Dear Tom -- It has been over four years since we initiated a research project at the University of Oklahoma to explore the question, "Is sustained macroevolutionary progress possible in a closed system?" I believed the answer might be no, in which case gene transfer, ultimately from outside of the system under observation, would have to account for macroevolutionary progress. You believed, with the majority of biologists, that macroevolutionary progress is clearly possible in a closed system. If so, the observed contribution from gene transfer would be of only secondary importance. Unfortunately, we did not come to an answer before the project ended.

    This site is devoted to "Cosmic Ancestry", the hypothesis that (1) life on earth was seeded from space, and (2) that macroevolution depends on genetic programs of extraterrestrial origin.
    The first of these ideas is known as Panspermia which, while controversial, is nonetheless within the realm of mainstream scientific discourse. Originating with the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagorous, it eventually yielded to the Aristotelian theory of Spontaneous Generation that still holds sway today in the form of the "RNA World"--the supposed earthly abiotic precursor to life. Despite a paucity of evidence, research on the RNA World has become, in Panspermia.org author Brig Klyce's words, a "medium-sized industry" unto itself. The "primoridial soup" of naked replicating RNA is a firmly ensconced orthodoxy.
    Yet as Klyce's numerous citations of peer-reviewed scientific literature demonstrate, the spontaneous terrestrial origin of life, orthodoxy though it may be, is not a sacrosanct orthodoxy. Klyce presents a variety of evidence for extraterrestrial life, including meteorite microfossils and Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's analysis of interstellar dust. He also ably disposes of the easy objections to panspermia—that bacteria could never survive the hard radiation and near-zero temperatures of interstellar space, and that there is no plausible vector to transmit them to earth. Citing recent findings on the durability of bacteria and their spores, and on the properties of comets and meteors, Klyce builds a convincing case that extraterrestrial origin is at least plausible.
    Far more controversial—and even more thoroughly argued—is the website's assertion that extraterrestrially-originating genetic material is responsible for macroevolution in addition to biogenesis. Klyce is not reticent in pointing out that this constitutes a "third alternative" in the Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design debate. His critique of the neo-Darwinian synthesis is thorough, dispassionate, and devastating—far more compelling and intelligent than any of the Intelligent Design sites I have found on the Internet. And for each gap in the logic of neo-Darwinism, Klyce offers a solution. Appealing to the increasingly-recognized ubiquity of horizontal gene transfer across species and even kingdoms, Klyce offers satisfying explanations for such problems as irreducible complexity, the survivability of intermediates, the improbability of traversing the enormous distances in sequence space that separate genes, the apparent gaps in the fossil record, the appearance of embryological coordinating genes before the appearance of the steps they coordinate, the existence of highly conserved genomic regions offering no survival advantage, and much more.
    The most impressive achievement of Panspermia.org is probably its annotated survey of recent publications in related fields. For anyone interested in the New Biology it is a treasure trove of articles from academic journals and the scientific press about new developments in astrobiology, genetics, and evolutionary biology. Updated almost daily, the "What's New" section catalogs the evidence for a gathering paradigm shift in biology.
    Cosmic Ancestry is indeed part of a larger shift in our understanding of the function of DNA and the mechanisms of evolution. Integrated with Gaia Theory, it posits a purpose or a pre-direction to evolution embodied in ancient genes. Darwinian natural selection, says Klyce, plays a role in modifying and selecting among variants, but he joins a growing chorus of voices in denying that it can explain macroevolution. Major evolutionary jumps happen through the integration of preexisting genetic material as transposons, via retroviral and other vectors—and our DNA contains the "programs" to successfully accommodate such transfer.
    Panspermia.org does not shy away from some of the more challenging implications of Cosmic Ancestry. While some dismiss Panspermia as merely pushing back the origin-of-life question another five or ten billion years, Klyce maintains that life could not have arisen spontaneously then either. His work is certainly relevant to proponents of the steady-state universe and other dissenting theories of cosmogenesis. He also discusses radical ideas such as directed Panspermia, which says that earth was seeded deliberately by an alien intelligence. Finally, he leaves the door open to the idea that evolution is not yet finished; that there lurks an unexpressed potential inside our DNA. Some of the more New-Agey speculations on the hidden potential of DNA might therefore find a degree of intellectual justification in this website, although Panspermia.org itself sticks to the science.
    Panspermia.org is accessible to the lay reader and scientist alike. Important ideas are introduced on a basic level, buttressed with links to cutting edge research which Klyce elegantly and trenchantly applies to his thesis. The editing is superb and the scientific terminology rarely misapplied—an impressive feat given that the author is not himself a professional scientist. This website makes an excellent case for bringing a new theory with vast explanatory power into the debate on life's origins and evolution.

