darwinism

[The Tree]

darwin believed that all animals,plants etc on earth all have a common descentant ie that they all developed from the same organism.i have read about how life got started.i was just wondering if anyone else think it was possible for life to appear not just the once and then for everything to develop from that one organism but maybe that more than one organism appeared on earth which itself evolved ie that we possibly could of evolved from more than just one organism.this probally sounds daft but it was just a thought that popped into my head and i thought i would post it hear to see what other people thought.by the way i dont mean hundreds or even thousands other organisms that we all developed from.i was just thinking if it was possible for life to start once maybe it started a second time and we all descend from those two organisms

[Ward-Minter]

I believe I descended from Adam and Eve so pants to Darwin.

[jake-the-peg]

There's a joke about Neanderthals in W-M's post but I don't think I'll go there!

I don't think it's a daft idea that life could have started multiple times but I'd suspect that if that did happen it died out again and that all that we have now is decended from the first sucessful life-form.

[GruntFuttock]

Yes--and those two organisms developed into:-

1.Us.

2. Mitten Crabs

[MrPahoehoe]

It could well have happened that way, but all life on Earth is remarkably similar, when you get right down it. The most basic lifeforms, which tend to be the oldest/most unchanged, all have striking similarities and differences. Whilst I cannot concieve of another mechanism of life than the humble "cell", its seems to me that if life evolved again from scratch then maybe it would be radically different, or at least not having the similarities we observe.

If this did happen then I would imagine it would be more likely at the very start of life on Earth, before the first lifeforms would have had the chance to colonise all the suitable areas. Competition would make a totally new lifeform's longterm survival even more unlikely.

Having said all that. I think the oldest evidence of life is from around 3.8 billion years ago, about 900 million years after the creation of the Earth. Not forgetting that for the first several hundred million years the Earth would have been completely uninhabitible. This means life was around after a few hundred million years. That was 3800 million years ago, so it is plausible that life could come into being again.

[ianess]

So did it all just happen by accident or was the planet and life created by some superior power?
A question without answers but the Theory of evolution seems to be accepted as fact, whereas the believers in Creation are subject to scepticism and even ridicule.
I couldn't even begin to debate this one other than to say it seems unlikely to have been an accident.

[Clanad]

I'm glad to see jake-the-peg already here so I don't have go trolling for him... both Alfred Russel Wallace and his peer Charles Darwin unequivocally state: "Life had a single, unique, non-repeating history" which supports The Principle of Fossil Succession. About the only thing today's scientists (especially Biologists) agree on is that life arose suddenly within 500 to perhaps 800 million years of Earth's creation (pun only slightly intended) as referenced by MrPahoehoe... and happened only once. I would certainly agree with your conclusion that life was no accident...

[SarCaustic]

At the end of the day, the Theory of Evolution is just that, a theory, though it is accepted as fact by most - it can't be proven given the timeperiods considered in it therefore it is subject to speculation. There appears to be strong evidence to suggest that is correct, but many questions remain unanswered and I have heard some convincing arguments against it.

[Timm]

SarCaustic.

Please go away and read about scientific theory.

In science, a "theory" is a belief that has been verified by actual experimentation and/or observation.

Most biologists believe that evolution is more than a theory; it is an established fact. The earth's life forms have evolved over billions of years. Species of animals have been recently observed as continuing to evolve, both in the lab and field.

Evolution is of course a theory, but it has been backed up by plenty of experiments in the last 150 years, so much so that it is now a fact.

So it is both a Theory and Fact.

I refer you to http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/2437/theor y.htm