Evolution? How?

I might also mention that the reason the volcanic earth's oceans floor made life is directly in relation to the sun and the sun bringing the earth to the exact right temperature and balance with the moon to allow this type of chemical complexity of life to form. The sun is actually too hot for the earth... and life was the earth's way of fighting back.

RexRed wrote:

I might also mention that the reason the volcanic earth's oceans floor made life is directly in relation to the sun and the sun bringing the earth to the exact right temperature and balance with the moon to allow this type of chemical complexity of life to form. The sun is actually too hot for the earth... and life was the earth's way of fighting back.

The Earth is just a big molten rock with a crust. How can anything be *too hot* or *too cold* for it. It doesn't care.

When life formed here it formed in the conditions which were present at the time. As conditions changed, life adapted to the changes (evolution). Is it any surprise therefor that life now fits the temperature and conditions on the Earth?

Earth has characteristics unique within our solar system, allowing life not only to begin, but to evolve. Is it more reasonable to think that those conditions were selected to support life, and evolution as we see it, or that life (which we already know is adaptable), simply used the conditions available to it.

If you throw a penny onto the ground, it will come to rest somewhere. You can spend your time marveling at the remote chance that it came to rest in the exact place it finally did (what are the chances of it landing on *that* particular place?), or you can shrug and say, "eh, that's where it landed, so what". The pennies of the Universe are scattered amid the stars, forming conditions as they may, and rudimentary life may be common, adapting to what it can and failing where it can't.

If you toss pennies and already know where they are going to land, that is even better.

If the earth is just a rock and if it did make life it is a bit more than a rock, it is a parent. The sun/heat absorbing life on the earth is a reason for it's existence. Some think the earth's rocks are alive. I would not disagree with this because I do not really know. Crystal quartz etc... I also would not assume that the earth could not become "uncomfortable" if the sun did become too hot for it. Life may have been it's protective mechanism as is it's atmosphere. Mars may be dead... but the Earth seems to be alive. Maybe that is because the sun is not too hot...

In the diagram in the lower left hand corner there are two cells that just split. There is a single dna strand in each cell represented by two sides. One cell inserted onto another cell. But instead of dying the cell lived because of possibly brief heightened conditions on the earth. So the cell exchanged dna material and began to replicate as one unit but dual output male and female yet still needing the single carrier to fertilize... We see cells being merged and still surviving all of the time in nature... Siamese twins.

Slime molds, for instance, are really unicellular (monoploid) organisms most of the time. When food starts to run low, some species of slime mold emit chemical attractants that they can follow to form an aggregate called a "slug" -- which really does look and move a lot like a slug.

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In the diagram in the lower left hand corner there are two cells that just split. There is a single dna strand in each cell represented by two sides. One cell inserted onto another cell. But instead of dying the cell lived because of possibly brief heightened conditions on the earth. So the cell exchanged dna material and began to replicate as one unit but dual output male and female yet still needing the single carrier to fertilize... We see cells being merged and still surviving all of the time in nature... Siamese twins.

I'm kinda fuzzy on the diagram. I thnk it would be clearer in a linear diagram, with in-depth captions set out for each point.

As far as the sexual thing goes, though, you may not be that far off base, if I'm understanding you right. We have a tendency, as animals, to think of sex as we know it: the dominant life form is diploid, and sets aside a small population of cells to split into monoploid cells so that they can recombine with other monoploid cells and reproduce. Our is a highly specialized take on sexual reproduction, and it is much simpler in so-called "lower" organisms.

Slime molds, for instance, are really unicellular (monoploid) organisms most of the time. When food starts to run low, some species of slime mold emit chemical attractants that they can follow to form an aggregate called a "slug" -- which really does look and move a lot like a slug. This aggregate migrates a bit, and forms a "fruiting body" -- a stalk with a bulb on the top of it. At the top of the fruiting body, sex happens. That, these unicellular organisms merge, undergo genetic recombination, then undergo meiosis to form monoploids again. These encyst, dry out, and are dispersed on the breeze, hopefully to an area with more food (perhaps a centimeter away -- these buggers are really small).

It's bona fide sexual reproduction, in organisms where cells do not specialize (which cells in the fruiting are "stalk" and which ones get to have sex is purely a matter of where they end up in the structure). It's not much more complicated in the fungi, a little less complicated in protists that do the sexual gene shuffle, and far more complicated in plants and animals.

(Here's a slime mold link -- it may not jibe exactly with what I'm saying, since I'm pulling this life cycle out of the dim recesses of memory.)

(Plants do provide a nice window into sexual reproduction, though. Unlike animals -- which are, in fact, the exception -- most of the plants tissues are made of monoploid cells. Only the sexual structures are diploid.)