From: cates_db@hotmail.com
On 2026-02-05 10:53 a.m., Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2026 10:12:39 -0600, RonO wrote:
[big snip]
> From the book:
>
>
> It is common knowledge that Homo sapiens (who appeared an estimated
> 300,000 years ago) descended from Homo erectus (1.9 million years
> ago), Homo habilis (2.5 million years ago), Australopithecus (4
> million years ago), and ultimately from the earliest hominids (7
> million years ago).
>
> And before that? Man is a mammal, and mammals arose after a long
> process of evolution that began with fish and successively gave rise
> to amphibians, reptiles, and birds.
>
> And further back than that? We are today in the exceptionally
> fortunate position of being able to respond satisfactorily to this
> question: science was able to unravel this mystery only a generation
> ago. According to the most commonly accepted theory, if we follow the
> chain of life back link-by-link to our true ancestor, to a common
> point uniting all living beings, we find the most remote ancestor of
> all LUCA is supposed to have appeared on Earth in a rather
> extraordinary way 3.8 billion years ago, in the form of unicellular
> organisms, the first one that knew how to self-replicate and which
> then began to evolve on their own up to the appearance of man. From
> there, so the story goes, a process of evolution eventually ended with
> man. Very well. But what did LUCA descend from? This too is something
> we know today: LUCA, the first living being, the first organism
> capable of reproducing itself, was a mere collection of proteins and
> macromolecules- in other words, of molecules, atoms, and particles.
>
> So there you have it. Our true ancestor, our ultimate origin, our
> first parent, is matter. Looking at the marvelous technology of the
> human hand or eye, it is hard to believe that it is nothing more than
> cleverly arranged matter. But that's what it is.
>
>
>
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