[Phil153]

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Hmm, looks like Crick was a little late:
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The panspermia theory has antecedents which go back to the Old Kingdom in Egypt, and which are also found in early Hinduism, the philosophy of the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagoras, and amongst the Jewish and Christian Gnostics. It is remarkable how explicit some of these early sources are in suggesting that the entire cosmos is full of seeds, and that life on earth originated from them. Here, a survey is undertaken of all these early beliefs, in order to present a pre-history to these conceptions and show that such ideas appear to be as old as civilization itself.


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Looks like someone is a little slow. All of history is full of strange ideas about the cosmos and a heap of different formulations of what happened. Just look at religious creation myths of hundreds of different cultures, for example. It's not surprising that ideas will have been thought of before. If I pointed out that Jesus was at least 500 years late to the "love your neighbour" party, you'd say, so what?

Why aren't you quoting the 18th century idea that life arises spontaneously from the dirt in a few days? Oh that's right, because it's been debunked. In an alternative universe where it had just been proven true, there'd be a NotReady somewhere posting how the scientists are so far behind the ancients in their understanding of the world.

What a big fat nothing. It's not a question of the first to come up with a semi-plausible idea, it's a question of the first to give plausible details and credible evidence.