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Creationism
- Undoubtedly the oldest theory of how we came to exist. Most, if not
all, cultures have some version of a creation myth. A story that explains
how the rocks, the trees, and the stars were formed. Or why the sun appears
to move across the sky. These, sometimes, wildly fantastic stories generally
involve some sort of deity and are often infused with a moral message
as well. Recently in the US, there has been a move to re-brand creationism as Intelligent Design to make it sound more scientific. However, this “theory” doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny and will hopefully just become a sentence in a history book rather than a chapter in a science textbook. |
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| Evolution on Earth - While evolution is often thought of as “survival of the fittest”, this well tested theory has given scientists the tools to delve beyond the barrier of written history to understand our origins. The heart of Darwin’s theory is natural selection which can account for all the diversity of life on the planet without invoking a designer. If an organism acquires traits (genes) that enable it survive in its environment long enough to pass on those traits to its offspring, then those traits were naturally selected. From the “warm pond” to hydrothermal vents (black smokers) from rock to clay sediment, scientists are using the theory of evolution to uncover the mystery of how life first arose on Earth. |  |
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Evolution on Mars (Solar System) - Back during the time when life first appeared on Earth (approximately 3.9 Billion years ago), the solar system was undergoing a period of heavy bombardment. Material from the formation of the solar system was still colliding causing material to be exchange between planets. And during that time Mars was similar to Earth. It was warmer and had liquid water. If life had arisen on Mars, it would have been possible for it to travel on a meteor and land on Earth. Jupiter’s moon, Europa is also an intriguing candidate for the first life in our solar system. Data from probes and telescopes have not, thus far, yielded any conclusive signs of life outside of Earth. | |
| Panspermia (From Beyond the Solar System) - Looking up at the night sky and seeing the billions of billions of stars (70,000 million million million is a current estimate of the number of stars in the universe), it becomes hard to believe that life hasn’t happened elsewhere out there. While it would be difficult for life to survive the long journeys between the stars, some evidence of microbes being able to survive in extreme conditions exists here on Earth. S. mitis bacteria in the camera on Surveyor 3 were left on the moon, survived for 2 years and were revived when Appollo 12 brought them back. And there are countless other examples of “Amazing Microbes” that exhibit some of the characteristics that would be necessary to survive a long space journey. |  |
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Alien Colonization (Seeding, Terraforming) - While purely speculative, the idea that life on Earth could have been placed here intentionally by an advanced alien species is not completely out of the realm of possibility. Some of our own plans for how to terraform a planet (make it habitable for humans) involve seeding a planet with bacteria or even nano robots to produce wide scale changes in the environment. It is not unreasonable to assume then that if an alien civilization had progressed beyond our level of scientific understanding, they could have chosen Earth as a candidate for their own terraforming project. Most likely, if Earth was seeded by aliens, it was done from afar. Perhaps with micro probes programmed to seek out certain conditions that would be hospitable for the microorganisms they carried. | |
| Visit the creators sites | Brandon
MacInnis |
Raven
Hanna MADE WITH MOLECULES |
