Try mollusks, the fossil record for them is much better than other groups.
Examples: Neoterebra indenta to N. dislocata, Chesapecten jeffersonius to C. madisonius, various members of Argopecten, as discussed in Waller, 1969, Busycon maximum to B. carica, Macrocallista reposta to M. greeni to M. nimbosa, and many others.
What research was that? Postgraduate, where?
Look, government will not save us. Capitalism will not save us. The only thing that can save us is Christianity that works as it should, or may be when Jesus comes back and christians are shocked out of their shoes.
It is strange that on BioLogos Christians have so little faith in their faith and atheists put down the very thing that has the ability to rescues humanity from the mess we have created.
I was not really talking about saving anything.
I dont put down Christianity, though some flying the banner
get no praise from me.
It would be nice if something did come along and put everything to
right.
David, very much appreciate the thoughts and engagement: If I might ask a few follow on questions:
How large and what kind of complex macromolecules (I assume we’re talking proteins/polypeptides or nucleotide chains?) have been observed to “self-assemble” under realistic prebiotic conditions (i.e., without significant interference from the investigator)? You mentioned “getting some sort of complex organic molecule is easy.” Any chance you can specify specifically what, and how large, of such complex molecules we’re talking about, and direct me to the relevant papers/journals, etc.?
You mentioned that homochirality “would” be self-reinforcing, and referenced “possible causes.” Has this been demonstrated, or are these hypothetical speculations? Again, can you point to any reference/journal/papers regarding?
To the best of my understanding, functional biomolecules don’t require a “non-racemic proportion”, they require actual homochirality. Do I misunderstand?
Thanks!
Peptide ligation by chemoselective aminonitrile coupling in water | Nature is one example of forming simple peptides under reasonable abiotic conditions; Nucleotide Selectivity in Abiotic RNA Polymerization Reactions - PubMed forming simple nucleic acids. Obviously, these are short of the structures needed for life; what they do demonstrate is that monomers can attach together under reasonably mundane conditions. More generally, organic chemical reactions happen and produce a wide variety of molecules. Of course, only certain ones are useful for the development of life. But simply building various molecules is not overly difficult.
Chiral molecules reacting generally produce chiral results - that part is rather mundane organic chemistry, so I’m not sure what sort of reference would be needed. Yes, several factors have been demonstrated to favor one stereoisomer over another; some of them are mentioned in the discussion at The origin of homochirality | Feature | Chemistry World. Molecules of opposite chirality tend to get in the way of polymerization (as discussed in that article, though it also notes exceptions). But, given the variety of possible natural ways to produce non-racemic mixes (such as those observed in meteorites), having a majority of one stereoisomer somewhere can promote further reactions biased towards a particular isomer. The abiotic soup would not need to be completely homochiral. Most biomolecules are homochiral, though exceptions exist and there are many achiral components as well. But that does not mean that the environment would have to be homochiral. After all, life today manages OK when encountering racemic mixtures.
The precise question is key. Do we have an exhaustive model of how all the necessary biomolecules formed and came together in the creation of life? No. But the formation of those molecules follows the basic laws of chemistry - there is nothing about them that could not in principle occur in some sort of primordial soup setting. This is a “glass half full or half empty” type of issue. Investigation into abiogensis is making slow but steady progress in coming up with possible ways that various steps could occur. It’s not running into a brick wall. But it is going into a fog, which could be hiding all sorts of obstacles.
We need to be saved or rescued from ourselves.
I doubt it. If people were willing to change, they would change, but people do not like change, so it would be painful to most if not all of us. Religion is about getting people to change because they want to, not because they have to.
Religion is about people working together and helping one another, which is what most people should want us to do. However, some people think that faith means they must give up their autonomy, so they are afraid of religion, just as some are afraid of marriage…
The whole notion of being " saved" is weird to me.
Religion means working together? Zactly what communism
is too.
I like what H.D . Thoreau said- that if he knew someone was headed
his way to do him good, he would run for his life.
Does this help?
I had the same problem when I first received Jesus Christ in my heart. My wife asked, “oh, so you’re ‘saved’?” I’m like, “uh, I don’t know, I believe in Him, I repent of my sins, I quit rebelling and I submit to Him, but I haven’t even thought about the afterlife’”.
What helped was learning that salvation is about the present, at least as much as it is about the future. It’s about being rescued from your own tendency to sin, and the consequences of that (immediate, future and eternal). “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Sin being understood as rebelling from God.
Just watch the evening news. We need to be saved. From ourselves, and more.
The thing of God offering to save me from himself is the weird part.
Needing to be saved from God is really weird! And there may be some Christian theology that still retains that traditional view of God. To me it’s not compelling, and (in it’s most caricatured form) not even philosophically coherent (thankfully!)
If God was an evil God that we need to be saved from, then we’re just screwed. Every one of us. Period. Plain and simple. Full stop. In that case we just pray to … well … just pray that you atheists are right. Better nothing at all than an evil God.
No. What we need to be saved from is ourselves and our own sin. Or as one of Nadia Bolz Weber’s theologian friends more colorfully put it (in a way that I can’t fully write out here) … HPFTU (Human propensity to …)
Ok…what I usually hear is that the unsaved go to a bad end after death
That might actually be an improvement over what would still be taught in some places:
That the unsaved go to a bad “forever” (rather than a bad end).
But yeah. I’m not surprised you’ve heard those things.
Ive seen it that for islam i get to hang by my hair in eternal fire.
Coz I dont cover in public.
[content here removed … and re-summarized in (hopefully) less hurtful ways.]
Basically - there are many Muslims (and Christians) who do have a traditional view of God that might be caricatured in that way. Some may delight in that characterization (i.e. - it may not be a caricature of their view at all), while others may find ways to maintain both a belief in a merciful God and yet at the same time also an eternally retributive hell. There are scriptures that make such beliefs understandable, which I should acknowledge even if I am persuaded away from that view.
When that is understood as abnegating personal agency by ‘turning the wheel over to Jesus’, I’d say it was weird too.
But Christianity is not the only culture within which transcendence requires more than what personal agency alone can accomplish. Zen monks who strive for it by trying to figure it out discover all they accomplish is more turbulence in the water, not stillness. Rationality is enough when combined with careful measurement and peer review in empirical matters but not for transcendence, if that means anything at all. If one begins by insisting on an empirical level of evidence for all declarations regarding the phenomenology of human experience, a great deal will be missed. Can I back that up with irrefutable evidence within the reality of objects? No, subjects are not completely explainable on that level. But those who insist on it are certainly able to carve out a life on that level if they wish.
So is that characterization.
It’s the majority view.
None of that. But never mind. I see it from the outside.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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