Charles Eisenstein, "Website Review: www.panspermia.org" [

Cynthia Yockey | Belcamp, MD

01:23 PM 11/17/2005: Dear Ms. Yockey -- Thank you for your thoughtful feedback about my description of your father's work. I have only good will for your father and now, you. I am familiar with your father's book Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life. I reviewed it on 24 April 2005 at http://www.panspermia.org/whatsne37.htm#0504024, and he and I corresponded briefly about it. As I wrote then, I do not think that the ability to preserve information, by itself, explains evolution on Earth. New biological features depend on new information, or "new programs," I prefer to call them. In my view, these are just as unaccountable as the origin of life. If I understand him in the recent book correctly, your father thinks only the origin is unaccountable, and the new programs are accounted for by Darwinism.

When I wrote, "He is deeply sceptical of the prevailing theories of evolution and the origin of life on Earth," I was commenting on his earlier mongraph, Information theory and molecular biology. I had a only a borrowed copy of it, so I can't revisit it now to see what may have prompted that sentence. In any case, I will post this correspondence in my "Replies..." and link to it from the subject webpage to amend the record.

I'm not sure why you have so much to say to me about Intelligent Design. Granted, almost everyone thinks that if you doubt the effectiveness of Darwinian evolution, you must be a creationist / ID proponent. Even worse, almost everyone thinks that there really are only these two choices. This false dilemma is actively promoted by both darwinists and creationists, to the detriment of science. But the strong version of panspermia that I promote is fully scientific, and as different from both of these as they are from each other.

Your father thinks the origin of life "must be accepted as an axiom of biology," you say. I think the programs for all of life, including higher forms, are also in that category. Both he and I are therefore excluded, for now, from the fraternity of mainstream science. We may disagree slightly, but we have a lot in common. Yes, I would like to post a photo of your father by my text about him on the "Second Law..." webpage. Thank you for your kind words. Best regards. Brig

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Dear Friends on Board: The Age of Cosmic Genealogy on Earth - overshadowing paradigms both ongoing and contending relative to origins while enhancing meaning and purpose - opens new vistas for contemporary science, philosophy and religion.

"Microbiology may be said to have had its beginnings in the nineteen-forties. A new world of the most astonishing complexity began then to be revealed. In retrospect I find it remarkable that microbiologists did not at once recognize that the world into which they had penetrated had of necessity to be of cosmic order. I suspect that the cosmic quality of microbiology will seem as obvious to future generations as the Sun being the centre of the solar system seems obvious to the present generation." (Sir Fred Hoyle, 1980, concluding a University lecture at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff with the title "The Relation of Biology to Astronomy").

In forelawsship, Robert E. Cobb | Forelaws on Board | www.geocities.com/forelawsship/

Dear Bryce ...I'm so addicted to keeping current to your 'What's New' that it already seems too long since the latest, 6 August. Anyway, please post some speculation on the idea that the talcum-like dust blown ouf of the July 4th comet was dried bacteria, as with Hoyle & Wickramasinghe. What was the reflectio spectrum of that stuff. I saw the 'new star' arise in my 18" Dob: barely 10 minutes after the impact time it was quite obvious.
Bill Parkyn | Lomita CA (near LA) | Optical Engineer | MIT Class of '66

Dear Sir, I am a researcher in computational linguistics living in Hawaii. Some years ago I published an observation on the Internet that ran something like this: As humans, it is clear that we have evolved physically in many directions. A Nordic European is very different from, say, an African pygmy. So it is clear that physical evolution of some kind is happening. But linguistically we have never evolved one iota from the moment humans first began to speak. Proof? Just take any infant from any culture in the world and raise that infant in any other culture in the world, and he/she will grow up to speak the local language just like any other local person. If language were evolving, this would clearly be impossible.

