Water/Complex Carbon Found In Distant Solar System
Posted by
Hemos
on from the hello-hello-hello-is-there-anybody-out-there dept.
TheHulk writes: "Complex carbon molecules and water, which are key ingredients for life, have been found in the dust and gas around distant stars. The findings boost the theory that the cosmic stew of life is common in the universe."
210 comments
Big deal
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1
Hydrogen is also a key ingredient to life. That happens to be common in the universe, too. Duh.
One thing the egg heads don't bother telling you is there are literally MILLIONS of keys required for life. Chemicals, radiation, gravity, magnetics, etc.
IQ147
-- You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Re:Doesn't prove anything
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
Alien one:
Hmm... there's plenty of silicon and sulphur dioxide around here, and I have yet to discover any sign of life...
Alien two:
Well, it can't be on the third planet... I mean, silicon wouldn't even be liquid at surface temperatures... Try the next star system...
Re:Why is it?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 2
Scientists are searching for "life as we know it" because it's the only life we know. I would be very difficult for them to search for a system of life that we are completely unaware of.
Agreed. Imangine there is a civizization 10,000 light years from Earth devolping at the same rate and time as humans. We would be unable to detect their television even if their transmitters were more powerful then ours and on and ideal frequency for communicating between star systems. Those television shows are still 9,920 years from reaching earth. Now if they are just as war like as us you can assume that nobody on either planet will be able to detect them. A war big enough to destroy civilization in the next 9,000 years isn't exactly unlikely.
It is possibal that many civilizations have rose and fell over the years, and earthlings arrived at radio reception too late to detect the transmissions from the last one, but too soon for the next one. Note that because of the slow speed of light it is possibal for the transmission of the first civilization to not reach earth yet, while the transmissions from a latter one have gone by, and all three civilizations have missed each other.
Of course if someone devolps enough space travel to havea self sufficant colinies in different star systems it is less likely that we have missed them. (Then you have to account for the possibility that earth is a self sufficant colony of a now long gone civialization, though that lack of remains tends to rule that out.
It is only because so many places do not have life, that this small possibility gets people excited. I really don't know why people are so excited. This doesn't prove anything, it just isn't a disproof. Find me a planet with Internet access, and then we'll talk about signs of life.
How about if I believed ours was the only planet that had produced "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"? After all with all the "billions and billions" and stars out there with their "obvious" life, surely some other intelligent entity has generated these same tones.
There was something like this in Babylon-5, where all known intelligent species had all produced something, though by different names, that was basically a sweedish meatballs dish.
In one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, all known civilizations produced something known as a gin and tonic (or similar name, jinnantonix, etc...) except these were completely different drinks.
> People always seem to forget that if there is other life out there, that it'd most likely be *completely* different from us.
I agree. I think a lot of the populace is poisoned by Star Trek, where aliens are, by and large, humans with face paint. There is no reason to expect extra-terrestrial life to resemble us.
> To the point that most likely the biggest challenge in finding other life in the universe will be recognizing it as life.
That's ridiculous. We know *exactly* what life is, and how to recognize it. How, you ask? It's quite simple...humans *invented* life. "Life" is merely a concept and a word. It is a notion that humans invented to suite our own needs.
There is a precise scientific definition of what constitutes "life"...we define something as "living" if it meets the 7 (or so) requirements accepted by the scientific community. For a while there was a debate among scientists whether the definition should be changed to include viruses. Last I heard, viruses only met 5 of the 7 points. Hence, they are not technically living creatures. No problem there...life means whatever humans want it to mean. It's just that some humans felt "life" would be a more *useful* category if it included viruses. I see their argument.
Anyway, my point is that many people don't understand that "life" is an entirely human creation -- purely an aspect of human language and science. There is no universal notion of living things. It's just a useful category that humans have created. If we encountered an alien species, there is no guarantee that they would have a similar notion to "life".
Did anyone notice the poll on the sidebar? They ask which strategy for finding extraterrestrial life could be most fruitful. Get back on the page and vote!
It's a shame they did not include two obvious choices in the poll, though:
Chanting barefoot in the dessert until they come to get you.
And then you could also state: "Why do we spend gazillions on other kinds of research when the money would be best used to solve world hunger" or something like that.
To me it is a matter of width vs. depth. We need to answer all kinds of questions, if we all focus on just _some_ issues all kinds of interesting and important matters would never get found out.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone.
I wonder if the other forms of life don't use a different form of communications. If a life form developed with direct mental communications or the chemicl communication (like in some insects) then our frequencies shot out in space would mean nothing to them. They may be mentally projecting thier greetings to us be we are not equiped to recieve.
Who knows?
-- If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Maybe there wasn't a larg rock that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosours. What if humanities ancestors crashed into earth in a very very large ship...the survivors came out of the ship and ended up replacing the dinosours....Ok, I agree, thats streching it quite a bit...but it was just a thought.
-- If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Yea, they came from Golgafrincham on the 'B' Ark...
Re:ET isn't going to be calling any time soon...
by
Syberghost
·
· Score: 2
It's a bigger problem if they haven't developed yet. If they developed a million years before us, they're probably still around.
I would think a species would be most likely to destroy itself in the first couple of hundred thousand years. After that, it's all gravy.
Well, not gravy per se; more like giant ephemorous energy-gathering constructs ~1 AU across, quietly gathering 99.999_% of the energy of their star(s).
This sort of findings make me more and more suprised of people who still don't think there are foreign life forms in the Universe.
Each finding suggests that life is probably a common thing in our Universe, since, with the findings of other solar systems with reasonably sized planets and even, as here, water, points out the conditions of the creation of life.
Given the vast number of stars out there, even a tiny percentage of life-friendly planets makes it really probable of lots of life in every galaxy.
Thing is, can we contact them? Can we travel to them, and they to us?
Imagine finding out that there is (almost surely) life everywhere, but not being able to make contact. Hope not.
-- :wq!
Re:Probabilities of life...
by
John_Prophet
·
· Score: 1
Of course, the same people that make such statements also demand -absolute- proof that God exists.
How can we believe that GOD spoke to Moses on the mountain unless GOD speaks to us as well? Belief without evidence is not religion. It is better to be an athiest than to believe without seeing.
(That being said, this guy truely believed in GOD. Draw your own conclusions.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-- -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll) =(.\')=
Re:Probabilities of life...
by
seanmeister
·
· Score: 2
This sort of findings make me more and more suprised of people who still don't think there are foreign life forms in the Universe.
Hehe.. there's some well-documented research that shows that foreign life forms exist right here on Earth! Of course, 'foreign' sorta depends on what country you originate from...
well, i figure there's life out there - the question for me would be, is it intelligent? it is highly likely that there is bacteria and algae and other wee flora and fauna out there. what i wonder is whether or not the miracle of our brains' evolution is as common as the actual biological definition of life.
honestly, i'd like to believe there's other intelligences out there. i'd be pretty damn disappointed if we were as good as it got.
Re:Probabilities of life...
by
Chaswell
·
· Score: 1
I find it so interesting that scientists believe we can communicate with distant alien life forms. Maybe they should make a little more progress with the dolphins and chimps of this planet. Shouldn't they expect similar results?
- chaswell
Re:Probabilities of life...
by
railgun
·
· Score: 1
I find it interesting that scientists seem to think they have proved something every time they find some "building blocks".
Re:Probabilities of life...
by
cavemanf16
·
· Score: 1
You believe something based on faith on the source of that belief containing truth. You cannot always use evidence as a basis for a belief.
belief (b-lf)
n.
The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another.
Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something.
Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.
Sure, evidence can be one form of reasoning for believing, but in the end it's whether your mind accepts it as true or not. I would say that according to the dictionary, this guy was a very stupid man.
SOOO, to drag this back on topic...
Probabilities of extraterrestial life are ultimately based on some sort of faith in the evidence you see and that which you can guess at (since right now we have no evidence of extra-terrestrial life). We may have elements that can contribute to life, but so far they have not been proven to have been formed into any simple living cell, let alone any intelligent or instinctual living being.
I'm not sure if I fully understand what you are trying to get at, but I think you are talking about mold and bacterial colonies.
If so.. no, this doesn't expand to other locations in space. The first reason, there isn't bacteria there. Bacteria is life, and bacteria is what causes mold and fungi to form on coffee. If that isn't there, then there is no mold. And, as far as I know, this piece is missing.
I could just be missing your argument completely though.
Religous zealots *refuting* the assertion that there is life on other planets??!??? Haven't you ever seen "Contact"? It's *scientists* that laugh at SETI and other attempts to look for extraterrestrial life. Religous *nuts* are all for alien life, as they would almost immediately transform aliens into "god-like figures". Now, as a religous person myself, (i.e., I go to church every Sunday and pray regularly) I think it would be the epitome of arrogance to think that God brought this galaxy into being, let alone the Universe, simple for one dinky planet on the outer edges of the Milky Way. I mean, that's ludicrous:-)
Much more likely is that what is going on here is that same as has been going on with other worlds since the beginning of time (as we know it), and will probably continue on long after Earth is slagged into molten lava when the Sun novas. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe. It is pure and utter hubris to think otherwise.
/me apologizes for Mozilla's screwed up formatting
Yes, the Force was a synonym for God in Star Wars, and a lot of people believe in that sort of God, i.e., one that is unknown and unknowable. However, as one of those literal minded people;-), I *do* believe that God was a man, and went through the same process we are going through (i.e., life, love, and death).
To take this *completely* off-topic (hence the title change), I would submit that if God is truly our "Father in Heaven", the *only* long-term goal that he could have is to help us become like him. A lot of religous people get nervous at this point B-) The Eternal Plan that I envision includes an family that stretches back into infinity, with every generation striving to help it's children achieve the same status it has reached, with the children being us, but also God before us, and his parents before him. I can't imagine anything else that fits my premise, which is that God loves us, he is our spiritual Father, and that he is real, made of flesh and bone.
Well, there goes my carefully built up karma hoard:-) And to think I got all the way up to 15....
Oh, and the omnipresent thing is something thought up by Catholics, not something that is actually in the Bible (IIRC). In case you couldn't tell, I'm not Catholic B-)
As many detractors are fond of pointing out, our current Seti@Home effort wouldn't be powerful enough to find us humans if it were set up on another star.
-- Vidi, Vici, Veni
Components of life do not life make!
by
anomaly
·
· Score: 4
Discovery of the components of life does not imply that life is plentiful.
If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
Simply discovering car parts (and what has been discovered is the raw material of car parts, not the parts themselves) does not indicate that we should find 'cars' in the universe.
It's possible - and even more likely than if those parts didn't exist - BUT there's more required than what has been found.
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal' circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
(Dang chirality!)
I'm not saying that life like ours doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe, just that it this discovery doesn't mean that it does.
Life is hard. Creating life is REALLY hard.
--Anomaly
Now comes the part where I lose credibility with those of my readers who are closed-minded.
God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more about this, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com
-- But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
fnj
·
· Score: 2
Absolutely right. "Components" is a pretty broad term. In fact, a car can be made by assembling only three things in the right way: protons, neutrons, and electrons:-) (OK, maybe some other elementary particles thrown in, too, but I think you could make it work with only those three).
In fact, anything can be made by assembling these particles the right way. Computers, people, tennis shoes, Einstein's brain, the entire earth and everything in it.
But I bet no one here can do it. Not even assemble a pencil from particles. And you'd have top wait a long time for it to happen spontaneously.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
Dallas+Truax
·
· Score: 1
Given a few billion years, and beaker as big as Earth, and the odds are, you'll still have a beaker with dirty water.
The odds of life happening randomly are indeed slim, given what we know about the chemicals involved.
Anyone who uses or implies the term "statistical certainty" or "statisticaly inevitable" knows nothing of statistics to begin with.
The "odds" of intellegence, I have found, are slim, even on Earth, much less off planet.
-- Above comment is personal opinion.
Poster is not a spokesperson.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
pogen
·
· Score: 1
If molecules could assemble
themselves properly by just being near each other, it would have taken
me 6 days instead of 6 years in graduate school to get a Ph.D. in
synthetic organic chemistry...
Note that I said that they "can" assemble
themselves, not that they often do. My point is
simply that there is a chance, however small,
that the proper mix of chemicals can occur under
the proper conditions to create the proper kind
of organic molecule. The more time you allow for
these conditions to occur, the more likely it is
that they will do so. Car parts, on the other
hand, can not form bonds of their own accord no matter how much time you give them.
Molecules can. This is my basis for rejecting the
analogy.
we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a
preferred outcome...
Exactly, and that's what you have to do to
achieve these results on human timescales. But
at the risk of repeating myself, we're not talking
about human timescales.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
pogen
·
· Score: 1
Let's not put words into each other's mouths.
Obviously, Miller's experiment was a crude
approximation of the conditions under which life
is thought to have emerged. For one thing, those
conditions were not constant over the entire
surface of the planet; for another, they were
not constant over time. The fact that "life"
did not appear in Miller's beaker is not
surprising -- that is not what he set out to
achieve in the first place. My intent was simply
to show the absurdity of the claim that because
life didn't appear in Miller's beaker, somehow
abiogenesis is disproved. I mentioned two major
differences between Miller's conditions and
those of the Earth (size and time); obviously I
should have mentioned more for those unable or
unwilling to extrapolate. Also note that I never
claimed that "life" would "inevitably" have developed over several billion years in an
Earth-sized beaker, just that the results would
have been "different", which I think is a
reasonable assumption.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
pogen
·
· Score: 3
If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have
a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right
alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the
components of a car cannot "automatically"
assemble themselves in the right order, alignment,
and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed
near each other.
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component
materials in 'ideal' circumstances doesn't even give the building
blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the
building blocks of life do not appear (relatively)
instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give
him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as
the Earth, and I think you would see different
results.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
number
·
· Score: 1
Here's an alternative theory that fits in with all the scientific data....maybe God had something to do with putting those molecules in just the right order to create life. We are merely human and limited in our ability; God is the infinite, omnipotent intelligent designer of our universe...and not only can He assemble those molecules in just the right order but He can make them chiral too!
What scientific data do you have access to which points explicitly to God's involvement? Why not Buddha? Or Allah? Or the Gods of Olympus?
Placing a God figure in charge of the universe's development simply replaces one paradox with another one. Until there is a credible, testable theory concerning the "God problem", I have little choice but to stay agnostic.
I'm sorry, but blind faith has no place in my logic, nor do "whoops, we can't comprehend the situation so we'll stick God in there somewhere" explanations for any given situation.
Re:Components of life do not life make!
by
ChemistPhD
·
· Score: 1
If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
This is a slightly misleading analogy, as the components of a car cannot "automatically" assemble themselves in the right order, alignment, and torque. Molecules can, just by being placed near each other.
No, the car analogy is right on target. If molecules could assemble themselves properly by just being near each other, it would have taken me 6 days instead of 6 years in graduate school to get a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry...and we'd have a cure for just about every disease known to man. The challenge of drug discovery and basic organic chemistry is getting those molecules and atoms to connect the way we want them to. We not only 'just place them near each other' but we control the conditions to opitimize the environment to give us a preferred outcome...and a lot of the time that still doesn't work. You may want to look at the Journal of Organic Chemistry or the Journal of the American Chemical Society sometime and see how often those molecules just don't assemble the way we want them to!
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal'circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
No. At best, his experiments proved that the building blocks of life do not appear (relatively) instantaneously. No one ever said they did. Give him a few billion years, and a beaker as big as the Earth, and I think you would see different results.
No, Dr. Stanley Miller's experiments were erroneously touted by newspapers across the country as 'proof' of Darwinian evolution (just like cold fusion in the 1980's). Here's the clincher...he did this in the 1950's before Watson & Crick discovered DNA. DNA, which we in the scientific community know as the major required component of all living matter, doesn't even fit into Miller's theory of gases creating amino acids to create proteins. At best, Miller's experiments showed that a racemic amino acid can be created in one of the random combinations of mixing it's elements....but do note that it was created racemic (amino acids are all chiral in nature) and it was created as one type of molecule along with a plethora of other types of molecules. No matter how much time and how big of a beaker, Miller's experiments would result in the same muck...only a lot more of it!
By the way, if you're questioning my expertise in this area, I have a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from a top 10 university and have been a practicing synthetic organic chemist for over 10 years. I have authored several professional papers which have been published in leading scientific journals and am currently a research scientist at the largest and most prestigious biochemical research institute in the world...and I also happen to know Dr. Stanley Miller personally as I was a student of during my graduate training.
Here's an alternative theory that fits in with all the scientific data....maybe God had something to do with putting those molecules in just the right order to create life. We are merely human and limited in our ability; God is the infinite, omnipotent intelligent designer of our universe...and not only can He assemble those molecules in just the right order but He can make them chiral too!
We do. Communication requires a carrier. We use photons because they travel at light speed. There is not any evidence that SUSY or strings will shake up the fundemental requirement that information travels on matter. Thus we know that the idea of mental projection in the absence of projecting some 'thing' (e.g. photons) is a looser.
Further, the idea that low power intra-planet transmissions could take place between extra-terrestrials is interesting, but the high power needed for societal communication or worse yet inter-stellar communication could somehow be released from carbon based life is a similar no go.
That's an assumption based on our own solar system and the stars we can see. We've yet to find planets in a system that resembles our own
Only because we don't have equipment with enough sensitivity to find earth size planets in any orbits, much less distant ones like ours.
(in fact scientists are rethinking the standard solar system model because of it)
No they are rethinking it because of the wierd orbits of the 'jupiters' they are finding. Not because of the absence of 'earths'.
So yes, assuming we're the only ones out here is jumping to conclusions, but so is assuming the universe falls neatly into the Heliocentric solar system model, don't you think?
No.
I think that expecting that the vast number of stars that are like our own with no near orbit Jupiters don't have a significant percentage with small approx 1 AU orbit planets is, well, anti-Heliocentric. I thought I made that clear.:-)
Citing "hubris" as a reason to believe in life on other planets is pretty lame. Would it be hubristic to believe there was no life in the rest of the Solar System?
Yes. That was my position. It would be hubristic to believe that we are alone.
Concerns about hubris are really just the inductive principle: things around here are probably average. But note the "probably". Induction is a good way to come up with a new hypothesis, but calling the output "obvious" is a fallacy.
Ok. My theory is obvious and the fact that people don't see that is because of their hubris. As you say, the fact should be proven and I agree 100% on that. Somehow that thought in my head was lost in the translation to paper.
As for intelligent life: intelligence isn't some kind of "ulimate endpoint" of evolution
As for intelligence. I never said that the life elsewhere would be intelligent. Though I did say that in the absence of abundent life it was 'interesting' that the only place that it arose (here, of course) it would become intelligent.
I'd be the first to argue that the vast majority of life outside of earth was not self aware. (an easy bet since it's true here as well...)
I suppose it's not at all possible that the 'thing'(e.g. photon-like) is something undiscovered by human scientists thus far?
Yes, that's exactly right.
With the exception of a fringe group of WIMP researchers it is widely excepted that we know about all the particles that exist at normal energies. We've verified that research with research into many particles that don't exist at normal energies.
