[meteorite-list] Next vacation: Rajasthan.

From: MexicoDoug_at_aol.com <MexicoDoug_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Jul 10 13:22:55 2005
Message-ID: <c8.629517a6.3002b367_at_aol.com>

Manoj P. wrote:
>I do not buy that story of " Life could have
>originated outside earth." This theory was originally
>raised by Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra
>Wickramasinghe of University College, Wales.
>Their publications included ``Diseases from Space''
>(1979)...

Hola List & Manoj,
 
Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, Manoj. Wickramasinghe,
who had the opportunity to study with Fred Hoyle, is a contemporary, though
more limited, Sri Lankan version of what Carl Sagan was to the world.
 
Carl Sagan certainly published his thoughts on panspermia before the
gentlemen you mention, and probably is still the most influential voice for
panspermia even after his passing.

Manoj, the theory of life originating outside of earth was not originated by
the recent nebular life origins extremists Chandra with Fred's support. It
goes back at least to the ancient Greeks. Anaxagoras a bit after 500 BC, a
meteoritical expert at the time (and tutor of Diogenes), discussed panspermia.

The Swede Svante Arrhenius wrote, the same year he won the Nobel prize in
chemistry:
"The Propagation of Life in Space", Die Umschau, 7, p. 481 (1903), which
integrated the panspermia theory into a relatively rigorous format. (What Hoyle
and Wickramasinghe have been erroneously given credit for by you and others).

Irish-born Lord Kelvin in 1871:
...we must regard it as probable in the highest degree that there are
countless seed-bearing meteoric stones moving about through space....When two great
masses come into collision in space it is certain that a large part of each
is melted; but it seems also quite certain that in many cases a large
quantity of debris must be shot forth in all directions, much of which may have
experienced no greater violence than individual pieces of rock experience in a
land-slip or in blasting by gunpowder.... The hypothesis that life originated
on this earth through moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may
seem wild and visionary, all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.
 
Hope this helps. It cracks me up to always see new guys voming along and
taking credit for ideas that are ancient. What's worse is when others start
repeating these claims!
Saludos, Doug
 
Received on Sun 10 Jul 2005 01:22:47 PM PDT