origin of life

[Valiant Champion]

I found this article interesting

http://www.universetoday.com/91464/a...th-atmosphere/

so if life did not form on earth and it is claimed to have come from space. I propose a test for that hypothesis. If it came from space than we should find extant microbes in some meteorites.

So have we ever found extant microbes in meteorites?

Also could intelligent extraterrestrial life have seeded our Earth? Is there any evidence to support that hypothesis? I proprose a test to this hypothesis. If there is extraterrestrial life that could have seeded the earth than they should hypothetically be close to Earth. We should be able to detect their radio signals from communication.

Have we ever heard any ET radio transmissions from other stars?

Are there any other ideas by scientists beside

prebiotic soup

natural seeding

intelligent seeding

[Phier]

What a horribly written blog.

I'd need to find the source to figure out of they were saying interesting.

[Holger Danske]

What makes you think other civilizations would utilize radio as communication?

[Gaidin]

What makes you think other civilizations would utilize radio as communication?

It's pretty much the first logical step for long range 'instantaneous' communications. Whether they use the radio waves or another spectrum of EM can be debated. But that's about it.

[weirdoascensor]

It leads to another question: If it is True, from where those microbes came? from where and how they...came to life...

[Phalanx300]

It leads to another question: If it is True, from where those microbes came? from where and how they...came to life...

Same applies if it isn't true. Already here on earth there are microbes who can survive in the most harsh conditions. I think its pretty likely life came from out of space, all of earth essentially came out of space and formed together, how would life suddenly erupt? But yeah if life came from space how did that start?

[Phier]

I think its pretty likely life came from out of space, all of earth essentially came out of space and formed together,

While it could have saying 'pretty likely' is just random opinion based on nothing to back it up.

If anything it would be quite unlikely even if possible. First the earth formed from a supernova remnant, and odds are that star involved was a much hotter star than ours and not conducive to life but lets pretend it was.

These microbes would need survive a supernova, somehow become space born, float around for BILLIONS of years, land on the earth after it formed and wasn't simply a ball of molten magma, survive impact, and then land in a spot where they could reproduce after they got here.

Lets not forget the universe is HUGE and by comparison the earth is a small target and a small gravity well.

The fact that that life would have arisen means that it could happen and it would make more sense for it to happen all by itself on earth when the conditions were right.

I think the idea of pamspermia is so in vogue because of a few factors. One its undeniably cool, it gives us an idea of a universe where life simply spreads across the stars. Second, it makes people feel somehow cool being 'aliens', nerds just like that idea, I like that idea, but liking something does not make it true. Third, its a way out of the question 'how did life originate on earth' which we can't answer yet. Of course that leads to the question, well how did it arise somewhere else to which the reply could be 'well different conditions' or some such.

Until we find a space rock with LIVING organisms not just amino acids or possibly fossilized ones, there is absolutely zero proof that life originated anywhere but here on earth and no reason to think otherwise beyond being wildly speculative.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Amino Acids have been found on meterorites/Asteroids.

[Valiant Champion]

Amino Acids have been found on meterorites/Asteroids.

what could these amino acids accomplish if the earth's atmosphere that would have been hypothetically needed to create the pre-biotic soup never existed?

Than the only way life could come from space rocks would be if actual extant microbes are coming in with meteorites. This has never been observed. There is no reason to believe that interstellar rocks have changed since the beginning of our solar system. meteorites hitting earth that could possibly contain extant life could have been as old or older than 10 billion years when the Earth was formed.

Stephen Hawkings agrees with many other scientists that the math will never support the pre-biotic soup hypothesis. If a reliable computer model represented the chances and supporting math than scientists could generally calculate what crucial parts of the simplest cell came about first. Considering that over 200 particular proteins have to assemble themselves together simultaneously to spark the existence of the first microbe, the chances are basically impossible. In fact they are monumentally less than the probablity .01 percent mentioned by Richard Dawkins of the existence of intelligent design of life.

[Sphere]

The fundamental mistake in your framework of thought is assuming that nature is limited to the microbes wecan concieve of. But nature seems to have little regard for our ego.

As an example, for years nobody thought you could have a self-replicating form of life without RNA in the process. Yet the discovery of prions showed that you could.

Nature's imagination is far more vast than ours and isn't bound by what the neurons in our little mammalian brains can come up with. Any argument that says we are so clever as to have figured out all the possible ways life could have arose is hubris.

[Phier]

The fundamental mistake in your framework of thought is assuming that nature is limited to the microbes wecan concieve of. But nature seems to have little regard for our ego.

As an example, for years nobody thought you could have a self-replicating form of life without RNA in the process. Yet the discovery of prions showed that you could.

Nature's imagination is far more vast than ours and isn't bound by what the neurons in our little mammalian brains can come up with. Any argument that says we are so clever as to have figured out all the possible ways life could have arose is hubris.

It always amazes me how people will take the simplest known life know and assume that it could not have been simpler or different originally, throwing their hands up at the number of proteins or whatever. We had this thread in EMM already.

Even the most BASIC of life has been evolving here for 4 billion or so years. Odds are whatever was the first 'life' has been long long extinct, either due to conditions or competition, or both from more evolved relations.

All that is required to start the chain is a self replicating molecule with an ability to be modified. Thats it.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

what could these amino acids accomplish if the earth's atmosphere that would have been hypothetically needed to create the pre-biotic soup never existed?

Than the only way life could come from space rocks would be if actual extant microbes are coming in with meteorites. This has never been observed. There is no reason to believe that interstellar rocks have changed since the beginning of our solar system. meteorites hitting earth that could possibly contain extant life could have been as old or older than 10 billion years when the Earth was formed.