You got me with the whole spelling thing though. You're right, I can't spell. Why memorize what can be looked up. (and I'll give you a shiny new nickle if you know who to attribute that to)
Let me get this straight. If I said to you "I think that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Solar System" you would call me hubristic?
No. I'm a dork who missed the solar system reference while trying to post and work at the same time.
Sorry.
Something was lost here, too. If your theory is obvious, why do you think it needs to be proven?
Because I want to be a research scientist and need funding...:-)
No, as I said in the very first line of my post I'm aware that the unexpected sometimes happens. That's why we do experiments to verify. I'm just saying the hubris comes from believing in the 10 angstrom slice that was left behind after occums razor cut through the evidence and said, 'geez guys, why would you seriously consider a lonely universe theory in the almost complete absence of any evidence to support it'.
Look, I'm all about remembering there is a shadow of a doubt. As an active reader of bottomquark I see the headlines outside of my own experience, and that sometimes corrections are made in theories.
But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable.
Life is plentiful. The chemistry needed for life is all over the place and we have a planet that provides fantastic evidence that once a molecule is able to replicate itself then life pretty much explodes. There is no reason to believe that something unique happened here to create that initial set of circumstances.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone. Hogwash! We haven't heard from them because there are invariant rules in the universe. This lack of communication is much better evidence that faster than light travel is insurmountable than it is that somehow in the great sea of chemistry that is the universe *we* managed to defy the odds and not only create life, but multicellular life. And not only multicellular, but thinking. And not only thinking, but self aware and communicative. Those are long odds, eh?
Still, if this country (or planet for that matter) was scientifically litereate enough to understand all that I guess poliglut.org (shameless plug) wouldn't need to exist to straighten folks out...;-)
But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable.
Well, there are certainly a few things that seem unusual about our planet. That big moon being one of them. But then again, like everything in life, i suspect that the planet that exactly fits the norm is more unusual than all the ones that don't quite.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone. Hogwash! We haven't heard from them because there are invariant rules in the universe. This lack of communication is much better evidence that faster than light travel is insurmountable than it is that somehow in the great sea of chemistry that is the universe *we* managed to defy the odds and not only create life, but multicellular life. And not only multicellular, but thinking. And not only thinking, but self aware and communicative. Those are long odds, eh?
People always seem to forget that if there is other life out there, that it'd most likely be *completely* different from us. Not in a looking funny kind of way, in *every* way. To the point that most likely the biggest challenge in finding other life in the universe will be recognizing it as life. Even if other beings have life, why would they think anything like us? This isn't star trek, folks, where everything has two legs and can actually mate with one another.
The fact that there's no communication means nothing. Who says that another species would *want* to communicate? Who says they would ever develop tools, much less a desire to travel across the universe? Remember, the insects are for the most part far better adapted to this planet than we are.
"People always seem to forget that if there is other life out there, that it'd most likely be *completely* different from us. Not in a looking funny kind of way, in *every* way."
According to the concepts of evolution, creatures evolve in reaction to their environment, to take advantage of their surroundings. Ultimately the goal of evolution is to produce a robust, flexible organism that not only reacts to it's environment, but to shape it to suit itself. The simplest organisms take advantage of their environments to feed and reproduce; the most complex (arguably humans) seek to change their environment to suit them. Ironic that up to a certain evolutionary point, organisms react to their environments by changing their dna and defense mechanisms, but in the final analysis, the most evolved creatures stop reacting and begin changing the environment.
At any rate, my point is this: in a similar environment, on a similar planet, I see no reason life wouldn't take the same evolutionary paths as we have. So under closely related conditions after a few million years, I believe it's likely for some humanish creatures to reach the plateau that we have. Our superiority is no fluke; it's the result of millions of years of careful genetic reactionism.
"But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable."
That's an assumption based on our own solar system and the stars we can see. We've yet to find planets in a system that resembles our own (in fact scientists are rethinking the standard solar system model because of it).
So yes, assuming we're the only ones out here is jumping to conclusions, but so is assuming the universe falls neatly into the Heliocentric solar system model, don't you think?
--Brogdon
--
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Re:Proving the obvious
by
John_Prophet
·
· Score: 2
Thus we know that the idea of mental projection in the absence of projecting some 'thing' (e.g. photons) is a looser.
I suppose it's not at all possible that the 'thing'(e.g. photon-like) is something undiscovered by human scientists thus far? About a thousand years ago we would regularly 'bleed' people to release 'bad humours' that were keeping them from being well. If, at that point, someone had proposed that microscopic 'germs' were the real cause, they probably would've been told that such ideas were also the 'looser' [sic].
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-- -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll) =(.\')=
But really. We are an average planet around an average star.
Actually, there's little evidence to back this up.
I'm one of the team members on the project that tries to monitor a few hundred "solar-like" stars to test (among other things) how "normal" the Sun really is. Macroscopically, you can argue that it's on the Main Sequence, and doesn't do anything strange compared to other stars.
However, if you change the problem around to looking for stars that are almost identical to the Sun in every way (working out of the assumption that if the Sun is "ordinary" then there should be a lot of other stars that are also "ordinary", out of a carefully-chosen sample, you come up with a very VERY short list --- it's in the single digits, and even then I keep finding reasons to
exclude those stars from the list. One could almost claim at that point that there are no "average" stars.
I hope to have a paper submitted to the Astrophysical Journal later this year on this topic.
As for Earth being "average", again the evidence so far is that Solar System-like systems is not the norm. At this point we should be detecting Jupiters (5 AU orbiting planets with 1 Jupiter mass) around solar-like stars, yet the zoophony of extra-solar planetary systems favors either 51 Peg-like planets, or systems with planets that have highly eccentric orbits (e.g., the planet orbiting 16 Cyg B). There's a selection effect present, of course (it's easier to detect the ones with higher mass and shorter periods), but the surveys are reaching completion levels with long enough time series that we should be making up the difference *if* system configurations like ours are normal.
(The implication here is that in neither the 51 Peg-like system or the 16 Cyg B-like system is it
likely [possible?] to end up with an Earth-like planet --- they'll either get bounced our or the proto-planetary matter will be swept up.)
It's true that most of us are pretty sure there's other life out there, but we haven't seen it. It's always nice to gather more evidence for the theory, even if the theory seems "obvious".
Besides, this is also interesting news because these "life ingredients" were found in the gas and dust around stars. Nobody is exactly sure where our life ingredients came from -- whether they formed spontaneously on Earth or came down from space -- so this is more evidence for the "space" theory.
Mammals and other life forms on Earth are all similar mostly because, assuming you believe the theory, they all evolved from common ancestors. That, and the climate conditions on earth during this evolution has been relatively the same. Gravitational forces haven't changed much (i.e., the moon hasn't been blown away), the climate has been relatively stable and livable (no massive atmospheric changes or really long cold snaps), there's always been water, vegetation, etc.
Think about life developing on other planets. What would life look like if the the gravity was drastically changed by a moon being destroyed. What if the planet didn't have regular seasons, because of an irregular orbit or something similar. What if the planet was particularly massive, and life evolved in two seperate areas, independant of each other by vast distances? Would they evolve in similar ways?
You get the idea. There are so many factors that could affect how life would evolve, it's almost impossible to think the only differences would be bumpy fore-heads or blue skin. One could argue that life would have a tough time asserting itself in such environments, and you might be right. But again, we have only our stable little sun and earth, with it's perfect seasons and climate as a basis for comparison.
Alternatively, what if we are aware of the carrier, but not aware that anything is encoded in it? The sound of a modem is hiss (one would guess noise if one didn't know otherwise), but it's actually full of Slashdot and pr0n. "They" could be using encoding we can't imagine (for example, 1 bit every 400 years may make sense to "them").
can't we just use the philotic twinings on our ansibles? It really appears to be the most promising form of communication across galactic distances.
-chaswell, who doesn't even know if he was trying to be funny.
Re:Proving the obvious
by
Actinophrys
·
· Score: 1
There are hundreds of well known non-human manipulated mutations in other living things. As an extreme example, they did a study on some trout in a stream that got separated a few generations ago, and they will hardly even breed anymore - mating signals changed. Just a few generations and they are close to speciating (noone expected it to be so fast)! Another thing that comes to mind is the well-known extremely high mutation rate of pathogenic bacteria - and not nearly always in response to our medicines.
Actually, although the likelihood of multiple occurences of something that could be defined as biological "life" is extremely high, the likelihood that any of these life-forms is intelligent is much, much lower.
As best as we can tell human-type intelligence is not a notably desirable evolutionary trait. Most of the obvious benefits of a versatile intelligence can be better met by evolution for strength and a few specific instincts. For pre-Agrarian (hunter-gatherer) societies of, say, Ape-like creatures the pressure to develop into something that has an intellect capable of devising radio, inter-steller space travel and Classical music is very low. On the other hand, the pressure to develop of thick skull, big arms and the ability to tell by instinct which berries are poisonous is quite high.
Human intelligence, if a coincidence at all, would seem to be something of an environmental fluke. The chances of life on any given Earth-sized planet are low; the chances of "intelligent life" are very low.
Re:Proving the obvious
by
Rasta+Prefect
·
· Score: 1
Yes, they might evolve to be somewhat like us in their handling of the environment - or the might not. I mean, if you really think about it a great deal of earths evironment has been created by various forms of life - lots of oxygen in the atmosphere, the balance of carbon dioxide creating the "right" amount of greenhouse effect, which influences the amount of unfrozen surface water.. Theres no reason they have to be chemically like us. Just because DNA is the way that we store our information about our structure is no reason that anyone else has to, or that they have to use Amino Acids as their basic building blocks. Both are extremely arbitrary "standards". The reason they're consistent throughout earth based life is not because they're nessecarily any better than any other method of doing things but because we all came from a common ancestory. Theres no reason that another form of life might not have an entirely different method of storing its structural blue print, or that it might not store the information for the construction of its component molecules in terms of individual atoms or an entirely different set of building blocks. Also, there is the possibility of life based substances other than carbon - a silicon based life form, some kind of silicon/carbon hybrid, other atoms in the same period(not as likely, since as they get heavier there are more problems and the bonds aren't as strong), maybe constructed in some way that we wouldn't even think of.
Water might not even be nessecary - granted, it makes a wonderful solvent, but there are other solvents out there, particularly at lower temperatures. Who knows? Anyway, the assumption that life is nessecarily anything like us either chemically or physically is a fairly bad one to make until we have other examples of life that didn't evolve on earth.
This isn't star trek, folks, where everything has two legs and can actually mate with one another.
I've always though it interesting that so much of life on Earth has developed so similar. Take the Mammals group for instance. Mammals tend to have 4 legs (sometimes used as arms), similar diets, similar mating techniques, etc.
While it's natural that a lot of life elsewhere will be totally different from here on Earth, it is also quite likely that a similar planet with a similar sun will produce similar life. Earth has produced a wide variety of life over its lifetime. Dinosuars, fish, insects, mammals, amphibians. It's not entirely unlikely that an animal group similar to one of those will develop elswhere. If what we're looking for is water, carbons, amino acids and other building blocks of life on Earth, we will probably find similar life.
-- The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Re:Proving the obvious
by
BodyCount07
·
· Score: 1
The hubris required to think that we are alone in the universe is almost unmeasurable.
Your right! My usual method of measuring Hubris, the Hubris-O-Matic Meter, keeps going right off the scale!
In Diaspora, they discover some "carpets" that communicate by waving feelers around. They conclude that these are showing intelligent communication, but there is no way we can communicate with them. Check it out, a really cool book that makes everything else seem sort of mundane by comparison.
Such a cool book, although it melted the brains of everyone I reccomended it to (who hadn't already read it)
Substantially overblown scientific journalism.
by
RobertFisher
·
· Score: 5
I have several minor issues with this news announcement.
1. The astronomers involved failed to place their discovery in the larger picture. Molecular clouds have been observed in a wide variety of molecues (CO, CO_2, H_2O, CS, H_2CO, HCOOH, C_2H_6, CH_3CH_2OH, etc...) for about thirty years now. Every now and then a slightly more complex molecule is discovered for the first time, but given the complex gas phase chemistry, this is not at all surprising.
2. After failing to properly place the discovery in context, the article immediately leaps to the "origin of life" carrot.
Our educational system has failed to educate the public in basic science, mathematics, and technology. Hence, popular articles such as these
almost NEVER discuss the real scientific importance of discoveries (which would require a more thorough background than can be provided in a 1 minute soundbyte or a webpage -- not that the journalists themselves even have such a background themselves, mind you), scientific journalists continually dangles one of a handful of carrots in front of the dazzled, curious, though admittedly thoroughly ignorant populace :
I. Cure of diseas/disorder (fill in the blank -- cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, etc.), elimination of world starvation and/or poverty
II. Faster computers, cleaner, more efficient automobiles, better toasters (or fill in favorite life-improvement gadget)
III. Life, the Universe, and Everything
In this case, carrot III was the most convenient.
GET REAL PEOPLE. These many be noble goals, but the truth of the matter is that most scientists are motivated to solve intricate little riddles which are often very involved, but infinitely fascinating. While not diminishing important secondary factors (career, prestige, etc.), in general, they pursue science for science's sake, and only pull out these lame carrots for journalists and popular explanations. (They never use them when discussing amongst themselves). The popular view of a scientist is by now completely distorted by the fact that almost no one, besides other scientists, have the slightest clue as to what scientists ACTUALLY do, and what ACTUALLY
motivates them to do what they do.
3. Lastly, I think the slashdot editors need to exercise better discretion in choosing science topics. This must be the dozenth time I've seen a relatively unimportant, superhyped scientific discovery receive a billing by./'s editors. If need be, they should put together a small volunteer board of experts in scientific disciplines to consult with before posting an article.
Bob
-- Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
We'd drink it all if the tap was at a bowling alley, or maybe at Casino Niagara...
Water and complex carbon with planets nearby.
by
SEWilco
·
· Score: 3
We don't have to wait. 50 percent of stars like ours probably have metallic planets.
A survey of middle-aged stars within 350 light years found that half of them were emitting light that showed metals were present in the top layers of the stars. That suggests that metallic dust, asteroids, and planets fell into the star. Not all that stuff falls in, so there are planets around a bunch of those. Planets that formed a long time ago.
Please explain something for me ...
by
RabidMonkey
·
· Score: 1
Ok.. I know I could get the answers to this question by searching the net, etc, but well, I know someone here can explain it just as well, and it might make a good discussion, so here goes...
How is it that scientists can find things like water, alcohol, etc that far away? what tools do they use? what software? what deductive logic? what information do they build on?
I don't understand the process at all, so use little words:)
thanks in advance.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us.
-- We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us.
- Douglas Coupland
Re:Please explain something for me ...
by
Aigantighe
·
· Score: 1
Since noone else seems to have explained this, I'll give it a go;
The technique used is spectroscopy. When you heat up the gaseous form of an element, it radiates electromagnetic energy. The characteristics of this energy are very specific, and relate to the atomic structure of the gas. Similarly, by heating up any other gas, a radiation of a specific spectrum is emitted. By observing the radiation from stellar bodies, and comparing the spectra with those obtained from controlled laboratory experiments on earth we can determine the makeup of gases in space.
I found some useful material that might explain this more fully as part of the notes for a course at Cornell here.
This is a simplified explanation; I've left out some stuff (like absorption), but you'll find info on how it works in most undergrad astrophysics textbooks.
Aig.
Humans mating with aliens?
by
SpinyNorman
·
· Score: 1
This isn't star trek, folks, where everything has two legs and can actually mate with one another.
I thought that if two animals can successfully mate, then they are considered the same species?
If humans can mate with Star Trek "aliens", then those aliens are human!
You're reaching...and it's on things you don't understand. Things you don't understand mean a HIGHER intelligence than yours is needed to decipher them.
I remember writing a paper about life in space and reading paper where scientists had found ATP (adenosine triphosphate, a source of energy), ubiquidous and necessary for life on Earth.. Furthermore that on early Earth that the surrounding environment was the only source of ATP. Early primative life could not produce their own ATP, the ability to synthasis ATP as an energy source evolved later. Also I think that there is evidence of RNA in space.. I'm not sure about that though.
Finding carbon rings in space is nothing new. These Nasa scientists are reveiling their lack of knowledge about biology getting all excite about finding benzene and water in space. The central paradigm of molecular biology (DNA->RNA->amino acid) would seem to indicate that the first protolife was in the form of RNA, which can join without the help of enzymes.. RNA itself can fact can act as a enzyme. Amino acids, were probably created 'de novo' by the organism or incorporated into the organism later..
How about if I believed ours was the only planet that had produced "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"?
There was something like this in Babylon-5, where all known intelligent species had all produced something, though by different names, that was basically a sweedish meatballs dish.
That was a minor throwaway joke, of course. On the other hand, the Crusade episode "The Needs of Earth" noted the distinction between scientific knowledge (which is inherent to reality and can be discovered by any intelligence using the right tools) and culture (which is an irreproducable result). /.
-- /.
If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Re:Key ingredients dictated by chemistry
by
alexjohns
·
· Score: 2
Because it's a lower molecular weight, from simple statistics a lot more carbon exists in the universe than similar elements (like silicon)
Nope. After Hydrogen and Helium, the next most common element in the universe is Oxygen. Elements 3, 4, and 5 are actually way down on the list of common elements. So, statistically, you're wrong on this, although I do think that Carbon is fourth in overall abundance in the universe. (But, statistically, everything after Hydrogen and Helium is about the same.)
As far as our planet is concerned, Oxygen is most abundant, then Silicon. Carbon isn't even in the top 10. Carbon is more abundant than Silicon in the universe, but on our planet (a big hunk of rock), Silicon wins the abundance battle. This is likely the case for all big life-bearing rocks (silicates). --
Re:The Molecules of Life.
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 2
> Complex carbon molecules have been found for ages in space.
Yup. Same-old-same-old.
Wanna impress me? Gimme some insanely-long-baseline-interferometry capable of getting a spectrum from a planetary body and show me a big pile of diatomic oxygen.
Until then, it's good research, but it doesn't change the big picture (the building blocks of life are everywhere) we've been aware of for a long time.
Silicon and Carbon are not the same shape in terms of bonding. Si is very large, 41 Angstroms larger (or in laymans terms it's radius is about 1.5 times that of Carbon.) Further SiO2 and CO2 are not the same shape when bonded. CO2 is a linear molecule wheras SiO2 is a complex tetrahedral matrix of interconnected atoms of the basic formula (SiO2)x.....
Silicon cannot support life the way carbon does. They have differing electronegativities yet almost the same electron affinity. They react in very different ways. Carbon is very much a nonmetal. Silicon a metalloid.
You cannot have life as we define it.
-- I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I have calcium in my bones but I am not calcium based because it's not the calcium that's alive. The Diatoms use silicon in the same way we use calcium. It's not the silicon that makes them alive. It's all the god damned carbon in their dna and cellular makeup that make them alive. Life will exist for other one celled animals without silicon. Silicon is not necessary for their life, just convinent for this organism to use. Life will not exist without the CARBON.
