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Old 01-11-2004, 10:27 PM
Sean Houtman
 
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Archimedes Plutonium wrote in
:

someone wrote:

If you think of life as a consequence of the presence of energy
being present along with the correct conditions for life, then
the supposed duality disappears. Life simply uses energy; doesn't
matter how it gets it.


Apparently you have not given much thought here. Because a planet
with plant kingdom alone cannot utilize the chemistry available on
Earth as efficiently. The most efficient use of chemistry on any
planet ready for life is to have both animal kingdom and plant
kingdom created virtually simultaneously to one another.

So you flunked on your own logic when you say "life simply uses
energy" because plant kingdom alone cannot efficiently use energy.


I suspect that you may be assuming that conditions were the same at
the creation of life as they are today. An Oxygen atmosphere on a
young planet is unlikely, as there are too many mineral elements
that tend to react to free O2. There are very few cosmic sources of
O2 as well, there is a considerable quantity of water, carbon
dioxide, and other combined sources that may be used as a source for
an Oxygen atmosphere, but only after some action that would tend to
produce it. Animal life needs a sufficient excess of O2 that nothing
that you would call an "animal" would have appeared until a long
time after things that you might call "plants" had been around and
photosynthesizing. There are anaerobic bacteria that don't need
Oxygen, but on a basic level, they are poisoned by O2, and wouldn't
do well in the company of some plant-thing that was busy making it.
In other words, photosynthesizers, and anaerobes just don't get
along.

Sean