Perhaps a couple of years after I posted this observation, I heard a remark by some female narrator on an American science television program--perhaps Nova. She said, "Language is not evolving," but never mentioned where she discovered this information. Anyhow, where the panspermia idea is concerned, this discovery that human language has never evolved one iota from the time (some estimate 500,000 years ago) when humans first began to speak is of critical importance, because if language has not evolved at all in .5 million years, then there is slim probability that it ever evolved at all. It is quite possible therefore that some genetic upgrade floated in from space in the form of a virus arriving here .5 million years ago and infected people with the power of speech, and if so, then this is indeed strong evidence supporting the panspermia idea.

Personally, I strongly suspect that the panspermia model, or some panspermia model, is the right one for a few very powerful and very simple reasons, which I will express as follows:
1. My 19 years of linguistic research would indicate that the human linguistic apparatus is simply far too complex to have spontaneously evolved by any series of accidents. The naivete of such a belief rivals that of belief in beings like Athena, Apollo, the River Styx, etc.
2. All life and intelligence comes from other life and intelligence. The Darwinists have had access to all the best bio labs in the world for the past 150 years but have never once come even close to showing us how life might have sprung spontaneously from nonliving matter. They can't even duplicate this hypothetical process deliberately in their best labs, let alone by any accident ever known to man. A scientific hypothesis that will not submit to proof in this fashion is a scientific hypothesis that doesn't work, and according to the scientific method, deserves to be thrown out. Hanging on to untenable hypotheses is the work of high priests: not scientists.
3. All physicists I have ever heard of believe that either (1) the universe was once to hot for any life to exist or else, and equally damaging (2) that no life was possible before stars started to explode. Therefore all life in the universe had to come from some source outside the universe of that time.
4. That source of intelligence and life existing outside our universe is nothing more nor less than what we have always called God, the living source of all life as we know it.

Brigger, Please explain, in simple terms, the difference between Intelligent Design and Cosmic Ancestry.... Thank you. Morrison...

from Brig Klyce to Chip Morrison | Wed, 03 Aug 2005 11:47:44 -0500: Dear Chip -- your timing is excellent, given George W. Bush's recent endorsement of ID....

In brief, ID says that there must have been a miracle for life to originate, and other miracles for it to evolve from the simplest forms all the way to higher plants and animals.

CA agrees that these phenomena are not well accounted for by neodarwinism (ND).

But CA points out that the origin of life is not an observed phenomenon, only a firmly held belief. Firmly held by both ID and ND! The same is true of evolution, if you deconstruct it carefully. The evolutionary progress that takes life to higher forms is driven by the acquisition of new genetic programs for the features that higher forms have and lower forms lack. Both ID and ND attempt to account for the origins of these programs, ID by miracles, ND by science.

Many genetic programs are acquired by gene transfer. This fact already is a blow to ND, because in some cases the source species has no need or use for the program. If not, the ND account for its origin doesn't work.

But the origin of the programs is seldom even claimed to be observed. In 2000, W. Ford Doolittle even admitted, "Many eukaryotic genes ...seem to have come from nowhere."

Admittedly, programs can get *optimized* by ND processes. Optimization is also easily demonstrated in computer models. Not so for composing new programs for unforseeable, complex features.

So CA supposes that these things -- 1) life in the first place and 2) genetic programs for complex features -- never "originated." Maybe they always existed. If so, ID is right to assert that ND doesn't account for them. But ID is wrong to say that we must therefore resort to miracles. Interestingly, both sides agree that ID and ND are the only two choices, and both love the big bang, because it supports the dilemma.

CA contains no miracles, but it requires an amendment to the big bang theory. Life, even highly evolved, must have always existed. Having lived with this concept for years now, I find it no harder to accept than the existence of the universe. The existence of a physical universe is unexplained by science (even if it it began with a standard big bang.) Life is in the same category for me. Science doesn't explain it. But if it always existed, then there's no miracle in the finite past that needs explaining. Thus scientific faith is sustained.

