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NASA Says Mars Once "Drenched With Water"
NASA is currently holding a press conference (carried live on NASA TV) where they are discussing findings from the Mars rovers. They are saying that the crater that the second rover has landed in has convincing evidence that it was once drenched or covered in liquid water. They cite the tiny spherules, odd holes in the rocks, sulfur in the spectrometric analyses, and evidence of an iron sulfate hydrate (a hydrate is a chemical compound which includes water molecules in the crystal lattice). Update: 03/02 19:45 GMT by M : CNN has a story, or see the NASA press release.
If these rocks are sedimentary, then, as Squyres said, that has to be our main target for a sample return mission. Because sedimentary rocks are going to have fossils.
... for CowboyNeil saving money on his auto insurance...
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That there once has been water on Mars, considering that a lot of comets contains water.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I love how this story was posted during the opening remarks of the press conference before they could go into much detail.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Some creative company wants to find, and market this 'untouched natural' water?
The Mothership
So Mars haven't taken a bath or shower in ages. No wonder they're finding crusty salt brine residue.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"... the lense on the camera got really fogged up. That's when we really got suspicious."
Its not too late to watch: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/landing.cfm
I'm a big retard who forgot to log out of Slashdot on Mike's computer! LOOK AT ME.
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but where does the water go? Vapour in the atmosphere? Did the hydrogen and oxygen break apart somehow? Chemical reactions with something else? Did it just float off into space? Those all seem unlikely to me, but then, what do I know?
can be found here
-caf
I thought it was common knowledge that Mars had ice caps at either pole. Isn't ice made of water? And isn't it natural to assume that that ice must have been liquid water at one point in Mars' history?
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And then there are fossils. Which means the next NASA mission will be funded by Halliburton after all.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
He said that there was once water, and that the rocks were layed down in the water.
nt
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
Non-christian religions.
For example, as a Taoist, I fail to see how this would in any way effect my religious beliefs.
However, if I believed in a creator-god and in the uniqueness and specialness of human life in the universe, then yea, that would cause some issues. Thankfully, not all religions are like that.
You're gonna slashdot NASA TV now, dammit! I fully expect my satellite feed to start stuttering and flashing to black in a few minutes...
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Hmm... So its somewhat safe to take off my tinfoil hat and comeout of my bunker? Or should I put on my life jacket now? Or maybe I should just get back to work cause this water isn't there, and was on mars.....
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
Religion is all about taking advantage of the parts of our brains that are hard-wired to rationalize anything that might lend meaning to our lives.
If I already believe that daily events on planet Earth are influenced by a 2,000-year-old dead guy, it'll take more than a few microscopic bacteria on Mars to make me reconsider my stance.
To equip 2 Rovers with the best water detecting equipment known to man and how do you find water?
You get mud stuck to the tyres!
But in all seriosness, Good on NASA.
But it certainly makes a more life seeking mission like beagle 2 all the more important.
The next find I expect is simple life living on Mars.
Water != life
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I don't recall the Bible saying that there was no life anywhere but Earth. I've always believed it was possible that simple life could exist elsewhere. Intelligent life would throw religion a curve, though... I haven't thought as much about that.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Well here goes my karma...
...because no religion is dependent upon the earth being the only planet with life on it?
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I have discovered a truly marvelous
It will be interesting to see how the media handles this. By scope, this is probably the biggest scientific discovery in a lifetime!
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
And honestly, fundamentalist Christians have been busily rejecting the heaps and reams of evidence available to refute their beliefs here on Earth. Why do you think they'd change their minds just because evidence exists on Mars?
As far as Christianity is concerned, where in the Bible does it say life only exists / was created on earth?
I see a pattern in your post. Every time religion is shown to be wrong, they internalize the error and come up with a new story that fits the truth that their flocks believe. In answer to your question, 'How can any religion survive that revelation?' Just as long as their are sheep out there who dont want to think for themselves.
Well, I think you were forgetting about the whole alien overtone. Also, the water isn't there anymore. They are still looking for the big alien device to bring it all back.
Also, I'm voting for Arnold when he runs for King of Mars. I'd like him to fix the drought.
...don't question it!!!
It's not hard, you just have to think of god as the creator of many children and not just us.
on the news conf (NASA TV) and the story posted on their site, they say " the clues are only tantalizing, not conclusive, about whether the environment was watery when the rocks originally formed." grrr. thats all they had to say ??? i was expecting at least a "conclusive" statement from this special/hyped news conf.
Well, the news may not have been announced by feb 29, but the evidence may have been found by feb 29.
Liberty.
Even though I am an atheist, I must disagree with what you say. The revelation only refutes a portion of the Judeo-Christian(-Muslim?) tradition of the creationism story (which could easily and eventually be modified and bent to the new evidence). But in terms of philosphies, especially in regards to how we treat one another and our surroundings, abundant life in the universe is a non-issue. Other religions like Buddhism aren't touched by the news either.
My $0.02...
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Well, it's been shown that religion is quite impervious to logic, but even if it weren't, your logic is broken.
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
This would be great news for the space program, as Bush would make the invasion and conquest of Mars a national priority.
Finding God in a Dog
Religion and extra-terrestrial life are not mutually exclusive. There is nothing fundamental about most religions that says that only earth can harbor life. I know plenty of people that are quite religious that believe it is likely that there is life elsewhere in the universe.
and at the end of the conference, they'll pretend that it's over and say:
and one more thing... we found life on Mars!
Interesting...That means we could possibly come back with a another rover that not only could look for life, but could possibly "repair/rejuvinate" the current rover by 'sweeping" the dust off of the solar panels? I would imagine just leaving the rover would be interesting to engineers and scientists to see what happens to a man made object that sits out in the open for extended periods of time....good information if you want to build stuff on Mars.
Anybody out there like to comment? Is it a possibility? Could we come back with another rover and get Opportunity working again after it runs out of juice?
Also, Methionine is an essential amino acid that is not synthesized by the body and must be obtained from food. It is one of the "sulphur-containing" amino acids and is important in many body functions.
It is likely that sulphur, coupled with the different ferrous hydrides can produce viable conditions for life.
This is a troll if I ever saw one but I'll bite.
The idea that God created the universe with countless planets, stars and habitable worlds is not in conflict with at least Catholicism. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of other religions who would have no problem with such an idea but I'm no religious scholar.
If I recall correctly, nowhere in the Bible does it say that Earth is the only world in the universe or even the only one with life, intelligent or not. It's kind of an open question.
Please give me a verse if I'm wrong.
Blaze a trail to the New World
If I already believe that daily events on planet Earth are influenced by a 2,000-year-old dead guy
That "2000-year-old dead guy" DOES have a major influence on daily events, and you would be a fool to say otherwise. Whether that influence is supernatural or not is another story.
All finding simple life on mars would prove is that it's scientifically possible for life to develop independantly within the parameters and rules that this universe operates in, and does not require what might be seen as miraculous occurences. This only renders God irrellevent if you believe that God didn't actually create _everything_ that exists in the first place. Ironic, isn't it?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You seem to have a firm grasp of the beliefs of all religions known to man. Are you certain that all "man-made" religions believe that there is no water on other celestial bodies, or for that matter, life? I'm quite certain thatb many Christians believe without a doubt that there is intelligent life on other planets and won't be surprised at all to hear this news.
The conference is going on now and theres new news: Not only was there a large amount of water, there's good evidence that it was salty.
