From: wolverine01@charter.net   
      
   On 11/21/2025 8:48 AM, RonO wrote:   
   > On 11/20/2025 4:00 PM, sticks wrote:   
   >> On 11/20/2025 10:43 AM, RonO wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> Science News claims that they used AI analytics to identify the   
   >>> traces of photosynthetic life.  3.3 billion years is around the time   
   >>> that there may have only been two surviving lineages of eubacteria   
   >>> and archaea both would have contained the genes for both chemotrophic   
   >>> and photosynthetic life.   
   >>>   
   >>> The last common ancestor of eubacteria and archaea supposedly existed   
   >>> with these atributes 4.2 billion years ago, so if they can find the   
   >>> right rocks they may be able to detect photosynthesis in rocks that old.   
   >>   
   >> Also, the original link also points to further reading at the bottom   
   >> of the article with a link that was here awhile back.   
   >>   
   >> > astrobiologist.html>   
   >>   
   >> "These minerals may have formed on the rock when ancient microbes used   
   >> chemical reactions to produce energy. But chemical reactions not   
   >> related to life can also produce these minerals under certain   
   >> conditions."   
   >>   
   >> And this commendable sentence:   
   >>   
   >> "Now, scientists are looking into the explanations that wouldn't   
   >> require life to form these features on the sample."   
   >>   
   >> My point is, the subject of this piece, "Earth's earliest life 3.3   
   >> billion years ago revealed by faint biosignatures" is the kind of   
   >> thing I object to.  Not the work, but the way it gets framed.  Reading   
   >> the title, you would think they have found evidence of life from 3.3   
   >> billion years ago.  But when you dig in, they simply have not and are   
   >> continuing their work.  One has to wonder why they omitted the   
   >> "potential" in their description in the recent article?  This is a far   
   >> too common way of doing things where previous work is cited and used   
   >> to further the importance of a finding, without having to repeat the   
   >> problems.  It's dishonest.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Your problem is that we have other evidence that life existed on this   
   > planet over 3 billion years ago.  They have found fossil stromatolites   
   > like the stromatolites still formed by bacteria today in rocks over 3.4   
   > billion years old.  These are not just chemical traces.   
   >   
   > Researchers are just looking for more different types of evidence for   
   > life.  We already have other evidence that life existed at this time.   
   >   
   > The article notes that the chemical signatures are not the oldest traces   
   > of life.  It was just a different means of identifying evidence that   
   > past life has left behind, and like I noted if they find older   
   > sedimentary rocks they could do the same analysis.   
      
   Your problem is that both you and John seem to think I was questioning   
   the dating, which if you read it again you will clearly see I was not.   
   That is an entirely separate area of interest, but not what my reply was   
   about at all.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Science doesn't support Darwin.  Scientists do.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)