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Where did we come from?

WIZE

I was watching the Documentry on The Discovery Channel and they said life most likey started from minerals on an asteroid which crashed into Earth

Religous people will say Adam and Eve

So how did life end up on earth

That is the Question

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token56

Pace2008 wrote: »

Just because you can't disprove something doesn't make it a valid theory.

You can't disprove I was the one who created the universe, and have existed in various guises since the dawn of time. But it's obviously nonsense.
Science doesn't deal in proof though; it deals in evidence. We come up with working models and test how accurate our predictions are against the results.

I agree,

My post was obviously poorly worded and my point lost I think. I do really realise science not dealing in proofs etc, although my post obviously made it come across like the opposite. Sorry for that.

token56

WIZE wrote: »

So where did life come from then ?

I come to the conclusion that life was on another planet that exploded some where out there and a piece of that planet ended up on earth to create life here

I dont mean humans but another living thing

What I dont get though is why life in any way has not adapted its self on any of our local planets

You still have to answer the same question then of how that life originated.

Sparticle

WIZE wrote: »

So where did life come from then ?

I come to the conclusion that life was on another planet that exploded some where out there and a piece of that planet ended up on earth to create life here

I dont mean humans but another living thing

What I dont get though is why life in any way has not adapted its self on any of our local planets

IMO panspermia fails occams razor. You then have to ask yourself how life began on that planet.

Pace2008

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

So is a higher being not a good theory?

It's been hypothesised, though it's unlikely, that life could have been "seeded" on earth by an intelligent extraterrestrial lifeform.

There is nothing to suggest that life was created by a supernatural higher power, and alost certainly not the Abrahamic God of the bible.

Wolfe Tone

Pace2008 wrote: »

It's been hypothesised, though it's unlikely, that life could have been "seeded" on earth by an intelligent extraterrestrial lifeform.

There is nothing to suggest that life was created by a supernatural higher power, and alost certainly not the Abrahamic God of the bible.

But maybe there are beings out there who by our standards would be "supernatural".

And if that theory is correct, were did those aliens come from?

Killer Pigeon

This is turning out to be another 'creation science -vs- science' thread.

Bring on the facepalms.

Liam Byrne

WIZE wrote: »

Religous people will say Adam and Eve

If so, we're here because of incest! :eek:

WIZE

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

This is turning out to be another 'creation science -vs- science' thread.

Bring on the facepalms.

No facepalms . We want opinons

WIZE

Liam Byrne wrote: »

If so, we're here because of incest! :eek:

Yes brother

Pace2008

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

But maybe there are beings out there who by our standards would be "supernatural".

There could be life so evolved that it might appear godlike to us. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," and all that.

And if that theory is correct, were did those aliens come from?

We're still working on figuring out how abiogenesis occurred on this planet, so I can hardly begin to posit how these hypothetical godlike creatures came into being.

Killer Pigeon

WIZE wrote: »

No facepalms . We want opinons

Opinions that are contrary to fact are facepalm worthy in my opinion.

Sparticle

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

This is turning out to be another 'baseless faith -vs- science' thread.

Bring on the facepalms.

Fixed

Liam Byrne wrote: »

If so, we're here because of incest! :eek:

More like wincest.:pac:

MagicMarker

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion
started. Wait…
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unravelling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!
“Since the dawn of man” is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes
to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
It’s expanding ever outward but one day
It will cause the stars to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it wont be
hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even
bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating out while here they’re catching deer (we’re
catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!

dvpower

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

So is a higher being not a good theory?

Not a good answer anyway. It only opens up the question about where the higher being came from (and so on, and so on...).

Some people will say that there was an ultimate higher being that was always here (I think they refer to it as God), but its probably better just to say that we don't know.

Killer Pigeon

Sparticle wrote: »

Fixed

More like wincest.:pac:

Yes, I would agree, baseless faith = creation science. Thanks for fine tuning my post.

