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From: ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: Of all the things, Ken!  TAKE TWO.
Message-ID: <1534@hao.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-May-85 14:47:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1534
Posted: Sat May 11 14:47:21 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 13-May-85 00:31:57 EDT
References: <272@cmu-cs-edu1.ARPA> <833@bunker.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 18

> If you say that life arose from nonlife, under conditions
> radically different from those of today, then the statement that
> the "natural flow of things" has always happened doesn't mean much;
> the "natural flow of things" is broad enough to allow anything.

It is generally accepted (sorry, no references) that life arose
in an environment lacking in free oxygen.  This is radically
different from the conditions that exist today.  If biological
activity were to cease on the Earth, then very soon (on the geological
time scale) there would be no free oxygen on the Earth.

The early anaerobic life forms secreted oxygen as waste matter,
thereby fouling their nest on a grand scale (sort of like we're
doing now).  This changed the conditions that exist on the face
of the Earth, making any natural genesis of life virtually impossible.

This is not to be taken as a defense of the term "natural flow
of things", which I don't understand.