I found the live video from NASA here:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
They are talking about it right now it is real interesting.
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I know I'm going to get modded down as a troll, but why would you think this? Firstly, I don't think any mainstream religion DEPENDS on any of your ideas.
Looked at it another way:
The sun became the center of the universe. -Religion survived
We found out we were one star in a galaxy that was the centre of the universe.. -Religion survived
Then we found there were countless billions of stars. -Religion survived
Now we find another local planet with ancient water on it.. -Religion will survive
The next find I expect is simple life living on Mars. -Religion will survive
-Styopa
Someone must have been thirsty!
No link in the article. Here is the press release: NASA Press Release
Actually that is not entirely true...
St. Augustine, back in the day, posited that if there are other planets with life on them, Jesus would have had to visit them all in order to "save" them.
If Jesus did in fact do this, it would remove the uniqueness of Jesus. Since the bible states that Jesus' is unique, this could not have happened.
Thus he surmised that there is no life on other planets.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Why would most religions care?
Christians (at least _informed_ Christians, yes there are some) in particular, would not be disturbed to find that God had created life in more than one place. Why shouldn't He? It's not like the Bible says somewhere in it "Oh, and by the way... this planet is the only one with life on it."
C.S. Lewis discussed the subject fairly completely in an essay decades ago. In case you don't know, he was a famous and very influential Christian author, as well as writing some science fiction and fantasy. Besides writing a non-fiction essay about it, you could view his "Space Trilogy" fiction as an examination of the life-on-other-planets issue with a Christian background.
The more interesting question (also discussed by C.S. Lewis and many others) is how different religions would react to the discovery of _intelligent_ life somewhere else in the universe.
Microbes on Mars... scientifically, that's amazing. From a religious point of view... well, it's "just" another example of a Creator God at work.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Why would finding life on Mars take away faith in a divine being? Surely a god could have created life there too...
Of course, I understand your criticism, which is, I think, directed mostly at dogmatic adherence to ancient traditions without questioning them. However, religion will survive, I am sure. Religion and science are not mutually exclusive. Science is concerned with one aspect of our reality - the quantifiable, and predictable. Religion is concerned with all those things that you cannot quantify - love, anger, thought, the experience of death, wonder, awe, consciousness. They are both parts of our reality, and neither can be used to explain everything.
Actually, an ellipsis usually has three periods. An ellipse is usually a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone.
-no broken link
If he has an effect on our lives, then he is not dead, so how could his death have any effect on my salvation since he is not dead to begin with???
Genesis would be a good place to start. Only Earth is ever mentioned as the place where god created life.
Genesis does say that god created the heavens and the earth but nowhere does it say that god created life anywhere but Earth.
Of course the excuse, the same that is used to explain the story of Noah, is that god created life elsewhere but it just wasn't written down.
For reference
Water is water. Water on another planet is water on another planet!
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mars_2003_05. html
Bush Lies On the Record.
When can we harvest seafood from Mars?
Why do you seem so eager to see religion eliminated?
Is it by any chance because they are always so "in your face" with their bible thumping and telling you that you're going to hell and all that?
Because if so, aren't you doing exactly the same thing as what you hate about them? Being intolerant of other people's values?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So can I marry a Martian microbe? The bible doesn't specifically prohibit that does it? Where does our president stand on this issue?
Pass the hat please.
.
My religion can, but it depends on entirely different myths.
Finding God in a Dog
How can any religion survive that revelation?
Some can quite well actually. But I'll get to that in a second.
First off, we need to make the distinction between "theology" and "belief." A particular theology may not survive this sort of revealation, but in most cases that just means it will adapt. Most major religions of today have gone through huge adjustments and adaptions. This will just simply be another one.
Secondly, beliefs die hard. The fact that one's religious belief is based on faith and not evidence means that in most case no amount of evidence is going to shake a strong belief, especially if one is determined to hold it no matter what. So if this is the "end" of someone's faith, well, such an individual was bound to drop that faith at some point anyway.
Finally, there are many religions in the world in which this sort of discovery will not contridict their core theology and beliefs at all. In fact, to some, it may validate it. So don't be so quick to announce the end of religion. It has survived much and will continue to do so.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Guess that answers that question doesn't it?
Hah. I kill me!
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They mentioned that they are going to go check the nearby rock outcropping named "Big Bend" and do basically the same that they did on this rock, in order to see if these rocks were laid down there. I think they're checking exactly that, i.e. whether or not this whole area is laid down with rocks of the same origin (soaked in water), or if they were thrown here by a collision or something.
They said that they weren't sure if the rocks were sedimentary or not. From the sounds of it they aren't, but they did happen to be "soaked in water" or whatever the quote was, allowing the concretions to form in spaces in already existing rock. They haven't found any evidence of layering yet, as far as I know, which would mean sedimentary.
Scientists have concluded the part of Mars that NASA's Opportunity rover is exploring was soaking wet in the past.
Evidence the rover found in a rock outcrop led scientists to the conclusion. Clues from the rocks' composition, such as the presence of sulfates, and the rocks' physical appearance, such as niches where crystals grew, helped make the case for a watery history.
"Liquid water once flowed through these rocks. It changed their texture, and it changed their chemistry," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "We've been able to read the tell-tale clues the water left behind, giving us confidence in that conclusion."
Dr. James Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, said, "NASA launched the Mars Exploration Rover mission specifically to check whether at least one part of Mars ever had a persistently wet environment that could possibly have been hospitable to life. Today we have strong evidence for an exciting answer: Yes."
Opportunity has more work ahead. It will try to determine whether, besides being exposed to water after they formed, the rocks may have originally been laid down by minerals precipitating out of solution at the bottom of a salty lake or sea.
The first views Opportunity sent of its landing site in Mars' Meridiani Planum region five weeks ago delighted researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., because of the good fortune to have the spacecraft arrive next to an exposed slice of bedrock on the inner slope of a small crater.
The robotic field geologist has spent most of the past three weeks surveying the whole outcrop, and then turning back for close-up inspection of selected portions. The rover found a very high concentration of sulfur in the outcrop with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies chemical elements in a sample.
"The chemical form of this sulfur appears to be in magnesium, iron or other sulfate salts," said Dr. Benton Clark of Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. "Elements that can form chloride or even bromide salts have also been detected."
At the same location, the rover's Mossbauer spectrometer, which identifies iron-bearing minerals, detected a hydrated iron sulfate mineral called jarosite. Germany provided both the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and the Mossbauer spectrometer. Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer has also provided evidence for sulfates.
On Earth, rocks with as much salt as this Mars rock either have formed in water or, after formation, have been highly altered by long exposures to water. Jarosite may point to the rock's wet history having been in an acidic lake or an acidic hot springs environment.
The water evidence from the rocks' physical appearance comes in at least three categories, said Dr. John Grotzinger, sedimentary geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge: indentations called "vugs," spherules and crossbedding.
Pictures from the rover's panoramic camera and microscopic imager reveal the target rock, dubbed "El Capitan," is thoroughly pocked with indentations about a centimeter (0.4 inch) long and one-fourth or less that wide, with apparently random orientations. This distinctive texture is familiar to geologists as the sites where crystals of salt minerals form within rocks that sit in briny water. When the crystals later disappear, either by erosion or by dissolving in less-salty water, the voids left behind are called vugs, and in this case they conform to the geometry of possible former evaporite minerals.
