(....or "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?" revisited) Mon, 19 Sep 2005 14:01:03 -0700 Warren Ockrassa wrote: >On Sep 18, 2005, at 5:23 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
>> At 07:09 PM Sunday 9/18/2005, Warren Ockrassa wrote: >>> What many might not grasp is how very much time is actually required. >>> It "only" took 500 MY for life to go from trilobites to us, but 500 >>> MY is a tremendous amount of time that really can't easily be >>> understood in human terms. Given time enough, evolution from one >>> species to another can happen and has in truth been recorded in >>> fossil records for large organisms however inconceivable it might >>> seem to some. > >> "Only" is applicable in the sense that from the Cambrian "explosion" >> to the present is <15% of the total age of the Earth, and trilobites >> are even more recent. Also in reality, most Trilobites were destroyed 250million years ago in Permian extinction event (lotsa chances for "MythicalRandomMutation" LOST there.) So from the surviving trilobites (and whatever else made it) to the first decent hominids is about 245 millions! (or 5% of the total age of the earth) >Yeah deep time. It's really pretty humbling to contemplate the range >of time that's been necessary to produce the planet and the life that >exists on it. We're really only beginning to understand a lot of the >processes involved and how they interact with one another...... (SNIP) >.......But all of that is absolutely nothing contrasted to deep time. And >sometimes it can be instructive to remember that our species will >eventually cease to exist. Either we'll all kill ourselves or no >matter what gene drift and evolution will continue and we'll >eventually have a creature that cannot interbreed with our current >stock. When that might happen is hard to guess, but it's certain that >it will. Homo sapiens as we know it today is doomed, like 90%+ of all >other terrestrial species, to extinction. hmmmm, perhaps... Or maybe HomoSapients-Universalis will be able to interbreed with all species..... I've allways wondered about that Polyploid Honey from "The Fifth Element"... What do you think she's got hiding in those genes? LeonardMatusik [EMAIL PROTECTED] JayZues-Kronian Warren, how depressing! _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l --------------------------------- Yahoo! for Good Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
