CHANDRA WICKRAMASINGHE SAYS THE WORLD IS WITNESSING BIRTHPANGS OF A PARADIGM SHIFT LIKE THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION REGARDING GENESIS OF LIFE
Posted on March 12th, 2011
By Walter Jayawardhana in Los Angeles.
Chandra Wickramasinghe, father of panspermia-that advocates the birth of life happened in deep space and travelled on comets to planet earth said the world is witnessing a paradigm shift regarding the beginning of life similar to the Copernican revolution.
He was interviewed in Cardiff Wales from Los Angeles via email regarding the furor created among scientists worldwide about the claimed discovery of a NASA scientist that he found microbial fossils in an ancient meteorite that fell on Paris. His paper suggested extraterrestrial life coming from outer space, that upset some of his own colleagues in NASA who distanced from him.
The impassioned diatribe by the establishment scientists attacked the NASA scientist Richard Hoover who allegedly made the discovery , followers of panspermia and even the scientific journal that published HooverƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s research paper, Journal of Cosmology.
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-We are witnessing the birth pangs of a paradigm shift as important as the Copernican revolution half a millennium ago. Long after the Earth lost its privileged status as the centre of the Universe we clung tenaciously to the idea that life at least was centred on theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Earth: Earth life is adamantly maintained to be centred on Earth. It is the challenge to this position that is causing such a furor.
Scientists are acting irrationally and running around like a bunch of frightened rabbits,ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Wickramasinghe said.
If Richard HooverƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s results were presented out of the blue one can understand the intensity of scepticism that has been generated. One might even suspect a Piltdown-type forgery thereby impugning HooverƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s scientific integrity. But HooverƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s work does not exist in isolation.
The theory of cometary panspermia, proposed over 30 years ago by Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle argued that the Earth was seeded with life by comets. This theory which was originally considered heresy is swiftly gaining mainstream attention. A vast body of evidence supporting the ideas of cometary panspermia has recently been analysed in two papers published in the peer-reviewed Cambridge University journal, the International Journal of Astrobiology Wickramasinghe said.
He further pointed out that the earliest claims that microbial fossils exist in meteorites go back to the 1960ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s in publications by Harold Urey and Bartholamew Nagy. These claims were called to question after contamination by ragweed pollen was found in some cases, and the matter was dropped by scientists for two decades. The problem of contamination was successfully solved in the 1980ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s in the work of Hans D. Pflug. Pflug was in WickramasingheƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s view the pioneer of microfossil detections in a meteorite . HooverƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s recent work extends PflugƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s work considerably, and is even more secure in regard to freedom from contamination, Wickramasinghe said.
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-It is thus futile in my view for establishment scientists dismiss his results so rudely as they have done,ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ Wickramasinghe said.
He added,ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚Studies of stratospheric dust from comets that I have carried out in collaboration with Professor Milton Wainwright showed the presence not only of microbial fossil structures, but also startling evidence for living bacteria. Although our work was published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, critics still argue that the viable microbes must by definition be Earthly contaminants. Alien life entering Earth ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” dead or alive ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…” decreed to be a taboo subject. By the same token Gil LevinƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s positive detection of microbial life on Mars appears to be taboo, and has been denied to the present day.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚
ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-I think the recent work of Hoover confirms the earlier results of Hans Pflug in the 1980ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s. This is why I did not hesitate to recommend the publication of his paper in JOC. Critics who have shamelessly hurled insults at Hoover and the Journal of Cosmology are reacting stupidly in my view. There is a frantic effort being made to resist a
major paradigm shift in science that has long been overdue. Evidencefrom many directions points more clearly than ever to life being a truly cosmic phenomenon. Richard Hoover and all of us, including myself, are pariahs in the scientific community. We are being treated in much the same way as Galileo was treated by the Papacy.ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚
Facts cannot be challenged. Evidence points decisively to life being a cosmic phenomenon. Our minuscule abode Earth was seeded with life from comets about 4 billion years ago, and that seeding process continues even today. ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ…-I think life is very much older than the Earth and in a recent paper we argued a case for life originating less than a billion years after the Big BangƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ”š‚ ,he said.
Paradigm shifts are dictated by the facts as they unfold. Sooner or later the Universe declares the truth about itself, he concluded.
He cited the following references for this interview.
1. Wickramasinghe, C., International Journal of Astrobiology 9 (2) :119ƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢¢”š¬…”129 (2010)2. Wickramasinghe, C., International Journal of Astrobiology, Page 1 of 6 (2010) doi:10.1017/S1473550410000157
3. Gibson, C., Schild, R, Wickramasinghe, C International Journal of Astrobiology, Page doi:10.1017/S1473550410000352 f Cambridge University Press (2011)
March 14th, 2011 at 2:15 pm
-Appuhamy Says
Opponents of Sir Fred Hoyle are trying everything under the sun to keep panspermia from reaching the scientific minds reading about the theory. They are using dirty political tricks to attack it. Most of the arguments are not scientific . They ridicule the online journal where the NASA scientist’s paper was published, ridicule the man formerly owned it, etc. This is not the first time the so called scientists are behaving childishly in this manner in the history. Big money is also involved.
NASA wants to hush up alternative research to find out life on Mars as it would somewhat discourage a trip to the planet and thereby billions of dollars into the pockets of their friends.
There is also a second reason. There is a strong political backing for the theory that life arose on earth, and not in deep space, a theory close to the Bible. Life arose where it arose billions of years ago despite the bible written by desert nomads.If it was other times Chandra Wikramasinghe would have been burnt at stake.
March 14th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
For a long period of time there is a great reluctance among Western scientists to accept anything that forthrightly denies the biblical genesis. They do not want to accept any life originated beyond earth. The NASA scientist who said that was personally attacked, the scientific journal attacked for its former owner, and all kinds of dirty tricks
used. One wonders need the so called scientists go to such lengths – emotional and angry modes so unprofessionally. What are they so frantically trying?
Sir Fred Hoyle who collaborated with Chandra was one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the last century.
After all most of the research on the subject had been done at Cambridge.
As everybody understands, there is lot of money involved in science. NASA would not accept life on planet Mars as it somewhat curtails their future expeditions there and cost their scientists money in millions.After all scientists are greedy humans too.
March 16th, 2011 at 12:38 am
The scientists who have summarily dismissed these findings are probably in a dither because their life’s research and the funding of same are at stake….so it ultimately boils down to funds and JOBS!! In many other areas of study too, and even extending to areas remote from Science (like Human Rights and Socio-economics), there is frenzied action to retain the status quo in ideas as it means that JOBS are at stake in this tanked economy.