Round particles the size of BBs are embedded in the outcrop. From shape alone, these spherules might be formed from volcanic eruptions, from lofting of molten droplets by a meteor impact, or from accumulation of minerals coming out of solution inside a porous, water-soaked rock. Opportunity's observations that the sp
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly .html
Following that link will register your vote for "water on mars" - you won't get to see what the poll is first.
Follow this link instead if you want to see your options before voting.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
There is no place in the Bible that claims that Earth is the only source of life in the universe. In addition, by "religion", you are most likely referring only to the three major monotheistic ones: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Plenty of Christians believed that the earth was not the center of the universe even back when this was the prevailing worldview. The Bible itself does not stipulate that Earth is the center of the universe. Aristotle believed that Earth was the center of the universe (plenty of his contemporaries disagreed), and his works became "canonized" as the only view during the Middle Ages, along with other great thinkers of the ancient world such as Ptolemy, who used an overly complex method to explain the orbits of heavenly bodies, and Galen, who was the first doctor in the West to link the nervous system to the brain, but based all his findings on pig anatomy (couldn't dissect humans back then).
Having a religion does not exclude common sense. In persisting in this belief, many atheists (or at least ./ atheists) are often more intolerant and ignorant than followers of organized religion.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
Funny, but nowhere near as cool as when Taco Bell planted the Mir target in the south pacific.
I call shotgun on the first manned trip to that big red thing in the night sky.
Yes there is also water vapour (gas), frozen water (solid). Whoa!
Do you honestly expect every single thing God created to be written down?
And Sirius begat M-551, and M-551 begat Polaris, and....
Someone's going to say "Life elsewhere would be pretty important."
Sure, to you. Probably not so interesting to most people living 4000+ years ago, who would have been quite shocked to discover that there was more than one continent, or that the world was round.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Before they even got to the good bits about the Ewoks...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I am sure you can, just bring it to San Fran first.
Oooh... so maybe humans were originally on Mars... and they screwed up their planet with pollution, overuse of resources, etc., but managed to transport a few people to Earth to start over...
And maybe we'll look to terraform Mars and move there once we've hosed this planet too. The cycle continues...
Heh... yeah. Anyway, back to work now.
You say that like it's apparently obvious, but water (H2O, dihydrogen monoxide) can exist in three distinct phases:
* solid (<= 0 deg. C)
* liquid (0 deg. C - 99 deg. C)
* vapor (>= 100 deg. C)
(at one Earth atmosphere)
Liquid water means that Mars' temperature was ripe for simple & complex organisms possibly. That is, provided the air-pressue was somewhat similar to Earth's.
Obviously NASA knew this earlier, and held back their findings in deference to the all-powerful fast-food seafood lobby!!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It sure sounds as if NASA didn't really want to find water so soon, coz' they are now busy explaining why there needs to be a lot of follow up research to find even more water on Mars.
They must actually fear that instead of this being scientific good news, it will be bad news for funding.
Maybe they can better go the way ESA went and start searching life directly...
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Maybe they are not familiar with the mechanisms on Mars, and are just making the educated guess with will help in future funding.
Get a free ipod.
I'm betting people weren't too enthusiastic about copying your answers back in basic earth science, were they?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Is it completely beyond the realm of possibility that there are still basic life forms (other than microbes) living on/in Mars?
After all, they say cockroaches will survive a nuclear holocaust...
Just food for thought.
Archeabacteria are closely related to the oldest life on earth. Many are thermophilic, acid tolerant, anaerobic, sulphur-loving microbes. Just the sort that would be happy in the acidic hot springs hypothesized on ancient Mars. And they go dormant when the conditions are not just right so the ride to Earth on some rock fragments splashed out by a meteor impact would have been in suspended animation. People who can't grasp the Out of Africa concept are really gonna have trouble with Out of Mars.
Excellent point. I think my fundamentalist brethren tend to forget that when God came to Moses, he wasn't dealing with a Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking -- or even a Galileo. He was dealing with a guy whose claim to fame was running away from a life of luxury to tend sheep. At the best, Moses' idea of the universe might have dealt with Egyptian gods, and a universe whose origin was a direct result of some rather kinky onanism.
God came to Moses in a way Moses could understand, in a way that his fellow shepherds and stonemasons could understand.
Imagine Moses up on the mountain, getting the first four books of what we now call the Old Testament from the Almighty:A bit cheeky, but the point is: God comes to us in a way we can understand. That's different for an illiterate goat breeder in 2000 BC than it is for a nuclear physicist in 2000 AD. Whether you choose to believe doesn't have as much to do with how God appears as it does with your own faith.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
How. Tell me where the Bible, says that God did not make other life. It does say that God is infinite. In fact a Christian can easily accept life on another plant because, if God is infinite, that would lead to Him being infinitely creative. So why would he stop with life on earth.
Also as to the central reason for Christianity is that sin affects humans (read man on earth) how does that affect there being life on other earths.
C.S Lewis also had a sci-fi book about life on other plants.
Even fundamentalist Christians don't claim that the Bible is a complete account of the creation of the Universe, only that what it does say is literally true. The creation of Mars, with its water, and (perhaps) lifeforms would be just like the creation of the Australia, with its water, and its lifeforms: something that simply didn't get mentioned by name in either of the creation accounts in Genesis. Big deal.
Where Christian theology stands a good chance of buckling will be when/if we discover intelligent life elsewhere, i.e. "people" who (arguably) have souls. That would raise much larger questions about Adam and Eve's Original Sin and its supposed corruption of Creation (especially if they've demonstrably been around longer than humans have), and the scope of Jesus's crucifiction in saving souls (including theirs?) from damnation.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Maybe I'm just an idiot...
You left yourself wide open on that one...
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Wasn't Dune (Arrakis), and the Sahara desert, once drenched with water? In Dune, the Worms were the cause of its climatic change while I forgot what happened to the Sahara (was it new mountain ranges forming in the north). I think that a lot of places on earth changed from forests to deserts because the mountain ranges blocked the flow of rainclouds inland. I doubt that Mars was dried because of mountain ranges so I have no idea what I am talking about here :p
Haven't we known Mars had water for quite some time? Even a few weeks ago the Europeans confirmed this, and I remember reading years ago that evidence for water was found. Or is it just that this particular spot had water that is significant?
Want some cheese with that whine?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
It's burried in huge subterranean (submartian?) cavens. These are all interconnected. Then there's this huge nuclear reactor, which if turned on, will terraform the surface in less time than it would take the governor of California to suffocate in the present Martian atmosphere.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Guess what? It happened again. :)
Crap. Fine print says...
If only they could have booked the conference room for the press conference 2 days ago instead of using it to hold Jerry's retirement party.'cause I *really* wanted to have that free jumbo shrimp.
dammit.
I thought the same thing, but it has run beautifully so far... knock on my monitor!
So, Mars was really wet at one time?
Now there is a lot of evedence that there was a large flood on earth and some sciencts don't want to look at it.
So now we look at Mars and say it could have had lots of water. &nsbp This seams a little intersting.
The downside being, if there was any chance of saving hubble before, it's gone now. I heard the story on NPR a few days ago... something like $200 million in parts are built and ready to go, just waiting on a shuttle mission that would extend hubble's lifespan beyond 2006. "safety concerns" were cited as the cause, but reduced budgeting due to mars' popularity is a far more likely reason. (listen to the audio stream of the program)
*sigh* The bell tolls for yet another victim of society's apathy.
um, there are many people who have effects on the lives of many people, yet they are dead. For example, Edison's lightbulb has an effect on billions of people today, and he's been dead for a very long time.
