So...
... what about all the other claims in the Bible...?
SCIENCE and RELIGION AGREE! LIFE and Man ARE from CLAY
Topflight boffins say they have discovered that life - or anyway the necessary complex precursor chemicals without which life cannot appear - probably originated in ancient "clay hydrogels". "We propose that in early geological history clay hydrogel provided a confinement function for biomolecules and biochemical reactions," …
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 15:35 GMT DJO
Re: So...
I think this might be just a tiny bit "tongue in cheek", there is a slight difference between clays forming the substrate, confinement and some chemicals for early single cell-like structures to form, and squidging some clay into a man, breathing life into it and sending it on it's way. Of course I may be wrong.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:19 GMT Dave 126
Re: So...
Oh Jeebus...
I was just going to refresh my knowledge of the six days of creation in Genesis to see how well it tallies with science (the order is vaguely correct) but I got distracted by this moronic site:
http://www.missiontoamerica.com/genesis/days-of-creation.html
I like the way that it explicitly goes out of its way to show that there can be no compromise between science and the Bible ( or their interpretation of their version of a bible)
Oh, but it gets better- apparently T-Rex was a vegetarian (else it doesn't fit the scripture):
http://www.missiontoamerica.com/genesis/dinosaurs-people.html
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 18:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So...
@Dave 126
The problem in the US has been twofold: first, the Westward expansion outran civilisation, which meant that preachers outran scholarship, hence Bible literalists who didn't even realise the Bible wasn't originally in English. Second, American exceptionalism which tends to support the idea that mankind is unique, and that homo sapiens americanus is the very peak of the pyramid.
The chilling effect has had implications for anthropology, psychology and zoology, for a start (chimpanzees, for instance, can't have language because God only gave it to mankind) and even astronomy, where the plurality of worlds - something that was obvious to Pope in the 18th century - has to be defended as an idea against the people who believe in the uniqueness, in a vast universe, of life on Earth.
This is how it is possible to have, say, rocket scientists who believe that the Earth was created in 4004 BC. It is of course more difficult if you actually are a geologist or an astrophysicist.
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 05:54 GMT Wzrd1
Re: So...
Now, now. As a lifelong US citizen, born in the US, raised in the US, I have to disagree with your disparagement of US exceptionalism.
The US is chock full of exceptional people. The same exceptional people who we usually load into a short bus to special education.
You *are* correct that religious lunatics spread as fast, if not faster than western expansion. Interestingly enough, the most respected in "the hills" are not men who have a college degree in any form of divinities, but in the "preacher", who is as qualified in religion as the petroleum station attendant in religion or pretty much anything else.
I'll also disagree your your species name. It is obviously correct as pan sapiens americanus, though I'm being generous with the sapiens part in regards to the entire species.
I do agree with the suppression of science in the US. You're spot on.
However, the Earth *is* only 6000 years old or so, from a relativistic perspective, for a sparse few particles throughout the universe. ;)
Even money, far more particles *really* close to an event horizon as well.
-
Friday 8th November 2013 18:49 GMT heldeman
Re: So...
Science have proved the first humans came from Africa. So as a African born, let me correct you. Jesus made the first version 1.0 in the Magaliesberg mountains. You see the perfect clay for human conception only exist here. The holy tabernacel with enough clay hidden inside can be found here by truly religious people. If your faith is not strong enough you will not be able to see it. You can buy a chart worth $10,000,000 from me.
-
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 13:50 GMT Reginald Gerard
Re: So... (difficult if you actually are a geologist)
Well there is a Kurt Wise, B.A. (Chicago), Ph.D. (Harvard) that is infamous for the following...
"Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate. Here I must stand."
As Richard Dawkings so rightly sums this up "he volunteers that, even if all the evidence in the universe flatly contradicted Scripture, and even if he had reached the point of admitting this to himself, he would still take his stand on Scripture and deny the evidence."
With so many in the US blind to rational thought they are in serious trouble in the long run.
http://scepsis.net/eng/articles/id_2.php
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 21:44 GMT Youngone
Re: So...
Wow, http://www.missiontoamerica.com is awesome, it has completely changed my World view. As part of the explanation for vegetarian dinosaurs, he says "Big, sharp teeth do not mean an animal is a meat eater." which is correct of course, just think of sharks, no wait, think of tigers, um, no... lions. Well he did mention bears, so I suppose he must be right.
