Panspermia/A Critique of Biological evidence against the panspermia theory

(Review Paper) Cited in

Points Made

 * To provide life on earth the micro-organisms would have to be as complex as known prokaryotes today


 * The micro-organism could not have been a progenote that came to earth as the progenotes are still in an evolutionary stage and could not live through the journey to the earth.


 * There is strong evidence suggesting that the ancestors of bacteria are progenotes


 * the split genes are independent, with ancestral traits that would be domain specific, meaning they could only survive within a certain terain


 * The progenote will not be able to survive due to its inability to adapt in a new environment (i.e. earth)

Methods
An analysis of the lifespan and evolution of the progenotes and the prokaryotes is compared to the theory of panspermia. The panspermia theory suggests that small micro-organisms came to the earth through the cosmos. This was studied in terms of the characteristics of both the progenotes and prokaryotes and their evolution stage to discover which one could survive the travel through the earth's atmosphere.

Results
In order for the panspermia theory to be valid the organisms that would have traveled to earth would have had to be complex in nature (not progenotes) in order to survive the journey. But, based on our modern theory of genetic code, progenotes were the ancestors to modern bacteria. If progenotes are ancestors to the bacteria we know today, and progenotes could not have survived the extreme traveling conditions. Therefore, the theory of panspermia via meteorites is not valid.

Throughout the research by Massimo Di Giulio the analysis seems to make logical sense; however, there are some areas that may have not been investigated completely. Giullio states that the progenotes would not have survived the travel to earth as they are not fully evolved micro-organisms. This research does not fully examine if progenotes today are equal to progenotes four billion years ago. There is little evidence of the genetic coding of progenotes from years ago. Assumptions can only be made that progenotes were/are equivalent to those tested on today. How can one explain or quantify that these conclusions are correct if there is a knowledge deficit of ancient progenotes? Perhaps progenotes from years ago were micro-organisms with different characteristics that would have survived the journey to earth. Therefore, I would conclude that there is a level of uncertainty in this research that would need further investigation.

Consider that Earth conditions may have been harsher than conditions today and perhaps the progenotes that we are studying at present are not necessarily the same make-up as the progenotes from billions of years ago. Evolution may have changed the progenote to adapt to better conditions as life formed on Earth. Consider as well the study conducted by A.K. Pavlov et all that proves, using a vacuum,some bacteria can survive very harsh conditions. The bacteria are heated to very high temperatures, simulating the same conditions that would occur in travel from Mars to the Earth. The research in the study suggests that there is a possibility that progenotes may have been able to survive the trip from space and land on Earth to finish the evolution cycle and create the first including s of life billions of years ago.