If you can read this then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously"
You don't need fossils to have sedmentary rocks. Shale is sedimentary and doesn't need to contain any fossils to exist. They would be the most interesting rocks to return though since they would most likely contain a layered time history of the planet.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Considering the difficulty evolution has in explaining the origins of life, finding life on Mars would not boost evolution as much you'd like to think.
Even Dawkins admits that selection can't work until the right proteins are in place and can replicate. In his book the Blind Watchmaker, he basically admits that abiognesis is required involving some VERY unlikely chemical combinations, before evolution can get started and then, in my opinion, offers a huge copout by basically saying: Well, with so many planets in the universe, the odds of it happening at least once may not be so improbable.
The odds of it happening twice in the same solar system strain credibility.
I suspect the explanation will be that life on Earth actually started on Mars.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Add some mass to the planet for added gravtiy, massive heat increase to melt the ice caps and creat liquid water...
Make it pay per view to keep it profitable!
We can call it a Weapon of Mass Creation!
WE CAN'T LOSE!
Bah...*yawn*
St. Augustine, back in the day, posited that if there are other planets with life on them, Jesus would have had to visit them all in order to "save" them. If Jesus did in fact do this, it would remove the uniqueness of Jesus. Since the bible states that Jesus' is unique, this could not have happened. Thus he surmised that there is no life on other planets.
Well, you could say the same thing for different continents. Jesus didn't have to visit all the continents to save everybody. The word of God was carried there at a later date by evangelists. Sam thing could be said for other planets with life.
Perhaps Jesus was on all these places, and then I'm sure that angels will come down and reveal themselves and the truth just as they did with the Mormons and Jesus' history in the new world.
Frankly I'm disappointed. Until now they roam around and claim that the findings are not wholly conclusive:
"The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer. So scientists plan to maneuver Opportunity closer to the features for a better look. "We have tantalizing clues, and we're planning to evaluate this possibility in the near future," Grotzinger said.
Besides hydrated minerals were already hinted by Spirit. One of the very first press releases pointed to that fact. Besides this is not the only weird thing between Opportunity and Spirit outputs. If one compares the first wave from results from Spirit with Opportunity's then it seems that the second robot is clearly giving very thiny results. Until now I could not see broadscale spectral and infrared analysis like the ones Spirit did. Maybe I'm missing something but frankly it seems that data feed from Meridiani goes a long way from it could.
PS: To those who are discussing theologies... Frankly don't get you people. Try to find a super SF author by the name of Nicolau Cusanus and his bestseller "De docta ignorantia". He already discussed a lot of what you keep rumbling till now...
Water != life
On Earth, it just about is: if you find water, you find life. If there's no water, there's no life.
Maybe they should go back and take another look at the Viking biological results.
Plant?? There's plants on Mars?!
...and your Sea Monkeys (tm) will come to life!
You've obviously never heard of the Raelians, have you?
Well, if you believe the ads run by cable companies then the mere mention of water should cause your signal to go out.
Are they(NASA) suggesting that oceans worth of water exists now only as hydrates and the like? I hate to be the critic, but "the planet soaked it up?" They're going to have to do a little better before I get excited.
The belief that you know a thing is a most perfect way to prevent learning.
If Mars does have water and possibly life, wouldn't that mean that we would have effectively quarantine Mars from human or any other biological contact? If not, we would run the risk of destroying an entire planetary ecosystem no matter how small or primitive it might be.
Life on Mars would prevent terraforming or perhaps any human colonization at all.
I printing off my "Save the Martian Microbes!" bumper stickers right now.
The results they are finding imply water was in a liquid state for a significant amount of time. It was long enough for hydrated minerals to form and salt lake signatures (sulfur and bromine deposits) to form, similar to what forms in dry salt lakes.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I think many relgious people would have a big problem with life on other planets. God created man in his image or so I've been told. So if life on other planets turns out to be unlike man then obviously those lifeforms were not created in God's image, so they must be the spawn of Satan. Next comes a Holy Crusade so destroy all life in the universe except man. Yay fun!
:)
Anyways, I'm agnostic. I hope we find some cool shit on Mars.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
2. The images obtained to date are not adequate for a definitive answer.
It's very possible that there was water. We are, however, extrapolating that from our experiences on Earth, and from a very limited set of data returned by the rovers. I would love for nothing more than evidence of liquid water be found, but this is an alien landscape and may not adhere to the same rules as our own.
I've been watching the newscast,
I cant help but notice that the main elements they are seeing here exist in liquid form at very low temperatures. They are also grouped together closely on the periodic table of elements.
chlorine liquid -100.98 C to -35 C
bromine liquid -7 C to 58 C
rough idea of temperature on mars here -15 C degrees Celsius at the moment.
Its entirely plausible that there is a large quantity of liquid chlorine in meridiani planum. The downside is of course that chlorine is often used to kill off nasty bacteria in swimming pools.
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You don't read much Science Fiction, huh?
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It doesn't really refute the creation story either. If a higher being was/is powerful enough to create Earth, why couldn't he/she/it create anything (or everything) else in the universe? Perhaps we earthlings are far too earth-centric in our thinking.
The more interesting question (also discussed by C.S. Lewis and many others) is how different religions would react to the discovery of _intelligent_ life somewhere else in the universe. Microbes on Mars... scientifically, that's amazing. From a religious point of view... well, it's "just" another example of a Creator God at work.
I don't understand distinction this at all. People that will only open their eyes when intelligent life is discovered and that would gloss over the detection of simple extraterrestrial lifeforms are, quite frankly, morons, and need not be consulted on this issue.
I agree that watching their reactions would be "interesting" in a sociological context, but not in much else.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
God: Well, it took a few billion years to... oh, never mind, let's call it "seven days".
The opening story in Gensis resembles a Pharaonic Drama. It is more poetic than literal. People sometimes need to look beyond the words written on the page...funny how my fellow members of a religion, where the founder was dissatisfied with how the current religious leaders had lost sight of the meaning of the words and instead focused on strict literal adherence to the law, are hell bent on making people accept a little story written a very long time ago in a very different time literally.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
I wonder what the hotels are like at the coast there on mars.
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who dispute science with religion belief..
I have two workds for you..
*Giordano Bruno*
As someone who grew up in a religiously oppressive small town and became a physicist against the wishes of my extended family who wanted me to bow down before the "Lord" and become a weak-willed servant to the "elders" who were nothing but politicians in a religious disguise, I just wanted to bring this quote up from the AC level.
If I were the original poster, I'd left out the "may be necessary to our psychological well being, but can also"-bit, though. It reads even better without that.
Anti-religion? You bet I am. So what?
The owls are not what they seem
Sorry - should be: I don't understand THIS DISTINCTION at all.... stupid preview/submit buttons...
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
They have stated that they found signs of sulfur and bromine compound desposits (amoung other things). The amounts of each correspond to their depth in the ground which is representative of a drying salt lake. As the lake dries different minerals form deposits over time in a layering effect.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
As somsone else already mentioned, monotheistic religions in particular would be affected by this. For example, a friend of mine who is strongly Protestant told me over the phone just a few weeks ago (when the whole Mars mission was big news) that if life was found on Mars (even simple life) she would immediately dump her religion - which to me seemed utterly idiotic. She claims that God would have mentioned that he created other life in the Bible, and not have made it out that we were the sole beings in the universe.