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 06:00 GMT Wzrd1
Re: So...
"which is correct of course, just think of sharks, no wait, think of tigers, um, no... lions."
Ever been bitten by a rabbit?
Oh, wrong TYPE of teeth. ;)
Besides, the last good evidence I saw, T-Rex wasn't a carnivore, it was a scavenger.
Seriously, I *am* entirely certain that T-Rex *ate*. What is open for interpretation. ;)
But, sharp teeth is relative. Snakes have sharp teeth, as do mice, rabbits, lions, tigers and bears.
Oh, my!
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 22:55 GMT Euripides Pants
Re: So...
"http://www.missiontoamerica.com/genesis/days-of-creation.html
http://www.missiontoamerica.com/genesis/dinosaurs-people.html"
Yep, crazy people tend to respond to the world around them in a crazy manner. This includes making crazy religions (not all of us think the Bible is a science textbook).
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 06:06 GMT Wzrd1
Re: So...
"Yep, crazy people tend to respond to the world around them in a crazy manner. This includes making crazy religions (not all of us think the Bible is a science textbook)."
Well, if one changes water to fluid, the interpretation changes entirely. ;)
In the beginning, there was nothing. The hyperfluid was separated from the solid... ;)
Hey, one can take any silly and run with it in a ludicrous way to make it almost reach reality.
In the beginning, there was nothingness.
Then, I farted. So, I declared, let there be a light upon the fart and it was so.
The light changed the fart into water and other gases and I noticed the STAIN, which I called land.
Water, land. It was good.
Eventually, I got fatigued and created man.
Man was loathsome, evil, corrupt, mass-extinction driving, so I gave man fire to burn himself to death with.
Damn! Man didn't.
So, I gave Man iron, to stab himself to death with.
Bugger! He was and remains too prolific!
So, I gave Man nuclear fire.
The jury is still out...
-
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 09:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So...
That'll be a struggle.
Which six days of creation order are you going to use?
The one at the start of genesis which goes Heaven and Earth, Light, Sky, Plants, Sun moon and stars, Fish and birds, Land animals, Man and woman at the same time.
Or the one a little bit later that goes Man, Plants, Birds and land animals, Woman.
I think "Innerrency" may be town in Wisconsin.
-
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 05:43 GMT Wzrd1
Re: So...
"I think this might be just a tiny bit "tongue in cheek", there is a slight difference between clays forming the substrate, confinement and some chemicals for early single cell-like structures to form, and squidging some clay into a man, breathing life into it and sending it on it's way."
True enough, as every clay I've looked at the chemical analysis of had a dearth of iron.
You remember iron, that hemo part of hemoglobin?
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: So...
The one about it being a good idea not to interrupt more important guests at dinner parties is a good one. As is the observation of Jeremiah that if you don't pay attention to the needs of the poorer parts of society you will get a lot of unrest.
The rest of it is somewhere in reliability between the Physical Review and the Daily Mail.
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:04 GMT Thecowking
Re: SCIENCE and RELIGION AGREE! LIFE and mankind ARE from CLAY
I'd say from clay is more accurate than made from clay in this context.
Humans are manifestly not made from various alumina or silicates, but are largely made of water and carbon and squidgy bits (technical term).
Like a farmer may be of the land but not made from actual cow shit (whether they talk it is a per farmer decision), life may be of clay but not made of it.
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:39 GMT Thecowking
Re: SCIENCE and RELIGION AGREE! LIFE and mankind ARE from CLAY
Then you're fully equipped to work, rest, and dare I say it even play.
I want a mars bar now. Or a Marathon/Snickers.
(Oddly I can't remember a single snickers advert, but that marathon one where all the runners appear and run over his car is still stuck in my head)
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 21:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: SCIENCE and RELIGION AGREE! LIFE and mankind ARE from CLAY
Probably shouldn't try to be a "pendant" when you're wrong.
"Are made from clay" would mean you could chop them up and you'd have pieces of clay.
"Are from clay" means there was some kind of process that started with clay and ended up with people.
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:07 GMT Dave 126
Pasteur disproved spontaneous generation in glass jars of modest size, which were subject to limited physical influences (tides, hot/cycling etc), over a finite period of time.
