Our Cosmic Ancestry in the Stars: The Panspermia Revolution and the Origins of Humanity

The newest book from Chandra Wickramasinghe et al. begins with the assurance that panspermia is how we humans came to be here on Earth. Now it is time to explore the implications of this paradigm. These include new possible causes for extinctions, diseases, evolutionary innovations and the rise and fall of empires. Indeed, the histories of science, philosophy and religion are all seen anew, with hopes that this awakening will make us more compassionate toward each other and more careful with our fragile planet. Overall, it is an impassioned plea for a fresh vision. Provocative, unorthodox and stimulating. We especially like the chosen title.

Have not read this book cover to cover but I can confidently give it FIVE stars based upon what I have seen, thus far .This book is loaded w mind - blowing cosmological facts and theories and simply pointing out that 50,000 years ago our DNA got one massive , significant “tweak “.All earth product ?Maybe . Did an advanced civilization simply send a cosmic drone of sorts to make the alterations? Did a being who looks something like us actually show up with his tool kit?As wierd as any other theory , no?

This book does not present new evidence or experiments for the validity of panspermia, but is written to appeal to a broad audience and proposes a staggering new paradigm for all of us to consider. The authors are absolutely convinced that life did not emerge on Earth, but was a product of, and emerged with, the Big Bang (BB) and its subsequent evolution. Since the BB, life has been transported through space by comets and cometary dust from planet to planet to incubate and evolve. Microbes have also been seeding these same planets and causing DNA modifications creating new genomes. This is ongoing today; we are not a product of the primodial soup nor neo-Darwinism. Our entire galaxy may be a giant maternity ward interchanging life forms via microbes.In the middle part of the book, the authors review the history of how new radical ideas were met with severe criticism, discordance, disbelief, rejection, and even death. Change often instilled fear, increased anxiety, and trampled vested interests. The church was very often the focal point of this contention. Today, this can still and does occur even with credible evidence at hand supporting the new idea; panspermia has undergone this ordeal, but resistance is giving way to greater acceptance in recent times--classic Kuhn.The last part of the book presents a potpourri of topics including: the effects that comet impacts have had in the past, the prehistory of early civilized thinking before panspermia became accepted as a real possibility, the profound implications of realizing we are fundamentally from space, some predictions for the future, and a summary chapter.This book was written for the lay reader in an effort to prepare the general public for the notion that life came from the cosmos; it is a "heads up". Much evidence for panspermia has already been presented in numerous books written by these and other authors. The authors realize this will not be accepted without considerable trepidation (to say the least) with so much vested interest in the status quo. The revelation of being space beings will be a big bang of its own.Good read and highly recommended.We are DisclosureRich

There is more info packed into this little (130 pages) book than others 5 times as long! Dr Chandra gets right to the point without wasting words concerning his & Fred Hoyle's shared theory of panspermia. Although I find this theory entirely plausible, I'm afraid I can't quite share the author's vision of a future utopia for the earth. It sure would be nice though...

Some 12 or 13 years ago I read Chandra Wickramasinghe’s excellent book “A journey with Fred Hoyle” which I thought was impressive. I also recently read the excellent paper “Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic?” which was published in 2018 by “Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology” and of which Chandra was one of the authors. Getting this paper published was a considerable landmark, and one hopes that the inevitable inertia of the scientific establishment will continue to be eroded.I therefore had high hopes of “Our Cosmic Ancestry in the Stars”. Sadly these were completely dashed. I was very disappointed in the book, even though I accept that it is aimed at a general, not a scientific, audience.It is as if this book tries to achieve something of everything, but in the end it achieves nothing. Or rather, what it does achieve is to put a respectable theory into company with a collection of quasi-religious and pseudo-philosophical opinions which are complexly unsubstantiated.The authors speak as if the panspermia theory is already well established and generally accepted. This is patently not the case, nor will acceptance be won by this sort of unscientific writing.What is needed is hard facts, and this book in my opinion does panspermia theory a disservice.

This is a fascinating read and it opened my mind like opening the window to fresh air on a summer Sunday morning. It starts to Answer a lot of questions and courageously pulls the rug out from underneath a lot of populist band wagons - eg that humans are the origin of climate change. (How many ice ages have we had? And what’s the temperature outside now ... ) Also chilling prediction on pandemics - given we’re in the midst of COVID-19- and where they may come from. The central tenet being that all life comes from space. . Frustrating that - where it seems absolutely credible in the way he derives his argument - that life came here from space and that it didn’t suddenly spring from dead rocks or a ‘soup’ - he doesn’t answer the obvious question .. ‘well, where did it come from then!’ And whilst I didn’t expect an answer, at least an acknowledgement that that question still hangs there. I also did not like the way he poo poos space exploration as exclusively the domain of the seeking of life elsewhere. As a species, we need to find other homes - the sun will eventually swallow earth up .. and there’s currently no planet B - we can not be complacent to this. Also, he hangs the Big Bang theory out to dry without a hint to an alternative. Maybe beyond the scope of this book. I loved this book though. Great read and really mind opening.

Geology, astronomy, history, philosophy, science, religion, mythology - man’s past present and future all in one small volume, clear, consuming and compelling.