Life - The Cosmic Imperative ?

In July of 1997, Sky and Telescope, a popular magazine for amateur astronomers, published an article entitled "Life: a Cosmic Imperative?" The article explored the concept that life is "the inevitable outcome of cosmic evolution". That is, that life is the nearly unavoidable outcome of the basic natural laws that govern our universe, given the proper environmental conditions. This idea, that life is the  commonplace result of simple, natural processes, implies that life should be found in many places in our universe. These thoughts  have pervaded our western culture, from Star Trek and other Science Fiction  adventures to the giddy excitement over the discovery of signs of life on Martian meteor ALH 84001 (now heavily disputed). In more recent years, we have seen the same kind of excitement over the findings proving that liquid water was once present on Mars. Millions have been spent on SETI - searching for signs of extra terrestrial intelligence. Beyond a genuine scientific investigation, this idea has become the hope, dream and even expectation of many searchers looking for contact with "extra terrestrials" (ET).
So is life really the the commonplace and expected result of simple natural processes? Do we really have well in hand an understanding of how life evolved from simple inorganic compounds as described in so many college and even high school biology texts? Will future "Star Trekkers" really find English speaking humanoids on nearly every planet they visit?  It is my intent to explore the issue of life's origins in an honest and straightforward way on this series of web pages, and give consideration to more detailed and potentially critical information than is usually presented in the introductory college Biology texts.  Current theories of life's origins explore the methods by which simple inorganic chemicals come together to form basic biochemicals, and how these basic biochemicals might then assemble into useful proteins, RNA and perhaps even basic DNA structures. These materials are proposed to then form functional self-reproducing chemical systems which utilize chemicals that were already present in the "pre-biotic soup", eventually evolving over the eons to become something we would recognize as life itself.			The Primordial Earth   The image above symbolizes the Miller theory - lightening flashing through the primordial sky creates simple organic materials which then collect in the early ocean - the "pre-biotic soup" out of which life is thought to have been born by some investigators.
		A number of different theories have been put forward as to how this might have happened, but none of them really stand out as fitting the observed data particularly well - rather all of them quite strikingly conflict with the observed data at one point or another. We will evaluate these theories to see if they accurately reflect the natural processes of the early earth, and if our knowledge of the subject indicates that a natural origin for life on earth (abiogenesis) is likely or even possible. Consistent with the continuing problems in this field, my son and I watched a much more recent PBS program on the origins of life on earth in 2006. Unlike the Sky and Telescope article, at the end of that program, the ultimate conclusion was that we really do not have a firm hold on how life actually originated - the honesty was very refreshing.

Continue on to Part 2: Stanley Miller and the Molecules to Man Theory
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