Had Pasteur's test apparatus been a geologically active planet and he had a few billion years to spare, he may have observed something different. Even if you attribute life on Earth to the Panspermia theory, that in turn must have originated somewhere.
Some clays are crystalline, and like many crystals their form can be influenced by the seed crystal from which they grew... the theory that there was an inorganic precursor to RNA has been around for a while (how could a complex mechanism such as the ribosome boot-strap itself); I think Dawkins mentions it in The Blind Watchmaker, along with the wry observation that carbon-based life might eventually prove to be a mere blip between silica and silicon, should intelligent machines ever supplant us meatbags.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Dave 126
In fact, as one of our lecturers commented, Pasteur was lucky. Some bacterial spores can survive 125C and it was only by chance that none of them made it through the initial treatment in his apparatus.
"how could a complex mechanism such as the ribosome boot-strap itself?"
I agree, now I'm over 60 I have considerable difficulty getting my boots on some mornings.
Feeble joking aside, the precursor to RNA could have been one of a number of carbon chain molecules that are "organic" from the point of view of chemists. The idea that some clays would have surface hydrogen bonds in an orientation which encouraged precursors to line up and eventually form chains isn't that far fetched.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:33 GMT DJO
Re: Life formed in clay?
Not polluted with life as such, more polluted with one of the most toxic and reactive elements known: Oxygen. Those pre-biotic reactions cannot happen now as the conditions are significantly different.
If you have access to BBC TV and don't mind being patronised rigid and having to watch a load of stupid CGI there's an hour long Richard Hammond program with about 5 minutes of useful info (and 55 minutes of pointless fluff) which might help a bit here.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 17:45 GMT toddf
Re: Life formed in clay?
Not a new idea. From wikipedia Abiogenesis: A clay model for the origin of life was suggested by A. Graham Cairns-Smith. Clay theory postulates that complex organic molecules arose gradually on a pre-existing non-organic platform, namely, silicate crystals in solution. That was in 1985.
This idea is to explain how complex organic molecules like RNA which is primary to all terrestrial life might have been naturally synthesized. It seems impossible that these could ever have happened from their precursor molecules in solution. Looks like this new work carries clay world work a bit further.
Suggestion: hear The Teaching Company lectures Origins of Life by Prof. Hazen. Very listenable, interesting and exciting, if you're interested in this subject. Much more engaging then reading text books for overview, general coverage. Audio version is fine, all you need, IMO. Great for long car trips. Can often get TTC lectures on ebay for a song.
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 01:07 GMT Burbage
Re: Life formed in clay?
Although it''s not a new idea this paper does provide a little more evidence in favour of it. Moreover, it suggests that things more probably kicked off (as popularly suspected) with strings of nucleotides, rather than, say, strings of amino acids, or life-forms from other stars. Whether it's worth taking an interest in the subject is a different question, given it's far too late to do anything about it now. But each to their own.
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 18:01 GMT Lars
Re: Life formed in clay?
"shouldn't we be able to observe that nowadays as well?". No we are not good at observing nowadays or anyodays for the simple reason we as individuals are too short living. Consider the age of our planet, say 5bn years, then considers a ruler 5km long from now to then. On that scale 2000 years is 2mm. 1M years is one meter. And that one meter is perhaps when we started to speak, one meter out of 5000 meter. And now we have mostly Americans who find it difficult to understand that the chimpanzee they saw 50 years ago has not produced a Batman or Bill during all those years. The damned thing is that it seems to work too well in the opposite direction. Then again if we study viruses and stuff like that we can actually observe things changing within our lifespan, and looking back in time we have archaeology which sounds more important than what it is, digging in the junk left behind, and there is a hell of a lot of that. What do they teach you at school.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 22:46 GMT David Pollard
Re: Life formed in clay?
"Shouldn't we be able to observe that nowadays as well?"
We can indeed observe more and more details of plausible processes. Using your favourite search engine look for something like ["Jack Szostak" "origin of life" clay] and take a look at the research he and others have been doing during the past decade or so and the progress that has been made.
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 18:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Interesting thought
"If God does exist then it would be because he like a good laugh"
God is female, and we all know that (some) women have an affinity towards small, helpless and not terribly bright creatures (such as men and cats).
She likes to have a small planet to mother. But remember that mothers are not always terribly nice people.
