Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
What is hard to understand is that life itself has only emerged once.
Everything living is genetically related.
Perhaps every place suitable for the emergence of life is already occupied by existing life forms & any new competitor becomes food before developing into a self sufficient organism.What is hard to understand is that life itself has only emerged once.
Everything living is genetically related.
They both hide their heads in the sand.Just because two species are genetically related does not mean they will express the same traits. Example: jellyfish and ostrich
And yet all of the neural processes in the ostrich can be traced to jellies (Cnidaria) which were the first organisms to grow nerve cells. I guess it depends on how a person wants to define "traits". It may be sort of a cultural phenomenon (as in "culture wars") that we tend to think of traits in terms of gross appearance (no creationist wants to be told their ancestors were "dumb animals" despite the irony). But in a very liberal sense, there are certain traits that can be compared between any two creatures. The one I have been wondering about is the genetic similarity between humans and bananas. I'd like to know what those genes are doing inside of us!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrbni0tVBZ8
There is evidence of microorganisms not related to the ones now on Earth, living back in the era when only microorganisms had evolved. They have not been studied enough to guess why they didn't survive and evolve.What is hard to understand is that life itself has only emerged once. Everything living is genetically related.
Who knows what those genes are doing in us? I fully expect to see an explanation of this in the not-too-distant future.You probably already knew this, but for those who didn't:
http://www.omgfacts.com/Animals/You-share-50-of-your-genes-with-a-banana/50377
In retrospect I should have said I wonder what the genetic similarity is between humans and banana plants. It could be a coincidence I suppose, it just defies common sense that this is the case. Presumably this is related to protein and/or enzyme production. Interesting side note to get your mind off the bananas: there is a gene we carry which is related to the suppression of the white apricot homolog! Obviously there is a whole lot more to the picture here, but more to the point: we are 60% genetically similar to the fruit fly, so it's remarkable that this gene is associated with them as well.I can think of one trait I share with a banana, but decency forbids me from goin there..
I see Capt K is raising a point we sometimes see in science v creationism debates: Why did life only arise once? Actually there is no way to say how many times living organisms arose abiotically. It's just that there was a period of about 1-2 billion years when those first organisms (esp. cyanobacteria) appear to have dominated the Earth. This is evident from stromatolites (fossils of fiberous mats they build to form colonies). And during that time it's quite certain they rebuilt the atmosphere. In so doing they must have brought an end to the conditions under which abiogenesis could continue. But for all we know abiogenesis was widespread for some indefinite period of time, at least until the atmospheric chemistry changed too much, and/or the presence of feeders like cyanobacteria consumed the ingredients needed to promote abiogenesis.Fraggle Rocker said:Quote Originally Posted by Captain Kremmen
What is hard to understand is that life itself has only emerged once. Everything living is genetically related.
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There is evidence of microorganisms not related to the ones now on Earth, living back in the era when only microorganisms had evolved. They have not been studied enough to guess why they didn't survive and evolve.