Even though I'm not Christian, I still don't see why you couldn't believe in God... He never mentioned so many things that science (and astronomy in particular) has uncovered, but we still don't use that as a way of disproving his existence (that would be downright silly). Why then would he have had to mention other planets, and possible life on them?
For some people, sure, their religion is in danger, but most religions are more spiritual than that. Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, etc. are all just fine with or without life on other planets.
You have to account for the Martian pressure.
Sure, if there's already life all around it, life will flock to water. But if there's no life on a planet, Water won't necessarily make it appear, just make it more likely.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Let's pretend that future missions to Mars discover that there was once living organisms on the planet.
Other than the knowledge of that fact, what's the payoff? How does humankind here on earth benefit from this discovery?
Personally, I think the vastness of the universe practically guarantees that life exists in some other solar system. So what's the big deal about finding out if life once existed on a neighbor planet in our own solar system?
Mars a different kind of environment, maybe there is life on there that we can't see? We probably brought some bacteria up there with the rover that's currently spreading and infecting mars with earth diseases ... the current life on mars is going to get infected and grow cancer, the Mars diseases are going to spread and will eventually infect the rover .... when the rover comes back to earth The Mars Disease is going to spread the earth and make our planet look like Mars.
-ko
As far as Christianity goes, it only refutes that portion of Christianity that doesn't believe in the Bible. Hebrews 1:1-2:
GOD, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
That would be worlds, PLURAL.
How exactly is intolerance of ignorance a bad thing?
Well, I misjudged how it'd be taken and my karma's took a wack as a result :)
Erm.. that's quite a probing question.. they're not in my face at all.
It's just that I think a belief in science is more logical. If an idea is shown to false in science, it is thrown out and learned from.
With religion, the idea doesn't face the same rigerous test.
Both science and religion quests in are nearly same.. to give us answers to why the world is the way it is..Science seems the more direct approach..
But your point about intolerance is insightful.. I hadn't seen it that way! I suppose if people want to believe something (like i believe in the principle of science) then they should be free to!
Simon
The word water strongly implies the liquid state.
Solid water is ice, not "solid water". Water vapor is similarly never called just "water".
Saying "liquid water" is redundant but in this they probably wanted to spell it out for the morons.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
gotta love em
;)
If we bring back a few samples with the help of a robotic probe, EVEN IF they dont contain any fossils, those samples will still be invaluable to science.
But hey, we can always hope the samples contain Sand Kings...
2) ???
3) Life on Mars
4) Profit!
Marvin's going to be awfully mad when we come there to drill for oil.
Chris Knight is my hero.
That guy uses the word "percolate" too much.
This doesn't "disprove" God. But it DOES affect theology.
Guy Consolmagno ponders in his book "Brother Astronomer" about whether or not Jesus visited other planets and whether or not they had their own versions of the crucifixion or if the one here was "truly" universal.
Does the final war at Armageddon mean the end of Earth or the Universe, or just humanity?
Certainly these are questions specifically for Christians, but each religion is going to have to rethink at least some of its traditions when man goes to the stars.
(Except maybe Scientology... Unless there really AREN'T Thetans...)
Option 3, definately. If logic worked people would be much smarter after so many years of natural selection.
Eat at Joe's.
they had found some Spice.
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The odds of it happening twice in the same solar system strain credibility.
I wouldn't go that far. The odds on the particular reactions occuring at any given time are low, but we're talking about extraordinary time scales: hundreds of millions or billions of years. Even very unlikely things happen several times during a period that long.
The trick with life processes is that once it happens, it tends to replicate, so it "sticks". Once you have life, it's really, really hard to get rid of it entirely. That's one unique feature of life that makes it distinct from non-living processes. (The other is change, the key element of evolution and distinct from, say, growing crystals, but the exact defintion of life isn't the purpose here.)
None of this comprises proof, of course. Working out the exact odds involves way too many assumptions for me (or anybody else) to be specific. But it does not, to me, strain credibility that somewhere in the hundred-million-year history of "wet Mars", the reactions that kick off life to have started.
Nor does it conclusively rule out intelligent creation or many of the other competing theories. But the discovery of some sort of life on Mars would tend to suggest that evolutionary theory has good explanatory power, which is all you can ask of a theory.
You know, the first step in evaluating the contents of a book are to examine the purpose of the book. I'd hardly expect to find an in-depth analysis of physics in a history text.
The purpose of Genesis is to give a brief overview of the events leading up to the creation of the people of Israel. There's a lot of stuff it leaves out because Moses wasn't interested in putting it down; it wasn't necessary to his purpose.
It continually amazes me how critics of fundamentalist Christianity demand a more complete, scientifically accurate and univeral repository of all knowledge in the universe Bible than the fundamentalist Christians themselves do.
It's a classic fallacy. Because A does not mention B and B is true, A is false.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Mod this down if you must, but I agree. Religion is a cancer upon humanity.
stated in this article last year
-caf
Listen buddy, we don't take kindly to your sort of thinking around here. All the peoples of the world should live together in harmony and tolerance, regardless of religion, creed, tv-watching habits, sexual preference or color of their skin. If you don't want to tolerate everyone, we'll have you frickin' crucified.
I don't think it says the earth is flat either, but that didn't stop the chruch from killing people that said otherwise.
I think it's in the same passage when Jesus denounced same-sex marriages:
And lo, union between a man and another man or woman and another woman shall yield a union as lifeless as Mars.
Bob 3:16
There's no evidence for or against in either case... so don't make positive assertions that you can only prove by making the assumption that what you ultimately believe is necessarily the only possibility in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Other images show the rover tracks clearly are being made in "mud", with water being pressed out of that material, Levin said. "That water promptly freezes and you can see reflecting ice. That's clearly ice. It could be nothing else," he said, "and the source is the water that came out of the mud."
Why they are all talking about the water of the past and not about the "mud" which is more exciting news about the "current" water. Also why nobody asking the question regarding this?
Mars has a very weak magnetic field since we speculate that its core has mostly cooled. This means that the planet is poorly protected from harsh solar and cosmic radiation, which is strong enough to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen. These atoms would indeed just float off into space, since the gravatational pull of the planet is not strong enough to retain such light atoms.
That's why I'm not holding out much hope for terraforming Mars. But that doesn't mean we can't still live on it, just in protected chambers on the surface.
Water alone isn't enough to create life. You need that water to exist for millions of years. So, the next task is to try to determine how long that water existed for.
Any belief system can survive any new discovery, especially if it is a healthy belief system. Just as they survived predictions that the earth was no longer round, or that it was not the center of the universe, etc. Just like the discovery that microbes were a common cause of disease. And like the discovery that there are peoples outside of the sphere of western knowledge.
People regardless of situations or beliefs take advantage of any new information. Even in the act of denying new knowledge, they can be building up their stature and position. Often, people of different belief systems were called subvertive.
Some people feel that the greater the number of "wrong" people that oppose them, the more "right" they are. And, vice versa, the greater the number of "right" people that support them, the less "wrong" they are. Even though in the end the chances of anyone being right are pretty slim.
Would give you all references for my argument, but feel I would be classified as a troll. Nothing like trying to argue major factors in belief systems as being contrived, planed, convenient, or divine.
