Nobel Prize winner, Francis Crick ,advanced civilisation transported seeds of life in a spacecraft

Originally posted by SaturnFX
reply to post by Phage

 

Hmm...a big spaceship seeding life throughout the universe...meh...hardly a new theory...invasion of the bodysnatchers, stargate universe, and a billion other sci-fi shows have demonstrated this principle..neat theory, but until we "get out there", its all just speculation and philosophy.

Maybe someone/thing just doesn't want us to "get out there", if they wanted us to don't you think there would be some sort of contact/evidence?

hmm , it matters not who made the claim [ deliberate panspernia ] it is still an argument from incredulity . - to put it simply its the belief that life could not develope here so it must have come from some where else

and further - niether crick or any one since has addressed the issue of the origins of this " seeding "

to put it bluntly - " if life ` could not ` have spontaneously errupted here and " must have " come from elswhere - how did it arise in this ` elsewhere ` ?

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

To believe Crick when he said that "accidental seeding was unlikely" just because he knew a lot about DNA IS appealing to authority.

No, to make the claim that Crick saying it is unlikely proves it must be unlikely would be an "appeal to authority". But people can believe whatever they want to believe based on whatever they find credible. That is not an "appeal to authority", which refers to a specific mode of argument, not to personal beliefs. I agree that Crick's word alone would be a poor basis for belief, but your statement implies that this is what the OP (or others) were doing. I see no evidence of that.

He was not in a position to claim that it is unlikely for extremophiles to come to earth in a comet or asteroid. He didn't know enough about extremophiles for his idea about them to have any credence.

At what stage do you consider people qualified enough to give their opinion on the unlikelihood of something? Who decides who is qualified or not and on what basis?

I think it's a little rich for you to claim that the opinion of an eminent scientist like Crick doesn't "have any credence". It certainly has 'credence', but that doesn't mean it's fact.


[edit on 30-1-2010 by Malcram]

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by gortex

 

No. Of course it can't be completely ruled out but there is no evidence to support it either. We have no evidence of life on our own neighbor planets. We have no evidence of life on extra-solar planets. We have no evidence that the transportation of life across interstellar distances is possible.

Without evidence it is nothing more than speculation. Speculation is fine and necessary but it's important to remember that's all it is. When evidence is found which supplants speculation it's time to speculate about something else. While there is nothing that says the idea of panspermia or even directed panspermia did not occur, there is nothing that says it did and there is increasing evidence that the spontaneous emergence of life is not impossible or even improbable.




[edit on 1/30/2010 by Phage]

When you say there's no evidence, do you mean, evidence thats been made public? I am quite sure we do have evidence, its just that it is not being presented. Things like the "Bob White Object", which was examined and said to be manufactured not of this earth, people still work their balls off to discredit the person whom found it. It's like they dont want the truth at all and are just waiting every chance they get to piss on every great moment.

There was always roswell so don't say theres no evidence. This is something you will have to fight for. Literally. Hackers are your first best bet. You have to show them, we as people, we as ALL people in this country dont play around with being lied to. Think about it real good.

reply to post by downisreallyup


At no point did I say anything about my beliefs, all I did was comment on Crick's speculation. That is not a tacit approval of any other speculation, theory or what-have-you about the origins of life on Earth.

Originally posted by dragonsmusic
An applicable example would be the word "loser". It used to mean "someone who lost something" but is now used in a very different context . It could be used to apply to someone who thinks that speculation has no place at all in the forming of a theory.
Example, "That loser thinks that speculation has no part in the formation of scientific theory. "

I never said speculation did not have a place in the formation of a theory; you are reading what you want to.

And your desperation is proven by your need to resort to ad hominems.

Originally posted by Malcram

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

[quote]He was not in a position to claim that it is unlikely for extremophiles to come to earth in a comet or asteroid. He didn't know enough about extremophiles for his idea about them to have any credence.

At what stage do you consider people qualified enough to give their opinion on the unlikelihood of something? Who decides who is qualified or not and on what basis?

Crick was certainly entitled to his opinion, but the poster who said that Crick's position "lends more credence to Stichin" is mistaken.

