Last Universal Common Ancestor

[Cypress]

In a hostile environment, there is safety in numbers, albeit the Goldilocks Rule applies depending upon the circumstances.

Bronze Age villages averaged 500, although there were exceptions.

Hunter-gatherer tribes numbered up to a hundred.

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/2360/how-large-were-bronze-age-settlements


https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hunter-gatherer-culture/

Paleolithic hunters were near the apex of the trophic food chain; And sex and reproduction were important to the tribe

In a zombie apocalypse, we would be the prey! And there would be point to reproduction and babies until the zombie threat was dispatched!

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I suppose from that perspective, you make a good point.
Still, imagine what that ape could have done if it had only met it's potential.
In some places, it has come closer than in others.
Our place is somewhere in the middle--not Afghanistan or Somalia but not Scandinavia either.

You're asking a lot of what is a relatively young species of apes. Consider that the dinosaurs were around for over 175 million years before a giant space rock ended their existence. Simians have only been around for ~60 million years and humans only about 300,000 years. IMO, it seems kind of early to write us off as an evolutionary dead end.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Paleolithic hunters were near the apex of the trophic food chain; And sex and reproduction were important to the tribe

In a zombie apocalypse, we would be the prey! And there would be point to reproduction and babies until the zombie threat was dispatched!

Studs Terkel wrote "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II". It's an excellent book taking the histories of a variety of people in all walks of life.

In a similar vein, Max Brooks wrote "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War". It's very well researched and very realistic except for the zombie element. The movie doesn't even come close to it.

Audiobook part one:

 

[Cypress]

Studs Terkel wrote "The Good War: An Oral History of World War II". It's an excellent book taking the histories of a variety of people in all walks of life.

In a similar vein, Max Brooks wrote "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War". It's very well researched and very realistic except for the zombie element. The movie doesn't even come close to it.

Audiobook part one:

I didn't realize WW Z was a book, thanks for the Intel, I'm going to see if the library has itv

 

[Dutch Uncle]

J didn't realize WW Z was a book, thanks for the Intel, I'm going to see if the library has it

It's excellent. On par with the quality of Andy Weir's "The Martian".

 

[NiftyNiblick]

You're asking a lot of what is a relatively young species of apes. Consider that the dinosaurs were around for over 175 million years before a giant space rock ended their existence. Simians have only been around for ~60 million years and humans only about 300,000 years. IMO, it seems kind of early to write us off as an evolutionary dead end.

Again, another reasonable point.

Oom is on a roll.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Again, another reasonable point.

Oom is on a roll.

Thanks, Neef. I've been on a roll for a few years now. Not always, of course. Mostly late 50s.

How are you doing?

 

[NiftyNiblick]

Thanks, Neef. I've been on a roll for a few years now. Not always, of course. Mostly late 50s.

How are you doing?

I suppose that I can't be doing too badly if my dog is getting prime rib tonight.

Last night, I stupidly ordered the 32 oz cut thinking that I was still twenty-five years old [you may have noticed that I'm not]
and then I ate about half of it. Lucky break for the avatar, I guess. I'll warm it up in beef broth so it doesn't get dry.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I suppose that I can't be doing too badly if my dog is getting prime rib tonight.

Last night, I stupidly ordered the 32 oz cut thinking that I was still twenty-five years old [you may have noticed that I'm not]
and then I ate about half of it. Lucky break for the avatar, I guess. I'll warm it up in beef broth so it doesn't get dry.

Is that because you had the shakes so bad you dropped it? Good for the dog!

I'm the primary dinner cooker in our home and I always good at least double the number of meals needed. My wife isn't a big fan of leftovers, so that leaves plenty for me.

A few weeks ago, Lowes Market had a sale on hamburger. About $2.79/lb, IIRC, in 10lb rolls. I ended up buying two and dividing them into quarters for freezing. Although I'm curious whether you know how many lbs each bag weighed after quartering, it'll probably remain a mystery.

The main point being my dogs can't tell the difference between raw hamburger and raw prime rib. It's meat.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

Even I know that a pair of ten pound rolls quartered leaves 8 2½ pound bags.

You've obviously forgotten about my elite Eastern education, so comprehensive as to include short division.

I didn't drop anything, shakes not withstanding, but the gestapo did opine that i over-ordered at the restaurant purposely with the avatar in mind.
Two females living under the same roof--friction and jealousy is obviously inevitable.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I have at least posted science on here. I suggest you try addressing some of the science I posted. I even attempted to comment on the link you sent yesterday about chirality.

Postclassical Physics Is Defective


Since chirality can only match gloves by flipping one into another dimension (height), that is a clue that the left-handed amino acids producing life had been flipped into the fourth spatial dimension.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

"Manifest Destiny " was a stroke of genius to cover grand theft!

"Use It or Lose It" Is the Iron Law of Evolution


The Low-IQ Indigian savages produced no more out of the territory they occupied than wild animals do. Besides, that wandering race would stay for a short time in one territory, hunt it out, and then migrate to the neighboring territory and kill or displace all the other savages there. They repeated that kill-or-be-killed survival process until the Whites ended it and produced enormous wealth out of what had previously, under inferior inhabitants, been a barren land. If Whites had never come here, America would be the poorest land on Earth.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Who doesn't go waaay down sometimes

Monica's Harmonica


That's why signs in the West Wing now say INTERNS MUST SWALLOW, NOT SPIT.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Especially if one ignores all the science discussion so that they can go sock-hunting. I tried in good faith to discuss early life on here. Apparently the chemistry was too much.

