[extropy-chat] ET is a Bacterium

[Robert Lindauer]

Avantguardian:


You wrote:
    1. Spontaneous Generation: All the various thories of
the chemical evolution of life on earth from "scratch"
including but not limited to Watson's RNA world. The
only real evidence for this is that RNA is capable of
enzymatic self modification. There is also some
resemblance of certain clay/water colloids to cell
membranes. The evidence against this is that it has
not been demonstrated to occur anywhere, in nature or
in the lab where pre-biotic conditions can be
simulated. In fact the spontaneous generation of life
was specifically disproven by Louis Pasteur and other
19th century biologists. After over 200 years of
progress of biological study, one thing that
biologists are certain of is that all existing life
came from pre-existent life.   
    2. Intelligent Design: You all know and the arguments
for this, and, I am pretty sure, likewise think they
are bogus.
    3. Panspermia: Aside from experimental evidence for
this (bacterial spore experiments in space) and the
lack of negative evidence refuting it, there are
Bayesian arguments for it. The endospore is very
obviously an evolved trait of many bacterial species
some of which are extremophiles. Adaptations in nature
are normally guided by selective pressures and do not
tend toward overkill. That is to say that gazelle
evolved the ability to outrun lions and cheetahs but
they cannot outrun race-cars because there was no need
for them to evolve to be THAT fast. But in endospore
forming bacilli, we have bacteria that evolved high
degrees of resistance to vacuum, temperature extremes,
gamma rays, and other forms of ionizing radiation. If
they WERE terrestrial in origin, what possible
selective pressure would there be for them to develop
vaccuum resistance and gamma radiation resistance? 

_______________

I think your arguments against spontaneous generation are damning, but unfortunately think they must also apply to your third option since, if the question of origins arises at all, it arises just as well in the case of the Panspermia - how did THEY get here?

Once you accept the young universe hypothesis, the idea of spontaneous generation is pretty much directly opposed only to the intelligent design theory.  If the proto-bacteria arose at all, either they did it "accidentally" or through some intelligent action.  The only seemingly competetive version is the eternal universe hypothesis which has only the unfortunate problems of being physically unlikely, experimentally unverified (maybe unverifiable) and conceptually confusing.  (Which came first, the chicken or the egg - answer "neither".  Response, "wha?").

The idea that this universe is a created thing by something in some larger scope of reality shouldn't be regarded as suprising or odd - if we live in the matrix, there are the machines running the matrix and they didn't just pop up out of nowhere.

Robbie Lindauer