Wickramasinge at it again

Apparently now thinks interstellar clouds have dead bacteria in them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/8491398.stm
I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

Pat

On Feb 2, 1:03*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Apparently now thinks interstellar clouds have dead bacteria in them:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/8491398.stm
I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

Pat

This theory came from Hoyle many years ago because of absorption
spectra of interstellar dust matched that of dried single celled
organisms. In reality, it is fairly plausible.

" I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

OK Maybe not pollitically correct - but - didn't the British also foster the
Flat Earth Society, and groups that believe the Apollo landings were faked
in a hanger at Grumman. Kinda sounds like something that would fit nicely
into an Old Avenger episode (The Bacteria that Came to Little Dwarkington)
, a Quatermaas Movie (Quartermaas, the Defense Ministry and the Bacterial
Remnants from Space), or a new Dr. Who episode (The Nebula Bugs Invasion).
Actually I'm a big fan of all three but can't help but believe without
British eccentricities none would work.

On Feb 2, 9:52*pm, "Val Kraut" wrote:
" I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they

both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

OK Maybe not pollitically correct - but - didn't the British also foster the
Flat Earth Society, and groups that believe *the Apollo landings were faked
in a hanger at Grumman. Kinda sounds like something that would fit nicely
into an Old Avenger episode (The Bacteria that *Came to Little Dwarkington)
, a Quatermaas Movie (Quartermaas, the Defense Ministry and the Bacterial
Remnants from Space), or a new Dr. Who episode (The Nebula Bugs Invasion)..
Actually I'm a big fan of all three but can't help but believe without
British eccentricities none would work.

There is probably more evidence for Panspermia than for life
originating on earth. At least from a statistical standpoint, the
probability of life originating in space is many orders of magnitude
greater than originating on earth. Comets with copious water and
hydrocarbons coming near to stars are much more likely places for it
than the hydrocarbon poor early earth. Multiply that by the billions
of comets around our sun and by billions of stars close enough for
them to be the source of life and the probability of life originating
on earth seems relatively low. If a comet spends much time close to
its star, it could be teeming with bacterial life and when the comet's
volatiles are gone, all that would remain are rocks and dead
bacteria. So, it is actually a very reasonable idea.

Frogwatch wrote:
On Feb 2, 1:03 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Apparently now thinks interstellar clouds have dead bacteria in them:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/w...st/8491398.stm
I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

Pat

This theory came from Hoyle many years ago because of absorption
spectra of interstellar dust matched that of dried single celled
organisms. In reality, it is fairly plausible.

I can see a asteroid or comet hit knocking rocks that contain bacteria
off of a planet; I can see some of those rocks either on their own or by
hitching a ride on a comet traveling to another planet in the same solar
system and spreading life there. What I have trouble with is viable
bacteria somehow surviving long enough on a comet to reach another star
system. If the cold doesn't kill it, the cosmic radiation will.

Pat

Val Kraut wrote:
" I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

OK Maybe not pollitically correct - but - didn't the British also foster the
Flat Earth Society, and groups that believe the Apollo landings were faked
in a hanger at Grumman. Kinda sounds like something that would fit nicely
into an Old Avenger episode (The Bacteria that Came to Little Dwarkington)
, a Quatermaas Movie (Quartermaas, the Defense Ministry and the Bacterial
Remnants from Space), or a new Dr. Who episode (The Nebula Bugs Invasion).
Actually I'm a big fan of all three but can't help but believe without
British eccentricities none would work.

Hoyle was about the last major supporter of the steady-state universe
concept, trying to defend it decades after everyone else had abandoned
it for The Big Bang.
He and Wickramasinge were most noted for proposing a long time back that
outbreaks of flu in British boarding schools were due to the germs from
comets floating down to Earth as they passed by:
http://scienceray.com/astronomy/do-d...t-controversy/
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ce_000121.html
That's when the snickering started...but what really finished off
Hoyle's once-impressive scientific reputation was The Archaeopteryx
Fiasco: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/arch...x/forgery.html
At that point it was all over for anyone taking any of Hoyle's more
exotic theories seriously.

Pat

Frogwatch wrote:
There is probably more evidence for Panspermia than for life
originating on earth. At least from a statistical standpoint, the
probability of life originating in space is many orders of magnitude
greater than originating on earth. Comets with copious water and
hydrocarbons coming near to stars are much more likely places for it
than the hydrocarbon poor early earth.

Except all the water and hydrocarbons only get warmed up enough to melt
when the comet is close to a sun...a period of a few days or weeks at
most...the rest of the time the comet is frozen solid, so the life would
have to evolve inside of solid ice.
And there are plenty of hydrocarbons on Earth now, so where did they all
come from if we didn't have any originally?

Pat

Val Kraut wrote:


" I don't know if he drove Hoyle crazy, Hoyle drove him crazy, or if they
both ate the wrong kind of cream of mushroom soup one afternoon.

OK Maybe not pollitically correct - but - didn't the British also foster the
Flat Earth Society,

WP says: "In 1956, Samuel Shenton, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical
Society and the Royal Geographic Society took over the Universal Zetetic
Society and helped to found the International Flat Earth Society".

I suspect he was having a laugh.

On Feb 3, 1:56*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

Reminds me of the Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society which gets
together every year on the anniversary of the Wright brothers first
flight to read scholarly dissertations on the impossibility of
heavier-than-air flight.

What form of transport do they use to get together, or is their
membership local to one city?

Oh, of course: they're just joking. It would probably be in poor taste
to make Osama bin Laden an honorary member: he is, though, the closest
thing to the founder of the Man Will Stop Flying Soon society.

John Savard

Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
WP says: "In 1956, Samuel Shenton, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical
Society and the Royal Geographic Society took over the Universal Zetetic
Society and helped to found the International Flat Earth Society".

I suspect he was having a laugh.

"In your heart, you know it's flat."
Reminds me of the Man Will Never Fly Memorial Society which gets
together every year on the anniversary of the Wright brothers first
flight to read scholarly dissertations on the impossibility of
heavier-than-air flight.
Their motto is "Birds Fly, Men Drink.": http://www.manwillneverfly.com/



Pat