-- I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I'm a moderator right now as was going to mod this up for being funny but need I to straighten out something. Simply because there was an Xfiles episode showing life from silicon doesn't mean it's possible. Biochemistry is so complex and shape specific that simply having the same number of bonds as carbon and water will not make them react with other substances in place of carbon and water. Isoelectricity doesn't mean compatibility.
But it is kind of funny on an irony scale.
-- I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
Yeh, but it a bit short-sighted to assume that because something doesn't or can't happen on earth that it absolutely cannot happen.
I think you need increase your sample space before making such bold statements.
Mind you if it was on the x-files.....;(
-- comeontheni'lltakeyouallon
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
Shadowmist
·
· Score: 1
There are very good reasons why all life on Earth is carbon based and why we expect that if we do find extraterrestrial or extrasolar life, odds are it will be too. Carbon is the most agile and flexible element in the universe able to give or take up to 4 electrons in chemical bonding. Silicon and others in the Carbon family can theorectically do the same, but they're heavy and sluggish by comparison,. and if I'm not mistaken the Carbon family elements beyond Silicon aren't stable. And of course the heavier elements are that much more rare in proportion.
Read up a little on chemistry and biochemistry some day and you'll appreciate just how uniquely neat the element of Carbon truly is.
Key ingredients dictated by chemistry
by
Stickerboy
·
· Score: 3
Carbon is the lowest molecular weight element that easily forms complex chains. This is important for two reasons:
1. Because it's a lower molecular weight, from simple statistics a lot more carbon exists in the universe than similar elements (like silicon). Because it's a lower molecular weight, the sheer size of the electron orbitals doesn't interfere with molecular bonding.
2. "Foobarium", unless it has a tetrahedral organization like carbon, probably won't form the complex chains necessary for life. And since everything above silicon doesn't form chains due to weak molecular bonding, "foobarium", barring a revolution in the basic principles of life, doesn't exist. There are no silicon life forms on Earth because silicon chains break down in the presence of oxygen.
-- Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Why is it that when scientists are scoping out the universe for life, they're always looking for the things that make our form of life possible? Just because we've observed the forms of life around as being carbon-based doesn't mean that's the only option, does it?
I'm reminded of back when scientists were sure that all life on this planet was based in some way on the photosynthesis cycle. Plants use the sun to make their energy, animals eat the plants for energy, decay puts materials back into the soil for plants to use as raw materials, and they engergize the whole system once again. They had this set in their minds as the paradigm of life, and then one day someone found organisms at the bottom of the sea living off the energy of a vent in the sea floor (chemosynthesis). Blew their minds.
Anybody else a litle nervous about us searching space looking for our own form of life? Remeber in Stranger in a Strange Land when the scientists decided there couldn't be any life on Mars because there wasn't any oxygen? Let's learn from our Sci-fi, guys!:)
It is difficult to fully imagine what other non-carbon-based forms of life are like. We're somewhat aware of what makes up our life and what signals and indications to look for. We understand that complex organic molecules can be chained together in a water-borne environment to form simple chemically active proto-cells and so forth. This provides us with a proven set of search parameters. It works here, so it could work elsewhere.
While we can conjecture about life-forms made from silicon or whatever, it remains purely theoretical. There isn't too much concrete evidence about what we should look for from a silicon-based life-form.
I've frequently seen various sci-fi shows blasted for constantly portraying aliens as being more or less humanoid. For TV shows, that's understandable--who's going to watch a show where the protagonist is an amorphous blob? I really wonder, however, just how many people have a humanoid figure with aural communication in mind when they think about alien life, or how many attach *something* characteristic of Earth life, say, eyes or whatever. Arthur C. Clarke didn't; in "2010" he wrote about living gasbags that dwelled in the hostile layers of Jupiter. How could we ever have developed communication with such life? Perhaps we would try some basic form of visual presentation, flashes of light or semaphore (ha ha). But where could we go beyond that? I find myself hoping that the aliens are far, far above us on scales of intelligence, technology, etc. so that *they* can decipher our languages, which, on cosmic time scales, are really quite young. I see all sorts of xenophobic objections having to do with them taking advantage of us, but I think that's the risk we'll have to take if we ever want to say stuff besides "Hello, I'm here."
Re:carbon based alien women
by
StrawberryFrog
·
· Score: 1
>> > Complex carbon molecules and water,
>>> which are key ingredients for life
> Uhh, life on earth that is...
Talking about extraterestrial life is extrapolation from one data point. However, no other element, even silicon, has nearly as much potential as carbon. How many interesting complex molecules based on Silicon do you know of?
When life is found out there, we shouldn't expect to find DNA just like ours, but should be 99.9999% certain of finding that it is built out of complex cabon-based compounds.
So, you are assuming that all religions exclude science as being a valid source of knowledge. I happen to believe that knowledge comes from experience. If experience (including scientific data) tells us something about the questions religion tries to answer, then a religious framework should adapt to that evidence. If a religious framework can not adapt, then it has little relevence to life. I think many religions have adapted well to "new physical evidence". For example, most Christians (educated ones) no longer believe that the Earth has only been around 6000 years.
How does your world view adapt to "new physical evidence"? Take for example the existance of good and evil... How did you feel when your heard about Columbine? Why? What about the evidence that this Universe had a beginning? Where did that beginning come from?
My point: Religions are world views, possibly similar to your world view. Is it plausable that evidence supports a religious worldview? No? Then it would seem you have decided to believe a world view and ignore evidence. That sounds like many of the religions I can think of.
I'm going to be very disappointed it I fly half way to the other side of the galaxy and the only thing that there is to eat is a dust cloud full of complex carbon molecules and water.
. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe.
Thanks for mentioning Yoda. It makes my response on-topic (since religion is off-topic, but star wars is ALWAYS on-topic).
I always took the "FORCE" of the Star Wars series to be the exact same thing as "GOD." They're both symbols for the unknown (and unknowable) forces that guide us and shape our reality. The only difference I see in the concept of GOD and the concept of FORCE is that many literal-minded religious people tend to think of GOD as being a person, which doesn't make much sense when you consider all the other forms of life that are not even remotely human. (Plants, other animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
Besides, if GOD (a symbol) is really omnipresent and infinite, how could GOD be anything BUT an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us?"
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-- -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll) =(.\')=
So far, no one has brought this up in this thread, although a lot of people have kind of circled the mark. The Star Wars FORCE is not as close to the Western view of God as people seem to think. It is, however, pretty much equivalent to the Eastern concept of the Tao (procounced "dough", not "tau").
Lucas was and is fascinated by Asian culture, and Japanese culture in particular. Note, for instance, the design of the snowtroopers from Empire and Amidala's costuming from Phantom. However, consider something more important than any of these design issues: the lightsaber. The lightsaber duels in all the movies (or at least the first three... I'm not sure about Phantom) were performed using kenjutsu, essentially modelling the Jedi after the ancient samurai. It therefore was natural for Lucas to choose an Eastern type of mysticism as the basis of his Jedi's beliefs. (Although traditionally, I believe the samurai were more Buddhist than they were Taoist, but I could be wrong.)
Different elements and compounds reflect, absorb, or emit electromagnetic radiation differently. By knowing the spectral "signature" of an element or compound, one can look for it in light coming from far away.:)
> Complex carbon molecules and water,
> which are key ingredients for life
Uhh, life on earth that is... Why is everyone so convinced that other life has to be carbon life? Computers aren't alive, but the do prove you can do a lot with silicon at least.
Ok, so carbon based or possibly silicon based, but nothing else for sure! I think these guys are just holding out hope of finding similar life forms that might actually date them..
I am an educated christian, and I believe that God created the earth roughly 6000 years ago. But just as Adam and Eve were not created as babies, neither was the rest of the universe created as new. I like to think that God created everything already billions of years old, so in a sense everything is very old yet rather new, depending on how you look at it. I have yet to find a theologian who disagrees with this view.
----
-- Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Why is it that whenever we find some water or molecules containing Carbon in space these days that everyone starts shouting "WE'VE FOUND LIFE IN OUTER SPACE!", or at least claim that now chances of life being out there are GREATLY increased. That's like saying "Woohoo! I'm near a Beowulf cluster!" when you trip over some power chord. Please, gimme a break!
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
pasti
·
· Score: 1
Not really...
You see, the reason why organic molecules are carbon compounds is because of the peculiar structure of carbon's electron orbitals. It'd be a long explanation, and I can give it only in Finnish so I won't go into details here. I suggest you go looking at britannica.com or something if you are interested.
Erm, none of the matter found on Earth was created in our Sun. All of it comes from a star (or stars) that once blossomed and then exploded. And because we can find uranium and other heavy substances here on Earth, the star has been one of those larger ones that went up in a supernova once upon a time.
On a side note, I don't know how you can describe the act of crunching coffee solids and frying them and then pouring hot water on them as being "completely random". Moreover, the coffee solids themselves are organic. (Or did I miss your point?)
Actually the lightning strikes are used to get the acids in the first place, not to get the acids into proteins and the protiens into organized cells. This was shown in a pretty famous experiment whose name unfortunately escapes me. We really don't know how abiogenesis works or, to satisfy creationists (like me), whether it is capable of happening at all.
--
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong...:)
The 6000 year part is only for some creationists not all. The evolutionists need a very long timescale to make evolution plausible but the creationists do not. Therefore evolutionists have believed in a very old earth even before they had anything to back it up.
BTW a favorite tactics of young earth creationists is to take a rock that is known to be only 20 years old (say from an lava flow on Mt. St. Helens) and have it dated using the normal techniques. The scientists then tell them that this rock is X million years old. The creationists smile and nod and note that the scientists using "reliable" techniques were almost always between 5 to 8 orders of magnitude off. Then they take the same rock somewhere else and get a completely different number.:)
In short don't be smug because for millenia scientists knew the earth was flat or any number of other wrong things.
--
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong...:)
I hate to be the voice of the devils advocate, but we need a lot more than animo acids to show that there is life on other worlds. Simple organic chem experiments show that given the right elements, its pretty easy to get animo acids. Finding them is actually no big surprise.
The hardest part of the whole abiogenesis equation that we need is the formation of simple life from its ubiquitous amino acid building blocks. We essentially need some way for the building blocks to logically result in the creation of a castle through either random collisions or some other mechanism. This is the difficult part and some advances have been made in looking at organic chemistry in Zero-G. The problem is that we are still orders of magnitude away from getting a living and more importantly reproducing cell that natural selection requires for further evolution.
In short, don't count your eggs before their hatched because we still have a long way to go. We really don't know how abiogenesis occured on earth yet, so to start saying that its occuring all over the universe may be a bit of a stretch.
--
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong...:)
I agree. I would first like to see humans able te `create' life from these simple compounds. If we, with all our knowledge of this `obvious' process cannot enforce the rare circumstances under which life developes, how are nature's probabalistic chances then?
Re:Science and Religion...
by
festers
·
· Score: 1
Ignorant. Shortsighted. Inflamitory.
Wow, I'm impressed.
Many of the world's greatest scientists have been "religious" and if you weren't such a bigot, you'd have the maturity to realize that.
--------
--
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
I'm sorry but I do not share everyone's enjoyment in knowing that there dirt and water on some far as ball of crap... how about taking all the resources we put in this and try to de-pollute earth so that in three thousand years some race on some other world isn't looking at us going "Hmm I wonder if there was life at one point?"
So in other words get over it... if life happened here it happened somewhere else before or now... so lets just stop looking ok cuz if we stop someone is bound to find us.
--
GPF : The program Win.exe has caused an erorr in...
Probabilities of _intelligent_ life?
by
WowTIP
·
· Score: 1
These are cool findings. If the probability of life increases, the chance of intelligent life also looks better.
But what are the chances for more advanced lifeforms to evolve? Maybe this is where earth is unique from all the other planets, life might be common, but advanced life might be very rare?
I am not a biologist, so I can't even take a guess at the odds of bacteries and other "simple" lifeforms evolving into something more advanced. But since it took earth (as far as we know), app. 4 Billion years to produce intelligent creatures, I think we can assume that the process is pretty complex?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
It's from an early 90's Sega Genesis game with a badly translated intro (from Japanese to English). "All your base are belong to us" is just one of the (many) gramatical errors the translators made:
In A.D. 2101
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Operator: Somebody set up us the bomb
Operator: We get signal
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on
Captain: It's You !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!
Cats: All your base are belong to us
Cats: You are on the way to destruction
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: You have no chance to survive make your time
Cats: HA HA HA HA....
Cats: Take off every 'zig'
Captain: You know what you doing
Captain: Move 'zig'
Captain: For great justice
Case pending, awaiting substatial evidence
by
Kaki+Nix+Sain
·
· Score: 1
Right on. Why do people think that this question will be/can be solved for a while to come? Isn't it likely to take some time before we learn the answer to the "life elsewhere" question? Why go off trying to push the odds around in your pet way everytime some new study about molecules in space comes out?
Until they call us, come here, or we go there, can't we just put this one on hold? That seems like a good idea. Then we can pay attention to more important issues here on this planet, like [ reader to insert issue of inportance here].
"The good Earth--we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."K. Vonnegut
--
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011.
By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
From what I've read from the article, aminoacids, complex carbonstructures and water are the key elements to life (at least life as we know it). Consider the following points:
1) A solar system is a complex entity with a lot of different stages in the amounts of particles, temperature and type of molecules
2) There is a big energy source around, capable of creating almost all of the lower weight atoms.
3) Because of the energy source, there is a lot of different entropies in the system
Consider these facts, and add the key element "time". Time is the main actor in evolution, allowing more complex elements to be formed.
It's no so strange that there is water around a lot of (early) solar systems. I would find it strange if time didn't create aminoacids yet.
Let's make an parallel with real life. Take the following ingredients:
1. Time 2. Coffee and hot water (energy sources)
3. A coffee mug
Make coffee, put coffee in mug and wait a little. Voila, you'll get white stuff on your coffee although the surroundings where completely random.
Okay, what you're going to say is: this is completely logical, nature have made a way to use all energy available. But can't we stretch such a thing into the large, solar system-sized area?
I'm really wondering, but I think the most important key elements are there with every solar system.
Typical western thinker. Do you realize that in many cultures science, religion, and philosophy are one and the same? Particularly in Buddhism.
One can apply what one knows about science to religion and vise versa. If you can't, then your religion and science are inadaquate, IMO.
Back to your metaphor. A really good cook must develop the same kind of skill in cooking that a programmer must develop with code. If I can learn to see the programming skills needed to cook and the cooking skills needed to to create great code, I will be that much better at both.
-matthew
-- "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
"The water released when these planets form may collect into oceans and lakes," Bergin said. "Those bodies not incorporated into planets may become what we call comets."
I love it when scientists speak to reporters as if the reporters were 7th graders in an earth sciences lab.
"That's what we in the scientific community like to call, 'a beaker' Johnny. Now please put it down before you break something."
Your thought-experiment suffers from a sample size which is far too low to make it relevant: namely, one single solar system (or, nine planets, if you prefer to count that way). I don't how many would be relevant -- but it would certainly be on the order of hundreds or thousands or more solar systems.
It's like me looking at my apartment of 6 rooms and noticing that, as far as I can see, there's only a computer in my dining room. "This is suggestive," I might say, "that dining-room like conditions really are the only situations in which computers can exist."
-- We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
ET isn't going to be calling any time soon...
by
sckeener
·
· Score: 2
Paraphrasing Steven Hawkings on the chance of intelligent alien life visiting earth:
Odds are that intelligent alien life is in a position to communicate with us is remote. On the galactic scale intelligent alien life probably developed millions of years before us or they just crawled up out of the primordial swamp. Don't expect ET to phone....
No harm in looking though...but keep it in perspective...
Sterling
-- "Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
"Distant Solar Systems" don't exist
by
fedos
·
· Score: 1
There's only one solar system. And that's the unary star system comprised of planets and asteroids orbiting the star Sol.
Re:"Distant Solar Systems" don't exist
by
fedos
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, that's a valid argument.
Re:"Distant Solar Systems" don't exist
by
shd99004
·
· Score: 1
No, there ARE other solar systems.
-- Will work for bandwidth
Re:"Distant Solar Systems" don't exist
by
shd99004
·
· Score: 1
My wild guess is that you have not read the news on what is happening in this field. Astronomers have detected planets orbiting other stars. Sorry.
So god, who is supposedly all loving and omnipotent, created this universe and created these little, barely significant beings on a little average planet around an average star whose sole purpose of existence is to stroke god's ego with praise and if they don't then god will torture them forever in hell. If this is the case then god must be pretty insecure and perhaps I could recommend a good psychiatrist. It's kind of like raising butterflies for the sole pupose of pulling the wings off of them.
Scientists discover Beer and Pizza in distant galaxies, along with signs of Caffeine in various forms. It seems that it is possible, or even likely, that there either is, was or will be, vast quantities of Geeks in Space...
rr
-- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Science and Religion...
by
CarrotLord
·
· Score: 2
are like Computers and Cooking -- they have no business with each other. The difference is that Scientists think they can apply what they know to religion, and religious people think they can apply what they know to science. A Pastry Chef would not try applying his/her cooking knowledge to a Kernel Patch, and a Samba coder would not try applying his/her C knowledge to a pasta dish...
I sigh in your general direction.
rr
-- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Re:Science and Religion...
by
CarrotLord
·
· Score: 2
I don't think readers of this comment quite got what I meant... firstly, who says you can't be religious and scientific? You can cook and program, can't you? Personally, I am religious, scientific, and I cook and program. I don't do any all that well, but I do them.
Secondly, they're not the same. They can be treated similarly, but they are not the same. Science is about gaining knowledge from first principles. Religion (in my view) is about relationship. When studying science, you have to make certain assumptions (effectively materialism, as in "the only things that exist are the physical, material things"), otherwise things don't make sense. What sort of use would science be if we all sat down and said "oh, God makes the plants grow" and left it at that? Equally, saying "God doesn't exist because Science says so" is a circular argument.
To the person who talked about skills, you are partly right. However, Religion and Science (cooking and programming) require different skills as well, and work from different assumptions.
Finally, the person who talked about the same knowledge domains, yeah, it's kinda true. However, still it's different. Science and Religion both touch on the creation of the universe, but they cover different aspects of it. As long as you don't screw up your basic assumtions, you get practically useful info about processes that are happening now from science, and you get your knowledge about your relationship with God from Religion.
Hence, Science and Religion are not related at all. I personally beleive in evolution, big bang and so on, as well as beleiving that God created the world ~6000 years ago as written in the bible. I see no conflict, as the scientific view is based on a materialist world view, and is useful for learning about how things work, changing things, building things, and so on, and the religious veiw is based on my relationship with god, and is useful for living my life.
I think I'll stop here, as it's getting OT -- feel free to email me to carry on...
rr
-- Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Re:Science and Religion...
by
RareHeintz
·
· Score: 2
I think your metaphor is interesting, but it ulitmately breaks down, because unlike cooking and kernel hacking, science and religion do attempt to address similar knowledge domains (such as the creation and fate of the universe, for example). It's just that one of them has no mechanism for handling the introduction of new physical evidence.