Killer Pigeon

MagicMarker wrote: »

Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion
started. Wait…
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unravelling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!
“Since the dawn of man” is really not that long,
As every galaxy was formed in less time than it takes
to sing this song.
A fraction of a second and the elements were made.
The bipeds stood up straight,
The dinosaurs all met their fate,
They tried to leap but they were late
And they all died (they froze their asses off)
The oceans and pangea
See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya
Set in motion by the same big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!
It’s expanding ever outward but one day
It will cause the stars to go the other way,
Collapsing ever inward, we won’t be here, it wont be
hurt
Our best and brightest figure that it’ll make an even
bigger bang!
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating out while here they’re catching deer (we’re
catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Encarta, Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!
Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxDcOxXQI-k

Isn't google amazing.

dvpower

WIZE wrote: »

What I dont get though is why life in any way has not adapted its self on any of our local planets

We don't know for sure that their isn't life of some sort on some of the other planets in our solar system.

We can be fairly sure that there isn't life like us, but we wouldn't expect life like us to develop in environments that aren't like ours.

MagicMarker

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxDcOxXQI-k

Isn't google amazing.

Sure?

storm2811

I don't know,I presume we were once just some blob of bacteria or something,I'm not very educated on the subject but it's just a thought!

I can't wrap my head around the whole "God made us" theory though,I can't even believe I used to think that was true..

Gummy Panda

well first there was the titans...

CrazyRabbit

So, you guys are all from space? Well, I came from my mammy.

Damn aliens are everywhere.

maninasia

dvpower wrote: »

We don't know for sure that their isn't life of some sort on some of the other planets in our solar system.

We can be fairly sure that there isn't life like us, but we wouldn't expect life like us to develop in environments that aren't like ours.

We know almost nothing about the other planets in our solar system. They could well support bacteria life, especially sub-surface, we just have never got the machines and tools there to test for that yet. NASA only proved Mars once had liquid water on it's surface last year! They have never actually tested directly for life there. The best experiment they did was the Viking lander, sent 30 years ago, but the machine was faulty and they got conflicting results...30 years ago!!!

For instance, they have never even run a sample of soil for the presence of DNA..something that is very simple to do on Earth. Plus you need to test multiple areas and also drill deep undergound. There is no reason why bacteria could not live happily under the surface of Mars as they do on Earth.

maninasia

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Well, earth is nicely placed in the so-called 'habitable zone' in the solar system although there is still theories that suggest microbial life could have existed on Mars.

How do you know it doesn't exist, nobody has done the tests yet?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_biological_experiments

'Future missions
The question of life on Mars will probably not be resolved entirely until future missions to Mars either conclusively demonstrate the presence of life on the planet, identify the chemical(s) responsible for the Viking results, or both. About thirty three years after the Viking program, the Beagle 2, a British robotic lander spacecraft, was sent to Mars on 2003 to specifically assess possible chemical biosignatures of life, but the spacecraft was destroyed on landing. The Mars Science Laboratory rover is scheduled to launch in 2011 and will determine the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds in the soil and atmosphere of Mars. Astrobiology research on Mars will continue with the Mars Trace Gas Mission orbiter in 2016 and ExoMars and MAX-C rovers in 2018'

So maybe by 2018, still no DNA or direct biological test in there.

Wibbs

WIZE wrote: »

So where did life come from then ?

I come to the conclusion that life was on another planet that exploded some where out there and a piece of that planet ended up on earth to create life here

But as others have said then youre left with the question of where did that life start in the first place?

What I dont get though is why life in any way has not adapted its self on any of our local planets

Well we don't know. Yet. Higher life forms need fairly specific conditions over very very long periods of time to form. It seems going by the earth anyway that bacterial life needs a couple of 100 million years to kick off. Then again Earth is very unusual. For the solar system anyway. Its the only one with plate tectonics. It has a very specific chemistry because of the impact that formed the moon. It had a thick dense atmosphere very early on, but one that thinned out in the "right" way, didnt blow off into space like mars, or get hotter and denser like venus. It has liquid water on its surface. It has an active core that provides an sheild against radiation. We also have a moon. The largest moon in comparison to the home planet in the solar system. It gave us huge tidal forces in the distant past which some surmise helped certain life processes along. It's a very long list.

