Norman Samish wrote:
[Responding to Russell Standish]
>This article, as you point out, asserts "that the rapidity of biogenesis on
>Earth suggests that life is common in the Universe." This assertion is
>shown to be probably correct with some reasonable assumptions. One of the
>assumptions is that if life occurs here, it must also occur on other
>terrestrial planets. However, the part that I have trouble with is
>figuring
>out exactly how that first living organism was created. ("Living" means it
>has the ability to take in energy from the environment and transform the
>energy for growth and reproduction.) "Living" requires a highly organized
>and complex mechanism - that humans, so far, have not been able to create.
>I can't imagine how such an organism could occur accidentally. I would
>call
>that first living organism a miraculous circumstance.
I don't see how anyone could say that life is or isn't common in the
Universe on the basis of current evidence. It taxes astronomers to the limit
at present to discover the existence of enormous gas giants orbiting stars
relatively close to Earth. Even in our own solar system, how could we
possibly know whether simple or even relatively complex lifeforms are not
living in, for example, the huge and hugely complex atmosphere of Jupiter?
--Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Tue May 31 2005 - 22:20:27 PDT