It is all a little like saying "Finally, an end to trolls."
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
Well, sure. It's not like the Catholics claim that Mars doesn't exist. Whether it has/had life is a whole other topic.
Not all religions consider man to be centrally important in the universe (in fact some, like Taoism and some forms of neo-Paganism, stress man's existence as a nondistinct part of the cohesive whole of nature). Furthermore, many practitioners of religions which do assign a special value to humanness or sentience understand that such value is entirely spiritual and not to be confused with any external physical value. Even members of western religions which feature an active creator God (Christianity, Judiasm, Islam, etc.) are often open to the possibility of even intelligent extraterrestrial life, as they see such beings as also being God's children. Theories as to the religious inclinations of such extraterrestrial beings abound (I heard from a Berkeley astronomer working on extrasolar planets that he had recieved a letter from the Vatican asking if he had any inkling as to the hypothetical religious beliefs of hypothetical aliens. He replied that his data was as yet insufficient for a meaningful answer). Even assuming that intelligent extraterrestrials do not possess practices akin to human religion, I'm sure some members of "missionary" faiths (i.e. some sects of Christianity, Islam, and Mahayana Bhuddism) might believe that such beings would need to be exposed to the tenets of their religion and possibly converted. Less aggressive religious persons might find very interesting insights in the philosophical ideas of an alien race, even as people today can learn a great deal from other religions and cultures.
You need to remember that religion and science need not be antagonistic. I, for one, am a scientist and also a man of faith. I do not believe in the literal truth of any religious text, but I do believe that many different faiths around the world contain spiritual truth or "divine inspiration" if you will. I personally was raised in a (mainstream protestant) Christian environment and today choose to worship as a (Quaker) Christian, but I do not, by any means, believe that my religion has a monopoly on the truth.
I also believe that science is another powerful source for truth, and a unique one in that its claims can be tested, measured, and verified (unlike religion). Science has in the past disproven the very literal-minded interpretations of religious conservatives with regard to cosmology and biology, and it will likely continue to do so in the future. Keep in mind, however, that there are those of us who hold religious beliefs and also believe in the veracity of Evolution, the Big Bang theory, and even consider the prospect of extraterrestrial life likely. I recognize that science does not offer proof of my belief in a diety, or in a moral purpose for intelligent life, but I also know that science does not disprove these beliefs. I accept that, going on empirical evidence, Atheism is just as valid and just as likely a belief system as my own, and so I don't seek to disprove it. Saying that science disproves all religion, however, is just as ridiculous as the claims of so-called "creation scientists" who insist that scientific evidence proves that the Universe was created by God some ~6000 years ago, and thus that science disproves Atheism.
In the end, you'd do well to remember the scientific method. In order for a scientific hypothesis to be valid, it has to be falsifiable. A statement like "God created two human beings in Eden 6000 years ago, and the entire human race is decended from those two ancestors" is falsifiable, as we can find older and more varied human remains around the world. A statement like "God exists", however, is not falsifiable, and therefore is not testable by science. You can disprove certain ideas about God's interaction with human affairs, or you can disprove the literal correctness of certain creation accounts, but you can not disprove the existence of God (him|her|it)self. And, even if you could, many people would still choose to believe in God anyway, just as many people choose to believe in a literal creation now. As a scientist, I have
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You didn't even read my comment. Evolutionary theory as it currently stands requires some form of abiogenesis to get started. It would NOT have good explanatory power for the life getting STARTED.
If you do the math on the chances of the right precursor molecules spontaneously forming without selection pressures, the odds are ridiculously low. I'd have to look it up, but it's on the order of 10^26 against, and that's with ridiculously optimistic concentrations of the right chemicals in the soup. In that time frame, a trillion years is nothing, thus Dawkins' comments.
To be fair, Dawkins does try to get around the limitation by assuming that the precursor molecues got a kick start from a non-organic matrix that could undergo selection (clays), but he fails to explain how the molecules would be embedded in the right amounts in the clay (a random process). A critical analysis shows the argument to be basically flawed, and we're back to the abiogenesis requirement again. Even Dawkins' doesn't give the clay idea much more than a "just-so" story treatment.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Not as much as I'd like to, no... :)
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
You have a very serious flaw in your argument. Our planet has dogs, cats, cows, sheep and a whole bunch of other creatures that do not look like man but were in fact created by God.
BTW, I am a Christian and I am fine by the idea of life on other planets. As many other posters have already stated, nowhere in the Bible does it say that life only exists on Earth.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Y'ouch
Sounds like someone needs to re-read that book, carefully this time.
Actually, for Earth-like life, we have a pretty good idea of what precursor chemicals are required for replication to commence. And since we are looking for Earth-like life on Mars (for the simple reason that it is the kind we can easily recognize), the same rules on precursor chemicals applies.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Where does it say the sun revolves around the earth? That didn't stop the Catholic church from holding to that belief for over a thousand years. Religion isn't based on science anyway, it is based on faith and believers shouldn't look to science to confirm their faith. It has to come from the heart, not the head. Believers tried that with Copernicus and they learned their lesson, someday the anti-evolution crowd will do the same.
I guess that is why it is called "faith".
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Let's play a little game. Pretend you are God (pick your denomination, doesn't matter). You are going to reveal your existence to the primitive people living in your world and get some serious worshiping going.
Now since you created everything, you understand how cells, quarks, thermodynamics, astrophysics, and non-Euclidian geometry work.
HOWEVER, do you really think you are going to get into that with people who are struggling with the concept of simple tools? I don't have any particularily strong feelings on the topic either way, but it seems awfully silly when everytime a scientific discovery is made, someone points out that because the $RELIGIOUS_TEXT didn't deal with it, then that religion must be bogus. The arguement really then becomes: "Because the Bible did not explain every single thing about the universe around us, it must be bogus".
Of course the excuse, the same that is used to explain the story of Noah, is that god created life elsewhere but it just wasn't written down.
Oh perhaps it was and was lost, or we just don't know about it. When was it ever said that the Bible was a complete and comprehensive history of those times. To believe that you would have to believe there were only a few hundred people in the world at the time. Or perhaps the Bible (like any religious text, or history for that matter) doesn't tell the personal story of every living human on earth at the time.
Finkployd
Shut the hell up. Quit being stupid. Use your fucking head. Goddamn sheep piss me off.
As far as Christianity is concerned, where in the Bible does it say life only exists / was created on earth?
Nowhere, of course, though that hasn't stopped the church from teaching similar things. In fact, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600CE for heresy, teaching among other things, that the universe was infinite and that other beings might exist on other worlds.
My suggestion: re-read Genesis again, and this time lookup the original words and their meanings. Especially words like "earth", "firmament" and "heavens". Don't forget that these books were not originally written in old english. Also note, that it ALL starts with water. No stretches (or excuses) need to be made, even for the english translations.
In this day and age, you don't need to take 'my' word for it (in fact I wouldn't want you too) - you have an over abundance of sources to reference and cross reference at your disposal.
"... whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" - Jesus (John 4:14)
P.S. If you have time please read the first few chapters of John, and note the similarities with Genesis.
Actually, for Earth-like life, we have a pretty good idea of what precursor chemicals are required for replication to commence.
But there are a wide variety of candidates.
Table-ized A.I.
The information will help us predict situations on Earth and different systems.
OK there was once water on Mars. What caused it to dissapear? What caused Mars to lose it's atmosphere and magnetosphere?