My personal opinion on the matter is that Crick dismissed to possibility of life coming to Earth on a comet too quickly. I am not an extremophile expert either, but I would not dismiss this possibility as easily as Crick did. I think the idea of Earth being accidentally seeded with life is just as likely as Cricks assertion that it could have been deliberately seeded with life -- or it's even possible that life just started here.

[edit on 1/30/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by downisreallyup
A man who has studied the very essence of life for HIS entire life MAY... just MAY... have some insights into the subject... insights that you lack, and yet because of arrogance, you assume that he must be wrong, instead of the MORE LIKELY case, which is that you are wrong for making such a strong and uninformed conclusion.

At no point did I say Crick was wrong. Nor did I say he was an ignorant fool. All I said was in this case, he is speculating and we need to recognize it for speculation. Nothing more. Like Dragonmusic, you are reading things that are not there. I've said nothing different than what Soylent has said; but for some reason, some here have decided to make it a personal argument.


[edit on 30-1-2010 by DoomsdayRex]

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
Crick was certainly entitled to his opinion, but the poster who said that Crick's position "lends more credence to Stichin" is mistaken.

If only for the fact Sitchin and Crick were talking about two different things. Crick was speculating on the origin of all life, whereas Sitchin's did not claim aliens started all life but rather simply engineered Homo Sapiens.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape

to put it bluntly - " if life ` could not ` have spontaneously errupted here and " must have " come from elswhere - how did it arise in this ` elsewhere ` ?

Hmmm?

How would that apply to the other possibility that life could have developed here but did not; life did develop elsewhere and ended up here anyway by being transported here?

One theory does not eliminate all others simply by its being suggested.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Crick was certainly entitled to his opinion, but the poster who said that Crick's position "lends more credence to Stichin" is mistaken.

Of course it "lends credence", it just doesn't establish it as fact. I'm not sure why you would dispute that the comments of a nobel prize winning 'titan' of the scientific community like Crick, whose expertise directly relates to the subject being discussed, actually "lends credence". I'd say it's beyond dispute that it "lends credence".

My personal opinion on the matter is that Crick dismissed to possibility of life coming to Earth on a comet too quickly. I am not an extremophile expert either, but I would not dismiss this possibility as easily as Crick did.

Perhaps it is Cricks expertise that lead him to make the judgement that you rightly refrain from?

I don't know. And while I'm not interested in taking Crick's word as gospel either, I certainly find what he has to say interesting.


[edit on 30-1-2010 by Malcram]

reply to post by Malcram

Crick's premise was based on knowledge of the time. As my first post in the thread points out as more information was acquired his views changed.

reply to post by DoomsdayRex


You're a master at introducing irrelevancies as a distraction Rex.

Can you demonstrate how Crick's comments which were quoted don't "lend credence" to Sitchin's theory?

Finding differences in their opinions is meaningless if the difference doesn't relate to the the subject being discussed.

If two circles intersect, the intersection can't be dismissed by pointing out that most of the circles don't share exactly the same location. While that's true, it's also true that the circles intersect, and if the subject under discussion is the intersection, then discussing the rest of the circle is an irrelevancy.


[edit on 30-1-2010 by Malcram]

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by SyphonX

 

How about "making it up"?

Speculation = "making it up"?

I'll remind you of that the next time your are offering us some scientist's or technician's "speculation" as proof that some anomaly has been explained.


[edit on 30-1-2010 by Malcram]

Originally posted by TruthWarrior
Graham Hancock is an amazingly incredible researcher. I wished he would do more lectures though.

Same here, he has alot of books and articles that are researched well by him. The funny thing is that we are starting to hear more from mainline scientists and researchers about alien this and alien that. It could be that the word is out and that it's okay to start slowly putting out hypothesis/real alien information about how our civilization may have developed and how humans could have come into being. The Sumerians also have legends about sky beings coming down and forming man. What if it's alot simpler than what he said, and that is the aliens didn't implant all life on the planet but genetically engineered man from ancient hominids already on this planet. Lloyde Pye talks about this on YouTube in a two hour presentation. I don't believe some of his stuff about planet crashing into earth, but his hominid presentation got me really thinking. Just search his name on youtube and watch it, because he has alot of stuff that I can't but here but if you watch it you will start to think.

www.lloydpye.com...