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:54 GMT Martin Gregorie
Re: Interesting thought
This idea about clay shows it wasn't some science-hating[*] god that got life going here: it was Aliens From Outer Space who, being fearsomely scientific, knew all about the generative properties of clay and started the process running before blasting off for some place else that already had bright lights, booze and barmaids
[*] This is self-evident: all True Believers know that they are Made In God's Image, so if they hate science, then obviously He hated science. QED
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 20:15 GMT Lars
Re: Interesting thought
"If God exists then why would he bother with something as universally insignificant as mankind."
We all make mistakes, he created himself in the image of us, too late now, nothing doing. Sometimes I think, seriously, that M.Ali had more sense wanting to stay more anonymous as to his appearance, now in trouble, though, as he refuses to show his passport picture. Father Christmas is a dear friend since childhood, (not as well dressed as the pope but with better transportation and gifts not bills), but the Tooth Fairy is a damned disappointment as he has taketh more than he has giveth lately.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:46 GMT Toby Murcott
Misunderstanding Peer Review
You write:
"Meanwhile the scientific community has also endorsed Luo and his colleagues' general gist, as the boffins' paper (pdf) outlining the role of clay in the appearance of life is published tomorrow in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports."
Nope. The fact that it is appearing in a peer review journal means that two or possibly three referees, and the journal editor, think the work is of such merit as to be published. This is a long way from endorsement by the scientific community. That will only come after the research has been scrutinised much more widely. Publication in a peer review journal is the first step towards wider endorsement but it is a big mistake to assume the former means the latter.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 18:04 GMT ian 22
Re: Misunderstanding Peer Review
Sadly, "peer-reviewed" may have little meaning. Some research is so expensive or time-consuming that a reviewer can do little but check the sums. A recent study found more than 50% of peer-reviewed articles (and I can't be arsed to find a link to the study) are utter bollocks, a product of the "publish or perish" system currently in place.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 19:10 GMT Don Jefe
Re: Misunderstanding Peer Review
Yep. And more precisely, that your methodologies are solid and could have produced the results you state. Peer review does not mean that the jury upholds or falsifies your findings,or replicates your experiment or 'checks your work' that's for other scientists to do.
The poor understanding of the scientific process is directly responsible for so many stupid headlines and policy decisions. It's just awful really. Nobody in the scientific community views peer review as validation, that's not what it's for. More than anything it's so that other scientists don't have to waste their time double checking basic methodologies before building on (or refuting) the findings.
A ~decent analogy is that of a materials standard: If I'm buying 50 tons of T6 then the methods used to determine that the T6 is in fact T6 are valid, and if they are followed will result in the T6 acting like I expect. I don't have to go to Australia and do analysis of the ore itself.
Because a journal, any journal, publishes a study that absolutely does not end the science. That's only the beginning.
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 16:53 GMT T. F. M. Reader
Only Catholicism has scientific foundation... Only in England...
<<The Hebrew word translated here as "dust" can also mean "clay">>
Sorry, but no, it cannot. The Hebrew word is עפר, which means dust (also as "remains", in the "dust to dust" sense that is obvious in the context), dirt, soil, or earth, but I am not aware of any "clay" meaning ("clay" in different contexts is represented in Hebrew as טיט, חומר, חרס). "Clay" seems to me lost - or, rather, acquired - in translation.
I don't know how much one can blame the later influence of the Prometheus myth. Though the latter pre-dates the first translation of the Old Testament into Greek, Septuagint, by several centuries, the Septuagint (made by Jews) also says "dust".
I checked the English version of the Jerusalem Bible and the King James's version - both say "dust", not "clay".
As for the Quran, it offers different hypotheses in different places, and makes some attempts to reconcile them by suggesting they occurred in stages, etc.
Thus the newest scientific hypothesis agrees only with the *English* Catholic Bible (e.g., the Italian text says "polvere" and the French one - "poussiere", both words emphatically - strongly suggesting small particles rather than an amorphous substance - mean "dust", not "clay") - the only one I found that uses "clay".
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 19:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Only Catholicism has scientific foundation... Only in England...
Clay is just wet dust, though.
No, it isn't. Clays are quite distinct from the stone particulates we call sand. You can pulverise granite or silica as much as you like and dampen it, and never get clay.