Re:Maybe the evidence for life is obvious.
by
Cyclopedian
·
· Score: 2
You're pretty paranoid aren't you?
Besides, all this interstellar poltics doesn't matter now, Earth is slated to be demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. The plans have been in the Alpha Centauri office for hundreds of years.
Time to start looking for the hitchhiker's guide. -Cyc
Well, a while back there was the story about ethyl alcohol being found floating free between the stars. This, combined with complex hydrocarbons, brings this classic to mind ( I wish I knew who the author was so that I give proper credit):
This week, a million fraternity brothers rushed to join NASA. The reason: scientists have discovered beer in space.
Well, not beer exactly. But they did find alcohol: ethyl alcohol,
to be precise, the active ingredient in all major alcoholic drinks
(antifreeze Jell-O shots, quite obviously, are exempted from this
category). Three British scientists, Drs. Tom Millar, Geoffrey
MacDonald and Rolf Habing, discovered this interstellar Everclear
floating in a gas cloud in the contellation of Aquila (sign of the
Eagle, the mascot of Anheuser-Busch! Hmmmmm).
Millar and his compatriots have estimated the size of this gas
cloud at approximately 1,000 times the diameter of our own solar
system; there's enough alcohol out there, they say, to make 400
trillion trillion pints of beer. These guys are British, mind you; if
you were to translate this in terms of American beer (which the
British, with some justification, regard as fermented club soda), the
amount of potential brewski just about doubles.
In human terms: remember that double-keg party you threw at the
end of your Junior year in college (the second Junior year)? Imagine
throwing that same party, every eight hours, for the next 30 billion
years. You'd STILL have beer left over. And boy, would YOUR bathroom
be a mess! Simply put, no one could ever drink 400 trillion trillion
pints of beer, except maybe Buffalo Bills fans.
The sheer volume of all this alcohol begs the question of how it
managed to get out there in the first place. Despite the simplifying
effect it has on the human brain, ethyl alcohol is a reasonably
complex
molecule: two carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms, and a hydroxyl
radical, all cavorting together in beery camaraderie. It's not a
compund that is
going to spontaneously arise out of the cold depths of space. It can
lead to speculation: What is this cloud?
1. It's God's beer. After all, He worked for six days creating the
universe, and on the seventh day, He rested. And after you've had a
hard week at the office, don't YOU grab a beer? Since man is made in
God's image, it could be that this cloud is the remaining evidence of
the first, and best, Miller Time.
2. It's Purgatory ("400 trillion trillion bottles of beer on the
wall, 400 trillion trillion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it
around, three hundred ninety-nine septillion, nine hundred ninety-nine
sextillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quintillion, nine hundred
ninety-nine quadrillion, nine hundred ninety-nine trillion, nine
hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine
hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine, bottles of
beer on the wall!")
3. Proof of an undeniably highly advanced but chronically
dipsomaniac alien society. This particular theory is shaky, however:
it's reasonable to assume that if the aliens were going to construct a
nebula of alcohol, they'd also have large clouds of Beer Nuts and
pretzels nearby for snacking. Advanced spectral analysis has yet to
locate them.
The truth of the matter, however, is far more prosaic. In the middle
of this gas cloud is a young and no doubt quite inebriated star. As
the star heats up and contracts, sucking the dust and gas of the cloud
into a smaller area, complex molecules form as a result of greater
interaction between the elements. Ethyl alcohol forms on small motes
of dust in the cloud, and then, as the motes angle in closer towards
the star and heat up, the alcohol is released from the motes in
gaseous form. And there you have it: an alcohol cloud. Or, as Dave
Bowman might say, "My God! It's full of booze!"
Enough with the science lesson, you say. Just tell me how to GET
there! Sorry, Chuckles. You can't get there from here. The gas cloud
(which, by the way, has the utterly romantic name of "G34.3") is
10,000 light years away: 58 quadrillion miles. Even if you hijacked
the shuttle and headed out with thrusters on full, by the time you got
there, the guy in Purgatory would be done with his tune. You'd have
had time to work up a powerful thirst, but you'd also be, in a word,
dead.
No, the Space Beer Cloud will have to wait for the far future, when
men can leap through the universe at warp speed. One can only imagine
what they will do when they get there:
Some of you might be aware that the aliens we are seeing here on earth are rich kids who come to earth to have fun by appearing before people who are so weird nobody would believe them anyway.
Now, my theory, nay, proven fact is that the large number of crashes is due to interstellar drunken driving. Kids go to these clouds and get seriously pissed. It is well known in the Galactic Community (just ask any alien!) that the parties on earth take off, so the alien kids can't stop after inhaling a cloud, but continue to earth, where they are caught in our strong gravitional field with the inevitable result, a crash.;-)
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Re:Then where are they?
by
DeadVulcan
·
· Score: 2
Your thought-experiment suffers from a
sample size which is far too low to make it
relevant
For the record, I agree with you. It's almost
meaningless to conclude anything based on
the information we have, but I'm just not going to
let that stop me from having an opinion.:-)
However, for the sake of argument...
It's like me looking at my apartment of 6
rooms and noticing that, as far as I can see,
there's only a computer in my dining room. "This
is suggestive," I might say, "that dining-room
like conditions really are the only situations in
which computers can exist."
OTOH, staying with that analogy, moving your
computer to your bedroom won't cause it to
malfunction. But move a human being to any other
planet on the solar system (without any
technological aids), and his life expectancy will
be greatly shortened.
--
-- Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
A number of people have commented that these
types of molecules are only the key ingredients
for life as we currently know it. This is
fair enough.
However, here's my point of view. In our own
solar system, right here in our back yard, there
is a very wide variety of different environments:
the surface of every planet and moon is, in places
subtly, and in places completely, different from
each other.
As far as we can see (so far) only Earth has
life in our solar system. To me, this is
suggestive. If you really believe that life can
form in completely different environments, why
didn't they form in any of the completely
different environments that exist right next door?
Of course, this is not proof; it's perhaps not
even corroborating evidence. However, it's enough
to make me believe (tentatively) that Earth-like
conditions really are the only kind of conditions
in which life can form in our universe.
I'm open to the possibility that wildly
different life could form elsewhere in the
universe, and I know that there must be places in
the universe that have environments that are so
different as to be incomprehensible, but hey, we
have to base our opinions on what we know
currently. If we totally throw open the gates of
possibility, then we can never come to any
conclusion about anything.
--
-- Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
OTOH, staying with that analogy, moving your computer to your bedroom won't cause it to malfunction. But move a human being to any other planet on the solar system (without any technological aids), and his life expectancy will be greatly shortened.
It depends on the definition of malfunction. If a phone/DSL line is not present in that room, the "life expectancy" of my computer is greatly shortened (because I will soon find another one to download my pr0n and mp3s).
Re:Maybe the evidence for life is obvious.
by
KjetilK
·
· Score: 1
Well, if we had a type III civ in our galaxy, we would most probably know by now. Seriously.
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Hm, well, in this case, I can't say Occam's Razor (one of my favorites) can be applied. There is no evidence whatsoever either way, which means no valid conclusion can be drawn either way. Drawing any conclusion either way at this point (like you seem to do) is just going to blur your mind if any important evidence pop up for either hypothesis. We'll just have to continue searching (with piggy-back projects preferably...).
-- Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Yup, /. likes to cover organic molecules in space
by
jawtheshark
·
· Score: 1
Not to forget to mention we found sugar in space. Organic molecules seem to be very common in space.
-- Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Re:Just how "distant" are they?
by
CoreyG
·
· Score: 1
Considering that what they're looking at is already at least 3 billion years old when the light reached us, I'm pretty sure more than just dinosaurs would have happened.
I'm agnostic regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life. And while there are some interesting discoveries that show that the possibility of ET life is not unfounded, we are not yet at the point of saying, "Life is plentiful" with regards to any location except our own planet.
What do we have?
- Indirect evidence of planets. Note, there is not yet any direct observation of planets. Rather, they are inferred from the detecteed motion of stars, which is best explained by the presence of giant planets (e.g. Jupiter and larger). (I'm not trying to suggest that the scientists are wrong; just trying to make clear what we know and have have directly observed).
- Evidence of carbon and water molecules in the further reaches of space.
- Discoveries of extreme-condition life; the microbes that live in extreme environmental conditions.
Well, good, it's generally believed that those are necessary ingredients for life, and we find that life will survive in pretty radical situations. But life this does not guarantee. Just because we find evidence of yeast and flour, it doesn't mean that there is bread nearby.
Something that's been bothering me for a while, as a scientist, is my (possibly incorrect) understanding of the study of biological evolution. The physical sciences require both observations and predictions. Most scientists, I believe, hold that a theory is not truly useful unless it can be falsified. That is, a theory must predict something that can be verified or shown incorrect, e.g. the rate of descent of an object is independent of its mass.
However, when it comes to the formation of life and its development, my impression is that there is a lack of falsifiable predictions. There are not predictions of the sort, given chemicals X & Y we will see life Z emerge; or, given environmental conditions A, life Z will develop into related form Z'. Instead, it is largely a matter of noting, conditions A existed when life Z' lived. Therefore, Z' must have been caused by A.
This is not 'complete' science. So then, perhaps some of the more biologically-minded folk out there can answer my question:
"Regarding the study of life and its genesis and development, are what are the falsifiable predictions?"
IANAB (I am not a biologist), so I may be way off base here, but if so, please point me in the direction of some useful info. I'd appreciate it. -----
D. Fischer
Not to rain on anyone's parade or anything..
by
Sheepdot
·
· Score: 1
But I've seen quite a few comments on this subject and related ones when they are posted, regarding Creationists finally shutting up after life has been found on other planets.
To be honest, I don't know a single Creationist that *doesn't* believe life exists on other planets.
Wow, the paradoxical world of Christianity...Jesus created the himself and the world he lived in...hmmm...is that really what you guys believe in?
Of course, not all religions have such a closed nature and restricted thought process as Christianity. For example, in the Quran God says He is the Lord of *all* the worlds. Which indicates we are not alone. Also, the Big Bang is described in the Quran and of course the fact the the world is round and the orbits of the planets. Science is just about catching up with what the Muslims have known for 1,400 years.
Yes, it is a shame that people read the absurd things that they write on sites like infidels.org. They always seem to quote sources that the majority of Muslims agree are unauthentic or they quote some translation which are far from the original meaning. What the Muslims have always been strict on is that the Quran is in Arabic and that you can attempt to translate the meaning of the words but you can't translate the Quran itself. As a result, I can take-up your challenge because I have access to the Quranic Arabic and can clearly see the mistakes that they make on infidel.org. I can only presume that the poeple who wrote the articles on infidel.org a). don't know Arabic and b). haven't read any of the books of the scholars from where we take our explanation of the verses in the Qur'an.
wow - doesn't posting anonymously sorta detract from your faith in jesus?
fisfhcuerk.
see you in hell, pussy-boy.
As a Catholic, the FORCE is not my GOD
by
Hairy_Potter
·
· Score: 1
If the FORCE and GOD were equivalent, when Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, he would have recovered, gained much evil power, and persecuted Christians ever more.
Now, if you want to make an analogy that using the FORCE is akin to witchcraft, possesion or Wicca, you can make a better analogy.
Yeap, I think the FORCE is evil, and an abomination, especially the way Lucas is portraying it usurping GOD's power to create a Virgin Birth.
Of course, that makes the Jedi akin to Templars, then, a goodlly group of people that were seduced by evil.
FEAR ME, FOR I AM MORE POWERFUL THAN SLASHCODE!
by
Hairy_Potter
·
· Score: 1
Yea, check the time stamps, 2 posts in less than 1 minute!
Am I l333t, or what!
As a Catholic, the FORCE is not my GOD
by
Hairy_Potter
·
· Score: 2
If the FORCE and GOD were equivalent, when Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, he would have recovered, gained much evil power, and persecuted Christians ever more.
Now, if you want to make an analogy that using the FORCE is akin to witchcraft, possesion or Wicca, you can make a better analogy.
Yeap, I think the FORCE is evil, and an abomination, especially the way Lucas is portraying it usurping GOD's power to create a Virgin Birth.
Of course, that makes the Jedi akin to Templars, then, a goodlly group of people that were seduced by evil.
Yay, water and complex carbon in a dust cloud.
by
AFCArchvile
·
· Score: 1
Now we only have to wait 1 billion years for planets to form. I'm not too sure that the human race is that patient.
-- "Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Admittedly, there are problems (such as not having sufficient local gravity to pack the interesting molecules together under correct pressure/temperature conditions to react), but if you have a mix of water and organic molecules, it does beg the question.
So that explains why my Seamonkeys would never come to life.
The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable.
You're forgetting one of the three great virtues of a programmer is hubris. Well, according to Larry Wall anyway.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
I hope we discover life soon
by
NineNine
·
· Score: 1
And I hope it's totally different from any thing we've ever seen. That way, the Creationists will finally shut the hell up.
Life and intelligence are human concepts...
by
Bug2000
·
· Score: 2
When talking about intelligent life, we are fully lost in the haze of subjectivity. What is intelligence ? What is life ? And what is the combination of the two ? Intelligence is relative and this is why some people say that we are an intelligent species. Because we have acquired the capacity to learn how to survive in most environments on earth. Because we seem to be masters of our destiny. Because we have the power of Linux whereas my cat is still using Windows 95. Because we have landed on the moon. This is a blatant superiority of human being over animals. On earth. However, my friend Ford Prefect from another galaxy told me that human beings are totally braindead: on his planet, instead of going to school, they download all their knowledge to their conscience, they are eternal, they travel between dimensions, go back and forth in time and spend most of their time upgrading Beos, they don't reproduce, they are.
In terms of life, why is there a limit between a virus and a bacteria ? Intelligent life is definitely a human concept.
There seems to be a constant though in the universe: it's that its disorder is increasing every day and at the same time, we observe that matter takes more and more complex shapes. If the strings theory is true, at the beginning there were strings which turned into elementary particles, which associated thanks to the strong interaction force, which turned into more complex particles like atoms with their properties which associated into molecules with again very different properties according to their composition, properties like NDA. Eventually some of these particles associated to turn into what we call living organisms. These organisms evoluted into more complex organisms and there we are, in front of our TVs, watching the match, having a Bud, worshipping god, self-claimed intelligent life.
As an analogy for the computer nerds (I've heard there were quite a few here), we have silicium and electricty, then transistors, then hardware, then assembly, then C, then object oriented languages, then visual languages, then XML applications, then...
The universe seems to go in the sense of more abstraction, a process which we call evolution. Note that when you put living beings together, you have micro and macro social behaviours. What is the next level ? Who knows whether some alien species have reached several other levels which we could not even conceive ? Who knows whether water and amino-acids are the only way for matter to restructure itself into a more complex shape ? Who knows whether there are only 4 dimensions, whether the speed of light is the ultimate limit, whether time is only going forwards, whether there is only one time dimension ?
And no please, do not mention god or God or Buddha or Bill Gates or Ronaldo. If such a concept exists, it should be the same for the whole universe no ? What would happen if one day we meet some kind of intelligent conscient blue color who wants to communicate with us ?
Well, I do believe that life sows its seeds chaotically in the whole universe and a few experiments have shown that water, amino-acids and a few temperature, pressure,... conditions (and time) could in some circumstances bring to the kind of life we understand. Therefore if we discover some of these elements in some other distant place, there are more conditions for life to emerge than in vacuum. As far as we are aware. Of course, it is not enough, it does not prove anything. But if we have not made stupid assumptions like that in the past, we would probably be dying of the plague on a flat world fearing that the sky falls on our heads no ?
And who knows, maybe a few messages were sent by some living species at some point and the whole communications were gobbled by a black hole in the center of our galaxy. That's also a probability.
"I've always though it interesting that so much of life on Earth has developed so similar. Take the Mammals group for instance. Mammals tend to have 4 legs (sometimes used as arms), similar diets, similar mating techniques, etc."
I sincerely hope you are some kind of 5 year-old typing prodigy, because the thought of an adult (or even a high-schooler) not understanding why the above is true is truly frightening. --
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
"I'm just saying the hubris comes from believing in the 10 angstrom slice that was left behind after occums razor cut through the evidence and said, 'geez guys, why would you seriously consider a lonely universe theory in the almost complete absence of any evidence to support it'."
The actual parsing of this sentence is beyond me, but I think I get the gist. Let me explain where I'm coming from here:
It used to be that people thought the sun revolved around the Earth. This was hubristic but not just because they thought they were in the middle. It was hubristic because it elevated the status of Earth despite the fact that it made the theory more complicated (by requiring retro-grade motion for planets, etc).
Now, one could make the argument that a universe with only one life-bearing planet requires more explanation than a universe with multiple such planets, in which case I agree that saying Earth is alone without providing that special explanation is probably hubristic. However given how little we know about general biological (not to mention geological, climatological, etc) principles--we only really have one example--then such special explanations can easily abound.
--
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Me: "Citing "hubris" as a reason to believe in life on other planets is pretty lame. Would it be hubristic to believe there was no life in the rest of the Solar System?"
You: "Yes. That was my position. It would be hubristic to believe that we are alone."
Let me get this straight. If I said to you "I think that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Solar System" you would call me hubristic? What if we visited all the (solar) planets and found no life? What if I said "I think Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Earth-Moon system"? Is it hubristic to think that humans are the only intelligent being on Earth?
"My theory is obvious and the fact that people don't see that is because of their hubris. As you say, the fact should be proven and I agree 100% on that. Somehow that thought in my head was lost in the translation to paper."
Something was lost here, too. If your theory is obvious, why do you think it needs to be proven? Or do you mean "it's obvious but possibly false" (kind of like Aristotle's theories of motion)--in which case, why is hubris the only answer for non-adherents to your cause? Couldn't it be that we see through the "obviousness" to the truth?
--
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Just how "distant" are they?
by
OlympicSponsor
·
· Score: 4
It could make all the difference. Ideally, they are about 3 billion years distant. That way, if we start NOW in our light-speed ships, it'll give time for these "complex carbon chains" to evolve into dinosaurs and then be killed off by an asteroid. When we arrive, ta-da! strategic oil reserves!
Hey, it's more intelligent than what we're doing NOW.... --
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Let me start by saying that I believe in life (although maybe not intelligent life) exists on other planets. BUT
Citing "hubris" as a reason to believe in life on other planets is pretty lame. Would it be hubristic to believe there was no life in the rest of the Solar System? If not, why not--it the same as your argument about the universe. How about if I believed ours was the only planet that had produced "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"? After all with all the "billions and billions" and stars out there with their "obvious" life, surely some other intelligent entity has generated these same tones. To believe otherwise would be hubristic.
Concerns about hubris are really just the inductive principle: things around here are probably average. But note the "probably". Induction is a good way to come up with a new hypothesis, but calling the output "obvious" is a fallacy. Why don't we just go see? At the very least it can show us WHICH planets the life is living on before we go haring off in all directions.