Homo Sapiens Has Lost to Homo Erectus Many Times and Is on a Long Losing Streak Now


When were speculative and creative thoughts started? Why did advancement start and stop, causing long periods of stagnancy? What actual phenomenon does Prometheus Bound refer to?

 

[goat]

"Use It or Lose It" Is the Iron Law of Evolution


The Low-IQ Indigian savages produced no more out of the territory they occupied than wild animals do. Besides, that wandering race would stay for a short time in one territory, hunt it out, and then migrate to the neighboring territory and kill or displace all the other savages there. They repeated that kill-or-be-killed survival process until the Whites ended it and produced enormous wealth out of what had previously, under inferior inhabitants, been a barren land. If Whites had never come here, America would be the poorest land on Earth.

Taking only what you need from the land is more civilized than pillaging the earth into a sacrifice zone. The US is the wealthiest empire known to man yet 50% of us struggle to survive. Every town crisscrossing the US has boarded up buildings with homeless tents squatting nearby.

 

[Melchizedek = Michael]

Taking only what you need from the land is more civilized than pillaging the earth into a sacrifice zone. The US is the wealthiest empire known to man yet 50% of us struggle to survive. Every town crisscrossing the US has boarded up buildings with homeless tents squatting nearby.

Exactly why it is time to go Democratic Socialist

 

[goat]

I saw the word homo and couldn't stay away.

You're a lot closer to Australopithecus afarensis.

 

[IBDaMann]

Around 4 billion years ago there lived a microbe called LUCA — the Last Universal Common Ancestor.

Why do you believe this? It sounds pretty WACKY. Do you normally believe people who claim to be omniscient about unobserved events of the distant past?

Yeah, you'd have to be very gullible to fall for that.

There is evidence that it could have lived a somewhat ‘alien’ lifestyle, hidden away deep underground in iron-sulfur rich hydrothermal vents.

You mean there is SPECULATION that this life formed around a hydrothermal vent. Yes, I share this speculation.

There is no evidence of this, however.

Most remarkable of all, this little microbe was the beginning of a long lineage that encapsulates all life on Earth.

Why do you believe this? Multiple life forms could have possibly emerged from the same process, each having its own evolutionary line. There is no law of nature that requires a planet to stop forming new life through whatever abiogenesis process it has after forming its first one. In fact, that would be the least likely scenario given abiogenesis occurring on a planet such as Earth.

Using a variety of methods, biologists have mapped out the tree of relationships between living things across Earth’s long inhabited history, which goes back more than three billion years.

Nope. Humans have been presenting their ever-changing SPECULATIONS about life on earth for as long as there have been humans on earth.

Through these kinds of studies, biologists can trace all of life back to a single kind of organism - LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor..

Nope. No human has omniscience. No human has any such magical superpowers to see into the distant past.

We do not know much about this creature.

Nobody knows anything about this creature.

We do not have direct fossils of its existence. But we can infer its existence from the tree of life.

But you cannot infer that it was the ancestor of all life. See above.

There must have been a last universal common ancestor that gave root to all life on Earth.

False.

The recognition of LUCA is a triumph of modern biological sciences.

Belief in LUCA is a religion.

What’s cool about all this is how it reveals something fundamental about science. Horizons exist because evidence comes with constraints we don’t know how to break. That means that not every direct question can find a direct answer.

This is not science. This is part philosophy and part math proof [Gödel's Incompleteness theorem]

 

[Cancel 1 2023]

Why do you believe this? It sounds pretty WACKY. Do you normally believe people who claim to be omniscient about unobserved events of the distant past?

It's a concept related to genetics. Presumably you believe you actually had a maternal great-great grandfather, correct? We can verify that with DNA. I believe the same is in play here.

Nope. No human has omniscience. No human has any such magical superpowers to see into the distant past.

So presumably you doubt all of geology, too, right? How could anyone know what happened in the distant past unless they could see it with their own eyes.

Might as well just dump ALL of science, too.

 

[Cypress]

Why do you believe this? It sounds pretty WACKY. Do you normally believe people who claim to be omniscient about unobserved events of the distant past?

Yeah, you'd have to be very gullible to fall for that.


You mean there is SPECULATION that this life formed around a hydrothermal vent. Yes, I share this speculation.

There is no evidence of this, however.


Why do you believe this? Multiple life forms could have possibly emerged from the same process, each having its own evolutionary line. There is no law of nature that requires a planet to stop forming new life through whatever abiogenesis process it has after forming its first one. In fact, that would be the least likely scenario given abiogenesis occurring on a planet such as Earth.


Nope. Humans have been presenting their ever-changing SPECULATIONS about life on earth for as long as there have been humans on earth.


Nope. No human has omniscience. No human has any such magical superpowers to see into the distant past.


Nobody knows anything about this creature.


But you cannot infer that it was the ancestor of all life. See above.


False.


Belief in LUCA is a religion.


This is not science. This is part philosophy and part math proof [Gödel's Incompleteness theorem]

LUCA is a strong scientific inference based on three decades of genetic analysis.

If you have a plausible alternative hypothesis, then submit your data and analysis to a prestigious peer reviewed scientific journal, like the LUCA authors did.