Is Life Embedded in the Cosmos? New Analysis Says "Yes"

A recent mathematical analysis says that life as we know it is written into the laws of reality.  DNA is built from a set of twenty amino acids - the first ten of those can create simple prebiotic life, and now it seems that those ten are thermodynamically destined to occur wherever they can.

A recent mathematical analysis says that life as we know it is written into the laws of reality.  DNA is built from a set of twenty amino acids - the first ten of those can create simple prebiotic life, and now it seems that those ten are thermodynamically destined to occur wherever they can.

For those unfamiliar with thermodynamics, it's the Big Brother of all energy equations and science itself.  You can apply quantum mechanics at certain scales, and Newtonian mechanics work at the right speeds, but if Thermodynamics says something then everyone listens. An energy analysis by Professors Pudritz and Higgs of McMaster University shows that the first ten amino acids are likely to form at relatively low temperatures and pressures, and the calculated odds of formation match the concentrations of these life-chemicals found in meteorite samples.

They also match those in simulations of early Earth, and most critically, those simulations were performed by other people.  The implications are staggering: good news for anyone worried about how we're alone, and bad news for anyone who demands some kind of "Designer" to put life together - it seems that physics can assemble the organic jigsaw all by itself, thank you very much, and has probably done so throughout space since the beginning of everything.

The study indicates that you don't need a miracle to arrive at the chemical cocktail for early life, just a decently large asteroid with the right components.  That's all.  The entire universe could be stuffed with life, from the earliest prebiotic protein-a-likes to fully DNAed descendants.  The path from one to the other is long, but we've had thirteen and a half billion years so far and it's happened at least once.

The other ten amino acids aren't as easy to form, but they'll still turn up - and the process of "stepwise evolution" means that once the simpler systems work, they can grab the rarer "epic drops" of more sophisticated chemicals as they occur - kind of a World of Lifecraft except you literally get a life when you play.  And once even the most sophisticated structure is part of a replicating organism, there's plenty to go round.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Humans and Aliens might share DNA roots

They also match those in simulations of early Earth, and most critically, those simulations were performed by other people.  The implications are staggering: good news for anyone worried about how we're alone, and bad news for anyone who demands some kind of "Designer" to put life together - it seems that physics can assemble the organic jigsaw all by itself, thank you very much, and has probably done so throughout space since the beginning of everything.

The study indicates that you don't need a miracle to arrive at the chemical cocktail for early life, just a decently large asteroid with the right components.  That's all.  The entire universe could be stuffed with life, from the earliest prebiotic protein-a-likes to fully DNAed descendants.  The path from one to the other is long, but we've had thirteen and a half billion years so far and it's happened at least once.

The other ten amino acids aren't as easy to form, but they'll still turn up - and the process of "stepwise evolution" means that once the simpler systems work, they can grab the rarer "epic drops" of more sophisticated chemicals as they occur - kind of a World of Lifecraft except you literally get a life when you play.  And once even the most sophisticated structure is part of a replicating organism, there's plenty to go round.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Humans and Aliens might share DNA roots

Comments

[Nick St]

Agree, physics created life.....and who created the
laws o physics? Did electrons, protons and neutrons decide
on their own how to behave? And did the universe somehow
decide on its own when to create itself? Isn't believing in
this just another form of religion, where matter or the Universe
takes the place of God? Why do new scientific results, like
the one report here, have to be used for anti-religious propaganda, can't you just stick with the science and leave the rest out, I sort of get tired of this being repeated so often.

[William Tatum]

@Nick Because Science > Religion. Stop believing in bronze age myths and we will stop making fun of you. Its really silly you know it being the 21st century and all. No neutrons and electrons didn't "decide" they can't they are subatomic particles intent does not play into their actions. Neither does some bronze age father time. Grow up. Its also like you didn't read the article nothing had to create anything they naturally occur. You do know particle theory right? No God required there just time.

@Daily Universe I <3 you guys so much keep up the great work.