These views are elaborated on the website, if you feel like poking around. Thanks for your interest. Comments invited....Brig Klyce | Astrobiology Research Trust

from Chip Morrison | 05:40 PM 8/3/2005: I need to find out more about Intelligent Design. Could not Nature be the intelligent designer? Is Nature too stupid for that? Not up to the task? I agree that Nature sometimes blunders. Does the Intelligent Designer also blunder? Or is that just Nature? Nature getting in the way?

from Brig: I know that ID requires miracles. Miracles cannot be investigated scientifically. So how ID works is not clear to me. Nature could only do it if Nature has a mind. ID is really just creationism made more palatable, they hope. (There are neodarwinists who think life is an inevitable result of properties of matter. That would be Nature I guess. But where's the evidence?)

from Chip: Also, you need to explain to me why it is necessary for CA that these genetic programs have always existed. From what I remember of the first paper of yours I read, a chief argument was that there hasn't been sufficient time for Nature to have developed the programs on Earth. If the programs come from afar, that solves the problem of time, assuming more time in other parts of the universe. But why does CA require that the programs always existed? Not enough time elsewhere?

Here I'm with the creationists. Suppose astronauts come upon a Chrysler Building standing on Venus. Venus hasn't existed long enough for a Chrysler Building to self-assemble by chance. But if you had forever? In forever anything can happen, right? Sorry, I'm not buying it. Even forever isn't long enough.

(An interesting sidetrack: Mars has existed long enough too have a grand canyon whose exact specifications are probably as detailed as those of the Chrysler Building. How is the Chrysler Building different? Creationist William Dembski writes about this. "Complex Specified Information".)

That argument works for "the origin of life." For evolution to ever higher forms after that, I think there's a second-law-of-thermodynamics equivalent that prevents it. True, now the number of possibilities can be counted. But the number for a single gene is like 4^1000 or about 10^600. (Try http://www.panspermia.org/proof5.htm)

Also, I need to be clear. You agree that life forms have evolved on Earth, but with a sort of assist from external sources. Universe is teeming with life, Earth is open system, life forms from afar mingle with life forms here, producing forms that could not have evolved using only local material. Is this correct?

Yes. Although once the material arrives, then it's local. And it could arrive long before it's deployed.

BTW, I don't see that gene transfer is blow to ND, just because programs are not always useful. Should be okay, as long as not harmful?

How did the gene acquire the program it needs in the recipient species, when, sometimes, there was no selective pressure to write the program in the donor species? Another unanswered question for ND....

Dear Mr. Klyce, I am a suststainable development design consultant and teacher who is currently working on a series of science fiction novels. In my research for the novels I came accross your discussion on the 'META' site and found it most interesting.

I must say that I fully appreciate how difficult it is to present an idea that is so contrary to most peoples' fundamental world view, and how vehement can be their antagonistic reactions. I am truely grateful for people like yourself who refuse to give in.

I grew up with the impression (as I'm sure most people do) that the Big Bang theory was fact, but it never 'felt' right to me. Discovering the Steady State theory was a revalation. Upon further research and reflection I came to understand how deeply rooted the creationist paradigm is in the western (and unfortunately increasingly global) psyche. When I was a kid I remember being told that if people try to think about infinity too much they could go mad. I've thought about it a lot - it is to my mind very comprehendable; either that, or I have gone mad!

To me (as an interested lay-person), the BB theory is synonymous with creationism. The SS theory 'feels' right (very unscientific of me, I know, but science is just a toolbox, one of many).

My point is that I happily go along with your 'Cosmic Ancestry' idea. I know you don't subscribe (publicly) to any particular cosmological theory, but you do propose that life has no particular 'origin', which suggests time without beginning and that equates to my understanding of the SS theory.

I am a practicing Buddhist (I hope to get it right, one day) and one of the reasons I was attracted to Buddhism (along with there being no god or rules) was its cosmology. Buddhist texts describe the universe as eternal, infinite, unbounded and describing cosmic cycles. Buddhist philosophy is one of life, the very nature of reality, and embraces all other religions, science, and philosophies within the Mystic Law. Put very simplisticly, the Mystic Law states that there is infinite potential for and temporary manifestation of all phenomena. Phenomena arise through cause and effect. Phenomena exist, or they don't exist - the ultimate reality is neither existence nor nonexistence, but exhibits the qualities of both.

