Comets and Cosmology

_{Robert Sheldon
March 30, 2010

Intelligent Design

2}_{Categories
Intelligent Design}

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Comet I had an exchange recently that brought up the subject of life on comets and its implications for ID. As I reviewed the work on comets, it brought up some surprising connections that I had not seen before. I thought it was worthy of a blog, though somewhat old material. The correspondent complained that comets carrying bacteria do not explain the origin of life.

It wasn’t comets. This is like Carl Sagan saying we came from some other place. Well where did that other place come from!

I tend to agree with you, comets don’t really solve the origin of life. They merely move it to a distant place. I was as surprised as you that comets had fossilized life on them, I felt like the theoretical physicist I. I. Rabi who was confronted with the experimental discovery of the muon and remarked “Who ordered that particle?” It’s reminiscent of Arthur C Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama“, or Fred Hoyle’s “Black Cloud“. In other words, bad science fiction. In fact, when I heard from Dr Richard Hoover that he’d found these fossils (spie04.pdf) my first attempt was to disprove him by demonstrating that comets can’t have liquid water on them. I ended proving him right in more ways than he had anticipated; not only can comets have liquid water, they can’t avoid it, and most of their celestial dynamics is controlled by liquid water. (spie05.pdf) Weird.

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Comments

Jerry: What is an ID supporter? All TE’s are ID supporters. It is just the level of organization that was specifically designed and the necessary consequences from that design that is under dispute amongst the various ID supporters. Actually, I very much agree with that. However, the de facto understanding is that TE and ID are mutually exclusive - at least that's my understanding of William Dembski hereTimothy V Reeves_{March 31, 2010
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"but not an ID supporter that I can tell from what has been presented so far." What is an ID supporter? All TE's are ID supporters. It is just the level of organization that was specifically designed and the necessary consequences from that design that is under dispute amongst the various ID supporters.jerry_{March 31, 2010
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Mr. Nakashima: I agree that life is rare against all possible other arrangements, but not necessarily rare against the laws of physics and the Big Bang Absolutely! ...and like youself I am unclear whether Robert is advocating molecular engineering in space or OOL in space. Perhaps he could tell us.Timothy V Reeves_{March 31, 2010
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Mr Reeves, I think most people here are agreed that measured against the huge space of all that is possible, Earth manifests a class of structure (that is, life = L) of exceeding rarity. I agree that life is rare against all possible other arrangements, but not necessarily rare against the laws of physics and the Big Bang. If you buy the fine tuning arguments, it is practically inevitable. That said, fine tuning isn't ID, fine tuning is perfectly compatible with TE positions. It would appear that Dr Sheldon has an OOL scenario in mind, one that involves comets, not planets. Dr Sheldon's work is even more at odds with Dr Meyer's Signature in the Cell position (that there are not enough probabilistic resources) than conventional OOL on the surface of a planet, if it posits that OOL happened at a tempo 1/400th that of Earth. Now, Dr Sheldon hasn't said that. Maybe OOL in space happened in relatively dense and warm gas clouds around protostars, then got blown out into the frozen darkness as the star ignited. I haven't heard his theory yet (though a panzooic hypothesis needs an OOL in space component). Perhaps Dr Sheldon agrees with Dr Meyer, only ever so much more so because of the tempo problem. But what has been presented so far doesn't argue for ID. A single one of his Reasons to Believe slides argues that atheists prefer a multiverse, but a single universe shows "purpose" therefore God. OK, Dr Sheldon is a theist, even a Christian, but not an ID supporter that I can tell from what has been presented so far.Nakashima_{March 31, 2010
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…maybe Mr 77! I’m a pretty disinterested party around here: As a Christian (bornagain73ish) I’m not going to lose any sleep at all whichever way the winds of the debate go; that is, whether or not life is implicit in one creative dispensation embodied in physics (if such is possible) or a includes a second creative dispensation involving some ad hoc genetic engineering. Actually, although Robert seems to be “thinking outside the box” (for which I admire him) I suspect you’ll find a pretty sound conservative underneath, so do not be put off by my interest in his work. (but I suppose we had let him speak for himself)Timothy V Reeves_{March 31, 2010
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Call me a conservative Christian or whatever but your science has some rather interesting holes in it: Robert it is interesting that you tried to disprove by showing water could not exist on comets yet what if water did/does exist on comets? Does this help the evolutionists in the least? Abiogenic Origin of Life: A Theory in Crisis - Arthur V. Chadwick, Ph.D. Excerpt: The synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids from small molecule precursors represents one of the most difficult challenges to the model of prebiological evolution. There are many different problems confronted by any proposal. Polymerization is a reaction in which water is a product. Thus it will only be favored in the absence of water. The presence of precursors in an ocean of water favors depolymerization of any molecules that might be formed. Careful experiments done in an aqueous solution with very high concentrations of amino acids demonstrate the impossibility of significant polymerization in this environment. A thermodynamic analysis of a mixture of protein and amino acids in an ocean containing a 1 molar solution of each amino acid (100,000,000 times higher concentration than we inferred to be present in the prebiological ocean) indicates the concentration of a protein containing just 100 peptide bonds (101 amino acids) at equilibrium would be 10^-338 molar. Just to make this number meaningful, our universe may have a volume somewhere in the neighborhood of 10^85 liters. At 10^-338 molar, we would need an ocean with a volume equal to 10^229 universes (100, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000) just to find a single molecule of any protein with 100 peptide bonds. So we must look elsewhere for a mechanism to produce polymers. It will not happen in the ocean. http://origins.swau.edu/papers/life/chadwick/default.html