As for intelligent life: intelligence isn't some kind of "ulimate endpoint" of evolution--evolution has no goals. Our ancestors happened to have had selection pressures that resulted in descendents that are intelligent. Elephants happened to have had pressures that result in trunks. Would it be hubristic to think that elephant trunks are unique in the universe? Who knows what conditions will obtain at another location. I sure hope there's intelligent life out there, but I don't think it's "obvious".
--
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
"As for intelligent life: intelligence isn't some kind of "ulimate endpoint" of evolution--evolution has no goals. "
Not so.....the goal of evolution is survival of the fittest. Maybe intelligence doesn't make us fitter, but it is a goal.
it'll be fun to watch religious zealots and other anti-science nuts scramble to (yet again) "refute" the assertion that life could be elsewhere.
Sigh. I tire of hearing this, when I don't actually see much of it on slashdot. For instance, you just made this accusation, and rather than getting a bunch of religious nuts chanting "damn right, there is NO other life" you've got people saying "huh? God will do whatever He wants, including creating lots of other life."
These "religious zealots" appear to adapt to scientific discoveries quite well. Look, the bottom line is that almost every religion -- Christian, Jewish, you name it -- only believes that God exists. What God did with the universe, and the details of that universe, are rarely mentioned. In fact, the only religions I've seen that do get into specifics about the universe are Christian Science and some cults. Jewish tradition, for instance, merely has a few paragraphs in religious texts that assert that God created the sun and stars. That provides no details on the mechanics of it -- the planets could be 6 days old or 6 trillion, the whole thing could be built as an evolutionary system or it may be that everything was preprogrammed and God just hit the button last month and boom here we are with pre-made memories and history and so on. Perhaps we were restored from backup just yesterday. But my hope is for evolution and other forms of life all over the place. That would mean God gave us a whole lot of mysteries to unravel over the coming centuries.
...that we'll be detecting amino acids somewhere outside our own solar system in the next 10 years. In the meantime, it'll be fun to watch religious zealots and other anti-science nuts scramble to (yet again) "refute" the assertion that life could be elsewhere.
One thought came to mind: I wonder about the possibility of life (defined loosely as collections of molecules that reproduce) is possible in the stellar medium, without having to have a planet as a substrate? Admittedly, there are problems (such as not having sufficient local gravity to pack the interesting molecules together under correct pressure/temperature conditions to react), but if you have a mix of water and organic molecules, it does beg the question.
I love how evolutionists try and downplay people with a belief in God as unreasonable. The truth is that evolution is itself a belief system. I say it is a belief system because evolution is still an unproven theory and yet it is held up as fact.
I have a theory that puts creationism nicely into evolutional way of things. The way I've seen it is that there is factual evidence for some kind special enhancement given to certain group of hominds who were evolving with other hominids around them to make them takeover the other groups.
I've read about an ancient human they've called 'mitochrondrial eve' and from what I gather they've traced every persons genes through our mothers sides back to a single female in africa. This was accomplished by looking at a sample of peoples mitochondria which are passed to us directly from our mothers and are affected by the males genes and then accounting for mutation which they figured out to be a constant rate. So anyways it all leads back to a single african female thousands of years ago.
So now If you wanted to put creationism into it, you make this woman the biblical Eve and another homonid Adam and god up there gives them the spark of life or whatever it was. So now you've got these two people and we put them in the Kenyan jungle or whatever for the garden of Eden and bam it's Genesis all over again.
Now remember all the other of hominds are still around Africa but considering the advantage the Adam/Eve-type 'blessed' hominds slowly push them out and now we've got a whole world descended from two people just like the book says. A square creationism peg into a round Darwainism hole.
There's problems in it though, they didn't use real africans for one of the tests, they used monkeys to calitbrate some of mitochondrial mutation rate,that big flood, the that the bible doesn't mention a bunch of other hominds running around. The big thing though and why hard-core creationist would probably would never accept it is that it makes Joe KKK one part to a million black.
Moderator- delete the other message I wrote, it got posted before I was finished. You should be able to delete a message you wrote but oh well. Anyways here's the whole thing.
_______________________________________________
I have a theory that hooks creationism into the evolutionary way of things. The way I've seen it is that there is factual evidence for some kind of special enhancement given to a certain group of hominds who were evolving right along with the other hominids around them and these special hominds eventually pushed the others out.
I've read about an homind they've called 'mitochrondrial Eve' and from what I gather they've traced every persons genes through their mother's side back to a single female in Africa. This was accomplished by looking at a sample of people's mitochondria which are passed to us directly from our mothers and are not affected by the male's genes and then accounting for mutation which was figured out to be a constant rate. So anyways it all leads back to a singleAfrican female thousands of years ago.
So now if you wanted to put creationism into the mix, you make this woman the biblical Eve and get another homonid, call him Adam and then God up there gives them the spark of life or whatever it was. So now you've got these two hominds,stick them in the Kenyan jungle for a Garden of Eden and BAM it's Genesis all over again.
Now remember all the other of hominds are still there, in Africa but considering the advantage the Adam/Eve-type 'blessed' hominds have, they slowly push them out and now we've got a whole world descended from two people just like the book says. A square creationism peg into a round Darwainism hole.
There's problems in it though, they didn't use real africans for one of the tests, they used monkeys to calitbrate some of mitochondrial mutation rate, that big flood, and that the bible doesn't mention a bunch of other hominds running around. The big thing though, and why hard-core creationists would probably would never accept it is that it makes Joe KKK one part to a million black, but if they did they wouldn't have to keep saying that man co-existed with dinosaurs which sounds hillariously ridiculous.
I'm not an Evolutionary Anthropologist or a Cellular Microbiologist or an Old Testament Theologist and I'm trying to recall all the facts from last semester's history class but I think I got the jist of all that stuff right and atleast the information seems to be interesting and I know that I like some mysticism mixed with my science.
-- Snootches
Re:The Unending Stream of Creationist Hatred
by
railgun
·
· Score: 1
I wasn't talking about the article when I said creationists are called "unreasonable." I was refering to other comments in this thread.
As far as creationism and evolution working together goes, that in my opinion isn't possible. The problem with evolution is that it requires death. If I interpret Genesis right, there was no death before adam and eve sinned.
Yeah, ok, nice. Someone has some lovely theory. No, I'm not going to go check it out... it basically sounds like sience fiction. If I want to read Sci-Fi, I know where to find it.
On to my point... why do people just assume that other life would be anything even remotely close to what we are? By attempting to group "lifeforms" into pre-set "civilizations", it shows that the author is already applying our standards to others. What if an alien civilization is remotely removed from anything we could ever comprehend, that we'll never even see it, because we don't know to look for it? Who says whether or not they are "advanced"... because that is again applying our standards. I'm probably being really vague, so I apologize. But reading this seemed to flip a switch - especially after reading some of the other comments that completely help to refute this Kardashev guy.
Oh, well. There you have it, not quite my 2 cents, but it is at least the lint from my pocket.
-- Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
It's nice to hear that there is extraintelligent life, but I think the question every/. reader wants answered is:
Do they run Linux?
If we find that the space aliens run Windows NT, it's bad news - although they'll be very pretty to look at when they're coming towards Earth, they'll crash just as they get to the surface.
Also, what's the uptime on their spaceship? Did they notice any improvement in stability after recompiling the kernel? --
Ironic that your pronouncement contains nothing to back it up.
I point to my appendix, the duckbilled platypus, my inability to breathe underwater, professional wrestling, trash DNA in the genome, fossil evidence, and the human retina as counters to your argument for intelligent design. There is enough evidence of completely random and dumb shit going on that intelligent design seems unlikely. We have all kinds of strange and useless stuff which appears as a result of the weird and wooly path our ancestors took to get us here.
Now I do agree that there is plenty of stuff on Earth that remains unexplored, but I do not believe that it is the only place to look for answers.
I'll grant you that. Perhaps things on earth have been laid out in such a subtle manner that we may never be able to tell that it was intelligently designed. Or are you arguing that we'll be able to tell sometime soon?
But if we can't ever tell, then what is the impact on us? For all practical purposes, there is no intelligent design. Yes there may be a great and subtle Designer somewhere, but if we cannot grasp or prove it, then it remains an article of faith, rather than concrete fact.
So if you ask me, based on what I know and what I can show: Is there intelligent design at work? Then I will say, no, it doesn't seem so.
Do you think the human intelligence could decipher the ideas of the Designer?
Our final conclusion: something might have been out there, but it isn't right now.
--
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
ceesco
·
· Score: 1
No, missed the point entirely. All I was saying is that there might in fact be some type something out there that exists on/is composed of "foobarium" (which, incidentally, might not even be analogous to any element known to humankind). This something likely considers itself alive, and may wonder how the hell we can exist on "carbon." Know what I'm saying?
I think the point that we're missing here is that carbon and oxygen are the key ingredients for life as we know it. Now, it's way too early and I'm way to sober to wax philisophical, but isn't it arrogant to say that all life depends on carbon? How do we know that some other race/species/whatever out there is looking at Earth saying "hmm, no huge deposits of foobarium there, there must not be any life?"
-- Ceci n'est pas un sig
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
Faulty+Dreamer
·
· Score: 1
I believe you missed the point. We were discussing getting away from the "as we know it" part of the phrase, "life as we know it". What if they are completely different from us. Would the lack of a highly sulfurous atmosphere mean that there was no life here? Maybe, re-read the post I repsponded to, then re-read my post again. Seems your post was made totally counter to the topic at hand.
No hard feelings though, just pointing it out.
--
------------
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
Faulty+Dreamer
·
· Score: 2
In the same token, isn't it arrogant to presume that life developed in a different way from life on Earth would be presumptious enough to assume that they should be looking to life similar/equal to their own. The chances are the other life forms, especially life forms advanced enough to find/look at Earth in detail from a great distance away (by travel or by instruments), would be a little more open-minded than what twentieth-twenty-first century man is. I would hope that by the time we are able to reach far enough away to go look at other planets in detail that we would have evolved past the "what we know is all that can be" garbage that is believed today.
But what do I know, I'm just an idiotic man, a product of the society I bash. That kind of sucks too.;-)
--
------------
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
pogen
·
· Score: 1
isn't it arrogant
to say that all life depends on carbon?
Perhaps, but it's not unreasonable to assume that
carbon-based life is much more likely than
any other. Carbon can form a staggering variety
of chemical bonds, the most important of which
is (arguably, to life on Earth) CO2. Many have
looked to silicon as a possible substitute, but an SiO2 molecule has
four unpaired electrons (since it does not form double bonds as does CO2), thus instead of becoming
a gas like CO2, it tends to become quartz:-)
In other words, people look to carbon for a
reason. This is not to say that life cannot
exist based on some as-yet-unimagined chemistry,
but carbon seems the best candidate.
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
pogen
·
· Score: 1
How about when SiO2 is liquid, or even gaseous? A silicon-based
lifeform might just need a higher operating temeprature....
The phase isn't the problem, it's those pesky
unpaired electrons. SiO2 has four, CO2 has none. Thus, SiO2 molecules tend to group together in long polymer chains.
Another problem with silicon is that the Si-Si
bond is unstable in the presence of water.
Re:Key ingredients for life?
by
pogen
·
· Score: 1
No, missed the point entirely.
How so? In fact, I said virtually the same thing:
"This is not to say
that life cannot exist based on some as-yet-unimagined chemistry"
But carbon is a better candidate for a life-search,
simply because it is the only type of life we
know to exist. This means two things: One, if
it exists here, it can probably exist elsewhere
(unlike foobarium-based life, which may or may
not be possible -- looking for it could be a waste of time); and two, if we see it, we are
more likely to recognize it as life. Foobarium-based life could be so far outside our experience that
it would pass right under our noses unnoticed.
None of this is to say that foobarium-based
life doesn't/cannot exist. Nor does it say we
should ignore any non-carbon clues. I'm simply
explaining why carbon gets (and merits) more
attention.
I believe this discussion has been had here before, but:,
It is abundantly obvious that the 'design' of the human body, or even some of the 'lesser' creatures is extremely wasteful. So, if we were designed (and that is one mighty gargantuan if, we were designed by an imbecile that had absolutely no idea what the hell they were doing.
Oh, and your attempt at saying that because we don't understand means it must be a higher intelligence is really ridiculous. That is religious posturing, nothing more. I don't understand how the hell anyone could stomach Britney Spears, does that mean she was created by a HIGHER intelligence? Very doubtful. But, go ahead and live with your delusions. That's probably easier than questioning the things around you.
Questions are hard, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.
I think life was/is/will be plentiful in the Universe. The only reason why aliens don't bother us is that civilizations degenerate at some point when they learn to manipulate their brains and/or when they create artificial superintellect (AI) superior to their original life forms.
Why would you want to go out and find other civilizations and get SOME satisfaction from doing it when you can get (and probably are getting) INSTANT COMPLETE statisfaction and TOTAL pleasure without doing anything?
As to AI, once it's smarter than the original lifeforms, the original lifeforms make little difference. Unless AI has some sort of an 'objective function' making it go to other planets and pester other civilizations, WHY would it?
Wroot
P.S. Mood-altering drugs are not quite there yet, AFAIK.
Re:Maybe the evidence for life is obvious.
by
karmawhoeaaa4
·
· Score: 1
Do these Creationists really exist? How common are they? What kind of people are creationists - any academic people? even scientists? Is it true that the Creationist stuff is taught at school, as an alternative to Darwin - not just as a joke from the teacher, like "well, then there's another theory also - that God created earth 5687.33453 years ago. Don't write that on the exam. That's all for this course. Good bye and good luck on the exam!!!"??
--
-- Cure for Cancer instead of SETI! (only w32 yet - mail and beg)
Complex carbon molecules have been found for ages in space. I recall some 10-20 years ago when they found glycine (an amino acid) and trumpeted that as an advance. Now more recently they've found signs of benzene in space, so I guess it's time for the ol' hip hip hurrah again.
Water is a common element in space. No news there.
Maybe the evidence for life is obvious.
by
Heidi+Wall
·
· Score: 2
In the form of red dwarves.
In the 1960's, a well respected russian astronomer known as N Kardashev came up with the Kardashev system of determining alien civilisations.
Kardashev Type I Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a planet.
Kardashev Type II Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a star. ie, a Dyson sphere.
Kardashev Type III Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of an entire galaxy. Probably the rarest and most powerful.
The scary thing is that a Dyson Sphere would look almost exactly like a red dwarve star. It could well be that many phenomena we see in space and interpret as natural phenomena are in fact megascale engineering projects of distant civilisations.
Another possibility is that these distant civilisations use Matrioshka Brains, big computers in the form of Dyson Spheres, surrounding a star. Everybody would be uploaded into this environment, and would become as gods.
Problem is, we are pumping out radiation all the time, from our television transmitters and our mobile phones and so on. It is like the cheeping of a new born bird, we are alone and naked and letting everyone know where we are. There is no reason to suppose that such civilisations would be friendly. I think we should take enormous and difficult steps to quiet down out interstellar emissions. It is time to start playing interstellar politics.
More info can be found here, a very interesting page on this subject by an esteemed author. -- Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
-- /* And you'll never guess what the dog had */ /* in its mouth... */ --Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
high probability for life?
by
shd99004
·
· Score: 1
It seems as the chance for life to form in the universe is getting better all the time. We have now discovered planets orbiting other stars, as well as solar systems in the process of being formed, that is, discs of gas and dust around young stars. And now this, complex organic molecules.
Could life perhaps be a most natural part of the universe? Or, is it only the possibility that is everywhere, but the right conditions are rarely met?
I for one hope that life is very much common in the universe, and that we one day can establish contact with another civillization. It would indeed be the greatest and most important discovery in the history of mankind.
I, for one, won't take this lying down... oh, wait, yes I will. I just love interstellar politics.
-- I had sex with a camel!
Maybe the evidence for life is obvious!
by
Hiedi+Wall
·
· Score: 3
In the form of red dwarves.
In the 1960's, a well respected russian astronomer known as N Kardashev came up with the Kardashev system of determining alien civilisations.
Kardashev Type I Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a planet.
Kardashev Type II Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a star. ie, a Dyson sphere.
Kardashev Type III Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of an entire galaxy. Probably the rarest and most powerful.
The scary thing is that a Dyson Sphere would look almost exactly like a red dwarve star. It could well be that many phenomena we see in space and interpret as natural phenomena are in fact megascale engineering projects of distant civilisations.
Another possibility is that these distant civilisations use Matrioshka Brains, big computers in the form of Dyson Spheres, surrounding a star. Everybody would be uploaded into this environment, and would become as gods.
Problem is, we are pumping out radiation all the time, from our television transmitters and our mobile phones and so on. It is like the cheeping of a new born bird, we are alone and naked and letting everyone know where we are. There is no reason to suppose that such civilisations would be friendly. I think we should take enormous and difficult steps to quiet down out interstellar emissions. It is time to start playing interstellar politics.
More info can be found here, a very interesting page on this subject by an esteemed author.
--
Trust in God, but tie your camel -- Old Persian proverb.
Slashdot Mirror
Hydrogen is also a key ingredient to life. That happens to be common in the universe, too. Duh. One thing the egg heads don't bother telling you is there are literally MILLIONS of keys required for life. Chemicals, radiation, gravity, magnetics, etc. IQ147
Alien one:
Hmm... there's plenty of silicon and sulphur dioxide around here, and I have yet to discover any sign of life...
Alien two:
Well, it can't be on the third planet... I mean, silicon wouldn't even be liquid at surface temperatures... Try the next star system...
Scientists are searching for "life as we know it" because it's the only life we know. I would be very difficult for them to search for a system of life that we are completely unaware of.
Haven't you ever seen "Contact"?
Wow, Contact was a documentary? Here I thought it was wildy inaccurate fiction. Silly me.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
I read the internet for the articles.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
Agreed. Imangine there is a civizization 10,000 light years from Earth devolping at the same rate and time as humans. We would be unable to detect their television even if their transmitters were more powerful then ours and on and ideal frequency for communicating between star systems. Those television shows are still 9,920 years from reaching earth. Now if they are just as war like as us you can assume that nobody on either planet will be able to detect them. A war big enough to destroy civilization in the next 9,000 years isn't exactly unlikely.
It is possibal that many civilizations have rose and fell over the years, and earthlings arrived at radio reception too late to detect the transmissions from the last one, but too soon for the next one. Note that because of the slow speed of light it is possibal for the transmission of the first civilization to not reach earth yet, while the transmissions from a latter one have gone by, and all three civilizations have missed each other.
Of course if someone devolps enough space travel to havea self sufficant colinies in different star systems it is less likely that we have missed them. (Then you have to account for the possibility that earth is a self sufficant colony of a now long gone civialization, though that lack of remains tends to rule that out.
It is only because so many places do not have life, that this small possibility gets people excited. I really don't know why people are so excited. This doesn't prove anything, it just isn't a disproof. Find me a planet with Internet access, and then we'll talk about signs of life.
---
ticks = jiffies;
while (ticks == jiffies);
ticks = jiffies;
Have you read my journal today?
How about if I believed ours was the only planet that had produced "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"? After all with all the "billions and billions" and stars out there with their "obvious" life, surely some other intelligent entity has generated these same tones.
