmed again a few thousand years later, my descendants may well find themselves decidedly unsuited to the new conditions. but there is no planning ahead. There is only throwing down against the current environment with the genetic hand you have been dealt and seeing if you have a better habd than other individuals in the population. And wen the rules (environment) change, hopefully your line can cope with the changes or else the line will go extinct.

[sox4lifeinPA]

Anyway, I guess I don't see why evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive.

 

honestly, I think that probably holds some water, but I think people see God as having full control and not acting within any means that may be deemed "chaotic". So if that's the case, Creation and a chaotic spin towards nothing in particular, seems rather mutually exclusive. while not my belief, I just see why people aren't too excited about drafting both of those ideas in the first round of the 2004 NFL lottery.

 

with that being said, I think we should all thank Jim for the lesson in evolution. I think the beginning of creation will be a mystery for eternity. I appluad scientists and their work, as long as their research isn't meant to demean my faith. Discover what you're going to discover and lose the agenda. Likewise, I think we christians have nothing to fear from this kind of research. Even if a final resolution comes about, what do we fear? being wrong, welp, their side doesn't offer hope either way. What do they have to fear? welp...you know. mass conversions and Christ's return. you cool with that? I'm cool with that.

 

Have at it Jim, keep me up to date on the findings. hope this noah's ark business helps us all understand our past.