century, he never mentioned how the origin of life, in other words the
first living cell, came to be. Scientists looking for the origin of
life at the beginning of the twentieth century began to realise that
thetheory was invalid. The complex and perfect structure in life
prepared the ground for many researchers to perceive the truthof
creation. Mathematical calculations and scientific experiment and
observation demonstrated that life could notbe the "product of
chance," as the theory of evolution claimed.
With the collapse of the claim that coincidence was responsible and
the realisation that life was "planned," some scientists began to look
for the origin of life in outer space. The best-known of the
scientists who made such claims were Fred Hoyle and Chandra
Wickramasinghe. These two cobbled together a scenario in which they
proposed that there was a force which "seeded" life in space.
According to the scenario, these seeds were carried through the
emptiness of space by gas or dust clouds, or else by an asteroid, and
eventually reached the Earth, and life thus started here.
Nobel Prize-winner Francis Crick, co-discoverer with James Watson of
the double helix structure of DNA, is one of those who has sought the
origin of lifein outer space. Crick came to realise that it is quite
unreasonable to expect life to have started by chance, but he has
claimed instead that life on Earth was started by intelligent
"extraterrestrial" powers.
As we have seen, the idea that life came from outer space has
influenced prominent scientists. The matter is now even discussed in
writings and debates on the origin of life. Theidea of looking for the
origin of life in outer space can be considered from two basic
perspectives.
Scientific inconsistency.
It is not possible for meteors to carry a living organism to Earth
because of the intense heat generated when they enter the atmosphere
and the violence of impact when they land. Above: Alarge meteor crater
in Arizona. Even if we accept there are livingthings in outer space,
it is still impossible to account for their origins in any other way
than through creation.The key to evaluating the "life began in outer
space" thesis lies in studying the meteorites that reached the Earth
and the cloudsof gas and dust existing in space. No evidence has yet
been found to support the claim that celestial bodies contained
non-earthly creatures that eventually seeded life on Earth. No
research that has been carried out so far has revealed any of the
complex macromolecules that appear in life forms.
Furthermore, the substances contained in meteorites do not possess a
certain kind of asymmetry found in the macromolecules that constitute
life. For instance, amino acids, which make up proteins, which are
themselves the basic building blocks of life, should theoretically
occur as both left- and right-handed forms ("optical isomers") in
roughly equal numbers. However, only left-handed amino acids are found
in proteins, whereas this asymmetric distribution does not occur among
the small organic molecules (the carbon-based molecules found in
living things) discovered in meteorites.The latter exist in both left-
and right-handed forms.1
That is by no means the end of the obstacles to the thesis that bodies
and substances in outer space gave rise to life on Earth. Those who
maintain such an idea need to be able to explain why such a process is
not happening now, because the Earth is still being bombarded
bymeteorites. However, study of these meteorites has not revealed any
"seeding" to confirm the thesis in any way.
Another question confronting the defenders of the thesis is this: Even
if it is accepted that life was formed by a consciousness in outer
space, and that it somehow reached Earth, how did the millions of
species on Earth come about? That is a huge dilemma for those who
suggest that life began in space.
Alongside all of these obstacles, no trace has been found in the
universe of a civilisation or life form that could have started life
on Earth. No astronomical observations, which have picked up enormous
speed in the last 30 years, have given any indication of the presence
of such a civilisation.
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