The Gaian Controversy

In chapter 6, Richard opens up with ultimate origins. He suggests that the theistic view should be considered in the work of scientists to probe the origin of life in the distant past. Richard speaks of Pasteur’s demolition of the spontaneous generation theory, which created a problem for those who saw the world from a naturalistic perspective. Pasteur stood on God being the creator as the only alternative. There seemed to be a battle between scientific reasoning and the theistic view. Yet, scientific reasoning involves faith as well. Some of the major problems with scientific views are: questions of oxygen being present in the atmosphere; the lack of geological evidence for the primordial soup of organic compounds or protocells; the high degree of investigator interference in prebiotic simulation experiments; and difficulties in imagining the jump from biopolymers and protocells to the first living and reproducing cell. Scientists Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen states a distinction

The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks who try to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier by “passing as white.” Frank J. Webb critiques why blacks cannot pass as being white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr.

Stanley Miller started the idea that life could have started when carbon and other ingredients combined. He assembled a contraption made out of flasks and tombs in the lab. He fill one flask with gases to represent Earth's primitive atmosphere and connected that to another flask with water to represent the ocean. He put an electric charge through that.simulated lightning going through early atmosphere. After a couple of day, all this brown goo all over the reaction vessel. He said, now he had amino acids in the vessel. Amino acids are compounds that are form when carbon and other elements linked together. They are building block of protiens and cell, which were vital ingredients of all living things. His experiment showed that life can be formed in the harsh condition of early earth.

The study of science is defined as that which deals with the workings of the physical world we are able to observe and measure. The origin of life, however, is a topic that science has long grappled with, despite the impossibility of observing or proving any origins theory in a strictly scientific manner. Today, the widely accepted theory of life’s beginning is the theory of Evolution by mutation and natural selection, or Neo-Darwinism. Most people in our modern society accept this theory at face value because it is popular with the majority of scientists, but it must always be taken into account that our origins cannot be proven scientifically and that, in fact, the theory of Evolution is not the only or even the most logical theory

The Anthropic principle is a key feature of the Design argument and suits the theory of Design qua Regularity proposed by F.R. Tennant showing that science and religion are one in the same. He argues that human life flourishes on earth, therefore there must have been a supreme designer, that designer being God. Tennant accepts the scientific reasoning of evolution as a fine balance of ‘’fine tuning’’ and God’s chosen way to support life. Tennant also argues that ‘’the world could so easily have been chaotic’’ and that ‘’the universe is not chaotic, nature is the outcome of intelligent design.’’ Others argue that the earth runs so smoothly and everything works together therefore ‘’The world is compatible with a single throw of a dice and common sense is not foolish in suspecting the dice has been loaded’’ cited by Vardy. James Lovelock of the 20th century furthered the anthropic principle in ways of the Gaia Hypothesis, ‘’engineering on a planetary scale’’ cited by Vardy. He suggests that the oxygen content in the air, the salt content in the sea and the temperature of the earth are all precise in order for human life to flourish. If the oxygen content in the air

As the book progresses, we are introduced to the three most influential people on western biological thought that emerged from ancient Greece, and the classical world. First came Socrates (470 – 399 B.C.) who was revered as the “moral philosopher” rather than a “natural philosopher,” as his ideas contributed towards two jurisdictions of thought – philosophy and natural science. Although he left little proof of his written accounts, his ideology has made it through centuries of history in the form of “Socratic dialogues” by his pupil, Plato (429 – 347 B.C.). Plato contributed to the transcription, of the dialogues between himself and Socrates and the members of Athenian

what was believed to be the true order of nature began to emerge in the science of

Love is an interesting mock trial of chemicals in the brain. Love’s mock trial of dopamine, phenylethylamine and oxytocin are all chemicals that are produced heavily in the first stages of when someone falls in love giving a person a sort of uplifted and euphoric feeling. The interesting piece to it is the chemical reactions start to lessen after time and the ‘high” is gone. This is one reason why scientists claim breakups, divorces, and other forms of separation is so very common. Now what if an imbalance in the chemical reaction countered or changed the brain in a way that the love never could faded? A possible imbalance between neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine cause a disorder known

The late Stephen Jay Gould, a noted paleontologist who once described himself as an “agnostic leaning towards atheism,” wrote the classic treatise Evolution as Fact and Theory for Discover magazine back in 1981. His distinguished career and scientific achievements did earn him respect amongst his peers, but to the general public he is best known for his popular science writings and, to smaller circles, as a champion of evolution. As his treatise was written for a non-academic, science themed magazine, a basic understanding of science, and specifically evolutionary mechanics, was assumed of his audience. The treatise itself is on the often overlapping distinction between “theory” and “fact”; two words, he asserts, that creationists

Through her extensive work, Mary Anning’s discoveries provided factual evidence to support the theories of evolution and extinction, resulting to an increased understanding and in-depth knowledge of the structure and nature of extinct creatures from early pre-historic Earth. Scientists and the general public during this era were skeptical of the idea that organisms could be extinct and/or change structurally over the years through natural selection, however, the discovery of the bizarre fossils found by Mary Anning became evidence for these ideas. Through Mary Anning’s legacy, modern-day scientists have now discovered even more evidence that supports the ideas and theories that were suggested during the 1800’s. From result of the discoveries of Mary Anning, our current understanding of the history of life on Earth has developed drastically through her contribution to paleontology and the discoveries of fossil evidence for organisms of early

The old-Earth evolution and young-Earth creation debate has been one that has gone on for centuries. Each viewpoint seeks to give an answer to life’s most difficult questions or origins and how the Earth came to be what it resembles today. While the Young Earth viewpoint has remained constant and unchanged throughout the centuries the Old Earth view seems to be continually evolving as new discoveries tend to discredit previous assumptions. One certainty is that both viewpoints take a dogmatic stance against each other in regards to the interpretation of scientific evidence. The purpose of this paper is to compare old-Earth and

It was developed by Mills in a time of great social upheaval – industrialisation, globalisation and capitalism meant that the social phenomena were different to those previously experienced. The meta-narrative of science and ‘scientism’, previously used to develop theories of society, began to be presenting more moral questions and

Life has continually perplexed and fascinated individuals since the dawn of mankind. The subject’s complexity is so great even over the course of human existence only a minute fraction of its mysteries have been unraveled. A phenomenon which has always intrigued scientists is the origin of life on Earth, and in recent years significant advancements have been made in the understanding of this enigma. This essay will briefly outline two theories regarding life’s origin on Earth to further comprehend why an explanation for this phenomenon has been so difficult to reach.

in the October 14, 1993 edition of the international journal ‘Nature’, which publishes new and

Starting over 500 years ago with Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton paving the way for the possibility of new scientific exploration into studies such as “stratigraphy, the study of the rock and soil layers of the earth” by Robert Hooke and Carolus Linnaeus’ study of taxonomy, “the system of naming and classifying organisms” based on morphological similarities and differences, humanity would begin to uncrack the code of where life came from in a nonbiblical sense. (Fuentes, 26) Further studies by George-Louis Leclerc – Comte du Buffon, Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather), Georges Cuvier, James Hutton and Charles Lyell as well as Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet – Chevalier de Lamarck’s studies in which he “correctly identified the environment as a challenge to organisms and adaptation as the result of changing to meet environmental challenges” helped prompt the formulation of the current understanding of evolution by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace each in their own special way.