Origin of Life; Early Earth atmosphere (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, December 03, 2011, 15:23 (4717 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Recent research is beginning to pin down the atmosphere when life first arrived. Not like the Urey-Miller attempt in the 1950's, and may be an atmosphere that is difficult for life to start in.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130141855.htm

Another sensational discovery which tells us…well, what exactly? “Many scientists studying the origins of life on Earth simply picked the wrong atmosphere.” It appears that 500 million years after the Big Bang (assuming the Big Bang happened), the Earth’s atmosphere was more like it is today than the other scientists thought. Even if the new findings are correct – how many of us are in a position to say? – the atmosphere we have now is “NOT currently understood to be a great starting point for life.” However, this gives more substance to the theory that “perhaps those building blocks for life were not created on Earth, but delivered from elsewhere in the galaxy.” Perhaps. So what the headline calls a “key discovery” in fact tells us absolutely nothing about the ORIGIN of life. “Setting the Stage for Life” doesn’t help much either, because you needn't be a genius to work out that since we have life on this planet, at some time or the other the atmosphere will have allowed life on this planet. Ah well, life is still fun when you’re stuck on Square One.