What if DNA is a parasite from space?

I know, very hypothetical suggestion, hence Skunks Works for speculation!

Well, it can be proposed that DNA is the thing which makes us click. It controls the way living beings generally shapes: DNA are the instructions which makes the inanimate material become animated and behave in certain ways. It has been proposed that DNA is in fact immortal (read more).

So what if the DNA is somekind of parasite that arrived Earth in the beginning, floating amongst the other crap in space? It makes us eat, copulate and breed, as ensuring it's own continuity. When we are in danger in destroying ourselves (both individually and collectively) it employs tactics both psychological and physical to prevent self-destruction.

DNA in itself needs a host. If seperated from host, it seems as it cannot grow or multiply in itself. Modern science suggests that all living things has DNA. In fact the DNA can be very similar even on totally different species like human being and fruit flies (which has approx. 50% resemblance).

I think that to the science the origins of DNA is still as much mystery as it to me. But should we encounter humanlike aliens from other starsystems, it would support the conception that DNA has something to do with origins of life.

-v

PS. Before posting I made a quick search for similar threads. Found one at least:
What if DNA is an alien implant by Mr. Green

I don't know. I suppose it's an interesting question but is it really needed as an explanation? I wouldn't say so.

I've never thought about it but it's a bit of a chicken and the egg scenario. Did the first cells to form have dna? What made them want to replicate in the first place?

If dna did come from somewhere else then what was it there and how did it arise in the first place? I don't like ideas of panspermia and this one of dna coming from outer space because, while I'm willing to accept that they could well be true, it is just shifting the real questions somewhere else. But as with a lot of metaphysics, this is often the case.

We are as alien as any aliens in the sense that we are lifeforms on a planet floating around in space, why would it be any more likely to originate somewhere else? Surely because we are the only life we have so far observed, and there is so much of it here, it's reasonable to think that dna originated here?

well, i have been walking around with the idea that we came and all life thereby, from some very old "universal soup" .
from this came fungi, fungus, that can seed itself where ever it comes.

look at the lifeforms we thought would be impossible.
give the fungi time, and it could evolve eventually to what we are now.
so i think the universe is teeming with life.

side note, human like species could still be very very rare, as it needs a whole lot of time and correct conditions over long periods of stable climate etc.

Well, it is an possibility, but there are so many other possibilities that this is only one amongst many. But more I thought of it, more substantial it seems. It may be safe to say, that whatever the case is, life (or rather the seeds of life) in planet Earth originates elsewhere.

reply to post by Frakkerface


Maybe in the future we (as a race) could do an experiment if we find an habitable planet or moon with the preconditions to life. Install our DNA there and see what happens, if anything?

reply to post by telfyr


Oh I'd like to speak with a sentient mushroom Seriously though, mushrooms have quite likely existed on this planet before us. They have had the time, more than us. But maybe they have realized that their way is more effective and we cannot never really understand them?

-v

[edit on 19-7-2010 by v01i0]

without fungi no plant life is possible, maybe a few, bu almost zero to none.
no i will not make it easy, do look it up you're selves if interested.
and come across new views only you can see, than talk about.

ask youre selves , why does the brain react on lods of musrhooms, and changes youre world completely, if there was no connection at all, than it would only make us sick, or a good food source.

brains and fungi , its a big mystery, that the ancients knew and used.

reply to post by Frakkerface Maybe in the future we (as a race) could do an experiment if we find an habitable planet or moon with the preconditions to life. Install our DNA there and see what happens, if anything?

better yet, map its dna rna etc, than when we can boost them for our purpose, lets go on with it.
bu do not let us become a bacteria, okay ?

I've heard it put in an interesting way: "Life is merely the longest running chemical reaction on the planet."

First off, DNA is not alive by any biological definition I've ever heard. You used the words "immortal" and "host" and "parasite", which designate a living biological entity, which DNA is not. It is a molecule; a very important one, but a molecule none the less.

I've heard the outer space theory before, and the truth is, we don't know. I doubt it, but I don't know. The main objection I have to that theory, is that I've yet to meet a person who claims to believe in it, who uses it solely to avoid having to answer the question of where did it originally come from?

Rather than trying to go out and do some actual research on their own, they use that theory to avoid having to answer it.
"DNA didn't come here; I know, it came from a Meteor!"
My main objection to it is not the theory itself, but the scientists who claim to believe in it.

But the truth is, that it really doesn't change that much about having to answer where did DNA come from; all it does is change the location. We know quite well that early in the developmental stages of a planetary formation, the ball is a molten sphere of lava. That doesn't change. The condition by which DNA can come to evolve does not change that much. (I'm not suggesting that DNA is going to evolve the same everywhere in the Universe, just that the planetary conditions are pretty much the same).

So yes, it is an interesting theory. No, I do not personally hold that much faith in it, and I sure as heck hold little to no faith in those who believe in it in order to avoid answering the question of
"Where did we come from?"

Archistrage

Thanks OP for a good thread. You are presenting two theories that already exist; thus, some evidence can be found. First is their any evidence that DNA is parasitic? For this consider viruses. There is no agreement that viruses are alive or not, but they are parasitic. Each virus consists of a single DNA molecule surrounded by a protective coat. To reproduce, this virus must touch a suitable cell, stick to it, and then using an enzyme bore out of the coat and through the cell wall. Once inside the cell, it uses the protoplasm to create thousands of new viruses. A virus can reproduce in no other way and so it is a parasite. From this the conclusion can be drawn that at least some DNA is parasitic.

You also refer to the theory of Panspermia that life has migrated to earth from other locations in the universe. Science has not been able to demonstrate how life began on earth. It is a corner stone of the theory of evolution that life must have some natural spontaneous beginning. However, Louis Pasteur was the first scientist to falsify this theory by experiment. Many subsequent experiments by other scientists have confirmed this falsification. Since the paradigm of science demands a natural explanation for things, panspermia was presented as an alternative. That is life began on other worlds in as yet unknown exotic conditions and has since then migrated thoughout the universe. This theory is good until falsified. It does not require extraordinary evidence as some claim on these boards.

Now I must have a conspiracy theory to fit the forum designation. Well, the entire falsification problem has been swept under the rug by modern science. The history of science has been systematically misrepresented in order to conceal its many weak points. The members of the scientific community are like the characters in the novel 1984 victims of a history rewritten by the powers that be. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions By Thomas Kuhn 1962.