[The Baldchemist]

Well, if you get "sort of tired of this stuff being repeated so often" how do you think we feel that have had religious myths of gods and fairey tales zealously indoctrinated in us by those that should have known better?
The science just goes a long way to explaining our existence. Just because something isn't as yet fully explained doesn't mean that some god has created it does it?
Just because the garden is beautiful doesn't mean that there are fairies there also.
See religion for what it is; a control of free thought.
Science teaches us how to think unlike religion which teaches what to think.

[James]

@Nick St
Science is anti-religious propaganda. Why are you on this site?

[Mr. Furious]

Science is just another form of religion. Just as religion often seeks to control free thought, so does science. In reality, spirituality and science are not irreconcilable. This article is evidence to that. It's obvious that life isn't just some cosmic accident. It is purposeful and is meant for something. The seeds of life are present throughout the entire universe. You think that's an accident?

Nick had a point and you guys, just like a bunch of religious zealots, were extremely quick to jump on him and dismiss his ideas.

Now, religious DOGMA and scientific DOGMA are almost always incompatable,however. But most of you scientific "rationalist" lack even enough rationality to see that you all have a very small and infantile idea of what a God can be. Automatically and invariably you go straight to the "Old white man in sky watching us" argument, which is stupid because that's just a Christian myth. Or, "Looking at how bad the world is, God must either not care or He sucks at His job" argument. If there is some sort of Willpower guiding the Universe, it's probably not so easily defined as many Religions (or you guys) claim it to be.

Personally, the more I learn about science, the more I believe that none of this sprang forth from some meaningless accident. Where did it come from and why? I have no idea...but I don't think it comes from some old man in the sky watching us, nor do I believe it just sprang forth by chance. Either way you look at it, there is going to have to be an uncaused first cause.....

[sam]

wOOOO! All this Science v Religion fighting just from a short piece outlining what we kind of guessed intuitively.

Scientific data is often used to 'prove' the existence of God/a Designer. Personally, I sometimes find it hard to look at e.g.the Periodic Table or DNA or the precise measures that define and govern the universe as we see it and believe this was all accidental/random.

Isn't it the case that none of us knows anything much for sure? Certainly not enough to categorically say that a godlike designer did/didn't create whatever it is we're a part of?

[Hal9000]

I imagine that the one thing that unites all visitors to this site is a love of the new and amasing things that are discovered on an almost daily basis. Certainly not our belief systems

Comments like this in any article:

"The implications are staggering: good news for anyone worried about how we're alone, and bad news for anyone who demands some kind of "Designer" to put life together"

are bound (designed?) to spark heated debate.

As far as this site is concerned I would like to think what I beleive or don't beleive is totally irrelevant. We visit because of a shared love for wonders of science.

I would prefer not to see deliberatly inflamatory remarks in science stories. I continue to read the stories because this is one of the better science reporting sites I have found.

[James Fredericks]

I think the bottom line here is when it comes to intelligent design or chance, no one knows for sure either way. With that being said, I think we can rule out the dude with a beard sitting on a cloud with a thunderbolt coming out of a sword. Anyone who believes any religious book word for word is brainwashed, closed minded, and un-evolved, or scared. The same goes for anyone that lives by only Scientific THEORY. We are so primitive in our evolution at this point, there is A LOT to learn. Until someone can tell me how something can come from nothing, no one really knows anything at all. If there is a "GOD" or something that created all that we know. What created it? For all we know our entire universe could just be a super intelligent being's creation. But what created that being and so on and so forth. Until we can answer that, no one will know the truth.

[David]

There's a little mistake in the first paragraph: DNA is built out of nucleic acids, not amino acids. It's proteins that are made from amino acids.

[alex]

those who are attacking st. nick are committing the fallacy of equivocation with respect to the word god. i call that creative force that determined the parameters of the universe and set it in motion and about which i understand virtually nothing: god. i suspect st. nick uses a similar definition. that god is not the same as the god of fire and brimstone we find in the bible.

[Andrew T]

Agree, physics created life.....and who created the laws o physics? Did electrons, protons and neutrons decide on their own how to behave? And did the universe somehow decide on its own when to create itself?