How long did it take?
Can it be reversed?
Could, will and/or is this happening to Earth?
You must answer one question before you can answer others and ask more questions. Our curiosity put us up there to expand our knowledge of our home system. Until we can understand what is here we will not have what is needed to properly understand what is going on farther out.
I can't use my sig - my computer can't read my handwriting.
I find it hard to understand that PI equals 3.
Yeah, you're trolling, but still...
For you, Pi is a value that is easily deduced from observation and from your education.
3000 years ago, observation was difficult and education was rare. And IIRC, the decimal number system would not have been the standard -- more like halves, quarters, and eighths. For those occasions requiring knowlege of the ratio of a diameter to a circumference, "3" is useful. "3 and an eighth" would be more accurate but more difficult, and "3.14" would likely be outside the layman's grasp.
But I respect your honesty about your lack of faith in a higher power. What irritates me are those who profess their faith (often loudly), but find it threatened by something as simple as a random numeric configuration.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Cabbalistic thought argues that G-d created several worlds before creating the one we inhabit. So this could have just been one of those worlds (for that matter, all the other planets just as well)
Actually, bacteria do in fact leave fossil records
I don't know much (actually, anything) regarding purported non-carbon "life," but regular ol' bacteria can leave fossils, believe it or not.
I used all my modpoints this morning, or I would have given you +1, Prophetic.
Oh, wait. . .
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Well, it does specifically say in Genesis 1:1 that god created the "heavens [sky and stars] and the earth" not "heavens and the earths". This is repeated in 2:1 and 2:4. A bible literalist would say that it clearly points to only one world with life (assuming they accept the existence of other planets).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
It's just that I think a belief in science is more logical.
My logic: if I'm wrong, and there is no God, we both disappear. We both lose.
If I'm right, I'm going to heaven, and you're going to hell. You lose and I win.
As long as faith doesn't interfere with your science (and it doesn't have to), you lose nothing by having faith in something. To me, having faith in absolutely nothing (i.e. atheism) seems foolhardy.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Frankly, what you just said makes no sense.
But Pi does equal 3, to one digit of accuracy.
If you're going to put forward a stupid argument for a position, you have to take the stupid counterexamples.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The NASA scientist held up a sample of Jarosite. For the curious, here's a definition. Note -- the page referenced has several very cool links for more information.
THE MINERAL JAROSITE
Chemistry: KFe3(SO4)2(OH)6, Potassium Iron Sulfate Hydroxide.
Class: Sulfates
Group: Alunite
Uses: Only as mineral specimens.
Specimens
Jarosite is not a common mineral. It is closely related to the mineral natrojarosite. Jarosite is isostructural with natrojarosite which means that they have the same crystal structure but different chemistries. In this case, jarosite contains potassium instead of natrojarosite's sodium (natro is derived from the Latin for sodium, natrium, from where sodium gets its symbol, Na). The two minerals are difficult to distinguish without a chemical test.
Both minerals are isostructural with alunite with a formula of KAl3(SO4)2(OH)6, who lends its name to the Alunite Group of which all three minerals belong.
The symmetry of jarosite is the same as the members of the Tourmaline Group. Crystals of jarosite however do not form prismatic crystals like those of the typical tourmaline mineral. Jarosite's crystals are more flattened and resemble nearly cubic rhombohedrons. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS:
Color is an amber yellow or brown.
Luster is vitreous to resinous.
Transparency: Crystals are transparent to translucent.
Crystal System is trigonal; 3 m
Crystal Habits include tabular to flattened rhombohedral looking crystals. The "rhombohedrons" are actually a combination of two trigonal pyramids. Crystals are somewhat scarce and small, more commonly as earthy masses, films or crusts, botryoidal and granular.
Cleavage is good in one direction but only seen in the larger crystals.
Fracture is uneven.
Hardness is 2.5 - 3.5.
Specific Gravity is approximately 2.9 - 3.3 (average to slightly heavy for translucent minerals, but hard to obtain from crusts)
Streak is a pale yellow.
Associated Minerals are barite, turquoise, galena, goethite, limonite, hematite and other iron minerals.
Notable Occurrences include Jaroso ravine, Sierra Almagrera, Spain and Iron Arrow Mine, Colorado; Maricopa Co., Arizona; Idaho and California, USA.
Best Field Indicators are crystal habit, associations, color and hardness.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
then the water and dinosaurs came; but they got too big and fat and turned into oil. Then the arabs came...
My kids are growing up in a conservative Christian household and I am highly encouraging them to choose what they want and what they're good at for a career. I hope that they want to study science, but will support them every step of the way regardless of their decision.
I know that doesn't help you any, but I thought you should know that Christianity and a love of science are not mutually exclusive. Any belief system (or lack thereof) will have a few bonehead adherents, but that doesn't mean that's the norm, or even particularly common.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Personally I wasn't eager to combine our "bouncing with airbags" landing approach with nuclear power -- until I googled a little and found the RHUs (Radioisotope Heater Units) on Sojourner. The Viking missions also used nuclear reactors in some capacity. As of a year ago, there also seemed to be specific plans for a long-term Mars rover with a reactor, to be launched in 2009.
They've worked some on the idea, anyway: Design Concept for a Nuclear Reactor-Powered Mars Rover.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Doesn't refute any part of Islam.
I think where some are misguided here is thinking the Judeo-Christian-Muslim model is that there is this giant universe and God exists in a little part of it.
That is a very wrong interpretation. The model at least as Islam is concerned is God created _all_ that exists, the whole universe, from what is observable to what is not observable i.e. soul, angels, etc.
There's no evidence for or against in either case... so don't make positive assertions that you can only prove by making the assumption that what you ultimately believe is necessarily the only possibility in the first place.
If you are trying to apply scientific criteria, Occam's Razor might reflect poorly on religion. It is the wrong tool for the job. It is demonstrated on a regular basis that humans invent religions complete with elaborate mythology. They have done so for a long time and continue to do so today. The new age movement provides a very nice example of healthy and robust myth-making perhaps very similar sociologically to the rapid spread of mystery cults in the Roman Empire from which Christianity emerged. Even Judeo-Christianity shows a long record of reinventing itself to accomodate changes in secular worldview, and this flexibility has greatly contributed to its staying power. The large diversity of religious beliefs that evolve and have evolved over time would indicate that even if there is a divine agent, it's extremely unlikely that the body of Christian myth at this specific point in time or a Judeo Christian god, Yahweh, at all has any more resemblance to it than any of the countless other belief systems that exist, will exist, and have existed for at least hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of years. Furthermore, history also shows that religion has been a very powerful self-replicating, organization, social tool, which helps to explain in part why it has been so prevalent in human culture. However, this is of course only valid when applying a scientific perspective.
I think that attempts to apply any kind of evidence based rationality to religion actually severely weaken religion in the long run. Religion's greatest strength is the rejection of rationality via faith. It asserts that some things simply can not be determined rationally and must be accepted without any evidence. This is a very powerful statement which I think highlights the real beauty, power, usefulness, and majesty of religion, as well as one of the potential pitfalls.
