It seems to me unlikely that bugs originating somewhere else, very, very different in conditions, would enjoy it here as much as they evidently do.

Earth is evidently very life-friendly and has been for 3.5 billion years at least. Why could life not originate here?

As a last issue, I have doubts about the space-faring super-bugs. Yes, we have bacteria living in hot springs, flourishing in rocks at high pressures, and able to withstand hard radiation. However, it seems to me likely that they didn’t _start_ like that, springing into existence fully formed. I seems reasonable that naked DNA or RNA is likely the first replicator from which we are descended, and DNA is a pretty fragile molecule, held together only by hydrogen bonding. I would think the warm stagnant rockpool would be a more likely place for such material to survive and proliferate, rather than a black gusher.

Only once the first replicator survives and begins to reproduce can natural selection start to produce endoplasm, tough cell walls, cilia, etc., etc., and begin to colonise more and more niches. Modern bacteria are pretty sophisticated and evolved life forms - including the toughies.

However, Directed Panspermia, as proposed by Crick and Orgel, where the seeds of life may have been purposely spread by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization is certainly possible.

An advanced civilization may adopt Directed Panspermia as an “insurance policy” against the chance of self-destruction or natural disasters. They might launch multiple spaceships with frozen or vitrified biological cells along with robot operated genetic engineering labs and a complete genome record as well as details to reconstruct their civilization on similar planets in other solar systems and galaxies.

Famed cosmmologist Stephen Hawking has urged that we spread into space to save human life and civilization from probable destruction here on Earth. He gives us less than a thousand years. This theme is developed in novel form in 2052-The Hawking Plan.

“Microbial Rock Inhabitants Survive Hypervelocity Impacts on Mars-Like Host Planets [and] The results support concepts of viable impact ejections from Mars-like planets and the possibility of reseeding early Earth”

“Impacts on Mars-Like Host Planets [and]…ejections from Mars-like planets and…reseeding early Earth”

Round-trip to Mars “lithopanspermia?” Utterly improbable.

In the early Solar System? …Multiplicity without necessity.

After a future cosmic cataclysm? Gee, where did the time go, Sol?

All of “panspermia” is pre-evolutionary wishful-thinking nonsense.

If this is the case, then it holds out hope for life on other planets such as Mars because the conditions between Earth and Mars (or any other terrestrial planet) at a depth of 5 km are much more similar than the conditions at the surface. Therefore, the question of which planetary body originated life may not be so meaningful after all. It may be that they all did but only certain planets had suitable conditions at the surface for life to migrate outward.

Anyway, here’s a URL discussing the idea in case anyone is interested:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html

I agree that Hoyle did promote some rather odd speculations; he seemed to enjoy throwing out arbitrary concepts just to provoke ’spirited’ disputation: and he was rather too attached to his (and Bondi’s, if I remember correctly) steady state universe. However, Hoyle also made some very worthwhile contributions.

[[Philosophically, I consider it to be the ultimate arrogance to presume that humans are somehow special in the grand scheme of things.]]

Ignore whether it’s arrogant or humble. Is it true or false? And how do you know?