> -----Original Message----- > From: Gruss Gott [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 9:21 AM > To: CF-Community > Subject: Re: Oh dear God no..... > > > Jim wrote: > > happened several billion years ago. There's really no reason to > suggest it > > seriously > > There are lots of reasons to discuss it seriously: > > 1.) We don't know what early Earth was like.
So why suppose that we needed help from space? What's the driver that would cause us to leave Occam's razor? Knowing what the Earth was like (and knowing that it possibly couldn't have supported early life) would be evidence to explore it further. Since we don't know that's evidence to assume the simplest hypothesis. > 2.) We don't know what the exact conditions must be to create life. No - but we have a lot of damn good ideas - none of which require extra-terrestrial influence. Actually none of them require terrestrial influence either - the point of whether it happened "here" or "there" is basically moot - how did it happen is the question. > 3.) We have lots of evidence that organic compounds are flying around > on comets. True... and much more that they're all over the place right here. ;^) > So, while we HAVE evidence that organic compounds ARE on > extra-terrestrial rocks, we have no evidence that these compounds lead > to life or that Earth could've created them or that they're even > modern life pre-cursors. Don't confuse me: exo-biology is a truly, deeply fascinating field - one I actually follow pretty closely. My point isn't that it shouldn't be considered seriously AT ALL, but that it shouldn't be considered seriously for life on Earth (until there's some evidence that Earth would need such help). Again when we're talking about the mechanisms of things it location doesn't really seem to matter so until it's needed we just need such a complicating variable. Of course the really interesting, to me, idea is the combination. I see no reason that Earth couldn't have generated life all on its own... however it's also clear that we may, perhaps often, be bombarded with proto-life from space. There's a lot of interesting conjecture in that... Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:250137 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
