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Retread: Life started only fifteen million years after the Big Bang?

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Every so often, someone kicks around the idea that life could have got started maybe 15 million years after the Big Bang. It’s back. Same guy, new traction:

In this scenario for the early universe, rocky planets born from the dregs of massive, primordial stars would have been warmed by the heat of a radiation that permeated all of space, which was much hotter back then than it is now. One of these ancient worlds could have supported liquid water on its surface irrespective of its distance to a star, and thus been habitable to primitive forms of Earth-like organisms, said Avi Loeb, who chairs the Harvard astronomy department.

With the discovery of exoplanets, Loeb said, scientists are beginning to seriously consider that life-as-we-know-it exists in other places.

“What I’m saying here is that it can also be extended to other, earlier, times,” he said.

Loeb’s research is detailed in a new paper published in this month’s issue of the International Journal of Astrobiology, and he presented it recently at a public lecture at Harvard.

Basic improbability slightly reduced, but probably not enough to matter.

See also:

Maybe if we throw enough models at the origin of life… some of them will stick?

The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (origin of life)

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Comments
Edward, You have brought up a very good point. My previous comment was trying to make fun of the way things are approached by pseudoscientists that pretend to know and understand much more than they really do. I'm not a scientist, very far from becoming one. I don't understand much (if anything at all) of astrophysics to comment on it. My point in posts 2, 5, 7, was to show that the deeper researchers dig into the biological systems, the more they look designed. There are over 500 posts in the 'third way' thread, mainly pointing to research reports that show elaborate choreographic mechanisms seen in biological systems. Also see what I wrote in post 9.Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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Hi Dioniso, My point is this. I far as I know you can't produce heavy elements necessary for live and the formation rocky planets in first generation stars. Elements such as iron, copper and so forth. So you need second or third genetation starts. So is 15 million years enough for this? I don't think so. You would think that someone of Avi Loeb's caliber would know this. But then I'm no expert. EdEdward
October 22, 2014
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8 chris haynes
What they need to Seriously Consider is this: Coming up with some evidence.
They have sufficient evidences, but you and I just don't understand them, because we're ignorant. Notice posts #2, 5 and 7 show examples of the convincing evidences they have. What we have to do is learn more, in order to understand their evidences. That's all. :)Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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Edward,
15 million years shouldn’t have been long enough to form the heavy elements necessary for life?
Why not? According to one of Stephen Hawking's books, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist." See? Anything is possible. Those laws are magic. Now you know, any amount of time is more than enough for anything to happen. Gravity takes care of the problems. If gravity can't, because it's busy at work, then another law will do the trick. Relax, all the details are taken care of, no mater how hard it is to get it done. :)Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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Forgive my obvious ignorance, but 15 million years shouldn't have been long enough to form the heavy elements necessary for life? Right? EdEdward
October 22, 2014
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gpuccio
I don’t want to be always the same pessimist, but 15 billion years instead of 5 billion only reduces the probabilistic barriers of 3 times. Not a great deal.
Timely reminder, as usual. Thank you. :) After reading your comment, I just realized that I misinterpreted the OP title, because the point here is that evolution started much earlier, hence it had more time to produce what we got now. About 10 billion years more to play the trial and error game until things worked. Seems like a pretty logical conclusion: more time to play, higher odds to win! However, the more I look at these biological systems, the more 'chicken-egg' issues I see associated with their complex mechanisms. Can't see clearly how to get through or around those hurdles. Need some help from the experts. :)Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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Dr Loeb, has he been asleep for his entire career?. He said, "scientists are BEGINNING to seriously consider that life-as-we-know-it exists in other places." Here's the straight skinny: Scientists have been considering this, since before Dr. Loeb was born. Not long ago, they even counted on Mars. Then they found out it was like Saudi Arabia, only desolate. I figure this: What they need to Seriously Consider is this: Coming up with some evidence.chris haynes
October 22, 2014
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Life started only fifteen million years after the Big Bang?
Duh! Piece of cake, isn't it?
Illuminating the Multifaceted Roles of Neurotransmission in Shaping Neuronal Circuitry Across the nervous system, neurons form highly stereotypic patterns of synaptic connections that are designed to serve specific functions. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-520069
designed to serve specific functions? Oops! Hold on, I think I copied the wrong source? Let's check this out: http://www.cell.com/neuron/ by Elsevier Inc. Oh, it seems to be from a peer-reviewed journal? h'mmm that's strange, how did they let that politically incorrect word into their text? Didn't they notice it? Oh, maybe their editorial system got hacked and changed the text right after it was published? Let's see, when was this published? Maybe it's old material after all? Volume 83, Issue 6, p1303–1318, 17 September 2014 Well, it doesn't seem too old... hmmm... still don't get it... OK, dunno. Let's just ignore that ugly term for now, until we can contact the authors and ask them to review their text. That could be a typo. Sorry guys for the mistake.Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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I don't want to be always the same pessimist, but 15 billion years instead of 5 billion only reduces the probabilistic barriers of 3 times. Not a great deal.gpuccio
October 22, 2014
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Life started only fifteen million years after the Big Bang?
Of course! What's the big deal? No problema amigo!
Transcriptional Switches During Development ...a major challenge resides in understanding the logic and physical elements implementing these regulatory interactions within a given cell in a developing organism. A central problem to be addressed is how transcriptional programs are set up and then modified throughout the successive steps of embryonic development. different scales of analysis are required together to solve the problem of gene expression control during development. https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/a-third-way-of-evolution/#comment-520543
Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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What do they think the background x-ray and gamma ray radiation was like at that time? How long did that CMB stay warm enough to support life?Jim Smith
October 22, 2014
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Life started 15 million years after the big bang? What was the Intelligent Designer waiting for? ;)Joe
October 22, 2014
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Life started only fifteen million years after the Big Bang?
Why not? After all, we already know exactly (well, kind of) how all biological systems work, and they're really very simple, hence 15 million years is more than sufficient for them to have popped up. Right? The improbability arguments are raised by a bunch of ignorant creationists who don't understand the power of the magic 'n-D e' formula RM + NS + T (where T doesn't have to be that mucho). Let's just listen to what the science experts tell us, and notice they all seem to confirm that it's not a big deal. Here's just one recent example:
The mitochondria also appear to synchronize their movements not only in an individual cell but, quite unexpectedly, into a linked network of oscillators vibrating throughout the tissue. “We saw things in live animals that you don’t see in cell culture. The reasons, in this case, very well may be that the mitochondria continue to receive an influx of signals from the blood vessels, the nervous system, and their surrounding environment. The entire system can’t be reassembled in cell culture.” http://phys.org/print333097232.html
Dionisio
October 22, 2014
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There really could be life out there, we don't even need evidence we just need to think about it, that being said even with evidence there can't be a designer, so we we need not think about it!Andre
October 22, 2014
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