<snip>
> >>BV>I've read quite a lot by Hoyle. If he really says that, I respectfully
> >>disagree.
>
>SB>I can't imagine that you have read a lot of Hoyle and not run across his
> >"aliens did it" theory.
Stephen
>I think Susan is getting mixed up with Directed Panspermia and
>Panspermia? Hoyle believes that life was seeded to Earth from space, but
>that it originated and was transported *naturally*, not by aliens.
>
>It is Crick and Orgel who have proposed Directed Panspermia, that "aliens"
>transported life to Earth in the form of bacteria. It is interesting that
>a co-
>discoverer of the structure of DNA (Crick), and one of the world's leading
>origin-of-life researchers (Orgel), should find that life is so complex at
>the
>molecular level that they have been forced to propose that it must have
>been sent here from elsewhere. Thus Directed Panspermia is effectively the
>materialist version of special creation by God! Johnson writes:
>
> "Assuming away the difficult points is one way to solve an
> intractable problem; another is to send the problem off into space.
> That was the strategy of one of the world's most famous scientists,
> Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA. Crick is
> thoroughly aware of the awesome complexity of cellular life and the
> extreme difficulty of explaining how such life could have evolved in
> the time available on earth. So he speculated that conditions might
> have been more favorable on some distant planet. That move leaves
> the problem of getting life from the planet of origin to earth.
> First in
> a paper with Leslie Orgel, and then in a book of his own, Crick
> advanced a theory he called "directed panspermia." The basic idea
> is that an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, possibly facing
> extinction, sent primitive life forms to earth in a spaceship. The
> spaceship builders couldn't come themselves because of the
> enormous time required for interstellar travel; so they sent
> bacteria
> capable of surviving the voyage and the severe conditions that
> would have greeted them upon arrival on the early earth. ... Those
> who are tempted to ridicule directed panspermia should restrain
> themselves, because Crick's extraterrestrials are no more invisible
> than the universe of ancestors that earth-bound Darwinists have to
> invoke. Crick would be scornful of any scientist who gave up on
> scientific research and ascribed the origin of life to a
> supernatural
> Creator. But directed panspermia amounts to the same thing.
Chris
Not really. Its primary advantage over the supernatural theory is that it
does not require the postulating of a new metaphysical realm. Despite the
problems of such a hypothesis, it is still parsimonious in comparison to
the complexities that would be involved in a supernatural explanation.
>The
> same limitations that made it impossible for the
> extraterrestrials to
> journey to earth will make it impossible for scientists ever to
> inspect
> their planet. Scientific investigation of the origin of life is as
> effectively closed off as if God had reserved the subject for
> Himself."(Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," 1993, pp.110-111).
Chris
This, also, might not be true; *we* might find a way to travel the
distances that the aliens did not. Further, if it is still within the
natural universe, the origin of life can still be studied scientifically,
regardless of where it occurred. That is, we can, for example, at least in
principle, try out various sets of conditions and see if life arises in
them. The supernatural theory excludes this possibility at the outset,
because it puts the origin outside of the known universe entirely, and thus
outside of scientific study by *any* means.
I think the "aliens did it" hypothesis is not a very good hypothesis,
however. I think Crick was possibly hindered by a preconception that the
original evolutionary unit must have been DNA-based. Does anyone on this
list have access to his work? Perhaps we can find out more about why he
speculated as he did.
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