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Originally Posted by Punkus
I'm still confused on why the laws of physics have not been able to pin point exactly what made-up the early earth. I suppose it has to do with the incompletion of the "Theory of Everything."
All this talk makes me want to be a better scientist;D
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Science can only theorize on what it can observe. Since it cannot observe what happend in the past, it cannot truly theorize on it. Neither physics, nor any other science can tell you the composition of the atmosphere in the past because it couldn't observe it.
Scientists do attempt to analyze rock samples and other items that supposedly show a "snapshot" of time to try to determine what the atmosphere and environment was. For example, scientists have found iron oxide in rocks that are dated as being billions of years old. Disregarding, for the moment, any difficulties with dating of rocks (there are several), the iron oxide would suggest that oxygen was available in the atmosphere and that iron was at a level to react with the oxygen. They then form a theory of the atmosphere based on this information (free oxygen would suggest that certain chemicals could or could not be in the atmosphere because they would react with and cancel out the oxygen if they were abundant). All of that, however, is potentially contradicted by other findings and by the problem with dating rocks (I've dated a rock, but she wouldn't well.... nevermind). In any case the result is that we simply don't "know" what the environment was like. At best, we make a guess.
Miller made a guess to perform his experiment, but his guess has been shown to be very unlikely, and he admitted that his guess was based more on what would work for his experminet than anything else when he said that he chose an environment that would give him a good chance of forming amino acids. In short, he engineered his experiment to give a certain result, and guess what, it did. That doesn't mean that it ever happend or even could have happened.
-- Jeff