How have microbes contributed to the evolution of life on earth?
154518
>Science itself refutes Darwinism.\n• According to the theory of evolution, at some time in the distant past there was no life in the universe -- just elements and chemical compounds. Somehow, these chemicals combined and came to life.\n\n• However, scientists don't really know how life came to be. Even Stanley Miller, whose experiments are cited in most biology text books, says that the origin of life is still unknown. The idea that dead material can come to life all by itself is not consistent with scientific observation.\n\n• The leading mathematicians in the century met with some evolutionary biologists and confronted them with the fact that, according to mathematical statistics, the probabilities for a cell or a protein molecule coming into existence were nil. They even constructed a model on a large computer and tried to figure out the possibilities of such a cell ever happening. The result was zero possibility! - Wistar Institute\n\n• Professor Edwin Conklin observed, "The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the Unabridged Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop."\n\n• Under normal circumstances, creatures give birth to the same kind of creatures. It is established scientific fact that like begets like. On rare instances, the DNA in an embryo is damaged, resulting in a mutant child that differs in some respect from its parent. Although a few mutations have been scientifically observed that are beneficial, most mutations produce inferior offspring. For the theory of evolution to be true, there must be a fantastic number of creative mutations that produce new kinds of offspring which are better suited for survival, and therefore are favored by natural selection.\n\n• Darwinists claim that the reptile-to-mammal evolution is well documented. But for reptiles to evolve into mammals at least some of these transformations must have happened: \n• Scales had to have mutated into hair. \n• Breasts had to have evolved from nothing. \n• Externally laid eggs had to evolve into soft-shelled eggs that were nourished by an umbilical cord and placenta in a womb. \n\n• It has never been observed in any laboratory that mutations can cause one species to turn into another. Despite this, evolutionists believe that given enough time, some animals will eventually evolve into other creatures. \n\n• Evolutionists claim that although we have not actually observed these things happening, that does not mean that they are impossible. They say it simply means they are extremely improbable. Evolutionists think the world has been around long enough for all these highly improbable things to happen.\n\n• Sir Fred Hoyle, of Cambridge University stated that statistically the chances of one cell evolving was the same as a tornado passing through a junkyard and giving you a fully functional Boeing 747.\n\nhttp://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/arguments.shtml
394918
That doesn't answer anything.  Whenever we talk of God or Aliens creating life on earth, we have to ask "Where did God or the aliens come from?".\n\nRequiring bigger smarter beings for creation of life leads into infinite regress.\n\nEvolution neatly solves the problem by showing how more complex beings can come from simpler beings with an input of energy.
589476
The theories could very well be true, unless proven otherwise. If you are looking at it from the theological point of view, then consider this:\n\nThe original ingredients for the single cellular organism from which all life on earth originated must have been placed there by some greater power. Maybe from time to time that power guided evolution to humanity, and maybe later that power will guide evolution to some beings better than us?
835853
I assume you mean life on another planet since you can see the microscopic life here on Earth with a microscope, which is pretty good proof.\n\nThere is some disputed evidence of fossilized microbes in a meteorite that originated on Mars. Nothing more than that though.
789855
I go with the Big Bang theory and that our planet just happened to be in the right place at the right time. If our planet grew life then there is the possibility that other planets in other galaxies grew life as well. We just happened to get the right amount of heat and light from the sun.
1043621
I think you might be referring to an ice age that occurred in the Proterozoic leading to the pre-Cambrian explosion?  There was also some theory's about volcanoes and the creation of the atmosphere as we know it.  When photosynthetic life evolved they respired O2 which not many of the other (anaerobic)organisms could breath, and over millions of years plants killed the animals.  (hows that for a mind loop?) an animals had to start all over again leading to the pre-Cambrian explosion.  It was an evolutionary explosion because there so many niches left vacant by the anaerobic organisms. so they diversified, only the strongest survived and eventually achieved a level of equilibrium (so to speak). Or another possibility is that i am indeed full of crap.
83045
"Evolutionary chains" go a long way towards explaining the development of life, including human life, from simpler organisms, but we haven't gotten very far yet in explaining how the mutation and reproduction systems that natural selection requires  got started in the first place.  Some researchers, and by that I mean mainstream ones who fully accept evolution as the fundamental organizing theory of biology, have tried to work around this problem by postulating that the original lifeforms didn't evolve on Earth at all.  However, while this changes the debate somewhat, by allowing far greater timelines for life to evolve, it still begs the question:  OK, if life evolved somewhere else first, how did it get started *there*?  I think we are much better served by looking at whether life could have evolved here, under the conditions of the primitive earth as we know them.
