Oldest-Ever Fossils Found (Or So They Say)

They say it with such authority. The newly-discovered bacteria fossils, found in
Canada, are 4.2 billion years old (uh-huh), and this “shows alien life on Mars likely” (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/03/01/oldest-fossil-ever-found-earth-shows-alien-life-mars-likely/ ).

These little bacteria–earth still has bacteria that are a lot like them–supposedly lived in ocean vents and ate iron. Well, if they’re already under water, and the earth is only some millions of years old at the time, then that knocks into the spittoon the theory that it rained on the rocks and the rocks came alive–which really ought to be a calypso song, “Oh it rain on de rocks an’ de rocks come alive…”

Nope, they still can’t tell us how life started in the first place. (Hint: God created it.) So now it’s comets “probably brought the building blocks of life to earth.” Probably? I think that theory’s prob’ly wobbly. And note they say “building blocks of life.” We imagine the parts of an erector set randomly sorting themselves into a Ferris wheel.

And then everything sort of, like, y’know, evolved! From tiny bacteria to not-so-tiny Michael Moore. No one’s ever observed that happening, but we know it must be so because everybody says it is.

Anyway, Mars had an ocean once, and an atmosphere, so Mars prob’ly had little bacteria, too. The Mars lost its ocean and its atmosphere. Prob’ly because of SUVs. Or failure to impose a carbon tax.

Anybody still awake?