Scientists use Moores law in linear regression to show life older than Earth

[tinfoil]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3381

Life Before Earth
Alexei A. Sharov, Richard Gordon
(Submitted on 28 Mar 2013)

An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide. The genetic complexity, roughly measured by the number of non-redundant functional nucleotides, is expected to have grown exponentially due to several positive feedback factors: gene cooperation, duplication of genes with their subsequent specialization, and emergence of novel functional niches associated with existing genes. Linear regression of genetic complexity on a log scale extrapolated back to just one base pair suggests the time of the origin of life 9.7 billion years ago. This cosmic time scale for the evolution of life has important consequences: life took ca. 5 billion years to reach the complexity of bacteria; the environments in which life originated and evolved to the prokaryote stage may have been quite different from those envisaged on Earth; there was no intelligent life in our universe prior to the origin of Earth, thus Earth could not have been deliberately seeded with life by intelligent aliens; Earth was seeded by panspermia; experimental replication of the origin of life from scratch may have to emulate many cumulative rare events; and the Drake equation for guesstimating the number of civilizations in the universe is likely wrong, as intelligent life has just begun appearing in our universe. Evolution of advanced organisms has accelerated via development of additional information-processing systems: epigenetic memory, primitive mind, multicellular brain, language, books, computers, and Internet. As a result the doubling time of complexity has reached ca. 20 years. Finally, we discuss the issue of the predicted technological singularity and give a biosemiotics perspective on the increase of complexity.

[PostmodernProphet]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3381

Life Before Earth
Alexei A. Sharov, Richard Gordon
(Submitted on 28 Mar 2013)

An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide. The genetic complexity, roughly measured by the number of non-redundant functional nucleotides, is expected to have grown exponentially due to several positive feedback factors: gene cooperation, duplication of genes with their subsequent specialization, and emergence of novel functional niches associated with existing genes. Linear regression of genetic complexity on a log scale extrapolated back to just one base pair suggests the time of the origin of life 9.7 billion years ago. This cosmic time scale for the evolution of life has important consequences: life took ca. 5 billion years to reach the complexity of bacteria; the environments in which life originated and evolved to the prokaryote stage may have been quite different from those envisaged on Earth; there was no intelligent life in our universe prior to the origin of Earth, thus Earth could not have been deliberately seeded with life by intelligent aliens; Earth was seeded by panspermia; experimental replication of the origin of life from scratch may have to emulate many cumulative rare events; and the Drake equation for guesstimating the number of civilizations in the universe is likely wrong, as intelligent life has just begun appearing in our universe. Evolution of advanced organisms has accelerated via development of additional information-processing systems: epigenetic memory, primitive mind, multicellular brain, language, books, computers, and Internet. As a result the doubling time of complexity has reached ca. 20 years. Finally, we discuss the issue of the predicted technological singularity and give a biosemiotics perspective on the increase of complexity.

unless of course an intelligent designer simplified matters by taking a few short cuts.....in which case it could have happened here......

[sedan]

unless of course an intelligent designer simplified matters by taking a few short cuts.....in which case it could have happened here......

Yes, because Tinkerbell waving her magic wand makes ever so much more sense.

[PostmodernProphet]

Yes, because Tinkerbell waving her magic wand makes ever so much more sense.

lol.....you mean you think it makes more sense that life had to float over randomly from somewhere else in the universe after the earth formed?......at least Tinkerbell pointed......

don't you think its odd that life stopped floating around after the earth formed?......shouldn't we have found some of it orbiting the moon or something?.......

[tinfoil]

I just found the article interesting. I was hoping an interesting discussion might take place. Let's keep the intelligent design arguments in storage and save them for threads that need that sort of flavor.

[cancel2 2022]

lol.....you mean you think it makes more sense that life had to float over randomly from somewhere else in the universe after the earth formed?......at least Tinkerbell pointed......

don't you think its odd that life stopped floating around after the earth formed?......shouldn't we have found some of it orbiting the moon or something?.......

Amino acids have been found in meteorites and what's more both the laevorotatory and dextrorotatory optical isomers were present.

NASA astrobiologists have discovered amino acids -- a core building block of life -- in a type of meteorite previously thought unable to harbour such complex organic molecules. Its surprise discovery has caused the agency to rethink basic assumptions of how the acids are formed.

Amino acids are like the Lego bricks of life, a fundamental component that underpins every living thing on Earth. 20 different amino acids are used, in an enormous variety of arrangements, to build the millions of different proteins that all Earthly life is built upon.

A team led by Dr Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre discovered the acids in a Ureilite meteorite: a rare type of celestial object created when two asteroids collide. The shock of that impact heats the meteorite up to enormous temperatures of almost 1,100 degrees Celsius, a blisteringly hot temperature that would turn any organic molecules, including amino acids, into fried carbon.