This is the "god of the gaps" argument. You are trying to insert god as the explanation to something we currently do not know the answer to. This is really no different from invoking deities as the cause of lightning, before we knew what electricity was, or as the cause of disease, before the microscope was invented and germs were discovered. The problem with having a god of the gaps, aside from the fact that it has no explanatory or predictive powers whatsoever, is that as science progresses the god of the gaps grows ever smaller. It could be argued that such a god has already shrunk to being trivial and superfluous.

I see no reason why the question of how the laws of physics settled on their current values need be something forever unknowable. In fact I'd be very surprised if we didn't know by the end of this century. And I'd be willing to bet 100:1 that such an explanation will be, like the germ theory of disease or Maxwell's equations, entirely naturalistic with not a whiff of supernatural intervention needed to explain it.

Isn't believing in this just another form of religion, where matter or the Universe takes the place of God?

The best thing about science, and the reason why science is able to bitch-slap religion upside the head time and time again, is that science does not rely on belief. Belief is, in fact, antithetical to the entire scientific process. Science is all about proof. Repeatable experiments, observations, sound logic, peer review. Scientific results that can't be reliably replicated by others (remember cold fusion back in the 1990's?), or which contain logical errors or lax experimental methods, don't hold much water in the scientific community.

Why do new scientific results, like the one report here, have to be used for anti-religious propaganda, can't you just stick with the science and leave the rest out, I sort of get tired of this being repeated so often.

Historically, it has been religion that has always been the intruder into the domain of science. Science is merely reclaiming its rightful territory. Religion's power to explain the workings of the world around us is really no different from the explanatory power of any mythology. Religion was what primitive man used to explain things before he had science or rational thinking.

Sorry you're tired of the "anti-religious propaganda." Maybe after religion stops trying to insert itself into science classes (creationism trying to edge out evolution, or the mythology that Earth is only 6-10,000 years old trying to edge out the many areas that impinges on), then maybe those who promote science may feel less of a need to go on the offensive.

I can't help but notice that in the science vs. religion debate, those who side with religion almost invariably view science as a competing belief system. Such lack of knowledge of how science works speaks to just how much science education has been degraded in this country, for a variety of reasons but most prominently including religion. Science is not a belief system, but a methodology, a tool for both discovering and verifying new knowledge. Religion is concerned with what you think: which god you worship, which doctrines you believe in, etc. Science by comparison is concerned with how you think: how you arrive at your conclusions.

Science and religion are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but whenever they make competing claims as to some quality of our world, the rational thing is to side with science. Not as a matter of preferring one belief over another, but because science, unlike religion, can back up its claims with logic, observations, and experiments.

[NovaStar]

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
--Voltaire
I'm in total agreement with 'Hal9000' comment. We all come here not for our beliefs, but because we all think science (and the Universe) is AWEsome. The framework in which we think about the Universe is/should be immaterial.
..."Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.".....
--"Desiderata" by Max Erhmann

[Mauritius Resto]

I'm not too much in Science, but all i know is that the laws of Physics explain the creation of the world and how it actually runs. Really interesting post.

[BobBrown]

Ok. Life's everywhere. But "intelligent" life is just one possibility of many. Considering Fermi's paradox, it seems that "intelligent" life of our type doesn't last long. Our example on earth would support the idea that it inevitably self destructs.
So, enjoy your day.

[Unimo]

Whenever I see this argument, I can't believe nobody sees the TWO elephants in the room!

Let's say the hardly believable happens; chemicals accidentally form into organisms.
1) Where does the life force come from? Life force is not the same thing as chemicals forming an organism. If you think it is automatic, then let's see a scientist create life.

2) Where does consciousness come from? When we artificially keep a body's heart beating until the organs can be harvested, it has no life force, or consciousness.

Until I see science create these two things, I hardly think you can argue that life springs up accidentally.

I'm not trying to say this proves there is a God either. All it proves is that science is trying to solve an equation when they are missing two VERY IMPORTANT ingredients.

And science has not shown any ability to create, measure, control or even acknowledge the existence of either one.
I challenge scientists to put those primordial chemicals together and create life if it happens so accidentally,
even a life without consciousness would be fine to start!!

[Evolutionary Provocateur]

Interesting discussion from an interesting post. The sooner duality is released, the sooner the larger picture, without the dividing lines of who believes in what, can be perceived. Knowledge exists outside of belief.

[eric]

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