[meteorite-list] Next vacation: Rajasthan.

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Manoj P. wrote:
>I do not buy that story of " Life could  have
>originated outside earth." This theory was originally
>raised  by Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra
>Wickramasinghe of University  College, Wales.
>Their publications included ``Diseases from Space''  
>(1979)...

Hola List & Manoj,
 
Please don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, Manoj.   Wickramasinghe, 
who had the opportunity to study with Fred Hoyle, is a  contemporary, though 
more limited, Sri Lankan version of what Carl Sagan  was to the world.
 
Carl Sagan certainly published his thoughts on panspermia before the  
gentlemen you mention, and probably is still the most influential voice for  
panspermia even after his passing.

Manoj, the theory of life originating  outside of earth was not originated by 
the recent nebular life  origins extremists Chandra with Fred's support.  It 
goes back at  least to the ancient Greeks.  Anaxagoras a bit after 500 BC, a 
meteoritical  expert at the time (and tutor of Diogenes), discussed panspermia.

The  Swede Svante Arrhenius wrote, the same year he won the Nobel prize in  
chemistry:
"The Propagation of Life in Space", Die Umschau, 7, p. 481 (1903),  which 
integrated the panspermia theory into a relatively rigorous format.   (What Hoyle 
and Wickramasinghe have been erroneously given credit for by you and  others).

Irish-born Lord Kelvin in 1871:
...we must regard it as  probable in the highest degree that there are 
countless seed-bearing meteoric  stones moving about through space....When two great 
masses come into collision  in space it is certain that a large part of each 
is melted; but it seems also  quite certain that in many cases a large 
quantity of debris must be shot forth  in all directions, much of which may have 
experienced no greater violence than  individual pieces of rock experience in a 
land-slip or in blasting by  gunpowder.... The hypothesis that life originated 
on this earth through  moss-grown fragments from the ruins of another world may 
seem wild and  visionary, all I maintain is that it is not unscientific.
 
Hope this helps.  It cracks me up to always see new guys voming along  and 
taking credit for ideas that are ancient.  What's worse is when others  start 
repeating these claims!
Saludos, Doug