"Life may be older than the Earth" Topic

Scientists have applied "Moore's Law" to biology, and believe that if the maxim for computing power applies to that as well, life may be about twice as old as the Earth:

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Based upon their studies of the developmental speed of species here on Earth, the believe that life on out planet may be about 10 Billion years old, while the Earth is only about 4.5 Billion years old.

That is certainly an interesting twist on the whole "when life began" theories usually posited.

Kind of blows evolution out of the water as well doesn't it?

Not really.

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And this book could give the answer why is this possible

1. Study based on several major unsubstantiated assumptions.
2. Does not invalidate evolution; regardless of where life came from, it's clearly been changing since it got here.
3. Does not imply that the moon is artificially constructed; there are, in fact, several excellent and plausible theories as to how the moon got created that do not involve alien macro-engineering.

The most likely explanation *IF* the study is valid is that life originated on icy comets and crashed to Earth after it was formed. Which is not actually a new theory at all.

-Will

So, you apply Moore's "Law" to life, and then after a few beers or hits on the bong, you deduce that Life is older than the Earth.
Makes perfect sense to me.

Haha, I think the OFM hit this one on the head. :)

-Will

"Kind of blows evolution out of the water as well doesn't it?".

Not at all, just adds another interesting twist to it.

The panspermia hypothesis is as old as sci fi itself. Next.

I'm pretty certain some people I've met are clearly not from this planet, so based on that, I'm inclined to believe it.

Biology and DNA materials are not computer microchips, and are not forced to evolve at nearly the rapidity with which machines are in the modern age. Interesting theory, and plausible in a certain kind of space opera fantasy land, but rather improbable given the logistics and some of the other conclusions by the authors. Makes you wonder where they got their degrees – and if we shouldn't all chip in to get one so we can debate topics here on TMP and throw around lengthy and convoluted titles, er degrees, to add some air of authority to the discussions.

Makes you wonder where they got their degrees – and if we shouldn't all chip in to get one so we can debate topics here on TMP and throw around lengthy and convoluted titles, er degrees, to add some air of authority to the discussions.

We already have that here. It's called the Napoleonics Boards.

Biology and DNA materials are not computer microchips, and are not forced to evolve at nearly the rapidity with which machines are in the modern age.

Which would make the time of development even longer, not shorter. Though considering that bacteria seem to have 30min generations…

That explains why the sun is so bright; It's not really a star, but a giant birthday cake with 1,643,760,000,000,000,000 candlepower…. LOL

big rock appears out of nowhere….a few billion years later we appear. What's not to understand?

it's the old 'chicken or the egg' war of the words….again…

Which is a bunch of poppycock….as everyone knows that BACON came first….creating a need for eggs, toast and of course, heart catherizations and coronary bypass surgury!

To be fair to these guys, this was more of a thought exercise than anything else. They're not in the same league as Erich von Däniken, for instance.

Carl Sagan is older than life. This is obvious, because if we apply Herb's Law of compound mechanistic development within variable frames to ice cream, we get R(2)+678* f3. (also, I saw this on the internet, just for added validity).

jpattern2 17 Apr 2013 7:09 p.m. PST:

To be fair to these guys, this was more of a thought exercise than anything else

Rather, and they do admit it should be taken as one. It seems more that the science journalists are mainly responsible for making the "philosopher's error" -- that is, assuming that a thought experiment overrides reality -- but there is nothing new to that either.

It's an interesting thought experiment, if nothing else. Til we actually start digging up extraterrestrial life and really getting out into the solar system we actually won't have a baseline for comparison. We also don't really understand the whole evolutionary process, especially the step from self-organising macromolecules to actual cells (oh hello mitochondria! we were just looking for a power and by jim, here you are! welcome aboard!). This is not to say that it "blows evolution out of the water," it just means there's more to learn and there are surprises out there as with any scientific endeavour.

