Professor Franklin Harold of Colorado State University, described as "one of the world's most respected microbiologists" has included some fascinating observations in his book The Way of the Cell on the subject of abiogenesis. The mini-reviews on his book's back cover lend some credibility to the claim about Dr. Harold's professional credentials, one being written by renowned biologist Lynn Margulis, who said, "Witty and erudite, this scientific book hails as a literary achievement.Comprehensive and up to date, Franklin Harold traces the roots--historical, thermodynamic, and biochemical--of today's biological revolution." His chapter titled "Searching for the beginning" is so remarkable, it seems prudent to start at the beginning. Dr. Franklin writes, "Of all the unsolved mysteries remaining in science, the most consequential may be the origin of life. This opinion is bound to strike many readers as overblown, to put it mildly. Should we not rank the Big Bang, life in the cosmos, and the nature of consciousness on at least an equal plane? My reason for placing the origin of life at the top of the agenda is that resolution of this question is required in order to anchor living organisms securely in the real world of matter and energy, and thus relieve the lingering anxiety as to whether we have read nature's book correctly. Creation myths lie at the heart of all human cultures, and science is no exception; until we know where we come from, we do not know who we are. The origin of life is a stubborn problem, with no solution in sight. There is indeed a large and … [Read more...]
The Watchmaker Analogy: a slight return
I am something of an advocate for William Paley's famous (but admittedly flawed and allegedly "debunked") Watchmaker analogy, as this previous article titled "A Blind Rock Maker?" should establish. As my previous article stipulates, the problem with the analogy is not natural selection, or that the idea of design is nothing more than a beguiling illusion, but in the mistaken notion that the rock itself might have always existed. We now know (or think we know) our universe had a beginning, and the rock simply couldn't have existed forever. Even the rock had an origin. By Tony Freeth - Original publication: The Antikythera Mechanism Research ProjectImmediate The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36445604 Today we have a new hypothetical scenario: what if we stumble across a stone in the forest (or, in the case, at the bottom of the ocean) that on closer inspection, appears to have sophisticated wheels and machinery for some strange, unknown purpose? The image above is a computer-generated replica of the back panel of the Antikythera device, discovered by sponge divers in a rock found among wreckage from a shipwreck located offshore from the Greek island Antikthera in 1900. The mechanism is truly extraordinary, and appears to have been designed to track (among other things) the Metonic cycle, a period of every nineteen years during which the reoccur at the same time of year, and the movement of the five known planets at the time. The inner workings are composed of at least 30 gears with a precise number of … [Read more...]
The problem with pterosaurs
According to The Science TM pterosaurs (allegedly) lived between 228 and 66 million years ago. Does the existence of pterosaur fossils prove that Science is true, and the Bible is false? After all, a literal interpretation of the Bible suggests the Earth is young, between 6,000 to 10,000 years old. This number is achieved by adding together the chronological age of every named generation beginning with Adam through Jesus, plus another 2,000 or so years. Of course, the Bible also says that 1,000 years is like a single day to God, so there might be some wiggle room. But 4 billion years versus 10,000? That’s a lot of wiggle room. However, the preferred method used to date rocks that are allegedly millions of years old is radiometric dating, which is notoriously unreliable means of dating. This fact was proved by dating rocks known to have been produced by the Mt. Saint Helen’s eruption in 1980 as being between 350,000 and 2.8 million years old. Oddly enough, the argument against using radiometric dating is that the age of the sample tested was known, which made the test invalid. Knowing the age of the rock is what made the test interesting. If the only way to get “accurate” readings from a rock is to not know the age of that rock, the results of the test are based on a guess. Then there is the problem of soft tissue being found in dinosaur bones. In 2005 paleontologist Mary Schweitzer made international headlines when she announced the discovery of collagen fibers in the fossilized bones of a young Tyrannosaurus Rex. Schweitzer nearly lost her job for … [Read more...]
The Hypatia stone
The Hypatia stone is not only out of this world, it's literally from outside our solar system. The stone was discovered in western Egypt by a geologist named Aly Barakat in 1996. Compounds including polyaromatic carbons, silicon carbides, and nickel phosphide believed to predate the solar system have been detected within the rock. The basic elements are the same as materials commonly found within our solar system, but the ratios are all wrong. For example, a chondritic meteorite is normally composed of a small amount of carbon and more silicon. In the Hypatia stone, the composition is mostly carbon with a very small amount of silicon. Most of the rock includes the opposite ratios of carbon to silicon than we would expect to find on Venus, Mars, Earth, or the asteroid belt, for that matter. The discovery calls into question the theory of how our solar system was formed. The existing theory calls for a nebula of material to collapse into the sun while the residual material formed the planets and asteroid belt. The unique features of the stone suggest that the solar nebula wasn't composed from a consistent form of dust, which causes some problems for the generally accepted view of the formation of our solar system. The Hypatia stone is a unique meteorite with compounds that scientists have never found anywhere else in the solar system. It is a once-in-a-lifetime sort of discovery, but one that asks as many questions as it answers. … [Read more...]
The empty bowl
Amazing Gracie took her final breath Wednesday morning at 5:22 a.m. I know because I was right there beside her until the bittersweet end, comforting and stroking her through the night. Gracie had suffered a heart attack around 10 p.m. I knew this because she suddenly dropped to the floor and couldn't get back up. Her muscles would no longer support her, so I carried her outside and held her up while she did her business, then brought her back in next to my chair and put her down on the most comfortable dog bed in the house. Gracie had always been a tough little girl, a dwarf of a Norwegian Elkhound among a pack of giant German Shepherds but she ruled supreme among them. I nicknamed her the "Chupacabra" because of her fearless nature, because she would boss around our much bigger dogs. Gracie was an inspiration in more ways than one, and the subject of multiple short stories for Always a Next One. Even our Great Pyrenees gave Gracie a wide berth, barking at me until I gave him a protective escort into my office because Gracie lay by the door and prevented his entry. The big baby. When she tried to get up, I assumed that Gracie needed water and brought a small bowl to her, so she could drink while laying down. I knew it wouldn't be very long. We had reached the point where the only thing a vet could do would be to expedite her death, but Gracie wasn't suffering more than minor discomfort. I knew this because she wasn't whimpering, not even a little bit. If she'd been in any serious pain, we would not have been at home; we would have been at hte emergency vet … [Read more...]
