BBC - David Attenborough - First Life - 1. Arrival (1/4)

Travelling to the fog bound coastline of Newfoundland and the Australian outback, Attenborough unearths the earliest forms of animal life to exist on Earth.

These bizarre and wonderful creatures are brought to life with the help of cutting edge scientific technology and photorealistic visual effects.

From the first animal forms that moved to the first mouths that ate, these were creatures that evolved the traits and tools that allow all animals, including ourselves, to survive to this day.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• BBC
• David
• Attenborough
• First
• Life
• Arrival
• evolution
• science
• origin
• of
• life
• biology

[Jackjasminesu]

if you couldnt explain the origin of life properly, how could you come up with a long theory over very long period of time to explain every creatures evolution. it iz totally philosopy in a mask of science

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 Even the shortest estimation of the age of the Earth using moon recession involve billions of years, Slichter (1963) 1.4 to 2.3 billion. This was known to be in error then because it uses a solid model, taking the mass of the tidal bulges as a solid object and ignoring liquid friction. This friction depends on continental distribution, depth of oceans and the free water in the oceans. More recent calculations show no discrepency with radiometric dating. (Touma,Wisdom,1994)

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 Occam's razor, the principal that the simpler explaination, or as he put it, lex parsimoniae, is to be prefered, would favour the forces and mechanisms we know. You cannot establish a progenitor nor a mechanism without resorting to magic and incantation. Your superstition isn't an explaination at all.

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 What about their clothes?

[adelaide102]

@gamesbok So if humans have an afterlife do Apes have one ? If not, then an afterlife must be a product of evolution. Which is it ?

[adelaide102]

@gamesbok Ockham advocated that the simpler explanations were usually the more correct. The creationist view is far simpler than the very long and complex route of evolution. Chemists have tried to create life in exactly the same conditions as in the 'primeaval soup', but failed to produce life. With all our knowledge of chemistry we cannot produce life. Life is not an inevitable consequence of chemistry, as the absence of life the rest of the universe shows. Not a good theory.

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 Obviously observations of ghosts show that people have an afterlife, and so do their clothes.

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 It isn't rational to believe in magic.

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 Either we can investigate the possibility that life is the inevitable consiquence of chemistry and the forces we know and understand, or we can abandon any attempt to understand anything and supersticiously attribute life to an unknown entity using methods that are mysterous, in a word 'magic' Shame on you, Occam would kick your ass.

[gamesbok]

@adelaide102 Again the dishonest misrepresentation. If, as seems increasingly likely, life is no more than chemestry, chance doesn't come into it. It's deterministic. Given the appropriate conditions life is inevitable.