It's also possible our DNA pile has been added to a couple of times by little green men passing by early Earth and getting out to take a poop. Not much you can do to prove it if it did happen though…

You take a humorous deduction about the development time of computers, dubbed a 'law' to drive the fun, and apply it to something entirely else than it as about, and take that as evidence that life is older than earth.

Probably the scientists are just jokers spreading what is evidently a joke and fooling the journalists (who are far too easily fooled by bogus science already), or they're crackpots.

The 'report' is not an article that has passed a reading other scientists, and will not be published in a serious scientific journal.
(It is just up on arxiv, which is not a 'preprint journal' by the way. I am convinced I coud get an article up about cat hair being the driving force behind civilisation there.)

It could fit on the monomaniacal crackpot panspermia 'Journal of Cosmology. The wonderful GeoCities design gives it extra credibility
journalofcosmology.com

Nothing in this contradicts evolution, better yet, it is completely based on it. The only people who still think evolution is broken are called creationists, but only because of religious/political reasons.

Actually this experiment is an exercise in calculating how far back evolution actually goes, by counting back how many generations would be required to achieve life today.

I suspect they used a linear model based on Moore's law, but modern evolution theories tend to follow "punctuated equilibrium", which has long periods of Darwin style evolution (tiny changes over very long periods), punctuated by very rapid changes due to occasional massive disruptions. Although you can model these as regular events that merely show a more rapid increase at regular intervals, they may not have taken the amount of change into account.

Some changes can be quite drastic, before the Cambrian explosion, plants and animals only had very limited building blocks, but once a few extra abilities like light sensitive cells develop, we see a dramatic rise in complexity, evolution has to react very quickly to these changes and we get a kind of arms race to see who gets better eyes to hunt, better eyes to see the predator coming etc.

On the subject of Panspermia, it is a possibility though current theories tend to point to the building blocks of life arriving on earth by such manner and that life pretty much evolved on earth rather than fully formed bacteria landing on earth and finding a suitable environment to grow in. For one it does nothing to resolve the questions on abiogenesis, merely shifting the possible source from one planet to another, and doesn't answer why and how it happened.

Interesting debate about the original article here.

@ Dances with Words

I have to steal that 'chicken or the egg – no, bacon came first' quote of yours! :)

You take a humorous deduction about the development time of computers, dubbed a 'law' to drive the fun,

Moore's Law has been shown to be fairly accurate, at least as regards computers from their invention until now.
link

How is this relevant to miniature gaming ??

There should be obligatory part of any unrelated topic here to give reason how it is relevant to The MINIATURES page :>

There should be obligatory part of any unrelated topic here…

Naaaah.
As we used to say back in the 7th Grade, "Who died and left YOU boss?"

How is this relevant to miniature gaming ??

There should be obligatory part of any unrelated topic here to give reason how it is relevant to The MINIATURES page :>

That's simple enough:
"Life may be older than the Earth" – so how would you game it?

"Life may be older than the Earth" – so how would you game it?

Whoever was at the table before the game got started wins.

Cosmic Encounter?

How to game it is start with bacteria wars. Amoebas vs paramecium, the winner gets to go to the next stage as well as some how hitching a ride on the nearest comet to get to the next star system in say 50,000 years or so. It's going to be an extended campaign game, one only your grand kids will be able to play the next phase of the game.

Well statistically there should be life in the universe that is older than Earth … For gaming purposes … Who cares !

Major Bumsore 18 Apr 2013 7:05 a.m. PST:

Moore's Law has been shown to be fairly accurate, at least as regards computers from their invention until now

Pretty much yes, but this only shows it applies to a product of Lamarckian cultural evolution. It doesn't automatically mean it applies to Darwinian biological evolution.

That's because we're really Theian and not Terran in origin:

YouTube link

Dan :)

I not going to believe a word of it until that professor with the whacked out hair from the History Channel tells me to.

Surely you must mean the Centauri Ambassador?

PZ Myers is not amused:
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