I'd like to recommend an excellent book, a dialogue between Chandra Wickramasinghe and Daisaku Ikeda, called 'Space and Eternal Life' (Journeyman Press, 1998, ISBN 1 851720 60) which I believe you may find of interest. [Another look at your website shows me an essay by Mr. Wickramasinghe and yourself, you may already be aware of the aforementioned book].

My reason for writing to you is to make contact, say thank you, offer moral support and, maybe, engage in dialogue. As I stated above, I am writing a series of SF novels. It is my wish to tell a story of human integration into galactic society, set within an infinite and eternal universe. 'Panspermia' is the the way life spreads and is, at the material level, what unites all sentient species. I would be interested in having some professional opinion and constructive criticism on how I deal with these issues. In return, I would like to do what I can to bring such issues further into the public domain through the medium of literature.

With my deep respect, Mark Mukai-Warner

from Dr. Michael Shermer | 09:44 AM 7/18/2005: Brig, I haven't any idea why you would "have certain objections" to my report on the evolution conference, and when I clicked on the link you provided there was nothing there about my report. ...Michael Shermer

In my review I expressed disappointment that you didn't say much more about evolution: Where do new genetic programs come from, according to Information Theory? Now I wonder. Perhaps you think, as I do, that the genetic programs for all of higher life must already exist, in essence, from the beginning. You do not explicitly say so, but the quoted sentence implies it. Your comments are welcome.... Thank you.... Best regards. Brig

Reply to your e-mail of 5/17.2005 | from Hubert P. Yockey | Thu, 19 May 2005 10:35:01 EDT: Dear Dr. Klyce: How nice to receive your e-mail and your review of my book! ...I thought I gave the creationist/intelligent design folks, el momento de la verdad! I am more than skeptical about their essentially religious views. I started the book with the reference to Socrates to emphases that science is founded on measurement and mathematics not on faith. I criticized frequently scientists who based their conclusions on faith. As you know the founding fathers believed in the separation of church and state, First Amendment U S constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or restricting the free exercise thereof....

With regard to what is knowable please note the quotation of Niels Bohr on page 5. See also Chapter 11, Randomness, complexity, the unknowable and the impossible. These subjects are not understood by many scientists. They are often refereed to as "buzz words".

Michael Behe, who poses as a scientist, has done an enormous amount of damage. The argument in my book is based on publications by Gregory Chaitin, especially "Irreducible Complexity in Pure Mathematics". You may find this paper and download it from his home page. My theme in the book is that genetics works like a computer. Since the genome is read out to direct the formation of protein, the genetic message cannot be "irreducibly complex". Chaitin shows which sequences are "irreducibly complex" and those that are not. Of course this is far above Behe's head and of his creationist/intelligent design folks. You might find it useful to discuss my reasons why genetics is not "irreducibly complex" with one of your mathematicians. I suggest you go to Chaitin's web page and print out some of his papers on complexity and irreducibility. Try these ideas on your friends! The origin of life, like the origin of the universe, is unknowable. If life were just complicated chemistry, as Jeffrey L. Bada teaches his students, proteins would be composed of amino acids of both handedness.

I discussed the question of how new genetic programs come de novo in my book, Information Theory in Molecular Biology published by CUP in 1992, see Section 12.3. Perhaps your inter library loan can find this book. I wrote it as a textbook and the mathematics scarred off most people. One must decide what can be put in one's book. Being too encyclopedic makes the book so large and expensive that very few will be sold.

A unique characteristic of mathematics is that once a theorem is proved that ends the debate. One may debate the pros and cons of income tax policy but not the theorem of Pythagoras! Only in an insane asylum.! ...I shall be very flattered if you post my comments. ...Thank you for suggesting the reader to buy the book. ...Yours very sincerely, Hubert P. Yockey

Dear Brig, ...I just found your article on second law of thermo. Nice! ...In 1909 Walter Ritz and Albert Einstein had a war over the source of the second law. Please see: The Ritz-Einstein Agreement to Disagree - http://www.ebicom.net/~rsf1/rtzein.htm ...Best regards. ...Bob Fritzius | www.shadetreephysics.com.