But the fragile compounds were still found on the unceremoniously named Asteroid 2008 TC3 when it crashed into the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan back in 2008. And seeing as Earth only uses left-handed amino acids, and the 19 different acids sampled were both left- and right-handed, they had to have come from space rather than Ureilite being contaminated by Earth.

So how did the amino acids end up on a Ureilite, which would have subjected to temperatures hot enough to melt iron, and quickly turn the organic building blocks into carbon? Glavin thinks they were created after the initial impact, even though there would be no water to help form the amino acids.

It suggests that there are other ways that these acids are created, outside of the water-based mechanisms that biologists recognise. "Finding them in this type of meteorite suggests that there is more than one way to make amino acids in space," said Dr Glavin, "which increases the chance for finding life elsewhere in the universe."

Now, the team at Goddard is planning experiments to test various gas-phase chemical reactions, to see if they too generate amino acids without water, and prove the hypothesis.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/...cids-meteorite

[sedan]

I just found the article interesting. I was hoping an interesting discussion might take place. Let's keep the intelligent design arguments in storage and save them for threads that need that sort of flavor.

Indeed.

I read the paper last night and found it fascinating -- this is a favorite topic of mine.

I hope what we eventually discover is that where the conditions for life exist, life itself will eventually exist.

That life isn't unique to our little solar system, but rather is spread throughout the universe.

That the universe, while indifferent to us individually, is nevertheless 'pro-life' in the sense that life is the rule and not the exception.

A few years ago I wrote a term paper on the approaching technological singularity -- I've attached it in case anyone is interested.

[PostmodernProphet]

[I]Amino acids have been found in meteorites and what's more both the laevorotatory and dextrorotatory optical isomers were present.

/whispers...................not life........

[PostmodernProphet]

I just found the article interesting. I was hoping an interesting discussion might take place.

it is.....would you say that science has now proven that life could NOT have evolved on earth since it formed?.......I would particularly be interested in Baxter's opinion.....

[tinfoil]

Well first they have to prove the validity of the Moores law correlation. Assuming it holds true, then I think they make a very good case that life originated elsewhere since the earth didn't exist at the time period required for it to have existed in order to match the period in which life would had to have existed.

[PostmodernProphet]

Well first they have to prove the validity of the Moores law correlation. Assuming it holds true, then I think they make a very good case that life originated elsewhere since the earth didn't exist at the time period required for it to have existed in order to match the period in which life would had to have existed.

or some unproved assumptions about evolution may have to be questioned......

[PostmodernProphet]

from the OP....

and the Drake equation for guesstimating the number of civilizations in the universe is likely wrong

it is provably wrong.....the Drake equation assumed that ne = 1-5 (stars with planets will have between 1 and 5 planets capable of developing life)

we now know that in any given solar system the number of planets that are capable of developing life has to be either 0, 1, or 2.....two is possible only if there is a solar system in which two planets are in precise, bipolar orbits so that they are always the exact same distance from the star and never colide......so, in practical application the possibilities are 0 and 1......insert 0 into the Drake equation and the result is that there are NO stars with planets capable of developing life......

[Mott the Hoople]

unless of course an intelligent designer simplified matters by taking a few short cuts.....in which case it could have happened here......

Which unless you can identify that "intelligent designer" as a natural and not supernatural phenomena is a notion outside the scope of science.

[Mott the Hoople]

I just found the article interesting. I was hoping an interesting discussion might take place. Let's keep the intelligent design arguments in storage and save them for threads that need that sort of flavor.

Keep in mind that with linear regression analysis, partucilarly when exponents are involved, that small numerical errors at the microscopic/macroscopic level can lead to huge errors in calculations. Lord knows I have had plenty of experience with total metals analysis, which use linear regression methods, via the method of standards addtion, to calculate results. A very tiny amount of relative error in a diluted sample can become an unaceptable degree of gross error when the results are multiplied by your dilution factors to obtain your actual result.

A common example of that from my experience is calculating the total hexavalent chromium in a sample. In a sample containing chromium the chromium can exist in a variety of oxidation states. (ground state, +3 and +6). Normally most of it is in the +3 oxidation state with hexavalent chromium (+6) being a small precentage of the total chromium content. However, I've seen many a time when small amounts of error occur in hexavalent chromium analysis where you often end up with a total hex chrome value that is greater than the total chromium value. Somethig which is patently impossible.

So in this respect you have to be carefull about these types of regression analysis because small amounts of error introduced into the base calculation can extrapolate into extremely large margins of gross error.

[PostmodernProphet]

Which unless you can identify that "intelligent designer" as a natural and not supernatural phenomena is a notion outside the scope of science.

so?......