“Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory - an event which would have refuted the theory.”
An earth origin of our life assumes that life could appear anywhere that conditions are favorable. There would be not single center of life just of our type of life.
Panspermia allows for life to arise from somewhere else that could, itself, be a center of life.
Wikipedia defines panspermia as living organisms being spread throughout the universe. An unreviewed paper about carbonic acid in outer space does not directly have a connection to panspermia. The topic of panspermia is being pushed by the article.
Such clickbait. The earth itself originated in deep space. Does anyone believe carbonic acid (which is formed anywhere CO2 and water are together) exists only here? How does finding one molecule living beings use in space further at theory about life when nobody would deny it’s out there?
Can you just tell us we found carbonic acid in space without trying to make it into some huge discovery it isn’t?
If carbonic acid has not been found before in space then this is an actual discovery. It dies not suffice to reason about something to prove it’s existence, you also must actually do the leg work of proving it. This is the main difference in scientific age and the ages that preceded it - logical reasoning is not sufficient.
It’s a discovery, it’s just not one that changes your handicapping of the odds of if life exists elsewhere or came from elsewhere. The headline is just taking a discovery and making it click bait.
For context, it's worth checking out the 1952 Miller-Urey Experiment that demonstrates how amino acids could have been created in a primitive Earth environment without any of the carbonic acid seeding that the article suggests occurred.
Multiple ancestors on earth would likely have had a common ancestor elsewhere and would probably be difficult to distinguish from a single ancestor on earth.
Panspermia seems to have for us today the psychological role that atomic "theory" had for Democritus and ancient greeks: it was a logical argument, back then not at all supported by experiment, that helped organize thoughts and pinned them on a plausible starting point.
In analogy, the mystery around how life may have come about is helped by removing Earth-centricity as a constraint and thinking in broader biophysical patterns.
It also provides motivation and inspiration for research angles that might otherwise not be in our scientific crosshairs.
Earth's early atmosphere is estimated to have had several hundred times as much CO2 as it does now, which would have dissolved in the ocean, and then you can get a whole host of simple organic molecules - alchols, hydrocarbons, aldehydes and so on - via reactions catalyzed by volcanic particles. Space carbonic acid not required (and it forms from CO2 in water anyway). See for example
Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles (2023)
It's certainly possible that amino acids had extraterrestrial origins. IMO, Occam's Razor suggests that the Miller-Urey experiment provides a simpler answer: the building blocks of life formed on early Earth.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 52.4 ms ] threadThat we find organic molecules in space isn't that surprising either, carbon does like to bond with other atoms.
-- Carl Sagan
Edit: I’ve always found this fascinating:
https://phys.org/news/2013-04-law-life-began-earth.html
Panspermia allows for life to arise from somewhere else that could, itself, be a center of life.
Can you just tell us we found carbonic acid in space without trying to make it into some huge discovery it isn’t?
In analogy, the mystery around how life may have come about is helped by removing Earth-centricity as a constraint and thinking in broader biophysical patterns.
It also provides motivation and inspiration for research angles that might otherwise not be in our scientific crosshairs.
Synthesis of prebiotic organics from CO2 by catalysis with meteoritic and volcanic particles (2023)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37231067/
* https://impacts.to/downloads/lowres/impacts.pdf
Sources:
* https://impacts.to/bibliography.pdf
It's certainly possible that amino acids had extraterrestrial origins. IMO, Occam's Razor suggests that the Miller-Urey experiment provides a simpler answer: the building blocks of life formed on early Earth.