Life in the Universe

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Life in the Universe
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Topics

• The Origin of Life
• Are We Alone?
• The Future

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The Origin of Life

• William Paley (1802)
• Published treatise entitled 
• Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence
  and Attributes of the Deity Collected from the
  Appearances of Nature.  
• This is the most famous exposition of the
  Argument from Design. 

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The Origin of Life II

• Argument from Design
• Living systems are so exactingly well-adapted to
  their purpose, and so incredibly complex, they
  could not have arisen by chance.
• Since living systems could not have arisen by
  chance, yet appear to have been designed by a
  supremely competent designer, they must have been
  designed.

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The Origin of Life From Design
The haemoglobin molecule 4 chains, each of 146
amino acids, twisted together
http//www.purchon.net/cells/peptides.htm
http//wserv1.dl.ac.uk/SRS/PX/breathe.html
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The Origin of Life From Design II

• Could this molecule have arisen by chance?
• Life on Earth is based on 20 different amino
  acids. Suppose that 146 amino acids came together
  by chance. Whats the chance that it would be a
  haemoglobin molecule?
• The number of different ways of making a chain of
  146 amino acids from 20 different building blocks
  is 20 multiplied by itself 146 times. That is,
  20146 or about 10190! 

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The Origin of Life From Design III

• Could this molecule have arisen by chance?
• Even if random combinations of 146 amino acids
  were put together at the rate of one trillion a
  second, it would still take about one million
  times the age of the universe to have a fair
  chance of creating a single haemoglobin molecule!
  
• The Argument from Design seems, in view of these
  odds, to be utterly compelling.

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The Origin of Life IV

• Charles Darwin (1859)
• Published Origin of Species.
• Darwin's idea is very simple Complexity arises
  because of evolution through natural selection 
• Mutations that are advantageous are the ones most
  likely to be inherited.
• Organisms adapt to their environments, over many
  generations, through the cumulative effect of
  small random mutations.

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Tree Of Life
http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/05/1/pdf
/l_051_35.pdf
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The Origin of Life V

• The Miller Urey Experiments (1950s)
• Showed that organic molecules, such as amino
  acids, can form spontaneously from simpler
  compounds (H2O, NH4, CH4, H2) given the right
  circumstances.
• Later versions of their experiments created more
  complex organic molecules.
• However, as yet, we do not understand how
  self-replicating molecules arose.

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Are We Alone?
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How Many Earth-Like Planets?

• Number of Sun-like stars in Milky Way
• 10 billion
• Number of planets per star
• 5
• Fraction of Earth-like planets
• 1 in a million
• Number of Earth-like Planets
• 50,000

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Searching for ET

• Travel
• Pioneer Missions
• Pioneer 10 will reach Aldebaran in 2 million AD
• Voyager Missions
• Voyager 1 will get close to Sirius in 300,000 AD

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Searching for ET II
Jill Tarter Director, Project Phoenix

• Listen
• Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
• Record, and analyze, radio transmissions from
  many Sun-like stars as possible, as in Project
  Phoenix
• Look for signs of intelligent signals.

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Searching for ET III

• Speak Loudly!
• Beam radio transmission to a large number of
  stars.
• In 1974, 16 November, astronomers beamed a 3
  minute message to the globular cluster M13 in
  Hercules using the Arecibo radio-telescope.

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M13, 24,000 ly away
Answer in 48,000 AD !
Fig. 20-13, p.424
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The Future of Homo Sapien
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Civilizations Type

• Type I
• Able to restructure planets
• Type II
• Able to restructure solar systems
• Type III
• Able to restructure galaxies
• Type ?
• Able to restructure Universe

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Civilizations Type -

• Type I-
• Able to manipulate objects on their scale
• Type II-
• Able to manipulate genes, transplant and replace
  parts of themselves
• Type III-
• Able to manipulate molecules, create new
  materials
• Type IV-
• Able to manipulate atoms, create nanotechnologies
  and artificial life

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Civilizations Type (contd.)

• Type V-
• Able to manipulate atomic nuclei
• Type VI-
• Able to manipulate elementary particles of matter
  and create new states of matter
• Type ?-
• Able to manipulate space and time

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Which Path Shall Our Species Take?

• Rat Race Strategy (RRS)
• Short Term Gain
• Self Interest
• Competition
• Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (ESS)
• Cooperation
• Great Foresight
• Great Altruism
• Longevity

Which path should we take ?