Abiogenesis and life on Earth - thoughts and pet theories?
- Thread starter Azathoth Unbound
- Start date
So maybe life here on Earth was caused by some alien schmuck who just landed here for a second to clear his ashtray.
Wouldn't that be a real hoot?
This article just showed up on my Google front page:
The Math Says Life Shouldn’t Exist: New Study Challenges Origins Theories
https://scitechdaily.com/the-math-says-life-shouldnt-exist-new-study-challenges-origins-theories/
If life on Earth was the result of alien seeding, doesn't that put the true origins of life much closer to the creation of the universe than if it formed naturally here on Earth? Life still had to have formed spontaneously somewhere, and to obscure the the question of its possibility and likelihood with an earlier intermediary, just means it would have had to form, develop, and evolve to intelligent life that then advanced technologically to interstellar travel hundreds of millions of years earlier. That really is our number coming up on the first roll in a million.
-Will
The Math Says Life Shouldn’t Exist: New Study Challenges Origins Theories
https://scitechdaily.com/the-math-says-life-shouldnt-exist-new-study-challenges-origins-theories/
I would think that if the barriers to the spontaneous formation of life was extremely high, chance might be the only reason it has formed so early. Roll a million sided die and you might hit your number on the first throw, as unlikely as that is, it is still possible.
Except, there are forces and structures that do move systems towards order. Gravity is one, velcro is another.
This just adds another turtle to the tower. The question of the likelihood of life forming naturally doesn't change. In fact, that would only make chance a much more important player in the game.
If life on Earth was the result of alien seeding, doesn't that put the true origins of life much closer to the creation of the universe than if it formed naturally here on Earth? Life still had to have formed spontaneously somewhere, and to obscure the the question of its possibility and likelihood with an earlier intermediary, just means it would have had to form, develop, and evolve to intelligent life that then advanced technologically to interstellar travel hundreds of millions of years earlier. That really is our number coming up on the first roll in a million.
-Will
Lead poisoning has been a feature of our evolution
This might explain a few things in humanities DNA.
This might explain a few things in humanities DNA.
The video linked below presents a convincing (to me, a non-expert) hypothesis for how phosphorus weathering during the breakup of the Rodinia supercontinent reshaped Earth’s biosphere by fueling oxygen production, replacing the largely sulfidic Canfield ocean with a purely oxic one, thereby enabling the creation of a eukaryotic food web. Eukaryotes first filter fed on eukaryotic algae as a source of sterols, rather than bacterial mats, and then some evolved the locomotory and sensory apparatus to actively predate each other, causing the evolution of hard parts needed for protection.
What isn't mentioned is that the evolution of sex meant that an additional food source could have been all the spare sperm and eggs floating around available to be gobbled up like a caviar banquet. All sorts of weird cross-fertilisation could also have taken place. Most resulting embryos wouldn't have been viable but some might have gotten lucky with hybrid vigour. This might explain why so many eukaryotes undergo metamorphic phases between larval and adult forms, such as is seen in tunicates, echinoderms, arthropods, and to a lesser extent even in vertebrates such as ourselves (puberty).
What isn't mentioned is that the evolution of sex meant that an additional food source could have been all the spare sperm and eggs floating around available to be gobbled up like a caviar banquet. All sorts of weird cross-fertilisation could also have taken place. Most resulting embryos wouldn't have been viable but some might have gotten lucky with hybrid vigour. This might explain why so many eukaryotes undergo metamorphic phases between larval and adult forms, such as is seen in tunicates, echinoderms, arthropods, and to a lesser extent even in vertebrates such as ourselves (puberty).
Sounds a bit like the old discredited phylogenetic recapitulation theory, the one that had three members of Scott's final antarctic mission scouring around in antarctic winter trying to get penguin embryos to prove.
The more we study life up close, the more we learn about how difficult abiogenesis is. But yet, it had to have happened, either here on earth or somewhere else and transported here. The only other explanation is the supernatural BS, and I won't accept that. We just need to find the precursor life that happened to make RNA one day, and then we'll have it.
And whatever that was, we'll need to find out where it came from.
And whatever that was, we'll need to find out where it came from.
Well at least removes the magical aspect of a magical sky being just wishing life into existence
Makes the "mysterious" aspect just as mystical.
Everything exists because nothing is impossible.
-Will
Except I'm not referring to embryonic development. I'm referring to the later transition where a much different body plan is expressed, almost as if a completely different set of control genes (from a different ancestor) takes over the Hox genes and starts again. In vertebrates this seems much more muted.
Perhaps, 550 Ma ago, motile larvae with notochords of adult creatures similar to a sessile tunicate neotenically mutated to become sexually active and became the ancestors of all chordates.
Having lost the genes to enter fully the adult stage, only the ones enabling sexual maturity survived and we inherited these. I, for one, am glad. Being a immotile sea-squirt whose main role is to produce gametes sounds very boring, although I guess without a brain, one wouldn't notice.
Even now, perhaps some people subconsciously strive to enter the lost, true adult stage - sounds very messy. /joking
ETA: The following video discusses Hox genes.
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It’s kicking the can down the road—since the aliens would have had to evolve—-unless an “All you zombies” scenario puts a nice bow on things.