Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

sciencealert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 116 posts

Re: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

#11

Post by pingou »

lanstin wrote: post #3
pingou wrote: post #2

If true, fl in the Drake equation just got much bigger.

They aren’t saying two totally different independent life creating event, they are saying that the earliest life depending on some external chemicals for parts of what is now covered by metabolism, and the tree of life diverged before those metabolic paths evolved inside the organism, so not totally the same emergence of life twice, but more stuff that reproduces and evolves but doesn’t meet modern standard for life.

Yes I saw that, but the concept of "life" being quite blurry, I feel it still has an impact on the equation.

Re: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

#13

Post by lanstin »

theodorejb wrote: post #5

[flagged]

It’s a big universe and there are a lot of years, so chemical evolution seems like a decent tool for God to use. Much like General Relativity is a more efficient way to rule the world than assigning angels to push the planets thru the sky. And a passing familiarity with birth defects will prove to most hard hearted people that each specific fact of biology is not designed by a loving creator. Unless you believe this messy but gloriously complex universe to be the best of all possible worlds, right up till you lie to your friend, it is difficult to believe whole heartedly in a loving creator.

Re: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

#14

Post by peter_stokes »

unfortunately the field of abiogenesis, just like extraterrestrial life, is a lost cause.

The reality we will never be able to replicate creation of life nor find life on other planets (except via contamination). it's why we've never gotten any closer. and i'm not even religious

Re: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

#17

Post by rationalist »

lanstin wrote: post #13
theodorejb wrote: post #5

[flagged]

It’s a big universe and there are a lot of years, so chemical evolution seems like a decent tool for God to use. Much like General Relativity is a more efficient way to rule the world than assigning angels to push the planets thru the sky. And a passing familiarity with birth defects will prove to most hard hearted people that each specific fact of biology is not designed by a loving creator. Unless you believe this…

I'm not a biblical scholar, but I think the "loving creator" thing was invented by people and not necessarily in the Bible. I'm pretty sure Old Testament God is pretty vengeful.

Theistic Evolution is wide-enough belief, especially with Protestants.

Re: Radical Study Suggests Life on Earth Arose Twice

#19

Post by andrewflnr »

The headline is a little confusing. They're still talking about a "split" between bacteria and archaea, so even under this theory, the very roots of metabolism and (I'm guessing) genetic code etc still have a single origin.

Anyway, it does provide a nice reason that bacterial and archaeal cell membranes are different.

Post reply on HN