1108935
Origins of life were initially suspcted to be of creation from God.\nThen the Theory of Evolution kicked in, suggesting all life came from a single cell.\nNow life came from a stone that banged into earth 4 billion years ago.\nBut are any of them true if we keep finding more truths. If breakthroughs always happen, wouldn't there be an endless amount of breakthroughs? So what we all know now is not the truth?\n\nThe origins of life on earth?\nDon't even think about it.
376003
The first living cells were (big word coming up) heterotrophic anaerobes. This meant that they were other feeders (fed on naturally occuring amino acids) without oxygen. It wasn't until later that photosynthetic (organisms able to use energy from the Sun) developed. \n\nhttp://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/kids_space/qlife_ani.html\n\nThere is still debate within the scintific community if viruses are actually living.  The need a living host in order to function and reproduce.\n\nhttp://www.beyondbooks.com/lif72/2c.asp
261613
Prior to there being any life, all the carbon on Earth was in the form of simple molecules that form without living things. Amino acids, single nucleotides, a few sugars. \n\nImagine if one took all the living things in the world, and all the formerly living things that are now coal, gas and oil, and broke them down into those simple original molecules. Now dissolve all that into the oceans.\n\nWhat you would have is a weak broth. Weak, but very nutritious. If a single modern bacteria was released in this broth, it would easily take over the Earth. \n\nEven a much simpler form of life than a modern bacteria would be able to multiply in the primordial soup. One could see competition between these lifeforms, minimal at first, escalate into war once most of the nutrients were used up. Evolution would then favor the development of more complexity.
898093
The basics on the origin of life:\nPhospholipids formed into micelles, or little circles.  They were arranged such that the polar head groups were facing into aqueous solution and the polar lipid tail groups were facing in toward the other polar lipid group:\nH---T  T---H into a sphere.  Inside these closed environments, it was possible for certain reactions to take place.  The reactions eventually needed to be self-replicating; that is, they needed to react to form something to pass the information for the reaction down to another micelle.  Eventually, the micelles evolved into actual cells.  Alberts "Molecular Biology of the Gene" has a great explanation of this process.\nThere so far hasn't been an experiment to create life- that process took millions of years naturally.  However, Stanley Miller did an experiment that showed that organic molecules, such as nucleic acids, amino acids, etc. could be formed from basic molecules under the conditions present in early Earth.  This experiment was incredibly reproducible- many people tried it, changing around different variables, trying to disprove it, but it kept working.  That's an incredible testament.
604819
1) No animals started the evolutionary chain. Animals didn't appear for over a billion years after the first life appeared.\n\n2) The first lifeforms most definitely were not amoebae. Amoebae are very complex EUKARYOTE. The lifeforms were of prokaryotes. \n\n3) The first lifeforms that we would definitely recognise as living were Archae, primitive relatives of the bacteria.
624279
this is a difficult one. theres the initial 'soup' of early compounds that spawned life, theres the meteorite theory of cells from other planets gettin a start here, and theres a possible link between both. this may be that chemicals from the many rocks from outer space, the heat of the planet then, and the interaction of all the early substances may have harboured a good environment for a cell 2 form, with a membrane, enclosing some of these compounds within it.
401982
E.\nBecause bacteria can obtain nutrition chemically, they can live in conditions that no-one thought possible, for example in volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean.
1003505
the earliest known form of life is cyanobacteria which grew in bluish green pod like colonies approximately 3.4 billion years ago.
57971
There has been bacteria found on mars before.  I also think that it whould be silly to make one planet only contain life forms.  There is a huge univese and I'm pretty sure that there is.
248450
Archaea are associated with being extremeophiles - that is living in an extreme environments where other bacteria are thought to be unable to live- such as very hot, acidic, or very cold. They are also thought to be some of the most ancient organisms on earth.  A good source of info and pictues is at http://www.theguardians.com/Microbiology/gm_mbm04.htm\n\nBacteria is now in a different domain than the archeaea.  This is the " classic" bacteria we think of and have known about for quite awhile. You can learn more about bacteria from http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/bacteria.html if you like.