Panseminated

Carbon globules that are possibly the primitive building blocks of life have been found in a meteorite that landed in a frozen Canadian lake in 2000, once again suggesting panspermia is a viable explanation for the beginnings of life on Earth.

It’s far from definitive proof, of course, but combined with previous instances, it’s hard to eliminate. If not a primordial soup of amino acids created by lightning storms, why not an invasion of foreign (okay, I’ll say it — extraterrestrial) organic compounds?

It puts me in mind of Dr. Ian Malcolm’s (Jeff Goldlum) line in Jurassic Park: “Life finds a way.”

We find life in all kinds of bizarre locations on the Earth, such as the critters by steam vents in the deepest oceans, which scientists formerly believed was an impossible environment for life. And these globules aren’t life per se, just organic in structure. Why couldn’t they survive the vast reaches of space?

That still begs the question where did they come from? If they indeed predated our sun, then they very possibly formed in the dust of our solar system while it was still forming. This makes sense if we are truly made of stars, a concept I was first exposed to in a college astronomy course*.

I feel obligated to note that buying into panspermia or at least accepting it as a possibility doesn’t prove or disprove any other theory. My only point is it shouldn’t be ruled out; it’s just as likely these materials just sat there, or influenced or interacted with the beginnings of life if not becoming life itself. On the one hand you may say it disproves an invisible entity conjuring us from nothingness or that we sprang from abused Thetan souls trapped on Earth, but on the other hand you may say these are the literal Seeds of Reason envisioned by St. Augustine, guided here by God** or that aliens from a dying world squirted them at Earth to perpetuate their own species.

Make it fit your own little world view if you like. I just think it presents interesting possibilities.

* In simplest terms, all elements are formed from the fusion processes of stars, supernovae and other cosmic events (including the Big Bang). Ultimately, these elements become more complex matter, including us.

** I find it amusing that a Christian anti-evolutionists could use Augustine’s theories as a ready retort to atheist and/or agnostic pro-evolutionists, but don’t simply because it doesn’t involve Adam’s rib, thus rejecting one of their own. Just as some religious folk pick and choose what they want to believe from the Bible, they pick and choose what they want to believe from their own scholars.