Originally posted by Malcram

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People
My personal opinion on the matter is that Crick dismissed to possibility of life coming to Earth on a comet too quickly. I am not an extremophile expert either, but I would not dismiss this possibility as easily as Crick did.

Perhaps it is Cricks expertise that lead him to make the judgement that you rightly refrain from?

I don't know. And while I'm not interested in taking Crick's word as gospel either, I certainly find what he has to say interesting.

I do find it interesting, also.

However, it should be noted that Crick made theses comments back in 1981, before much was known about extremophiles and before much was known about the role of ribozymes as a biological catalyst.

What Crick and his collaborator (Leslie Orgel) knew back in 1981 about how life could survive in extreme situations is far less than we know now. Their argument that life could not survive in a comet is now seen as not an absolute -- their are scientists today who think thatperhaps life could survive in a comet or asteroid.

If that is true, then their argument about directed panspermia begins to fall apart.

Their other early argument for direct panspermia idea was that the spontaneous arising of life from amino acids was so rare in the universe, that it possibly only happened in a few places, and that life was then deliberately transported to Earth.
HOWEVER, Crick later recanted this, saying that the spontaneous creation of life from non-living matter, or abiogenesis , was more common than he originally thought, especially once the ribozyme was understood.

So actually, we are arguing over things that Crick himself recanted. That doesn't mean that direct panspermia did not possibly happen, but Crick's original arguments why he thought possibly it was the only way Earth "got" it's life is no longer valid.

From what Crick knew in 1981 when he wrote his book, direct panspermia perhaps (in his eyes) was the most likely scenario. However, based on what we know today, it is still a scenario, but the other scenarios ( [1.] life originating on Earth, or [2.] life on Earthaccidentally being seeded from space are NOT as unlikely as he thought.


[edit on 1/30/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by Malcram

 

Crick's premise was based on knowledge of the time. As my first post in the thread points out as more information was acquired his views changed.

If so, fair enough. However, that doesn't really relate to what I said. I was discussing what Crick was quoted as saying in the OP. His words "lend credence" to the theory the OP is discussing.

His opinion later changing doesn't change the fact that his earlier words did lend credence, which was what was being disputed.

How did Cricks's views change and how do they affect this issue? (Edit to add. Poster above has addressed this point)


[edit on 30-1-2010 by Malcram]

Originally posted by gortex

Coming full circle to his groundbreaking discovery of DNA's structure, Crick wondered, if life began in the great "primeval soup" suggested by the Miller/Urey experiment, why there wouldn't be a multitude of genetic materials among the different life forms. Instead, all life on Earth shares the same basic DNA structure.

The other way of looking at it of course would be that this is the only DNA configuration that works, or, at least the most efficient way. Perhaps if we were able to go back in time billions of years to the beginnings of life on Earth, we'd see DNA taking many other forms that have since been weeded out.

This is essentially the "fine tuned" universe argument, insinuating a "fine tuner", when in fact we wouldn't be able to exist in a universe that wasn't exactly like this one to pose the question of whether or not it's fine tuned. Just as if DNA wasn't naturally selected for and improved upon for eons, we wouldn't be here reaping the end result, nor would many of the other creatures on the planet. Which makes you wonder if alien life, given a similar habitat and a few billion years, would look very similar to us.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


So, if Crick "recanted" as you suggest, can you post his revised comments which demonstrate this? That would certainly bring us to a fairly neat conclusion.

I'll look back through the thread to see if it has already been posted and do a little Googling myself also.

Originally posted by Malcram
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

So, if Crick "recanted" as you suggest, can you post his revised comments which demonstrate this? That would certainly bring us to a fairly neat conclusion.

I'll look back through the thread to see if it has already been posted and do a little Googling myself also.

www.fasebj.org...
(click on the "begin manual download" link if the pdf doesn't do so automatically)

Again, I'm not saying that just because life could have arisen on Earth more easily than Crick originally thought, or that life could have hitched a ride in a comet more easily than Crick originally thought makes Crick's directed panspermia idea "wrong" -- it just makes it less necessary.


[edit on 1/30/2010 by Soylent Green Is People]