There was something like this in Babylon-5, where all known intelligent species had all produced something, though by different names, that was basically a sweedish meatballs dish.
I think you mean that to say intelligent life... :)
> People always seem to forget that if there is other life out there, that it'd most likely be *completely* different from us.
I agree. I think a lot of the populace is poisoned by Star Trek, where aliens are, by and large, humans with face paint. There is no reason to expect extra-terrestrial life to resemble us.
> To the point that most likely the biggest challenge in finding other life in the universe will be recognizing it as life.
That's ridiculous. We know *exactly* what life is, and how to recognize it. How, you ask? It's quite simple...humans *invented* life. "Life" is merely a concept and a word. It is a notion that humans invented to suite our own needs.
There is a precise scientific definition of what constitutes "life"...we define something as "living" if it meets the 7 (or so) requirements accepted by the scientific community. For a while there was a debate among scientists whether the definition should be changed to include viruses. Last I heard, viruses only met 5 of the 7 points. Hence, they are not technically living creatures. No problem there...life means whatever humans want it to mean. It's just that some humans felt "life" would be a more *useful* category if it included viruses. I see their argument.
Anyway, my point is that many people don't understand that "life" is an entirely human creation -- purely an aspect of human language and science. There is no universal notion of living things. It's just a useful category that humans have created. If we encountered an alien species, there is no guarantee that they would have a similar notion to "life".
--Lenny
It's a shame they did not include two obvious choices in the poll, though:
--Moo
And then you could also state: "Why do we spend gazillions on other kinds of research when the money would be best used to solve world hunger" or something like that.
To me it is a matter of width vs. depth. We need to answer all kinds of questions, if we all focus on just _some_ issues all kinds of interesting and important matters would never get found out.
Just my 2 devaluated cents.
--Moo
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone.
I wonder if the other forms of life don't use a different form of communications. If a life form developed with direct mental communications or the chemicl communication (like in some insects) then our frequencies shot out in space would mean nothing to them. They may be mentally projecting thier greetings to us be we are not equiped to recieve.
Who knows?
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Maybe there wasn't a larg rock that hit the earth and wiped out the dinosours. What if humanities ancestors crashed into earth in a very very large ship...the survivors came out of the ship and ended up replacing the dinosours....Ok, I agree, thats streching it quite a bit...but it was just a thought.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
hmm, or they are sending the same byte over and over waiting for the parity check.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Yea, they came from Golgafrincham on the 'B' Ark...
It's a bigger problem if they haven't developed yet. If they developed a million years before us, they're probably still around.
I would think a species would be most likely to destroy itself in the first couple of hundred thousand years. After that, it's all gravy.
Well, not gravy per se; more like giant ephemorous energy-gathering constructs ~1 AU across, quietly gathering 99.999_% of the energy of their star(s).
-
This sort of findings make me more and more suprised of people who still don't think there are foreign life forms in the Universe.
Each finding suggests that life is probably a common thing in our Universe, since, with the findings of other solar systems with reasonably sized planets and even, as here, water, points out the conditions of the creation of life.
Given the vast number of stars out there, even a tiny percentage of life-friendly planets makes it really probable of lots of life in every galaxy.
Thing is, can we contact them? Can we travel to them, and they to us?
Imagine finding out that there is (almost surely) life everywhere, but not being able to make contact. Hope not.
:wq!
If so.. no, this doesn't expand to other locations in space. The first reason, there isn't bacteria there. Bacteria is life, and bacteria is what causes mold and fungi to form on coffee. If that isn't there, then there is no mold. And, as far as I know, this piece is missing.
I could just be missing your argument completely though.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Religous zealots *refuting* the assertion that there is life on other planets??!??? Haven't you ever seen "Contact"? It's *scientists* that laugh at SETI and other attempts to look for extraterrestrial life. Religous *nuts* are all for alien life, as they would almost immediately transform aliens into "god-like figures". Now, as a religous person myself, (i.e., I go to church every Sunday and pray regularly) I think it would be the epitome of arrogance to think that God brought this galaxy into being, let alone the Universe, simple for one dinky planet on the outer edges of the Milky Way. I mean, that's ludicrous :-)
Much more likely is that what is going on here is that same as has been going on with other worlds since the beginning of time (as we know it), and will probably continue on long after Earth is slagged into molten lava when the Sun novas. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe. It is pure and utter hubris to think otherwise.
/me apologizes for Mozilla's screwed up formatting
Heh. I forgot the ;-) Sorry...
Yes, the Force was a synonym for God in Star Wars, and a lot of people believe in that sort of God, i.e., one that is unknown and unknowable. However, as one of those literal minded people ;-), I *do* believe that God was a man, and went through the same process we are going through (i.e., life, love, and death).
:-) And to think I got all the way up to 15....
To take this *completely* off-topic (hence the title change), I would submit that if God is truly our "Father in Heaven", the *only* long-term goal that he could have is to help us become like him. A lot of religous people get nervous at this point B-) The Eternal Plan that I envision includes an family that stretches back into infinity, with every generation striving to help it's children achieve the same status it has reached, with the children being us, but also God before us, and his parents before him. I can't imagine anything else that fits my premise, which is that God loves us, he is our spiritual Father, and that he is real, made of flesh and bone.
Well, there goes my carefully built up karma hoard
Oh, and the omnipresent thing is something thought up by Catholics, not something that is actually in the Bible (IIRC). In case you couldn't tell, I'm not Catholic B-)
yeah, they could definitely be there.
As many detractors are fond of pointing out, our current Seti@Home effort wouldn't be powerful enough to find us humans if it were set up on another star.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Discovery of the components of life does not imply that life is plentiful.
If I had all the components of a car (not assembled) I would not have a car until they were placed in the right order, with the right alignment, and the right torque applied to them.
Simply discovering car parts (and what has been discovered is the raw material of car parts, not the parts themselves) does not indicate that we should find 'cars' in the universe.
It's possible - and even more likely than if those parts didn't exist - BUT there's more required than what has been found.
Stanley Miller's experiments proved that having the right component materials in 'ideal' circumstances doesn't even give the building blocks of life.
(Dang chirality!)
I'm not saying that life like ours doesn't exist elsewhere in the universe, just that it this discovery doesn't mean that it does.
Life is hard. Creating life is REALLY hard.
--Anomaly
Now comes the part where I lose credibility with those of my readers who are closed-minded.
God loves you and longs for relationship with you. If you want to know more about this, please contact me at tom_cooper at bigfoot dot com
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
We do. Communication requires a carrier. We use photons because they travel at light speed. There is not any evidence that SUSY or strings will shake up the fundemental requirement that information travels on matter. Thus we know that the idea of mental projection in the absence of projecting some 'thing' (e.g. photons) is a looser.
Further, the idea that low power intra-planet transmissions could take place between extra-terrestrials is interesting, but the high power needed for societal communication or worse yet inter-stellar communication could somehow be released from carbon based life is a similar no go.
--
Only because we don't have equipment with enough sensitivity to find earth size planets in any orbits, much less distant ones like ours.
(in fact scientists are rethinking the standard solar system model because of it)
No they are rethinking it because of the wierd orbits of the 'jupiters' they are finding. Not because of the absence of 'earths'.
So yes, assuming we're the only ones out here is jumping to conclusions, but so is assuming the universe falls neatly into the Heliocentric solar system model, don't you think?
No.
I think that expecting that the vast number of stars that are like our own with no near orbit Jupiters don't have a significant percentage with small approx 1 AU orbit planets is, well, anti-Heliocentric. I thought I made that clear.
--
Yes. That was my position. It would be hubristic to believe that we are alone.
Concerns about hubris are really just the inductive principle: things around here are probably average. But note the "probably". Induction is a good way to come up with a new hypothesis, but calling the output "obvious" is a fallacy.
Ok. My theory is obvious and the fact that people don't see that is because of their hubris. As you say, the fact should be proven and I agree 100% on that. Somehow that thought in my head was lost in the translation to paper.
As for intelligent life: intelligence isn't some kind of "ulimate endpoint" of evolution
As for intelligence. I never said that the life elsewhere would be intelligent. Though I did say that in the absence of abundent life it was 'interesting' that the only place that it arose (here, of course) it would become intelligent.
I'd be the first to argue that the vast majority of life outside of earth was not self aware. (an easy bet since it's true here as well...)
--
Yes, that's exactly right.
With the exception of a fringe group of WIMP researchers it is widely excepted that we know about all the particles that exist at normal energies. We've verified that research with research into many particles that don't exist at normal energies.
You got me with the whole spelling thing though. You're right, I can't spell. Why memorize what can be looked up. (and I'll give you a shiny new nickle if you know who to attribute that to)
--
No. I'm a dork who missed the solar system reference while trying to post and work at the same time.
Sorry.
Something was lost here, too. If your theory is obvious, why do you think it needs to be proven?
Because I want to be a research scientist and need funding...
No, as I said in the very first line of my post I'm aware that the unexpected sometimes happens. That's why we do experiments to verify. I'm just saying the hubris comes from believing in the 10 angstrom slice that was left behind after occums razor cut through the evidence and said, 'geez guys, why would you seriously consider a lonely universe theory in the almost complete absence of any evidence to support it'.
--
But really. We are an average planet around an average star. The hubris required to think that we are along in the universe is almost unmeasurable.
Life is plentiful. The chemistry needed for life is all over the place and we have a planet that provides fantastic evidence that once a molecule is able to replicate itself then life pretty much explodes. There is no reason to believe that something unique happened here to create that initial set of circumstances.
People often point to the lack of communication from other worlds as proof (or at least evidence) that we are alone. Hogwash! We haven't heard from them because there are invariant rules in the universe. This lack of communication is much better evidence that faster than light travel is insurmountable than it is that somehow in the great sea of chemistry that is the universe *we* managed to defy the odds and not only create life, but multicellular life. And not only multicellular, but thinking. And not only thinking, but self aware and communicative. Those are long odds, eh?
Still, if this country (or planet for that matter) was scientifically litereate enough to understand all that I guess poliglut.org (shameless plug) wouldn't need to exist to straighten folks out...
--
In Diaspora, they discover some "carpets" that communicate by waving feelers around. They conclude that these are showing intelligent communication, but there is no way we can communicate with them. Check it out, a really cool book that makes everything else seem sort of mundane by comparison.
I have several minor issues with this news announcement.
./'s editors. If need be, they should put together a small volunteer board of experts in scientific disciplines to consult with before posting an article.
1. The astronomers involved failed to place their discovery in the larger picture. Molecular clouds have been observed in a wide variety of molecues (CO, CO_2, H_2O, CS, H_2CO, HCOOH, C_2H_6, CH_3CH_2OH, etc...) for about thirty years now. Every now and then a slightly more complex molecule is discovered for the first time, but given the complex gas phase chemistry, this is not at all surprising.
2. After failing to properly place the discovery in context, the article immediately leaps to the "origin of life" carrot.
Our educational system has failed to educate the public in basic science, mathematics, and technology. Hence, popular articles such as these
almost NEVER discuss the real scientific importance of discoveries (which would require a more thorough background than can be provided in a 1 minute soundbyte or a webpage -- not that the journalists themselves even have such a background themselves, mind you), scientific journalists continually dangles one of a handful of carrots in front of the dazzled, curious, though admittedly thoroughly ignorant populace :
I. Cure of diseas/disorder (fill in the blank -- cancer, AIDS, Parkinson's, etc.), elimination of world starvation and/or poverty
II. Faster computers, cleaner, more efficient automobiles, better toasters (or fill in favorite life-improvement gadget)
III. Life, the Universe, and Everything
In this case, carrot III was the most convenient.
GET REAL PEOPLE. These many be noble goals, but the truth of the matter is that most scientists are motivated to solve intricate little riddles which are often very involved, but infinitely fascinating. While not diminishing important secondary factors (career, prestige, etc.), in general, they pursue science for science's sake, and only pull out these lame carrots for journalists and popular explanations. (They never use them when discussing amongst themselves). The popular view of a scientist is by now completely distorted by the fact that almost no one, besides other scientists, have the slightest clue as to what scientists ACTUALLY do, and what ACTUALLY
motivates them to do what they do.
3. Lastly, I think the slashdot editors need to exercise better discretion in choosing science topics. This must be the dozenth time I've seen a relatively unimportant, superhyped scientific discovery receive a billing by
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Be proud, Buffalo, be proud!
We'd drink it all if the tap was at a bowling alley, or maybe at Casino Niagara...
A survey of middle-aged stars within 350 light years found that half of them were emitting light that showed metals were present in the top layers of the stars. That suggests that metallic dust, asteroids, and planets fell into the star. Not all that stuff falls in, so there are planets around a bunch of those. Planets that formed a long time ago.
Ok .. I know I could get the answers to this question by searching the net, etc, but well, I know someone here can explain it just as well, and it might make a good discussion, so here goes...
:)
How is it that scientists can find things like water, alcohol, etc that far away? what tools do they use? what software? what deductive logic? what information do they build on?
I don't understand the process at all, so use little words
thanks in advance.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
This isn't star trek, folks, where everything has two legs and can actually mate with one another.
I thought that if two animals can successfully mate, then they are considered the same species?
If humans can mate with Star Trek "aliens", then those aliens are human!
Intelligent design seems unlikely?
You're reaching...and it's on things you don't understand. Things you don't understand mean a HIGHER intelligence than yours is needed to decipher them.
Ack
You two are calling things you don't understand wasteful. Why don't you understand them? Higher intelligence.
Our lower intelligence only MAKES it look wasteful...
ALL YOUR BEER ARE BELONG TO US
Honestly, I think AYxABTU responses are on their way to trolldom...
---
Yes, all our base would belong to them!
How to Lobby Politicians http://www.zeta.org.au/~aldis/lobby.html
All your cosmic stew are belong to us.
Execute? [Y/N] _
I remember writing a paper about life in space and reading paper where scientists had found ATP (adenosine triphosphate, a source of energy), ubiquidous and necessary for life on Earth.. Furthermore that on early Earth that the surrounding environment was the only source of ATP. Early primative life could not produce their own ATP, the ability to synthasis ATP as an energy source evolved later. Also I think that there is evidence of RNA in space.. I'm not sure about that though.
Finding carbon rings in space is nothing new. These Nasa scientists are reveiling their lack of knowledge about biology getting all excite about finding benzene and water in space. The central paradigm of molecular biology (DNA->RNA->amino acid) would seem to indicate that the first protolife was in the form of RNA, which can join without the help of enzymes.. RNA itself can fact can act as a enzyme. Amino acids, were probably created 'de novo' by the organism or incorporated into the organism later..
It's not as well coded as you might hope. See: CERT Advisory CA-96.13.
"Be Happy or Die." -- AoN
There was something like this in Babylon-5, where all known intelligent species had all produced something, though by different names, that was basically a sweedish meatballs dish.
That was a minor throwaway joke, of course. On the other hand, the Crusade episode "The Needs of Earth" noted the distinction between scientific knowledge (which is inherent to reality and can be discovered by any intelligence using the right tools) and culture (which is an irreproducable result).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Because it's a lower molecular weight, from simple statistics a lot more carbon exists in the universe than similar elements (like silicon)
Nope. After Hydrogen and Helium, the next most common element in the universe is Oxygen. Elements 3, 4, and 5 are actually way down on the list of common elements. So, statistically, you're wrong on this, although I do think that Carbon is fourth in overall abundance in the universe. (But, statistically, everything after Hydrogen and Helium is about the same.)
As far as our planet is concerned, Oxygen is most abundant, then Silicon. Carbon isn't even in the top 10. Carbon is more abundant than Silicon in the universe, but on our planet (a big hunk of rock), Silicon wins the abundance battle. This is likely the case for all big life-bearing rocks (silicates).
--
Yup. Same-old-same-old.
Wanna impress me? Gimme some insanely-long-baseline-interferometry capable of getting a spectrum from a planetary body and show me a big pile of diatomic oxygen.
Until then, it's good research, but it doesn't change the big picture (the building blocks of life are everywhere) we've been aware of for a long time.
There's plenty of carbon and water around here, and I have yet to discover any sign of life...
There are very good reasons why all life on Earth is carbon based and why we expect that if we do find extraterrestrial or extrasolar life, odds are it will be too. Carbon is the most agile and flexible element in the universe able to give or take up to 4 electrons in chemical bonding. Silicon and others in the Carbon family can theorectically do the same, but they're heavy and sluggish by comparison,. and if I'm not mistaken the Carbon family elements beyond Silicon aren't stable. And of course the heavier elements are that much more rare in proportion.
Read up a little on chemistry and biochemistry some day and you'll appreciate just how uniquely neat the element of Carbon truly is.
Carbon is the lowest molecular weight element that easily forms complex chains. This is important for two reasons:
1. Because it's a lower molecular weight, from simple statistics a lot more carbon exists in the universe than similar elements (like silicon). Because it's a lower molecular weight, the sheer size of the electron orbitals doesn't interfere with molecular bonding.
2. "Foobarium", unless it has a tetrahedral organization like carbon, probably won't form the complex chains necessary for life. And since everything above silicon doesn't form chains due to weak molecular bonding, "foobarium", barring a revolution in the basic principles of life, doesn't exist. There are no silicon life forms on Earth because silicon chains break down in the presence of oxygen.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
I suppose I had that coming... :)
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Why is it that when scientists are scoping out the universe for life, they're always looking for the things that make our form of life possible? Just because we've observed the forms of life around as being carbon-based doesn't mean that's the only option, does it?
:)
I'm reminded of back when scientists were sure that all life on this planet was based in some way on the photosynthesis cycle. Plants use the sun to make their energy, animals eat the plants for energy, decay puts materials back into the soil for plants to use as raw materials, and they engergize the whole system once again. They had this set in their minds as the paradigm of life, and then one day someone found organisms at the bottom of the sea living off the energy of a vent in the sea floor (chemosynthesis). Blew their minds.
Anybody else a litle nervous about us searching space looking for our own form of life? Remeber in Stranger in a Strange Land when the scientists decided there couldn't be any life on Mars because there wasn't any oxygen? Let's learn from our Sci-fi, guys!
--Brogdon
This tagline is umop apisdn.
>> > Complex carbon molecules and water,
>>> which are key ingredients for life
> Uhh, life on earth that is...
Talking about extraterestrial life is extrapolation from one data point. However, no other element, even silicon, has nearly as much potential as carbon. How many interesting complex molecules based on Silicon do you know of?
When life is found out there, we shouldn't expect to find DNA just like ours, but should be 99.9999% certain of finding that it is built out of complex cabon-based compounds.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
So, you are assuming that all religions exclude science as being a valid source of knowledge. I happen to believe that knowledge comes from experience. If experience (including scientific data) tells us something about the questions religion tries to answer, then a religious framework should adapt to that evidence. If a religious framework can not adapt, then it has little relevence to life. I think many religions have adapted well to "new physical evidence". For example, most Christians (educated ones) no longer believe that the Earth has only been around 6000 years.
