Scientific studies: Religious people are less intelligent than atheists

Researchers have discovered prebiotic (pre-life) molecules in interstellar space that may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars.

The molecules were detected in a giant cloud of gas some 25,000 light-years from Earth, near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy — specifically, the star-forming region Sagittarius(Sgr) B2(N), which is the richest interstellar chemical environment currently known.

One of the newly-discovered molecules, called E-cyanomethanimine (E-HNCHCN) is one step in the process that chemists believe produces adenine, one of the four nucleobases that form the “rungs” in the ladder-like structure of DNA. The other molecule, called ethanamine, is thought to play a role in forming alanine, one of the twenty amino acids in the genetic code.

“Finding these molecules in an interstellar gas cloud means that important building blocks for DNA and amino acids can ‘seed’ newly-formed planets with the chemical precursors for life,” said Anthony Remijan, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO).

The newly-discovered interstellar molecules are intermediate stages in multi-step chemical processes leading to the final biological molecule. Details of the processes remain unclear, but the discoveries give new insight on where these processes occur.

Previously, scientists thought such processes took place in the very tenuous gas between the stars. The new discoveries, however, suggest that the chemical formation sequences for these molecules occurred not in gas, but on the surfaces of ice grains in interstellar space.

The discoveries were made possible by new technology that speeds the process of identifying the “fingerprints” of cosmic chemicals. Each molecule has a specific set of rotational states that it can assume.

When a molecule changes from one state to another, a specific amount of energy is either emitted or absorbed, often as radio waves at specific microwave frequencies (between 9 and 50 GHz) that can be observed with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia.

New laboratory techniques have allowed astrochemists to measure the characteristic patterns of such radio frequencies for specific molecules. Armed with that information, they then can match that pattern with the data received by the telescope.

Laboratories at the University of Virginia and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics measured radio emission from cyanomethanimine and ethanamine, and the frequency patterns from those molecules were then matched to publicly available data produced by a survey done with the GBT from 2008 to 2011.

A team of undergraduate students participating in a special summer research program for minority students at the University of Virginia (U.Va.) conducted some of the experiments leading to the discovery of cyanomethanimine. The students worked under U.Va. professors Brooks Pate and Ed Murphy, and Remijan. The program, funded by the National Science Foundation, brought students from four universities for summer research experiences. They worked in Pate’s astrochemistry laboratory, as well as with the GBT data.

The researchers reported their findings in Astrophysical Journal Letters and (open-access) ArXiv

There is no evidence that snakes can talk.

There is no evidence that Satan exists. Therefore it is not reasonable to assert that they do.

No evidence with empirical certainty, you say. OK. I base my belief on the preponderance of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence. Read the paper. Watch TV. Plenty of anecdotal evidence for Satan's existence, I say.

JimmyJ said: You're essentially quoting the Bible to prove its own validity. Surely you see the flaw in this reasoning? There's scarce evidence that Jesus even existed at all.

The ignorant jury, you mean?

There was a time when 90% of all people thought that African americans were inferior as well. As far as the people who actually know what they're talking about (scientists), the jury is not out and hasn't been out for about 150 years.

You are in desperate need of some type of critical thinking/logic-based class.

JimmyJ said: Please name one "atheist book" that I've quoted. Please define "atheist book".
All of those "Gospels" were written over a hundred years after Jesus' supposed existence. Why is it that no non-Christian writers ever wrote of Jesus' existence in the early CE?
Did the digs prove that Jesus lived there? You speak as though they have.

JimmyJ said: the biblical account for creation contradicts almost every scientific study

For the record gospel-writers Matthew and John were actual disciples, gospel-writer Mark was a mate of Jesus's right-hand man Peter, and gospel-writer Luke was a mate of Paul.

I believe that Romeo uses the "pulled it out of my ass" method of scholarly investigation.

Romeo proclaimed: gospel-writers Matthew and John were actual disciples, gospel-writer Mark was a mate of Jesus's right-hand man Peter, and gospel-writer Luke was a mate of Paul.
Rosborne claimed: That information is at odds with most professional historians and biblical scholars. So where are you getting your information?

Quote:

Romeo proclaimed: gospel-writers Matthew and John were actual disciples, gospel-writer Mark was a mate of Jesus's right-hand man Peter, and gospel-writer Luke was a mate of Paul.
Rosborne claimed: That information is at odds with most professional historians and biblical scholars. So where are you getting your information?

'Professional historians' will write any crap to sucker atheists into buying their books, and a crackpot 'bible scholar' is still a crackpot even if he's got a truckload of diplomas..
We know enough facts about the gospel-writers to do a soap series based on them-

I believe that Romeo uses the "pulled it out of my ass" method of scholarly investigation.