Before anyone comes for me, I grew up southern baptist – went to a private christian school & was homeschooled for a few years. The extent of my “science” education when it came to evolution & the origin of the universe was “if we came from monkeys why do monkeys still exist?” and “look at this galaxy that’s shaped like a cross, isn’t god amazing!!” I’m an atheist now and would like to have some sort of understanding of how our world came to be, but trying to figure it out as an adult with no real foundation has been incredibly difficult, and none of it’s making sense. I also know I’m asking a lot as all 3 of those subjects are pretty extensive, so if you know any good videos or books I’d love some recommendations!
In: Biology
Formation of life;
The formation of the first life is unknown. Experiment has shown that the elements of life can be created, but the exact way it started on its own is currently a mystery waiting to be solved.
Clearly it came about far earlier than thought, and likely took more primitive forms for many years. Well over a billion. In fact, all life you can think of existing from dinosaurs to modern animals are all within the last 580 million years only. Once complex life started, it took off and transformed the entire planet, Coming back again and again after major extinctions.
Evolution of life
How it works is evolution, which is genetic changes happening over time that are selected for by the environment. Nature is beautiful, but it is brutal. If those that have a trait that helps them survive, it is more likely to pass those genes on, which is the key. Poor traits would die off in the long run.
Three darwin finches are an example he used. Birds that diverged over time to look very different. Some with normal beaks to eat certain foods, and others that became much heavier, thicker beaks which allows them to access entirely different food sources.
They say the genetic changes are entirely random, but I have a feeling that environmental stress guides them to be more specific.
The beginning of time
The big bang is the idea that the universe started as a small point, which expanded unbelievably fast at first, then slowed, but never stopped. What expanded is everything. Space and time, and everything within it. Its the reason energy condensed into atoms, which made galaxies, stars, planets, and ultimately, life.
Sounds crazy, but the more we learned about our solar system, other stars, and other galaxies, it became clear that they were moving apart from one another. The universe is expanding. That means it must have been closer in the past. Moving backwards logically, it means everything must have been much closer.
The more we learned about matter and physics, the more the idea lined up. So far everything has lined up to say the big bang model is our most correct. As much as some religious scientists of the past wanted the universe to be eternal, the evidence didn’t go their way. I think one of the biggest proofs was the idea that light from the moment matter condensed would be still detected, and it was. The cosmic microwave background radiation is a map of the early universe.
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