How does your world view adapt to "new physical evidence"? Take for example the existance of good and evil... How did you feel when your heard about Columbine? Why? What about the evidence that this Universe had a beginning? Where did that beginning come from?
My point: Religions are world views, possibly similar to your world view. Is it plausable that evidence supports a religious worldview? No? Then it would seem you have decided to believe a world view and ignore evidence. That sounds like many of the religions I can think of.
I'm going to be very disappointed it I fly half way to the other side of the galaxy and the only thing that there is to eat is a dust cloud full of complex carbon molecules and water.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
No, but I bet whatever OS they do use is open source. I'd like to get a copy of AlienUX for my box at home.
Anyone who can "see" Earth would know there's life here. Free oxygen in the atmosphere is a dead giveaway.
Talk to 4 or 5 reporters and ask them what a comet is and how the tail forms.
You'll probably understand the scientists' perspective after a few minutes.
. Anybody who believes in a real God, not an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us" (nods to Yoda), will admit that we are not alone in the Universe.
Thanks for mentioning Yoda. It makes my response on-topic (since religion is off-topic, but star wars is ALWAYS on-topic).
I always took the "FORCE" of the Star Wars series to be the exact same thing as "GOD." They're both symbols for the unknown (and unknowable) forces that guide us and shape our reality. The only difference I see in the concept of GOD and the concept of FORCE is that many literal-minded religious people tend to think of GOD as being a person, which doesn't make much sense when you consider all the other forms of life that are not even remotely human. (Plants, other animals, insects, bacteria, etc.)
Besides, if GOD (a symbol) is really omnipresent and infinite, how could GOD be anything BUT an "all encompassing spirit that surrounds and binds us?"
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
=(.\')=
So far, no one has brought this up in this thread, although a lot of people have kind of circled the mark. The Star Wars FORCE is not as close to the Western view of God as people seem to think. It is, however, pretty much equivalent to the Eastern concept of the Tao (procounced "dough", not "tau").
Lucas was and is fascinated by Asian culture, and Japanese culture in particular. Note, for instance, the design of the snowtroopers from Empire and Amidala's costuming from Phantom. However, consider something more important than any of these design issues: the lightsaber. The lightsaber duels in all the movies (or at least the first three... I'm not sure about Phantom) were performed using kenjutsu, essentially modelling the Jedi after the ancient samurai. It therefore was natural for Lucas to choose an Eastern type of mysticism as the basis of his Jedi's beliefs. (Although traditionally, I believe the samurai were more Buddhist than they were Taoist, but I could be wrong.)
that's where random lightning strikes come into play... stir things up and make them more interesting...
- passion
Spectroscopy.
Different elements and compounds reflect, absorb, or emit electromagnetic radiation differently. By knowing the spectral "signature" of an element or compound, one can look for it in light coming from far away. :)
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
There is an open minded post. The phrase "key ingredients for life" should be "key ingredients for life on this planet".
> Complex carbon molecules and water,
> which are key ingredients for life
Uhh, life on earth that is... Why is everyone so convinced that other life has to be carbon life? Computers aren't alive, but the do prove you can do a lot with silicon at least.
Ok, so carbon based or possibly silicon based, but nothing else for sure! I think these guys are just holding out hope of finding similar life forms that might actually date them..
Robin
I am an educated christian, and I believe that God created the earth roughly 6000 years ago. But just as Adam and Eve were not created as babies, neither was the rest of the universe created as new. I like to think that God created everything already billions of years old, so in a sense everything is very old yet rather new, depending on how you look at it. I have yet to find a theologian who disagrees with this view.
----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
John Scalzi wrote that, it can be found at http://www.scalzi.com/john/best95.htm
----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Why is it that whenever we find some water or molecules containing Carbon in space these days that everyone starts shouting "WE'VE FOUND LIFE IN OUTER SPACE!", or at least claim that now chances of life being out there are GREATLY increased. That's like saying "Woohoo! I'm near a Beowulf cluster!" when you trip over some power chord. Please, gimme a break!
Not really...
You see, the reason why organic molecules are carbon compounds is because of the peculiar structure of carbon's electron orbitals. It'd be a long explanation, and I can give it only in Finnish so I won't go into details here. I suggest you go looking at britannica.com or something if you are interested.
Erm, none of the matter found on Earth was created in our Sun. All of it comes from a star (or stars) that once blossomed and then exploded. And because we can find uranium and other heavy substances here on Earth, the star has been one of those larger ones that went up in a supernova once upon a time.
On a side note, I don't know how you can describe the act of crunching coffee solids and frying them and then pouring hot water on them as being "completely random". Moreover, the coffee solids themselves are organic. (Or did I miss your point?)
Actually the lightning strikes are used to get the acids in the first place, not to get the acids into proteins and the protiens into organized cells. This was shown in a pretty famous experiment whose name unfortunately escapes me. We really don't know how abiogenesis works or, to satisfy creationists (like me), whether it is capable of happening at all.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
The 6000 year part is only for some creationists not all. The evolutionists need a very long timescale to make evolution plausible but the creationists do not. Therefore evolutionists have believed in a very old earth even before they had anything to back it up.
BTW a favorite tactics of young earth creationists is to take a rock that is known to be only 20 years old (say from an lava flow on Mt. St. Helens) and have it dated using the normal techniques. The scientists then tell them that this rock is X million years old. The creationists smile and nod and note that the scientists using "reliable" techniques were almost always between 5 to 8 orders of magnitude off. Then they take the same rock somewhere else and get a completely different number. :)
In short don't be smug because for millenia scientists knew the earth was flat or any number of other wrong things.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
I hate to be the voice of the devils advocate, but we need a lot more than animo acids to show that there is life on other worlds. Simple organic chem experiments show that given the right elements, its pretty easy to get animo acids. Finding them is actually no big surprise.
The hardest part of the whole abiogenesis equation that we need is the formation of simple life from its ubiquitous amino acid building blocks. We essentially need some way for the building blocks to logically result in the creation of a castle through either random collisions or some other mechanism. This is the difficult part and some advances have been made in looking at organic chemistry in Zero-G. The problem is that we are still orders of magnitude away from getting a living and more importantly reproducing cell that natural selection requires for further evolution.
In short, don't count your eggs before their hatched because we still have a long way to go. We really don't know how abiogenesis occured on earth yet, so to start saying that its occuring all over the universe may be a bit of a stretch.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
Ignorant. Shortsighted. Inflamitory.
Wow, I'm impressed.
Many of the world's greatest scientists have been "religious" and if you weren't such a bigot, you'd have the maturity to realize that.
--------
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
I'm sorry but I do not share everyone's enjoyment in knowing that there dirt and water on some far as ball of crap... how about taking all the resources we put in this and try to de-pollute earth so that in three thousand years some race on some other world isn't looking at us going "Hmm I wonder if there was life at one point?"
So in other words get over it... if life happened here it happened somewhere else before or now... so lets just stop looking ok cuz if we stop someone is bound to find us.
GPF : The program Win.exe has caused an erorr in
These are cool findings. If the probability of life increases, the chance of intelligent life also looks better.
But what are the chances for more advanced lifeforms to evolve? Maybe this is where earth is unique from all the other planets, life might be common, but advanced life might be very rare?
I am not a biologist, so I can't even take a guess at the odds of bacteries and other "simple" lifeforms evolving into something more advanced. But since it took earth (as far as we know), app. 4 Billion years to produce intelligent creatures, I think we can assume that the process is pretty complex?
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
take a triptonica to subthunk
Right on. Why do people think that this question will be/can be solved for a while to come? Isn't it likely to take some time before we learn the answer to the "life elsewhere" question? Why go off trying to push the odds around in your pet way everytime some new study about molecules in space comes out?
Until they call us, come here, or we go there, can't we just put this one on hold? That seems like a good idea. Then we can pay attention to more important issues here on this planet, like [ reader to insert issue of inportance here].
"The good Earth--we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."K. Vonnegut
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
They'd rather look millions of miles away than into the things on Earth that are currently unexplored.
A troll, but...
Why can't they do both? Why one or the other?
--PCB
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
From what I've read from the article, aminoacids, complex carbonstructures and water are the key elements to life (at least life as we know it). Consider the following points:
1) A solar system is a complex entity with a lot of different stages in the amounts of particles, temperature and type of molecules
2) There is a big energy source around, capable of creating almost all of the lower weight atoms.
3) Because of the energy source, there is a lot of different entropies in the system
Consider these facts, and add the key element "time". Time is the main actor in evolution, allowing more complex elements to be formed.
It's no so strange that there is water around a lot of (early) solar systems. I would find it strange if time didn't create aminoacids yet.
Let's make an parallel with real life. Take the following ingredients:
1. Time
2. Coffee and hot water (energy sources)
3. A coffee mug
Make coffee, put coffee in mug and wait a little. Voila, you'll get white stuff on your coffee although the surroundings where completely random.
Okay, what you're going to say is: this is completely logical, nature have made a way to use all energy available. But can't we stretch such a thing into the large, solar system-sized area?
I'm really wondering, but I think the most important key elements are there with every solar system.
This is a replacement signature.
This is no different than us user support people.
No a click is when you push the button once. A double-click is when you push it twice.....
Typical western thinker. Do you realize that in many cultures science, religion, and philosophy are one and the same? Particularly in Buddhism.
One can apply what one knows about science to religion and vise versa. If you can't, then your religion and science are inadaquate, IMO.
Back to your metaphor. A really good cook must develop the same kind of skill in cooking that a programmer must develop with code. If I can learn to see the programming skills needed to cook and the cooking skills needed to to create great code, I will be that much better at both.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
This is obviously just the Qeng Ho giving us a nudge in the right direction.
These comments and opinions are mine and mine alone, although they shouldn't be.
I love it when scientists speak to reporters as if the reporters were 7th graders in an earth sciences lab.
"That's what we in the scientific community like to call, 'a beaker' Johnny. Now please put it down before you break something."
tcd004
The Guts of the Pentium 4!
Dont' click here unless you want stock photos.
It's like me looking at my apartment of 6 rooms and noticing that, as far as I can see, there's only a computer in my dining room. "This is suggestive," I might say, "that dining-room like conditions really are the only situations in which computers can exist."
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Paraphrasing Steven Hawkings on the chance of intelligent alien life visiting earth:
Odds are that intelligent alien life is in a position to communicate with us is remote. On the galactic scale intelligent alien life probably developed millions of years before us or they just crawled up out of the primordial swamp. Don't expect ET to phone....
No harm in looking though...but keep it in perspective...
Sterling
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
There's only one solar system. And that's the unary star system comprised of planets and asteroids orbiting the star Sol.
Next thing you know, it'll be hydroxyl acid rain.
John
John
So god, who is supposedly all loving and omnipotent, created this universe and created these little, barely significant beings on a little average planet around an average star whose sole purpose of existence is to stroke god's ego with praise and if they don't then god will torture them forever in hell. If this is the case then god must be pretty insecure and perhaps I could recommend a good psychiatrist. It's kind of like raising butterflies for the sole pupose of pulling the wings off of them.
This reminds me of the latest episode of The Maggott Show. We are, after all, new to these interstellar politics things.
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
I sigh in your general direction.
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Besides, all this interstellar poltics doesn't matter now, Earth is slated to be demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass. The plans have been in the Alpha Centauri office for hundreds of years.
Time to start looking for the hitchhiker's guide.
-Cyc
So long, and thanks for all the fish
/.'s 10 Millionth
"That's in the room!"
"It's reading right, man, it's reading right!"
"Maybe YOU'RE not reading IT right!"
Fuckin' Aliens.
This week, a million fraternity brothers rushed to join NASA. The reason: scientists have discovered beer in space.
Well, not beer exactly. But they did find alcohol: ethyl alcohol, to be precise, the active ingredient in all major alcoholic drinks (antifreeze Jell-O shots, quite obviously, are exempted from this category). Three British scientists, Drs. Tom Millar, Geoffrey MacDonald and Rolf Habing, discovered this interstellar Everclear floating in a gas cloud in the contellation of Aquila (sign of the Eagle, the mascot of Anheuser-Busch! Hmmmmm).
Millar and his compatriots have estimated the size of this gas cloud at approximately 1,000 times the diameter of our own solar system; there's enough alcohol out there, they say, to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer. These guys are British, mind you; if you were to translate this in terms of American beer (which the British, with some justification, regard as fermented club soda), the amount of potential brewski just about doubles.
In human terms: remember that double-keg party you threw at the end of your Junior year in college (the second Junior year)? Imagine throwing that same party, every eight hours, for the next 30 billion years. You'd STILL have beer left over. And boy, would YOUR bathroom be a mess! Simply put, no one could ever drink 400 trillion trillion pints of beer, except maybe Buffalo Bills fans.
The sheer volume of all this alcohol begs the question of how it managed to get out there in the first place. Despite the simplifying effect it has on the human brain, ethyl alcohol is a reasonably complex molecule: two carbon atoms, five hydrogen atoms, and a hydroxyl radical, all cavorting together in beery camaraderie. It's not a compund that is going to spontaneously arise out of the cold depths of space. It can lead to speculation: What is this cloud?
1. It's God's beer. After all, He worked for six days creating the universe, and on the seventh day, He rested. And after you've had a hard week at the office, don't YOU grab a beer? Since man is made in God's image, it could be that this cloud is the remaining evidence of the first, and best, Miller Time.
2. It's Purgatory ("400 trillion trillion bottles of beer on the wall, 400 trillion trillion bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, three hundred ninety-nine septillion, nine hundred ninety-nine sextillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quintillion, nine hundred ninety-nine quadrillion, nine hundred ninety-nine trillion, nine hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine, bottles of beer on the wall!")
3. Proof of an undeniably highly advanced but chronically dipsomaniac alien society. This particular theory is shaky, however: it's reasonable to assume that if the aliens were going to construct a nebula of alcohol, they'd also have large clouds of Beer Nuts and pretzels nearby for snacking. Advanced spectral analysis has yet to locate them.
The truth of the matter, however, is far more prosaic. In the middle of this gas cloud is a young and no doubt quite inebriated star. As the star heats up and contracts, sucking the dust and gas of the cloud into a smaller area, complex molecules form as a result of greater interaction between the elements. Ethyl alcohol forms on small motes of dust in the cloud, and then, as the motes angle in closer towards the star and heat up, the alcohol is released from the motes in gaseous form. And there you have it: an alcohol cloud. Or, as Dave Bowman might say, "My God! It's full of booze!"
Enough with the science lesson, you say. Just tell me how to GET there! Sorry, Chuckles. You can't get there from here. The gas cloud (which, by the way, has the utterly romantic name of "G34.3") is 10,000 light years away: 58 quadrillion miles. Even if you hijacked the shuttle and headed out with thrusters on full, by the time you got there, the guy in Purgatory would be done with his tune. You'd have had time to work up a powerful thirst, but you'd also be, in a word, dead.
No, the Space Beer Cloud will have to wait for the far future, when men can leap through the universe at warp speed. One can only imagine what they will do when they get there:
Captain Kirk: My....GOD! Sulu! What....is....THAT?
Sulu: It's a free floating cloud of alcohol, sir.
Kirk: And we've just run out of Romulan Ale! Could it be a trap, Bones?
Bones: Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor, not a distiller of fine spirits!
Kirk: We need that booze! But if we fly through that cloud, we'll be too drunk to drive!
Spock: May I remind you, Captain, that I am a Vulcan. We are a race of designated drivers.
Kirk: Well, all righty, then. Spock, drive us through! Bones and I will be out on the hull. With our mouths... open!
To boldly drink what no man has drunk before.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Your thought-experiment suffers from a sample size which is far too low to make it relevant
For the record, I agree with you. It's almost meaningless to conclude anything based on the information we have, but I'm just not going to let that stop me from having an opinion. :-)
However, for the sake of argument...
It's like me looking at my apartment of 6 rooms and noticing that, as far as I can see, there's only a computer in my dining room. "This is suggestive," I might say, "that dining-room like conditions really are the only situations in which computers can exist."
OTOH, staying with that analogy, moving your computer to your bedroom won't cause it to malfunction. But move a human being to any other planet on the solar system (without any technological aids), and his life expectancy will be greatly shortened.
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
A number of people have commented that these types of molecules are only the key ingredients for life as we currently know it. This is fair enough.
However, here's my point of view. In our own solar system, right here in our back yard, there is a very wide variety of different environments: the surface of every planet and moon is, in places subtly, and in places completely, different from each other.
As far as we can see (so far) only Earth has life in our solar system. To me, this is suggestive. If you really believe that life can form in completely different environments, why didn't they form in any of the completely different environments that exist right next door?
Of course, this is not proof; it's perhaps not even corroborating evidence. However, it's enough to make me believe (tentatively) that Earth-like conditions really are the only kind of conditions in which life can form in our universe.
I'm open to the possibility that wildly different life could form elsewhere in the universe, and I know that there must be places in the universe that have environments that are so different as to be incomprehensible, but hey, we have to base our opinions on what we know currently. If we totally throw open the gates of possibility, then we can never come to any conclusion about anything.
--
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Well, if we had a type III civ in our galaxy, we would most probably know by now. Seriously.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Hm, well, in this case, I can't say Occam's Razor (one of my favorites) can be applied. There is no evidence whatsoever either way, which means no valid conclusion can be drawn either way. Drawing any conclusion either way at this point (like you seem to do) is just going to blur your mind if any important evidence pop up for either hypothesis. We'll just have to continue searching (with piggy-back projects preferably...).
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Not to forget to mention we found sugar in space.
Organic molecules seem to be very common in space.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Considering that what they're looking at is already at least 3 billion years old when the light reached us, I'm pretty sure more than just dinosaurs would have happened.
(sigh)
I'm agnostic regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life. And while there are some interesting discoveries that show that the possibility of ET life is not unfounded, we are not yet at the point of saying, "Life is plentiful" with regards to any location except our own planet.
What do we have?
- Indirect evidence of planets. Note, there is not yet any direct observation of planets. Rather, they are inferred from the detecteed motion of stars, which is best explained by the presence of giant planets (e.g. Jupiter and larger). (I'm not trying to suggest that the scientists are wrong; just trying to make clear what we know and have have directly observed).
- Evidence of carbon and water molecules in the further reaches of space.
- Discoveries of extreme-condition life; the microbes that live in extreme environmental conditions.
Well, good, it's generally believed that those are necessary ingredients for life, and we find that life will survive in pretty radical situations. But life this does not guarantee. Just because we find evidence of yeast and flour, it doesn't mean that there is bread nearby.
Something that's been bothering me for a while, as a scientist, is my (possibly incorrect) understanding of the study of biological evolution. The physical sciences require both observations and predictions. Most scientists, I believe, hold that a theory is not truly useful unless it can be falsified. That is, a theory must predict something that can be verified or shown incorrect, e.g. the rate of descent of an object is independent of its mass.
However, when it comes to the formation of life and its development, my impression is that there is a lack of falsifiable predictions. There are not predictions of the sort, given chemicals X & Y we will see life Z emerge; or, given environmental conditions A, life Z will develop into related form Z'. Instead, it is largely a matter of noting, conditions A existed when life Z' lived. Therefore, Z' must have been caused by A.
