Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 43 — page 69: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION were advanced, defeated and advanced again. The only sci- entific argument put forward was one that took refuge in time-scales; it was suggested that the sterilized medium was not left long enough, could not be left long enough for life to be spontaneously generated. It was a suggestion that could not be proved, and the sense of being at a loss continued. It is still present today, though experiment has to some extent come out on the side of spontaneous generation. Ex- periments have shown that if a solution containing water, car- bon dioxide and ammonia is subjected, for lengthy periods, to intense ultraviolet radiation, reactions occur, energy is ab- sorbed and there is a synthesis of simple sugars and com- pounds that closely resemble simple aminoacids—basic un- its of protein construction. In our imaginations, we can picture the young Earth on which there are lakes and seas containing the basic consti- tuents—water, carbon dioxide and ammonia. At that stage of its existence, the Earth had no _ ozone layer in the atmosphere to screen off most of the Sun’s uJtraviolet radiation as it does today. So the lakes and seas were bombarded incessantly by these high-energy radiations 68 and gradually turned into rather sickly and no doubt evil-smelling soups of sugars and protein units. Combina- tions and recombinations oc- curred until, in one place or many, a molecule appeared that was catalytically self-re- productive. This was the first living thing and all others developed from it. Came the time when spore- forming organisms appeared. Some of the spores were carried high by the winds and tossed into regions of low gravita- tional force. They rode the light pressure of the Sun and were gently shoved off into space, later to be trapped in the gravitational field of another planet, there to give rise to life—panspermy. Thus can be equated into a common system the idea of spontaneous generation and of mutational evolution. The possible life forms we have discussed could have ori- ginated in this manner, making the necessary changes in the basic constituents. In all this, we should perhaps emphasize, there is nothing that cannot be reconciled with most basic religious doctrines. Science does not necessarily negate religious principles; often it confirms them. End cf this Series. conmmicloooks.comn