Now Mars could well have bacterial life or had it in the past. It is a rocky planet and did have liquid water on its surface for a time. How long that was around or how stable it was is still unknown. The majority of water carved features on mars look like flash flood features, not stable water systems. When the core died, so did mars. Too small to keep an atmosphere so most of that blew off into space. Contrary to what has been said earlier there is no liquid water on the surface of mars today and hasnt been for a very very long time. Its possible that deep under the surface highly saline water is somewhat liquid but that's conjecture.

Mars looks so familiar to us. Its the most familiar place out there discovered so far. Its got mountains and sky and wind and sunsets etc so it seems more hospitable than it actually is. If you were to stand on Mars and by magic could stand there without a spacesuit, the first thing you would notice is how dim the light is. much like dusk on earth. The second thing you would notice is the cold. Then you would feel how thin and dry the air is. You would barely feel a 200 mph wind on your skin. The solar radiation would hit next in the form of very strong UV. All in all if you wanted to design a place that was built for sterilising bacteria you could do worse than come up with mars. On the surface at least.

dvpower wrote: »

Not a good answer anyway. It only opens up the question about where the higher being came from (and so on, and so on...).

Some people will say that there was an ultimate higher being that was always here (I think they refer to it as God), but its probably better just to say that we don't know.

True. Could a God exist? I would say yes. You could imagine all sorts of different scenarios where one might. From the notion of a dumb force that brought the universe into being from "outside" through to an internal force that guided the formation. You could look at the universe as a giant information bubble, with a set of rules that govern that information. Those rules could be god. In which case physicists are better theologians than clergymen

You could further argue that the complexity of this information could reach a certain point where it became conscious. Not in our sense, it would be as alien to us as we are to an ant. If you look at an organism, it's made up of individual cells reliant on the whole, but also independent organisms themselves. If a blood cell was self aware it would relaise it was an organism, that there were others around it, some the same many different, but it would likely miss the person walking to the bus that its part of. Intelligence and consciousness arises out of these structured colonies. When you regard the web of life just on this planet we may be part of a whole that we're only partially aware of. Extend that to the universe. We could be part of an infinitely more complex universal Gaia. We or others like us out there may even get to the point where we can create other universes in the lab. In which case we would be the "gods" of other universes and the reproductive system of our own.

WIZE

That was an Informative read . Thanks

Zombienosh

the chicken, or the egg?

maninasia

Wibbs, good points.
But it must be emphasised that the vast majority of life on earth may be living within the sub-surface zone (bacteria). Plate tectonics, athmosphere, low temps etc..doesn't mean anything to bacteria that evolved for conditions on Mars.

We must be careful to not fall into the 'Earth is just right trap'. Earth is just right, for living things that evolved on Earth. This is self evident, no?

It would certainly not be just right for living things that evolved on Jupiter or Mars. Basing our conclusion on life on Earth is very short-sighted. We know that Earth seems to be more stable and seems to support more complex life especially above the surface but we don't know if it is any more suitable than Mars for subsurface bacterial life.

BTW, the date for complex life to emerge has been put back by another few hundred million years recently with discovery of fossils in Australia
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/07/multicellular-life-it-might-be-older-than-you-think/

Killer Pigeon

maninasia wrote: »

How do you know it doesn't exist, nobody has done the tests yet?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_biological_experiments

'Future missions
The question of life on Mars will probably not be resolved entirely until future missions to Mars either conclusively demonstrate the presence of life on the planet, identify the chemical(s) responsible for the Viking results, or both. About thirty three years after the Viking program, the Beagle 2, a British robotic lander spacecraft, was sent to Mars on 2003 to specifically assess possible chemical biosignatures of life, but the spacecraft was destroyed on landing. The Mars Science Laboratory rover is scheduled to launch in 2011 and will determine the nature and inventory of organic carbon compounds in the soil and atmosphere of Mars. Astrobiology research on Mars will continue with the Mars Trace Gas Mission orbiter in 2016 and ExoMars and MAX-C rovers in 2018'

So maybe by 2018, still no DNA or direct biological test in there.

