Comment by r00fus
8 hours ago
There's a theory that life actually originated not directly through photosynthesis based life, but originally from a very constant source of energy - the earth's crust - Hyperthermophile archaea - using non-oxygen based metabolism which migrated to the surface where photosynthesis evolved and took over as the core energy source.
All laid out in Paul Davies' book - fascinating read: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Fifth-Miracle/Pau...
Didn’t we already know that? Chloroplasts are a whole different organism that was subsumed by photosynthetic organism cells much later, much like mitochondria. Moreover, isn’t the dominant hypothesis that life originated in the primordial soup, basically underwater?
Similar to Nick Lane's work!
Regarding Davies' book, what are the first four miracles that the title is referencing?
It's a Bible reference.
>The fifth miracle of Davies' title refers to Genesis 1:11: "Let the Land Produce Vegetation." (The first four Biblical miracles are the creation of the universe, the creation of light, the creation of the firmament and the creation of dry land.) It is proverbial in the popular science publishing world that God is good for sales, especially since Steven Hawking sold millions of copies of an otherwise unremarkable book by promising that a unified physical theory would enable us "to know the mind of God." Commercial requirements alone seem to have dictated that word "miracle," since Davies begins the book by disavowing it. Like other evolutionary scientists he starts with the presumption that "it is the job of science to solve mysteries without recourse to divine intervention." Life is not a miracle because scientists wish it to be a product of natural forces which they can explain.
- http://www.arn.org/docs/johnson/fifthmiracle.htm
Turbo Pascal, Porsche 911, Mtn Dew Throwback, Scarlett Johansson
Just spitballing, haven’t read the book
Nice
Actually this is not a theory. Photosynthesis came millions of years later than life. Plants are evolved from animals, not the other way around. Basic animals are less evolved than basic plants.
Plants and animals evolved from different lineages of eukaryotic organisms. They share a common ancestor, but plants did not evolve from animals. Plants evolved from green algae, while animals evolved from colonial protists.
I also take exception with the concept of "more" or "less" evolved. Do you mean "complexity"?
He is right though that, "Photosynthesis came millions of years later than life." And the parent post's claim, "There's a theory that life actually originated not directly through photosynthesis based life," misrepresents that it is a commonly held view that life originated not directly through photosynthesis based life. It is generally understood that life predates photosynthesis.
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