Stephen Hawkings agrees with many other scientists that the math will never support the pre-biotic soup hypothesis. If a reliable computer model represented the chances and supporting math than scientists could generally calculate what crucial parts of the simplest cell came about first. Considering that over 200 particular proteins have to assemble themselves together simultaneously to spark the existence of the first microbe, the chances are basically impossible. In fact they are monumentally less than the probablity .01 percent mentioned by Richard Dawkins of the existence of intelligent design of life.

I don't think anybody claims modern micro organisms spontaneously formed from common chemical compounds. That would, as you say, be incredible unlikely, although just because it's unlikely doesn't mean it's not true. As Richard Dawkins puts it so well, there are two ways to climb mount improbable. That's by the sheer cliff face.

The other side of the mountain is a shallow slope, and is far more likely. Self-replicating chemical reactions we don't call life occur everywhere on Earth all the time. Chlorine in the ozone layer for example. Viruses are a very primitive form of "life" much simpler than any other micro organisms, and it's likely they are not too far removed from our inorganic ancestors.

There are many organic molecules with one polar end that is attracted to molecular dipoles (i.e. hydrogen bonds in water) and one apolar end. These molecules make up the cell membranes of virtually all living things. Imagine some of these chemicals on a beach. They form bubbles with water that have far more integrity than simple water bubbles. Primitive reproduction could take place when a bubble bursts, spraying the chemicals onto the surrounding beach to form more bubbles. Over time many of these molecules would undergo chemical reactions that change their structure. Chemicals that lost the functional group that allowed them to form stable bubbles would be washed away, not surviving. New chemical structures that formed more stable bubbles would be more likely to survive than the others. This is a form of natural selection. This is just one hypothesis that's been thrown out there, there are plenty others, all as convincing.

you wish a replicating molecule turning into life was that simple but it obviously is not. A rock rolls down hill the same as a bicycle. One is natural, one is designed. Rocks did not turn into bicycles. Life does not come from non-life. This was proven a long time ago by Louis Pasteur. In fact it is a scientific law.

If rocks could magically reproduce, reproduction would give random changes to their structure, and being a bicycle was a trait more likely to survive than other structural traits, a rock could indeed turn into a bicycle.

In fact they are monumentally less than the probablity .01 percent mentioned by Richard Dawkins of the existence of intelligent design of life.

The chance, c, of that isn't 0.01%.

It's the limit as c goes to infinity of 1/c.

[Phier]

Panspermia is a cute idea, but completely irrelevant. I think some people like to use it in place of 'god did it'. It makes a lot more sense that life simply developed on earth than somehow came from microbes on space rocks.

[Himster]

Panspermia is a cute idea, but completely irrelevant. I think some people like to use it in place of 'god did it'. It makes a lot more sense that life simply developed on earth than somehow came from microbes on space rocks.

Could be a combination.

[Phalanx300]

For the same reason it could be said that its speculative to assume life came from the earth when we don't really know anything about how it happened at all.

Always interesting to see the link towards machines, taking energy and transferring it to actions. Pretty much like living beings. Gues it will take ages before we know the secret of life.

[Phier]

For the same reason it could be said that its speculative to assume life came from the earth when we don't really know anything about how it happened at all.

Saying we don't know how life exactly arises, and saying we don't know how life arises and that it comes from space is not the same 'reason'.

[Valiant Champion]

First you must have evidence of your proto-life before you make the conclusion that it ever existed. Wouldn't that be scientific? Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary proof in my opinion. In order to have that proto-life you have to have a pre-biotic soup. The research shows that the Earth's atmosphere needed for this never existed


you wish a replicating molecule turning into life was that simple but it obviously is not. A rock rolls down hill the same as a bicycle. One is natural, one is designed. Rocks did not turn into bicycles. Life does not come from non-life. This was proven a long time ago by Louis Pasteur. In fact it is a scientific law.

the Pre-biotic soup hypothesis sounds more like science fiction than science. More like Pseudoscience. It wasn't always like that way, but I think the last few years have sealed that coffin up.

[Vizsla]

First you must have evidence of your proto-life before you make the conclusion that it ever existed. Wouldn't that be scientific? Extraordinary claims require Extraordinary proof in my opinion. In order to have that proto-life you have to have a pre-biotic soup. The research shows that the Earth's atmosphere needed for this never existed


you wish a replicating molecule turning into life was that simple but it obviously is not. A rock rolls down hill the same as a bicycle. One is natural, one is designed. Rocks did not turn into bicycles. Life does not come from non-life. This was proven a long time ago by Louis Pasteur. In fact it is a scientific law.

the Pre-biotic soup hypothesis sounds more like science fiction than science. More like Pseudoscience. It wasn't always like that way, but I think the last few years have sealed that coffin up.

Care to state the scientific law to which you are referring?

Louis Pasteur demonstrated that the theory of Spontaneous Generation was not true. That theory stated that mice arose spontaneously from dirty hay and crocodiles arose from rotting logs.
What he did has absolutely no bearing on abiogenesis - the idea that Life emerged once under a specific set of ideal conditions and then evolution took over.

Life exists. Evolution from simpler forms of life to more complicated forms of life is true. Everything has a beginning. Every living thing on earth is related to every other living thing. So some form of proto-life must have existed.
You can argue about where it happened and how it happened and under what conditions, but it definitely happened. My own personal theory is that it probably happened around a hydrothermal vent, but there a gazillion other ideas – take your pick.

[Tankbuster]

Life does not come from non-life. This was proven a long time ago by Louis Pasteur. In fact it is a scientific law.

I think I'll just have to start a thread debunking that claim once and for all.

The idea that life can't come from non-life isn't a scientific law, and in fact it's utter .

[Himster]

Proteins can be formed by amino acids and proteins can form microspheres. These microshperes have been found among pre-cambrian geological layers. These are quite clearly proto-cells.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_15657614/