Professor Arthur E. Wilder-Smith "Any amounts of polypeptide which might be formed will be broken down into their initial components (amino acids) by the excess of water. The ocean is thus practically the last place on this or any other planet where the proteins of life could be formed spontaneously from amino acids. Yet nearly all text-books of biology teach this nonsense to support evolutionary theory and spontaneous biogenesis ... Has materialistic Neo-Darwinian philosophy overwhelmed us to such an extent that we forget or overlook the well-known facts of science and of chemistry in order to support this philosophy? ... Without exception all Miller's amino acids are completely unsuitable for any type of spontaneous biogenesis. And the same applies to all and any randomly formed substances and amino acids which form racemates. This statement is categorical and absolute and cannot be affected by special conditions." http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony3.php If being labeled a conservative Christian means abiding by plausible scientific scenarios instead of unfounded conjecture, then by all means label me. At least I will be correct in my science.bornagain77_{March 31, 2010
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Fascinating stuff Robert, I’m all ears and I’m all for creative and speculative science, provided we are aware of what we are doing and maintain a studied detachment towards our proposals; speculation is the “mutation” engine that helps drive science if I may be so bold. However, I’m afraid I lack the knowledge to evaluate Robert’s interesting ideas immediately, apart from saying that I too thought evidence of life on interplanetary material was still controversial. This whole area reminds me very much of Fred Hoyles’ book “The Intelligent Universe”, a book I have in my possession. To answer Nakashima’s question about the ID connection: I think most people here are agreed that measured against the huge space of all that is possible, Earth manifests a class of structure (that is, life = L) of exceeding rarity. Presumably then life’s existence is down to some relatively high conditional probability expressed as P(L|condition) where “condition” is some life favouring situation. But of course (as I interpret Dembski’s recent work) this only projects the seeming improbability of life (that is, its “information content”) on to some unspecified precondition that itself seems highly improbable. Thus, the question of the origin of this “information” and therefore ID looms large. Hence, I understand Robert’s work to be relevant here in as much as he is proposing that this “information” might be found at a cosmic level. That interests me because it places ID in a much more rarified, abstract and less tangible realm than the rather more anthropomorphic view that the designer is akin to a genetic engineer who with hammer, chisel and adhesive reifies his designs directly by configuring hard molecular lumps. I afraid I’m a bit old fashioned here – I still think of God as a mathematician rather than a genetic engineer and I’m still a little hung up on the idea that that mysterious life enhancing “condition” could just possibly be found in the abstract and rare particularities of the laws of physics – but I hold onto that view lightly. Whatever; Robert’s ideas seem a somewhat radical departure for Uncommon Descent. As Nakashima suggests they may prove just a little too radical for the Christian conservatives, but I very much agree with Nakashima that this is a breath of fresh air. Perhaps UD is not quite so conservative as I thought… Anyway, thanks for the post Robert: I’ve book marked this page and I’ll keep tabs on your fascinating work.Timothy V Reeves_{March 31, 2010
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Your paper says: ...conclusively established the presence of fossil organisms on extraterrestrial bodies... Eh? I think we would have heard about this if it was the case.Graham_{March 31, 2010
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Dr Sheldon, I've read your whole Procrustean blog entry, one of the SPIE papers, and went through your Reasons to Believe slides. Thank you, I learned a lot about comets and the possibility they have been moving life around the Universe for a long time. Pardon me when I say that I fail to see the ID connection here. Taking your furthest speculations at face value, you may have pushed the origin of DNA based cyanobacteria back to within a billion years or so of the Big Bang, and the whole Universe has been their swimming pool ever since. That's really cool, and might even be science. Some questions I have: What is the 'expected' rate of evolution on a comet? let's say that the rate of enrgy influx allows us to compare evolution at the surface of the Earth to evolution on comets. Basically, I'm assuming comets are evolving in slow motion (compared to Earth) and form a single large population instead of many small populations. Compared to the surface of the Earth what "year" is it for them? If I just take a swag at it, say a comet with period 400 years is inside the Earth's orbit for half a year, and cooling back down for another half year. So life and therefore evolution is only progressing at 1/400th the speed of life on Earth. So only 8.75 million "years" have passed in evolutionary terms for life on that comet, since life appeared on Earth. Even if life has been evolving continuously on comets for 12 billion years, at this very generous rate, comet life has only had 30 million "Earth years" to evolve. Has it had time to evolve an ecology? In addition to bacteria, do comets host viruses? Do they host bacteria that eat other bacteria? I find your "planetary life is a cosmic traffic accident" viewpoint very refreshing, though its relationship to conservative Christian theology might be rocky. Or chondritic, as the case might be.Nakashima_{March 30, 2010
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Robert I think you better add a note of caution, as in MIGHT HAVE contained, to your claim that bacteria existed on comets, as did the researcher you cite: from your cited article: Evidence for indigenous microfossils detected in situ in freshly fractured interior surfaces of CI and CM carbonaceous chondrites indicates that microbial life existed on the parent body at some point in time. Since comets represent probable parent bodies for CI carbonaceous meteorites, the detection of evidence for indigenous microbiology in the Orgueil meteorite may be interpreted as consistent with the concept that comets may, from time to time, provide habitats for microbial life.bornagain77_{March 30, 2010
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Wait, are you saying that comets do carry bacteria? That that has been discovered? I thought I would have heard about that. Isn't just that they carry pre-biotic material, amino acids etc?Collin_{March 30, 2010
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