Hi John
Evolutionary principles can help understand how the first self
replicating cell originated. For example all the evidence suggests
that it came from an RNA based predecessor, where RNA is replicated and
splits into chunks to form enzymes etc. We are currently finding RNA
has far more roles than we had previously realised, plenty of scope for
RNA based lifeforms.
As for whether there is an inevitability of humanoid based life forms,
no there is nothing that suggests that we were inevitable. In 10 million
years time it might be that the descendants of todays mice (see Douglas
Adams) or dolphins who are in many ways as advanced as we are might be
asking themselves the same question, and they are not sexually
compatible with us.
There is an emergent phenomena that gives rise to more complex life
forms that are better fitted than their predecessors to survive. Darwin
describes well the process that makes this happen, and all that we have
found in genetics supports and can be understood based this idea.
However, the more find out about biological processes, the more we seem
to rule out alternative none DNA/RNA ways that life could occur.
Basically evolution (and our chemists) seems to have explored just about
every available option, and there is nothing else that comes close to
doing what DNA/RNA can do. If life exists elsewhere, I find it
increasingly difficult to see how it can be anything other than DNA/RNA
based. If it is DNA/RNA based then that would therefore just be an
example of parallel evolution, which we already have lots of examples of
within nature. What will then be interesting will be to see what the
similarities and differences are in the way that the DNA/RNA encodes
information (e.g. coding for proteins, which is more abitary), which
would be the only way that we could determine whether there was a common
ancester.
My particular heresy/unproven hypothesis is that I beleive that some of
the information in DNA is stored in a 'non-local' form (similar to
Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields), so in principle could be shared with
an alien DNA based life form, which could mean that the aliens might
indeed turn out to be hairy humanoids. I await the arrival of aliens
with interest so that these various hypothesies can be tested.
Nigel
On 27/08/2014 10:52, [email protected] wrote:
Hi Nigel,
Thanks again for your reply but it seems like you were answering
someone else's query. I did not remotely suggest recent creation and
did not think that I promoted alien impregnation. The alien
impregnation that I spoke of was of the sexual variety and is a well
known case that even the Wikipedia "defenders of the faith" cannot
build much of a case against.
Evolution really can't even get started until you have a
self-replicating cell, so evolution as such cannot have any
explanation for where the first self-replicating cell came from. Many
(if not most?) mainline scientists accept this fact and some well
known ones go so far as to even suggest an off-world (ie "alien")
source. I am not concerned whether the source was "alien
impregnation" or whatever other mechanism you happen to think might
have produced the first self-replicating cell. This is something we
may never know. But if even one of the alien visitation cases turns
out to be true (and it would seem that this could happen any day if
certain governments would allow it), then I think it must have an
enormous impact on the theory of evolution and thus maybe even impact
your job.
So my hope was that you might follow this possibly impending scenario
through to a logical conclusion. Suppose tomorrow that we find out
that there really was a crash at Roswell, and we really did meet live
aliens or have dead alien bodies to dissect (the sort of stuff that
this list enjoys dreaming about), it either points to the process of
evolution being incredibly convergent (and how could that work!), or
that the process was largely programmed into the first
self-replicating cell.
So my question again is: from your knowledge of the DNA of the
earliest known forms of life, is there sufficient information content
to almost guarantee that humanoid life-forms (very similar to us and
even sexually compatible) will finally evolve? Or does the minimal
state of the DNA of early life forms strongly suggest that there must
be some "emergent phenomenon" or meddling along the way in order to
produce in the end such similar humanoid life forms?
John