Hello Brig ...I just wanted to say that I am thoroughly enjoying your website and all the associated links. I am an artist from NJ, USA and I have recently started producing some art that has been inspired by various readings in science. I have attached a picture of a sculpture I just completed. It consists of an apple that has been "unzipped" to reveal a flurry of pollen-like structures that are about to be disseminated. It is entitled "Panspermic Apple". The picture is a bit blurry, my apologies, but hopefully it captures the essence of this interesting theory.

thanks, and keep up the good work! ...Paul Grech | www.pngconcepts.com

Dear Brig, Sorry for the late reply - I was away for three weeks. Your article is concise and correct. An evolutionary question in this case (as in others) is whether this small genome is a consequence of genome reduction or of an early stage in building a larger one. If it was the former model, then one could imagine that the intact tRNA genes got split during the reduction stage. Unfortunately, there is no function of the tRNA that could be carried out by the half molecules; thus, it is difficult to argue that the half molecules could carry out partial reactions of the current function of a tRNA. Best regards, Dieter
Dieter Söll | Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry | Yale University | http://trna.chem.yale.edu

Your friend thought you should see this article on New Scientist.com today. Follow the link below for the full story: "13 things that do not make sense." Their message: Thought of you

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18524911.600

[The 6th item in the list is about the Labeled Release (LR) experiments on Mars: "JULY 20, 1976. On Mars, the Viking landers have scooped up some soil and mixed it with carbon-14-labelled nutrients. The mission's scientists have all agreed that if Levin's instruments on board the landers detect emissions of carbon-14-containing methane from the soil, then there must be life on Mars. Viking reports a positive result. Something is ingesting the nutrients, metabolising them, and then belching out gas laced with carbon-14."]

The same comment and question are posted with my discussion of the article on my website about panspermia at http//www.panspermia.org/whatsne36.htm#050203. I would be honored by any reply from you.... Thank you and congratulations for the article. Best regards. ...Brig Klyce / Astrobiology Research Trust....

At 12:44 PM 2/3/2005, Dr. Scott Roy wrote: Dear Brig, In most or all cases, I use "origin" in the context of "these results push back the origin...to early eukaryotes." Whether or not the origin of complex genes goes back further is beyond the power of this data to resolve and likely unknowable (if, as seems likely, eukaryotes thought to be deeply diverging have lost nearly all of their introns, a notion supported by Collins and Penny's recent finding of a complex spliceosome in the common eukaryotic ancestor (MBE, 1/05). Both Wally and I have been long-time supporters of the notion that introns are extremely old, and we are not here trying to pinpoint their origin at the beginning of eukaryotes, only to say that, regardless of their ultimate origin, there were already a lot of them by early eukaryotic evolution.

I do have more direct evidence that the data cannot be explained by parallel insertion. In short 1) there are too many occurrences of protosplice sites in the studied regions to explain the two-way correspondences between deeply diverged species; 2) there are too many three-way correspondences between deeply diverged species; 3) numbers of introns shared between species varies widely between genes, as expected if different genes have different rates of intron evolution or if introns are lost in concert (e.g., Roy and Gilbert, "The pattern of intron loss", PNAS 1/05); 4) introns present in multiple outgroup species and a sister are not particularly more likely to be retained in a species than are those found in only a sister and single outgroup. This last one takes some more explaining, but I will leave that for a manuscipt currently in preparation.

You have misinterpreted our table. You say "the number of modern introns present in various ancestor species appears to increase as one looks deeper into the past, as the above table shows. (Going right, the numbers increase.)" This is twice wrong. First, species to the right are more recent, not more ancient. Secondly, this table is not talking about intron number in ancestral species, but the fraction of introns in modern species which were already present in the genomes of various ancestors. Estimated numbers of introns are given in the color figures.... Thanks for your interest. Best, Scott

At 04:10 PM 2/3/2005, Brig Klyce wrote: Dear Dr. Roy -- Many thanks for your kind reply. Of course I am embarrassed about misunderstanding your table. Thanks you for straightening me out. (I'll fix it.) Too often, I'm sure, my dumb mistakes remain because experts won't even reply to me. Thanks for your responsiveness. Congrats again on the study. ...Brig