I did not say I knew that microbial life existed on Mars I said it could have which isn't an assertion of absolute fact, it is just a theory.

maninasia

Yes but you used the words 'could have' implying that if they did exist they would be extinct now. That seems very unlikely, bacteria would evolve to match the conditions available to them and subsurface conditions may not be very different even with a thinning atmosphere or the conditions may have changed gradually enough for bacteria to adapt there. Bacteria are very tenacious. So if bacteria existed on Mars in the past it's a very good bet they are still there today. Since there has been exchange of material between Mars and Earth over billions of years and when the atmosphere was more 'habitable' with some liquid water in the past it's not too far out to guess one planet may have seeded the other (more likely Earth but who knows).

Wibbs

maninasia wrote: »

Wibbs, good points.
But it must be emphasised that the vast majority of life on earth may be living within the sub-surface zone (bacteria).

Very true. Indeed single celled and very "simple" life makes up the vast majority of life on this planet. Sharks and lions and us are a teeny tiny part of the whole. Almost an afterthought.

Plate tectonics, athmosphere, low temps etc..doesn't mean anything to bacteria that evolved for conditions on Mars.

True, but lfe as we know it, based on carbon and utilising chemicals or the sun for energy need certain criteria to survive, much less evolve. And that criteria is quite narrow. One biggy is liquid water. Even in tiny amounts. Without liquid water life may survive in stasis, but won't be active life and its highly unlikely to evolve in the first place. One theory that requires our large moon, is some processes of pre life require liquid water, others require the complete absence of it. The creationists love that one, but IMHO its bollox. In the moon theory the very aggressive tides of our early world, when the moon was much closer, drowned and alternatively baked compounds on some ancient beach. If this is the case, then a planet without a large moon will be at a serious disadvantage. In the case of a water world like the conjecture about europa, no drying our is possible, so again would be less likely to kickstart life.

We must be careful to not fall into the 'Earth is just right trap'. Earth is just right, for living things that evolved on Earth. This is self evident, no?

Yes and no. The only life we know of is earths. Now it seems earth was the right place for the life we find here. But and its a big but, if life kicked off so easily as it seems to have done here, then why is all life on this planet related and appears to have had a one off event as a startpoint for all life. There are no "aliens" among us thus far discovered. If life can kick of so readily on suitable planets then one would expect it to have happened more than once here, on a planet clearly suited for it. Lots of times in fact, but it seems it didnt. This would suggest to me at least that life, certainly on earth is quite the fluke. Complex life is even more of a fluke. For longer than complex life ruled, single celled goo was the order of the day on earth and is still by a large factor the most common life here.

It would certainly not be just right for living things that evolved on Jupiter or Mars. Basing our conclusion on life on Earth is very short-sighted. We know that Earth seems to be more stable and seems to support more complex life especially above the surface but we don't know if it is any more suitable than Mars for subsurface bacterial life.

Ok lets say we engineer a bacterium to grow on mars. Make it very resistant to radiation, with the ability to utilise CO2 and other elements as fuel and with the ability to survive for long periods of time without liquid water(if there is any anywhere on mars deep down). It would be doable I imagine. That's OK, but would it spontaneously evolve on mars in the first place? With a very different set of criteria and pressures involved? I doubt it, unless mars had water for far longer than thought of and that loss of water was slow enough that said life adapted rather than died out.

TBH though we'll never know, I suspect Venus 3 billion years ago a more likely candidate. It had a very dense CO2 atmosphere, like we did at first and also likely had liquid water. It had the gravity to hold onto an atmosphere and the active core to drive it. It seems if life did kick off there it wasnt strong enough to terraform the atmosphere as it did here, or being closer to the sun the heat was just that bit too much.

BTW, the date for complex life to emerge has been put back by another few hundred million years recently with discovery of fossils in Australia
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/07/multicellular-life-it-might-be-older-than-you-think/

Oh I agree it did kick off very early. But while it's easy enough to say that this means its inevitable that life will start, its also equally easy enough to say that life was a fluke, that required very specific criteria to occur and its not that common out there. Until we find life, any life, beyond our planet we have an example of just one. All we can surmise is that going by current knowledge it would only happen on a planet near identical in makeup to our own. Anything else while interesting to think about is pure conjecture.