Hi guys.

Just thought I'd make an appearance as I will now be making regular contributions to the Hot Topics department. Please feel free to lob any questions or comments my way and I'll see what I can do.

Just so that everyone knows who Rusty is...

Rusty is new and will be contributing stories to the website. You can read his musings on NEOs and the Pioneer anomaly on the front page (Apocalypse NEO!) Scientific consensus is one of his pet topics.

Rusty will be contributing regularly so please let him know about any topics you feel need to be covered.

Welcome Rusty.

Just quickly, a reminder about problem posts. The best thing to do is not post to them (memo to self: must remember this one) as this bumps them up. Message me or AR using the private mail thingy, rather than the board.

A hearty welcome to Rusty.
Your contribution of Scientific storys to this website, is just what we need.
I was really depressed about the non scientific
input of some of our contributors.
Our questions to his contributions, will breath new life into Scienceagogo.

And not amoment too soon.

Hi Rusty

In just read your article about "Life from Space". One thing I've never understood about this theory - what use is it? If I understand correctly the only reason to think that life from space is a possibility is the UN-likelihood of life evolving on earth. Given that Morowitz (who you quoted) suggests that it is mathematically impossible for life to have evolved on earth, people like Fred Hoyle said "Well, if it didn't evolve on earth it must have arrived from elsewhere".

That's a reasonable thought but it does nothing at all to explain how the life came about in this "elsewhere" place. If it is mathematically impossible given the age of the universe for the minimum number of proteins needed for cellular life to come about on earth, where is it more likely?

Kibi can you please explain your last statement on mathematical impossibility..

Kibi, this is still a very merky area of science, maybe the answer we are looking for is a combination of both space borne organisms and what was around on Earth at the time; which is also a great unknown. I've also read a theory that comes up with the possibility that only one kind of life can exist, such as bacteria, which floats around in space. Whether or not life evolves beyond these states is probably dependent on where it 'lands'.

What use is the 'from space' theory? Well, if life did evolve somewhere beyond Earth, or our solar system, it wouild be good to know that for sure, so that we can trace its path. Once we found out where it came from we could find out how it came to be.

Oh yeah!

Hi rusty.

Kibi,

The evidence for mathematical improbability was due to the astronomer Fred Hoyle and his student, Chandra Wickramasinghe. (And there's at least one other fellow named Yockey, but I can't recall the details.) The evidence mentioned in the article was from NASA and related to the much-publicized find of rocks on mars that contained what looked like fossilized bacteria. These two different pieces of evidence are not related.

If one uses the statistical argument, you're right. It just pushes the issue further back, but doesn't solve it. But this argument is flawed. The way I look at it is this: the 'argument' is really a back of the envelope kind of computation. It's not a bad thing to try to do, but it's not really worth basing an entire theory around. In particular, these calculations made questionable assumptions, some of which we know aren't true. For example, not all configurations of atoms and molecules are possible. And among those that ARE possible, they are not all equally probable.

So far as we know, there is no physical law that would prevent abiogenesis. This is not evidence of abiogenesis. It's just a statement that it's not impossible so far as we know.

Although spontaneous generation is the accepted scientific explanation for life, I do not think that it can be considered the only explanation; for abiogenesis on Earth, that is. If we accept the argument that life did originate beyond Earth then, yes, it still does not answer the question of how those organisms evolved. It is possible that they went through abiogenesis anyway, just not on Earth.

I cannot see anything from preventing us from suggesting that some abiogenesis occurred on Earth while another, or others, occurred elsewhere in the universe. After all, prokaryotes [bacteria] on Earth are comprised of two distinct types: eubacteria and archaeans. Apparently, the Archaea are closer to us, humans, than they are to Eubacteria. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

Does life\'s rapid appearance imply a Martian origin?

Based on the assumption of an infinite universe, improbability seems more probable.

We know that the universe can produce complex sentient organisms, such as ourselves, that there is a seemingly endless supply of energy, and that time may be considered infinite [which really means no time by the way we define it. That is, there is only relative time between sentient organisms], there is a strong case for abiogenesis.

One day I found a diamond ring on the sidewalk. Now, it is highly unusual to find diamond rings on sidewalks. So, I figured, a theory was in order.

I theorized that an Argentinian newspaper writer lost it while struggling vehemently with his editor over an article about the effects of sushi on office productivity. Very unlikely, some may say, and I will agree. But so is finding a diamond ring on the sidewalk, yet there it was! So, I mailed it in an envelope to the United Argentinian Press with a note reading: "To whom it may concern."