But how is half a billion years a “precise estimate”?:
Now, MIT scientists have a precise estimate for when cyanobacteria, and oxygenic photosynthesis, first originated. Their results were published on September 29, 2021, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
They developed a new gene-analyzing technique that shows that all the species of cyanobacteria living today can be traced back to a common ancestor that evolved around 2.9 billion years ago. They also found that the ancestors of cyanobacteria branched off from other bacteria around 3.4 billion years ago, with oxygenic photosynthesis likely evolving during the intervening half-billion years, during the Archean Eon.
Jennifer Chu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “MIT Scientists Zero In on the Origins of Earth’s “Single Most Important Evolutionary Innovation”” at SciTechDaily (September 30, 2021)
One maven points out that the only thing the researchers actually did was estimate the assumed timing of the origin of photosynthesis via molecular clock techniques.
The really remarkable thing is that, if they are right, photosynthesis, despite its complexity, began in the first billion years that there was any kind of life.
Botanist Margaret Helder writes to comment “The point to reflect on is what all those heterotrophs did for food prior to the appearance of the autotrophs. Any organic molecules in the environment would be quickly digested if there were only organisms around with no capacity to reduce carbon.”
Hmmm. Were some of them metabolizing compounds and elements directly?
The paper is open access.
In the words of Sergeant Shultz “I gave them a definite, maybe!”
I was hoping the “precise estimate” would give the time of day as “just after dawn”.
As to: “the only thing the researchers actually did was estimate the assumed timing of the origin of photosynthesis via molecular clock techniques.”
And ‘molecular clock techniques’ are notoriously unreliable.
As population geneticist David Reich of Harvard honestly admitted, “The fact that the clock is so uncertain is very problematic for us,” ,,, “It means that the dates we get out of genetics are really quite embarrassingly bad and uncertain.”
The main flaw in Darwinists using molecular clocks to try to prove common ancestry is that the ‘molecular clocks’ themselves are not based on any natural law, and/or physical constant, but are instead, more or less, directly based on the unproven assumption of common ancestry itself.
In short, Darwinists using molecular clocks to prove common ancestry turns out to be a circular argument for Darwinists.
i.e. Since Molecular clocks are not based on any natural law, and/or physical constant, but are instead, more or less, based on the Darwinian assumption of common ancestry itself, then this of course means that ‘molecular clocks’ are ripe for abuse by Darwinists in order to make the molecular data fit into their a-priori assumption of common ancestry. i.e. As far as hard science itself is concerned, “What good is a measurement device if you can stretch it or squeeze it to fit preconceived ideas?”
Thus, whenever you hear Darwinists claiming that molecular clocks have proven this, or have proven that, keep a type grip on your wallet, because the fact of the matter is that you are most likely being had.
Moreover, when we allow the genetic data to speak for itself, instead of “Finagling Molecular Clocks to Fit Darwinism”, then the genetic data is actually very, very, good at falsifying the Darwinian assumption of common ancestry and validating the design model:
Moreover, physical evidence itself contradicts what they claim to have proven via their very questionable “molecular clock technique”.
In short, there are several lines of physical evidence that contradict their finding and suggest that oxygenic photosynthesis has been present on earth since life was first created on earth.
Moreover, in direct contradiction to Darwinian presuppositions, the basic chemistry of these ancient microbial communities that inhabit stromatolites has remained remarkably unchanged throughout its long, extended, history on earth.
Moreover, besides the long term stability of these diverse microbial communities directly contradicting Darwinian presuppositions, the presence of these diverse microbial communities, ‘as life was beginning on Earth’, makes the Origin of Life problem, (as intractable as that problem is for Darwinists), exponentially worse for Darwinists.
These following sites have illustrations that show some of the interdependent biogeochemical complexity that is involved in these ancient ‘Microbial Mats’ ,,,
Please note that if even one major type of bacteria group did not exist in these ancient and diverse microbial communities, in the complex environmental cycle of biogeochemical interdependence that was illustrated on the preceding sites, then all of the other interdependent bacteria would soon die out. This essential biogeochemical interdependence, of the most primitive different types of bacteria that we have evidence of on ancient earth, makes the origin of life ‘problem’ for Darwinists that much worse. i.e. Now not only do Darwinists have to explain how the ‘miracle of life’ happened once, but now they must also explain how all these different types bacteria, in this irreducibly complex biogeochemical web, ‘miraculously’, arose in time for the other bacteria to continue to survive for any extended period of time.
Moreover, besides these ancient and diverse microbial communities remaining unchanged in their basic chemistry throughout their long, extended, history on earth, and in further direct contradiction to Darwinian presuppositions, it is also found that the oldest fossil evidence for bacteria that we have, ‘surprisingly’ revealed that the ancient bacteria “looked exactly like modern species,” and the “similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times,”
Moreover, this ‘extreme’ similarity is also found to be present at the molecular level too.
To the disbelieving shock of Darwinists, “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.”
Evolutionists were so disbelieving at this stunning lack of molecular change, (far less change than was expected under Darwinism), that they insisted the stunning similarity had to be due to modern contamination in Vreeland’s experiment. Yet the following study laid that objection to rest by finding some ancient DNA sequences that were completely unique and therefore could not have possibly been the result of modern contamination:
And so it goes, Darwinists are contradicted, and/or falsified, by the empirical evidence time and time again, but alas, they never accept the fact that theory has been falsified by the empirical evidence.
Thus, whatever Darwinists may be doing, they are CERTAINLY NOT doing science!
Thus, whatever Darwinists may be doing, they are CERTAINLY NOT doing science!
Oh. I thought Steven Weinberg certainly did science:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1979/weinberg/biographical/
and certainly believed in Darwinian evolution: “Weinberg believes that evolution, if taught properly, will reduce a student’s sense of his or her ‘own special importance.’ ” http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p.....nberg.html
Groovamos, speaking of Weinberg, you may be interested in this honest confession that Weinberg made to none other than Richard Dawkins himself about the ‘fix’ that Atheists were in:
Also there is this other honest confession from Weinberg, “In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,”
In fact Weinberg, again an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and precisely because it undermined his Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
For instance, this recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
And as Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
Moreover, Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘freedom of choice’ loophole back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
So, a little more than 8,000-10,000 years ago, then?
“Molecular Clocks and the Puzzle of RNA Virus Origins”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC150674/
it is funny to see, that all these irreducible complex chemical systems like photosynthesis evolved in the beginning (billions of years ago), and THEN NEVER AGAIN :)))) and no Darwinist is concerned….
there are 3 types of photosynthesis.
C3, C4, CAM (each of it, crazy complex)
Darwinists claim, that C3 evolved only once, billions of years ago, …but, the C4 + CAM types, despite biochemically complex, evolved at least 60 times repeatedly (independently).
60 times !!!! This irreducible complex systems evolved 60 times independently on various lineages !!!
Who on Earth can buy this non-sense ?
Moreover, Darwinists claim, that C4 type is more complex than C3 types (the one which evolved only once in deep past)
Help me decide which claim is more absurd…
As Mark Twain put it, “ “just a million years ago next November”
Martin_r
Being a Darwinist does indeed seem to entail a profound lack of curiosity for people who pride themselves on being rational and scientific, (as they take pains to repeatedly remind us)
BA77
Excellent !!!