Extraterrestrials

[Sayonara]

"Keeping an open mind" should not be used as an excuse for ignoring the evidence or changing the question.

[MadScientist]

"Keeping an open mind" should not be used as an excuse for ignoring the evidence or changing the question.

 

So looking at the evidence from a wider angle and coming up with somethig Ophi didn't mention is ignoring that evidence??

Doesn't sound like it to me.

 

And how is agreeing with Ophiolite but showing him that other wide angle view changing the subject of his post??

I don't think it does.

 

So what's wrong??

[Sayonara]

The question was that of the origins of life on Earth. You changed it to the origins of Earth itself, presumably reasoning that the presence of the atomic components alone can be considered the basis of life's origins.

[Sorcerer]

My' date=' Sorcerer, you do have such an elegant way with words! I'm sorry if I awoke oedipal cravings in you.

 

Several noted scientists who have intellects, experience and knowledge far in excess of my own have expressed disquiet with the available time for life to arise on Earth. I have found their reasoning to be lucid and plausible.

In contrast many of those who favour the Earth origin seem to do a lot of 'hand waving' to bypass the difficult questions.

 

It is [i']my[/i] opinion, based on an objective assessment of the evidence I have been able to review that there are many uncertainties as to the exact path by which life arose. I do not know whether life arose independently here on Earth, or arrived here from space. There is evidence for both. So I lean towards the extra-terrestrial option. I would not be surprised if it were to turn out either way. I think it's called keeping an open mind.

 

Nullius in verba

 

I guess you could keep your mind open and express and opinion, but you do need to remember the difference between what you think and what you know.

[Ophiolite]

I guess you could keep your mind open and express and opinion, but you do need to remember the difference between what you think and what you know.

I think I usually have a pretty good idea of the distinction (of course I don't know that for certain). Did you think there was some point in my posts where i did not remember the difference between them? If not, I'm not quite sure what you intended to say.

[Sorcerer]

Hmm forget it then, what I was trying to say is:

Where I differ from them is having extreme discomfort with the idea that we could go from nothing to blue-green alagae in just a few hundred million years.

 

Emotion isnt a good reason to disagree with something.

[Ophiolite]

Where I differ from them is having extreme discomfort with the idea that we could go from nothing to blue-green alagae in just a few hundred million years.

Emotion isnt a good reason to disagree with something.

I see where the confusion has arisen. When I said 'extreme discomfort' I was referring to intellectual discomfort, brought on by what I view as a mis-match between current explanations and available evidence.

[Sorcerer]

Not really, a few million years is a long time for a chemical reaction to occur.

[Ophiolite]

Not really, a few million years is a long time for a chemical reaction to occur.

Sorcerer, take a note out of your own book. 'What you know and what you think are not necessarily the same.'

There are enough reputable scientists out there who also see the time-complexity issue as a problem that for you to dismiss it as a 'chemical reaction' is trite and frankly beneath you. Unless you can come back with for example a step by step series of processes by which we can move from 'primordial soup' to RNA I see little point in the continuing the discussion.

I am open to the possibility that life may have had time evolve on Earth, but certainly the steps by which this occured have not yet been elucidated. There are real problem areas. You seem unwilling to even recognise these - hardly very scientific of you.

[Sorcerer]

see

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6306

and

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5915

and

http://www.mrfixitonline.com/readTopic.asp?PostingId=1638229

 

I'm Darq_sorcerer