This is not 'complete' science. So then, perhaps some of the more biologically-minded folk out there can answer my question:
"Regarding the study of life and its genesis and development, are what are the falsifiable predictions?"
IANAB (I am not a biologist), so I may be way off base here, but if so, please point me in the direction of some useful info. I'd appreciate it.
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
But I've seen quite a few comments on this subject and related ones when they are posted, regarding Creationists finally shutting up after life has been found on other planets.
To be honest, I don't know a single Creationist that *doesn't* believe life exists on other planets.
Accountants in space. It all makes sense now.
How quantum gravity affects tax withholding and other actuarial issues...
Wow, the paradoxical world of Christianity...Jesus created the himself and the world he lived in...hmmm...is that really what you guys believe in?
Of course, not all religions have such a closed nature and restricted thought process as Christianity. For example, in the Quran God says He is the Lord of *all* the worlds. Which indicates we are not alone. Also, the Big Bang is described in the Quran and of course the fact the the world is round and the orbits of the planets. Science is just about catching up with what the Muslims have known for 1,400 years.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
Yes, it is a shame that people read the absurd things that they write on sites like infidels.org. They always seem to quote sources that the majority of Muslims agree are unauthentic or they quote some translation which are far from the original meaning. What the Muslims have always been strict on is that the Quran is in Arabic and that you can attempt to translate the meaning of the words but you can't translate the Quran itself. As a result, I can take-up your challenge because I have access to the Quranic Arabic and can clearly see the mistakes that they make on infidel.org. I can only presume that the poeple who wrote the articles on infidel.org a). don't know Arabic and b). haven't read any of the books of the scholars from where we take our explanation of the verses in the Qur'an.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
wow - doesn't posting anonymously sorta detract from your faith in jesus?
fisfhcuerk.
see you in hell, pussy-boy.
If the FORCE and GOD were equivalent, when Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, he would have recovered, gained much evil power, and persecuted Christians ever more.
Now, if you want to make an analogy that using the FORCE is akin to witchcraft, possesion or Wicca, you can make a better analogy.
Yeap, I think the FORCE is evil, and an abomination, especially the way Lucas is portraying it usurping GOD's power to create a Virgin Birth.
Of course, that makes the Jedi akin to Templars, then, a goodlly group of people that were seduced by evil.
Yea, check the time stamps, 2 posts in less than 1 minute!
Am I l333t, or what!
If the FORCE and GOD were equivalent, when Saul was struck down on the road to Damascus, he would have recovered, gained much evil power, and persecuted Christians ever more.
Now, if you want to make an analogy that using the FORCE is akin to witchcraft, possesion or Wicca, you can make a better analogy.
Yeap, I think the FORCE is evil, and an abomination, especially the way Lucas is portraying it usurping GOD's power to create a Virgin Birth.
Of course, that makes the Jedi akin to Templars, then, a goodlly group of people that were seduced by evil.
Now we only have to wait 1 billion years for planets to form. I'm not too sure that the human race is that patient.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
It's pretty common here on earth too.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
So that explains why my Seamonkeys would never come to life.
/*drunk.. fix later*/
You're forgetting one of the three great virtues of a programmer is hubris. Well, according to Larry Wall anyway.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
And I hope it's totally different from any thing we've ever seen. That way, the Creationists will finally shut the hell up.
When talking about intelligent life, we are fully lost in the haze of subjectivity. What is intelligence ? What is life ? And what is the combination of the two ? Intelligence is relative and this is why some people say that we are an intelligent species. Because we have acquired the capacity to learn how to survive in most environments on earth. Because we seem to be masters of our destiny. Because we have the power of Linux whereas my cat is still using Windows 95. Because we have landed on the moon. This is a blatant superiority of human being over animals. On earth. However, my friend Ford Prefect from another galaxy told me that human beings are totally braindead: on his planet, instead of going to school, they download all their knowledge to their conscience, they are eternal, they travel between dimensions, go back and forth in time and spend most of their time upgrading Beos, they don't reproduce, they are.
...
... conditions (and time) could in some circumstances bring to the kind of life we understand. Therefore if we discover some of these elements in some other distant place, there are more conditions for life to emerge than in vacuum. As far as we are aware. Of course, it is not enough, it does not prove anything. But if we have not made stupid assumptions like that in the past, we would probably be dying of the plague on a flat world fearing that the sky falls on our heads no ?
In terms of life, why is there a limit between a virus and a bacteria ? Intelligent life is definitely a human concept. There seems to be a constant though in the universe: it's that its disorder is increasing every day and at the same time, we observe that matter takes more and more complex shapes. If the strings theory is true, at the beginning there were strings which turned into elementary particles, which associated thanks to the strong interaction force, which turned into more complex particles like atoms with their properties which associated into molecules with again very different properties according to their composition, properties like NDA. Eventually some of these particles associated to turn into what we call living organisms. These organisms evoluted into more complex organisms and there we are, in front of our TVs, watching the match, having a Bud, worshipping god, self-claimed intelligent life.
As an analogy for the computer nerds (I've heard there were quite a few here), we have silicium and electricty, then transistors, then hardware, then assembly, then C, then object oriented languages, then visual languages, then XML applications, then
The universe seems to go in the sense of more abstraction, a process which we call evolution. Note that when you put living beings together, you have micro and macro social behaviours. What is the next level ? Who knows whether some alien species have reached several other levels which we could not even conceive ? Who knows whether water and amino-acids are the only way for matter to restructure itself into a more complex shape ? Who knows whether there are only 4 dimensions, whether the speed of light is the ultimate limit, whether time is only going forwards, whether there is only one time dimension ?
And no please, do not mention god or God or Buddha or Bill Gates or Ronaldo. If such a concept exists, it should be the same for the whole universe no ? What would happen if one day we meet some kind of intelligent conscient blue color who wants to communicate with us ?
Well, I do believe that life sows its seeds chaotically in the whole universe and a few experiments have shown that water, amino-acids and a few temperature, pressure,
And who knows, maybe a few messages were sent by some living species at some point and the whole communications were gobbled by a black hole in the center of our galaxy. That's also a probability.
É que os desafinados também têm um coração
...but yes, this is that company.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
"I've always though it interesting that so much of life on Earth has developed so similar. Take the Mammals group for instance. Mammals tend to have 4 legs (sometimes used as arms), similar diets, similar mating techniques, etc."
I sincerely hope you are some kind of 5 year-old typing prodigy, because the thought of an adult (or even a high-schooler) not understanding why the above is true is truly frightening.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
"I'm just saying the hubris comes from believing in the 10 angstrom slice that was left behind after occums razor cut through the evidence and said, 'geez guys, why would you seriously consider a lonely universe theory in the almost complete absence of any evidence to support it'."
The actual parsing of this sentence is beyond me, but I think I get the gist. Let me explain where I'm coming from here:
It used to be that people thought the sun revolved around the Earth. This was hubristic but not just because they thought they were in the middle. It was hubristic because it elevated the status of Earth despite the fact that it made the theory more complicated (by requiring retro-grade motion for planets, etc).
Now, one could make the argument that a universe with only one life-bearing planet requires more explanation than a universe with multiple such planets, in which case I agree that saying Earth is alone without providing that special explanation is probably hubristic. However given how little we know about general biological (not to mention geological, climatological, etc) principles--we only really have one example--then such special explanations can easily abound.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Me: "Citing "hubris" as a reason to believe in life on other planets is pretty lame. Would it be hubristic to believe there was no life in the rest of the Solar System?"
You: "Yes. That was my position. It would be hubristic to believe that we are alone."
Let me get this straight. If I said to you "I think that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Solar System" you would call me hubristic? What if we visited all the (solar) planets and found no life? What if I said "I think Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Earth-Moon system"? Is it hubristic to think that humans are the only intelligent being on Earth?
"My theory is obvious and the fact that people don't see that is because of their hubris. As you say, the fact should be proven and I agree 100% on that. Somehow that thought in my head was lost in the translation to paper."
Something was lost here, too. If your theory is obvious, why do you think it needs to be proven? Or do you mean "it's obvious but possibly false" (kind of like Aristotle's theories of motion)--in which case, why is hubris the only answer for non-adherents to your cause? Couldn't it be that we see through the "obviousness" to the truth?
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
It could make all the difference. Ideally, they are about 3 billion years distant. That way, if we start NOW in our light-speed ships, it'll give time for these "complex carbon chains" to evolve into dinosaurs and then be killed off by an asteroid. When we arrive, ta-da! strategic oil reserves!
Hey, it's more intelligent than what we're doing NOW....
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Let me start by saying that I believe in life (although maybe not intelligent life) exists on other planets. BUT
Citing "hubris" as a reason to believe in life on other planets is pretty lame. Would it be hubristic to believe there was no life in the rest of the Solar System? If not, why not--it the same as your argument about the universe. How about if I believed ours was the only planet that had produced "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor"? After all with all the "billions and billions" and stars out there with their "obvious" life, surely some other intelligent entity has generated these same tones. To believe otherwise would be hubristic.
Concerns about hubris are really just the inductive principle: things around here are probably average. But note the "probably". Induction is a good way to come up with a new hypothesis, but calling the output "obvious" is a fallacy. Why don't we just go see? At the very least it can show us WHICH planets the life is living on before we go haring off in all directions.
As for intelligent life: intelligence isn't some kind of "ulimate endpoint" of evolution--evolution has no goals. Our ancestors happened to have had selection pressures that resulted in descendents that are intelligent. Elephants happened to have had pressures that result in trunks. Would it be hubristic to think that elephant trunks are unique in the universe? Who knows what conditions will obtain at another location. I sure hope there's intelligent life out there, but I don't think it's "obvious".
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
Sigh. I tire of hearing this, when I don't actually see much of it on slashdot. For instance, you just made this accusation, and rather than getting a bunch of religious nuts chanting "damn right, there is NO other life" you've got people saying "huh? God will do whatever He wants, including creating lots of other life."
These "religious zealots" appear to adapt to scientific discoveries quite well. Look, the bottom line is that almost every religion -- Christian, Jewish, you name it -- only believes that God exists. What God did with the universe, and the details of that universe, are rarely mentioned. In fact, the only religions I've seen that do get into specifics about the universe are Christian Science and some cults. Jewish tradition, for instance, merely has a few paragraphs in religious texts that assert that God created the sun and stars. That provides no details on the mechanics of it -- the planets could be 6 days old or 6 trillion, the whole thing could be built as an evolutionary system or it may be that everything was preprogrammed and God just hit the button last month and boom here we are with pre-made memories and history and so on. Perhaps we were restored from backup just yesterday. But my hope is for evolution and other forms of life all over the place. That would mean God gave us a whole lot of mysteries to unravel over the coming centuries.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
One thought came to mind: I wonder about the possibility of life (defined loosely as collections of molecules that reproduce) is possible in the stellar medium, without having to have a planet as a substrate? Admittedly, there are problems (such as not having sufficient local gravity to pack the interesting molecules together under correct pressure/temperature conditions to react), but if you have a mix of water and organic molecules, it does beg the question.
Any thoughts?
Insert obligatory Andromeda Strain reference here.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
yeah, yeah, but can you make a Beowulf cluster out of their computers? ;-)
I love how evolutionists try and downplay people with a belief in God as unreasonable. The truth is that evolution is itself a belief system. I say it is a belief system because evolution is still an unproven theory and yet it is held up as fact.
I wasn't talking about the article when I said creationists are called "unreasonable." I was refering to other comments in this thread. As far as creationism and evolution working together goes, that in my opinion isn't possible. The problem with evolution is that it requires death. If I interpret Genesis right, there was no death before adam and eve sinned.
-----
On to my point... why do people just assume that other life would be anything even remotely close to what we are? By attempting to group "lifeforms" into pre-set "civilizations", it shows that the author is already applying our standards to others. What if an alien civilization is remotely removed from anything we could ever comprehend, that we'll never even see it, because we don't know to look for it? Who says whether or not they are "advanced"... because that is again applying our standards. I'm probably being really vague, so I apologize. But reading this seemed to flip a switch - especially after reading some of the other comments that completely help to refute this Kardashev guy.
Oh, well. There you have it, not quite my 2 cents, but it is at least the lint from my pocket.
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
Bill Waterson said it best...
The only evidence that there is intelligent life else where in the universe is the fact they have never come here.
______
jeff13
It's nice to hear that there is extraintelligent life, but I think the question every /. reader wants answered is:
Do they run Linux?
If we find that the space aliens run Windows NT, it's bad news - although they'll be very pretty to look at when they're coming towards Earth, they'll crash just as they get to the surface.
Also, what's the uptime on their spaceship? Did they notice any improvement in stability after recompiling the kernel?
--
Hi!
Ironic that your pronouncement contains nothing to back it up.
I point to my appendix, the duckbilled platypus, my inability to breathe underwater, professional wrestling, trash DNA in the genome, fossil evidence, and the human retina as counters to your argument for intelligent design. There is enough evidence of completely random and dumb shit going on that intelligent design seems unlikely. We have all kinds of strange and useless stuff which appears as a result of the weird and wooly path our ancestors took to get us here.
Now I do agree that there is plenty of stuff on Earth that remains unexplored, but I do not believe that it is the only place to look for answers.
-- "Sucks to your ass-mar"
I'll grant you that. Perhaps things on earth have been laid out in such a subtle manner that we may never be able to tell that it was intelligently designed. Or are you arguing that we'll be able to tell sometime soon?
But if we can't ever tell, then what is the impact on us? For all practical purposes, there is no intelligent design. Yes there may be a great and subtle Designer somewhere, but if we cannot grasp or prove it, then it remains an article of faith, rather than concrete fact.
So if you ask me, based on what I know and what I can show: Is there intelligent design at work? Then I will say, no, it doesn't seem so.
Do you think the human intelligence could decipher the ideas of the Designer?
-- "Sucks to your ass-mar"
Our final conclusion: something might have been out there, but it isn't right now.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
No, missed the point entirely. All I was saying is that there might in fact be some type something out there that exists on/is composed of "foobarium" (which, incidentally, might not even be analogous to any element known to humankind). This something likely considers itself alive, and may wonder how the hell we can exist on "carbon." Know what I'm saying?
Ceci n'est pas un sig
I think the point that we're missing here is that carbon and oxygen are the key ingredients for life as we know it. Now, it's way too early and I'm way to sober to wax philisophical, but isn't it arrogant to say that all life depends on carbon? How do we know that some other race/species/whatever out there is looking at Earth saying "hmm, no huge deposits of foobarium there, there must not be any life?"
Ceci n'est pas un sig
I believe this discussion has been had here before, but:,
It is abundantly obvious that the 'design' of the human body, or even some of the 'lesser' creatures is extremely wasteful. So, if we were designed (and that is one mighty gargantuan if, we were designed by an imbecile that had absolutely no idea what the hell they were doing.
Oh, and your attempt at saying that because we don't understand means it must be a higher intelligence is really ridiculous. That is religious posturing, nothing more. I don't understand how the hell anyone could stomach Britney Spears, does that mean she was created by a HIGHER intelligence? Very doubtful. But, go ahead and live with your delusions. That's probably easier than questioning the things around you.
Questions are hard, I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.
------------
Why would you want to go out and find other civilizations and get SOME satisfaction from doing it when you can get (and probably are getting) INSTANT COMPLETE statisfaction and TOTAL pleasure without doing anything?
As to AI, once it's smarter than the original lifeforms, the original lifeforms make little difference. Unless AI has some sort of an 'objective function' making it go to other planets and pester other civilizations, WHY would it?
Wroot
P.S. Mood-altering drugs are not quite there yet, AFAIK.
whata karma whore!
oh yeah? Have you checked /dev/btc yet?
-- Cure for Cancer instead of SETI! (only w32 yet - mail and beg)
Do these Creationists really exist?
How common are they?
What kind of people are creationists - any academic people? even scientists?
Is it true that the Creationist stuff is taught at school, as an alternative to Darwin - not just as a joke from the teacher, like
"well, then there's another theory also - that God created earth 5687.33453 years ago. Don't write that on the exam. That's all for this course. Good bye and good luck on the exam!!!"??
-- Cure for Cancer instead of SETI! (only w32 yet - mail and beg)
Complex carbon molecules have been found for ages in space. I recall some 10-20 years ago when they found glycine (an amino acid) and trumpeted that as an advance. Now more recently they've found signs of benzene in space, so I guess it's time for the ol' hip hip hurrah again.
Water is a common element in space. No news there.
In the 1960's, a well respected russian astronomer known as N Kardashev came up with the Kardashev system of determining alien civilisations.
The scary thing is that a Dyson Sphere would look almost exactly like a red dwarve star. It could well be that many phenomena we see in space and interpret as natural phenomena are in fact megascale engineering projects of distant civilisations.
Another possibility is that these distant civilisations use Matrioshka Brains, big computers in the form of Dyson Spheres, surrounding a star. Everybody would be uploaded into this environment, and would become as gods.
Problem is, we are pumping out radiation all the time, from our television transmitters and our mobile phones and so on. It is like the cheeping of a new born bird, we are alone and naked and letting everyone know where we are. There is no reason to suppose that such civilisations would be friendly. I think we should take enormous and difficult steps to quiet down out interstellar emissions. It is time to start playing interstellar politics.
More info can be found here, a very interesting page on this subject by an esteemed author.
--
Clarity does not require the absence of impurities,
/* And you'll never guess what the dog had */
/* in its mouth... */
--Larry Wall in stab.c from perl
Could life perhaps be a most natural part of the universe? Or, is it only the possibility that is everywhere, but the right conditions are rarely met?
I for one hope that life is very much common in the universe, and that we one day can establish contact with another civillization. It would indeed be the greatest and most important discovery in the history of mankind.
Will work for bandwidth
check the link in her post before you mod her up
Trust god and don't fuck your camel!
In the form of red dwarves. In the 1960's, a well respected russian astronomer known as N Kardashev came up with the Kardashev system of determining alien civilisations. Kardashev Type I Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a planet. Kardashev Type II Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of a star. ie, a Dyson sphere. Kardashev Type III Civilisation. One which has utilised all the resources of an entire galaxy. Probably the rarest and most powerful. The scary thing is that a Dyson Sphere would look almost exactly like a red dwarve star. It could well be that many phenomena we see in space and interpret as natural phenomena are in fact megascale engineering projects of distant civilisations. Another possibility is that these distant civilisations use Matrioshka Brains, big computers in the form of Dyson Spheres, surrounding a star. Everybody would be uploaded into this environment, and would become as gods. Problem is, we are pumping out radiation all the time, from our television transmitters and our mobile phones and so on. It is like the cheeping of a new born bird, we are alone and naked and letting everyone know where we are. There is no reason to suppose that such civilisations would be friendly. I think we should take enormous and difficult steps to quiet down out interstellar emissions. It is time to start playing interstellar politics. More info can be found here, a very interesting page on this subject by an esteemed author. -- Trust in God, but tie your camel -- Old Persian proverb.
Trust god and don't fuck your camel!