The Wikipedia article is quite misleading at a casual read as it goes on about particle size, without mentioning simply and clearly that clays are hydrated compounds of silicon and alkali or alkaline earth metals. This is important because a key concept in the idea of life beginning on clay substrates is the role of the hydrogen bonds of the hydroxy groups.
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 17:54 GMT David Pollard
Not this first time for this notion
A few years ago Jack Szostak and his team at Massachusetts General Hospital had looked at how montmorillonite can catalyse the assembly of RNA and aid the growth of vesicles. Before that, in the 1960s, Graham Cairns-Smith at Glasgow had suggested that clay beds might act as something like an assembly line, making increasingly complex chemicals. Fascinating stuff...
-
-
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 05:54 GMT T. F. M. Reader
Re: So
אמת (truth) would be appropriate and consistent with most Eastern European traditions. It is also a safe design - being a Reg reader you will appreciate the built-in "stop button": erase the first letter (א) with a wet cloth or whatever works on clay and you get מת (dead) - the usual way to "deactivate" a golem.
No need to thank me - I'll get my coat before you start QA.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 19:43 GMT Primus Secundus Tertius
@Canuck
Yes, I thought that was the fashionable hypothesis.
But the book by Cairns-Smith, 'Genetic Takeover' is a fascinating read. He is/was a chemist who knows the practicalities of organic chemistry. His book is in three parts.
Part 1 demolishes the old 'organic soup' hypothesis with two major points. First, organic chemistry will lead to a filthy tarry mess unless things are well controlled. Secondly, in an early ocean things would have been far too dilute for anything to happen.
Part 2 is the clay hypothesis. 'Mud is fascinating stuff', he writes at one point. Yes, if you are into the subtleties of silicate chemistry.
Part 3 notes there seems to be hierarchy of organic compounds. Some, e.g. acetic acid, can form almost anywhere, but the more complicated amino acids must be manufactured carefully.
It is not difficult to replace part 2 with the idea that superheated water deep in the earth's crust, where silica dissolves like sugar, might have seen some interesting developments. It is a fairly steady environment with a gentle flow of energy from a slowly cooling planet. Then things moved nearer the surface, and into the bottom of the oceans; but there may still be relics deep down.
-
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 20:18 GMT Longrifle
Bibliography
So, when was this part of the Bible written and by whom, roughly in the form we recognize today as Genesis/Old Testament? Supposedly by Hebrews around Daniel's time (yes, Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego) during their Babylon captivity. This was at least a couple thousand years after man was formed from dust per Genesis. However, they did not have access to today's wonderful geoscientific knowledge that has been gained at the expense of from pretty smart people down thru the ages. Hmm lemme see, earliest life forms that left behind any trace was basically blue-green algae at about 3.8 billiion years ago (BYA). This was only 900 million years or so after Earth's formation at about 4.7BYA. That's not a very long time for the rock and water cycles to team up to form clay, which is a byproduct from weathering granite. Plus the algae was floating on the ocean's surface, which is a long ways from most typical dust/clay environments. But the Hebrews who wrote Genesis didn't know any of this, or have it revealed to them, so they just went with the verbal history version of things that was handed down to them. Bottom line: Bible is poetry, not Science, and Science is a tech/how-to manual, not meant for religious/spiritual guidance.
-
Wednesday 6th November 2013 21:49 GMT phil dude
no citation...
I read the article and nothing religious was cited. Why the bible labelled media fanfare...? I mean, stopped clocks are correct twice a day....
This is a nice experiment. I would be very impressed if an alternative chemical mechanism for molecular reproduction could be constructed that used different molecules....!
Beer, because that is where life starts...;-)
P.
-
Thursday 7th November 2013 00:16 GMT chris lively
Yet another article written by someone who failed to even do basic research on the content. As has been pointed out: the research highlighted isn't new. Just a case of another moron "scientist" claiming to discover something that others have already published.
Meanwhile The article writer ( note that I purposely don't use the term journalist ) mischaracterizes major religious texts by claiming they say something they clearly don't.
Please do the world a favor and stop writing articles until you can figure out what "check your facts" means.
-
-
Friday 8th November 2013 08:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Tony Hart was right all along!
I spotted Tony Hart outside Waitrose in Godalming a number of years ago. I wanted to thank him for his TV programmes (Vision On) that inspired me all those years ago. Unfortunately, I was too star struck to do it. Now that he is gone, I wish I had. Top geezer, Tony Hart.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
