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Author Topic:   Panspermia
SUnderwood
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 26 (87874)
02-21-2004 8:13 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by extremophile
01-06-2004 6:13 PM


Re: Panspermia
I've been reading about panspermia for some time and its a beautiful theory which slots well with emerging biotechnological discoveries. Heres a little background.
As extremophile indicates, in essence the major part of panspermia is the view that life is a natural consequence of the way the universe is "constructed" and works. By accident, or design, the universe has a very strong tendancy to "create/make" life's molecules and structures, almost as if it were a natural PROCESS of cosmic evolution.
One major breakthrough to this idea, discovered by which Chandler Wickramasigne, was the discovery of organic molecule absorbtion patterns of interstellar dust. Later they found absorption patterns in interstellar dust that match, near perfectly, that of dried bacteria (Analysis of Interstellar Dust and Selected Resources. by Brig Klyce). So somehow interstellar dust is riddled with bateria and organic molecules, almost as if life is everywhere! (i know your question, wait ;-)
If one can accept the above as being a possibility, then it is not difficult to see how Earth could be seeded with life from space (and is STILL BEING SEEDED from space to this day!)
Indeed, imagine for a moment, our young star systems gas cloud was "seeded" with lifes molecules (chloroplasts, nucleiotides, etc) and bateria and inorganic molecules before its birth. During the condensation of the gas/molecular/baterial clouds into our star systems, organic and inorganic molecules would form part of the composition of all planets, comets & moons. So the molecules of life and bateria where already here at the beginning. This would help to account for lifes abundant ecosystems found kilometers below earths surface which has not had exposure to the surface. It would also help to explain why comets and meteorites have an abundance of organic compounds.
The questions of how/where did life originate, what processes go into the creation of organic compounds and cells still remains. I remember two aspects of their and associated works which get us closer to answering these questions. 1) That comets provide an excellent environment for concentrated and complex chemical reactions to take place (a sort of primordial soup), 2) the corona of stars facilitates the joining of molecules to create complex organic compounds such as chlorophyll. If you would like clearies theories visit the website or read some other books it suggests.
The website COSMIC ANCESTRY: Panspermia's evidence and implications. and articles and books by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe go into a lot more detail, such as;
* lifes use of viruses for the transfer of genes between speicies (horizontal transfer),
* gene transfer as the major evolutionary force, transfering large chunks of DNA/RNA from one organism to another,
* desease outbreaks coinsiding with Earths passage through a comet's path, evidence of comets as a vector of biological information (a.k.a viruses/bacteria)
* natural selection as a fine tuning mechnism for activated genes,
* evolution through genetic mutation being VERY improbable,
* Panspermia as an interesting new light on Creationism,
* Its not a matter of how life originated, but where life will originate again!
Their mission, so to say, is not to provide an answer to the origins of life, but to instigate a paradigm shift away from the Earth-centric Darwinian perspective, to a more universal, inclusive, *open ended* view of lifes origins and its existance. Thanks to biotechnological advances and techniques, comet sampling satalites, space telescopes, mars rovers etc, their theory looks more and more accurate as the weeks pass!
I could rant on but I need a break ;-) What are you thoughts? Especially I ask those who've read some of their material (ie, at least COSMIC ANCESTRY: Panspermia's evidence and implications. if not a book or two)
Sean

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by extremophile, posted 01-06-2004 6:13 PM extremophile has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by RAZD, posted 04-08-2004 2:17 AM SUnderwood has replied
 Message 12 by Brad McFall, posted 04-12-2004 6:28 PM SUnderwood has not replied
 Message 15 by extremophile, posted 05-05-2004 10:36 PM SUnderwood has replied

  
SUnderwood
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 26 (98690)
04-08-2004 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by RAZD
04-08-2004 2:17 AM


Re: Panspermia
Correct. Genetic mutation is possible and does happen.
During transcription a mistake is estimated to occur once in every thousand or so genes copied, but the whole mechanisms of transcription compensates VERY well for these errors (if it didn't we'd probably all die before birth!).
But, and more importantly, "useful" genetic mutation is said to be very rare indeed. Mutation of an allele in a gene is more likely to impare the function of the gene than improve it. Hoyle et al have an interesting chapter in their recent book regarding the crystaline structure of DNA, its information content and its random sequence of nucleotides, which aims to show that random mutation will invariably impare the function of DNA, rather than improve it.
However, they also found, as most of you are probably aware, that a small set of allele's or a single mutation to a gene can lead to the expression/suppression of other genes, and hence lead to a great change the phenotype. Its in this way that most of fossil record has been built, by mutations of single "super" or "trigger" genes causing expression/suppression of other genes; the mutations themselves adding little or no new genes (that is to say, the do not add new information).
(There is also the topic of self-induced mutation, but thats for another topic.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by RAZD, posted 04-08-2004 2:17 AM RAZD has not replied

  
SUnderwood
Inactive Member


Message 17 of 26 (111161)
05-28-2004 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by extremophile
05-05-2004 10:36 PM


Re: Panspermia
Ok, you've pick up on my error here. What i mean is that the currently dohma is to think that Earth is the centre of Life for the Universe.
Anyway, until anyone actually takes the time to read about the topic of panspermia I'll take to leave my postings silent.
If anyone is interesting in seeing what new developments/research have been publish that gives further weight to the panspermia ideas please visit the following URL:
What'sNEW in Cosmic Ancestry. by Brig Klyce
Enjoy!
Sean

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by extremophile, posted 05-05-2004 10:36 PM extremophile has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 18 by jar, posted 05-28-2004 4:05 PM SUnderwood has not replied

  
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