On the flipside, one of science's most powerful statements against religion is that it really can't explain many things...yet. Check back later. It's an erosive effect, but coincidentally it is also one of the weaknesses of the scientific view as it will always open the door for dismissal due to uncertainty.
and I shouldn't snap at the bait, but isn't it the case that, by definition, to get from no life to life without creationism you need abiogenesis? You don't "admit" abiogenesis is required, you believe that happened if you think (as I do) that creationism is a bad joke pushed too far. And in any case, Dawkins is just a scientific populariser with a big ego, (he thinks he's "bright" for being an atheist, clearly has some identity issues) and hardly authoritative.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Do you mean "water alone isn't enough for life to evolve"? Is there an 'evolutionary recipe' of some sort for life to come into being for which H2O and Time are the main ingredients?
Your monitor is staring at you.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/tides.htm
ABSTRACT
Conventional models of Mars, based on measurements by initial Mariner unmanned spacecraft, found an arid, apparently ancient environment without current liquid water. This prompted subsequent, highly negative assessments regarding Mars' history, and the difficulty for the origin and/or evolution of higher forms of life. Later, the unmanned Viking missions (as well as the 1997 Pathfinder Lander) seemed to confirm this barren model. Complex, sometimes contradictory geologic theories to explain this desolate Mars environment have been proposed, based on a wide variety of observed surface phenomena and features. A new model that reconciles major puzzling contradictions among past models is now put forth, using new observations from MGS high-resolution images of Mars and a reevaluation of certain Viking era experiments. Small-scale surface features are identified which, it is proposed, are the direct product of wide spread ancient and recent bursts of subsurface liquid water. These water "stains" are shown to cluster (beyond statistical chance) in an unmistakable tidally-determined, bi-modal distribution on the planet: centered near the Tharsis and antipodal Arabia "bulges." A revaluation of Mars ancient history is therefore proposed, suggesting that Mars (well after solar system formation) was captured into synchronous orbital lock with a larger planetary companion ("Planet V"), accounting for the clustering of present day water bursts around the former beds of two bi-modally distributed "Mars ancient oceans" as a direct result. The current Tharsis and Arabia mantle uplifts are shown to be an inevitable additional fossil signature of such former tidal stresses, induced by a close gravitational relationship with Planet V. Other heretofore inexplicable Martian surface features are shown to be consistent with such a simple "tidal model": Valles Marineris (as an eroded ancient tidal bore, formed immediately post-capture); the presence of the extremely flat terrain covering the northern hemisphere (via deposited sediments from the once tidally supported oceans, when released); and the current trench or "moat" around the Tharsis bulge (from relaxation of Tharsis back into the mantle, after tidal lock was broken). The long-mysterious "Line of Dichotomy" is explained as a remnant of a "blast wave" of debris from this sudden severing of the former orbital lock relationship with Planet V, due to either a catastrophic collision or explosion. Chemical signatures of this extraordinary destruction event on Mars are shown to be consistent with the model; including the distribution of olivine preferentially below the line of dichotomy; the presence of primitive mantle and core materials such as iron and sulfur in unusual abundance on Mars surface; and the concentration of proposed "water stains" in areas bereft of olivine. Mars unusual magnetic field "striping" is now shown to be another unique southern hemisphere signature of this destruction event, caused by standing P and S waves reverberating through the planet's crust as a result of the massive simultaneous impacts from Planet V debris. Recently published research showing unprecedented outflow channels from the Tharsis and Arabia bulges are shown to be consistent with the sudden relaxation of the two tidal oceans, as is the sculpting of huge amounts of material by fluvial processes north of the Arabia bulge. Two possible mechanisms for the destruction of Planet V and the breaking of this tidal lock are outlined. Finally, a new timeline for Mars geologic evolution is proposed that is consistent with these observations, placing these events between capture ~500 MYA and the destruction of Planet V at 65 MYA.
Great, michael updates the post 3 minutes after my comment, so I get modded redundant.
-no broken link
I don't understand distinction this at all. People that will only open their eyes when intelligent life is discovered and that would gloss over the detection of simple extraterrestrial lifeforms are, quite frankly, morons, and need not be consulted on this issue.
:)
I suspect the previous poster was not implying that they would not care at all, just that the discovery would not have any impact on their religious beliefs (really, why should it?). The discovery of intelligent life however would certainly cause may to re-evaluate their religious beliefs, depending on the life I guess.
Two interesting thought exercises are
For the religious person: If intelligent life were discovered, but had no concept of religion what does that possibly imply about your religion? Are these aliens without soul or are the condemmed? Have they developed a "moral" (subjective I know) way of life without the influence of religion?
For the non-religious person: If intelligent life were discovered, and had a religion which resembled so many of the religions on Earth, what that that imply? That the religion may be valid or that life in general somehow needs a religion at some point in development and somehow looks the same as the ones we have developed?
Interesing stuff to ponder while waiting for the next SCO story anyway
Finkployd
If we found intelligent Martians on the surface of the planet tomorrow, how would that diminish the uniqueness and specialness of human life? Or the uniqueness and specialness of Martian life, for that matter?
+++ATH0
So, I accidently copied and pasted the wrong URL. Fine, I am a bonehead. But to waste you mod points to mark that as a troll was just silly.
Plus, it was the perfect low-pitch to 3waygeek for the east joke. That ought to be worth something ...
ThisIsAnExampleAccountGL@yahoo.com
Nothing is more satisfying talking to a creationist who uses scientific studies and fact to back his case(silt levels, etc). All you have to do is point out that they can't use science to back their argument because they say that science is wrong and all we should rely upon is the bible.
"science is wrong"? I've never heard that one. I've heard "most mainstream scientists are wrong", which does not mean the same thing at all.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Just a note - generally, it's not very prudent to say that science cannot do this or that.
And in fact, I'm pretty sure that we are pretty close to start toying with some of the "things" you mentioned (surely anger, love, thought, "awe and wonder")
Just look at all the stuff we already have: drugs, brain scanning equipment, computers to do patterns or even some augmentation, etc. And there is certainly a lot of interest.
So, I think that religion is about to lose some more ground in that area.
And about "meaning of our existence" - I agree, "hard" science (most probably) doesn't have anything to do with that.
Human beings are uncomfortable with something that has no beginning or end. Infinity is a concept beyond our grasp, so we need to have a starting point.
Learn something new.
It's kind of unfortunate that God wasn't more accurately predictive. I'd be much more inclined to believe if, for instance, God had provided some information that wasn't known at the time, but was later proven or discovered to be true. Like, "the world is round." Why didn't he mention that to the people living 4000+ years ago? Maybe drop a hint or something? It might have helped them out a little. Why not provide a piece of true information that is unlikely to have been known or invented by an author at that time?
The reliance on faith (God won't provide proof because he relies on faith to bring people to him) is a sticking point. The same data can be just as validly analyzed as "non-existence".
Apart from welfare money, that's the best spent money in the US budget for years.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
regardless of religion, lets say for a moment that you were an all powerful diety, would you seriously create an entire universe to support but ONE intelligent life form?
i sure as hell wouldn't, and i don't think anyone else imaginative enough to create something as simply beautiful as our planet would either...
ones creative urges would prevail, and other intelligent life forms would be created; simply for the hell of it if not for any other reasons...
If there was water, there could have been snow. If there was snow, there could have been snowmen. Hence there could have been life.
Steve Squires for President!
How about "Uncle" on Jackie Chan's cartoon series.
95.32% Carbon Dioxide - CO2
2.7% Nitrogen - N2
1.6% Argon - Ar
0.13% Oxygen - O2
0.07% Carbon Monoxide - CO
0.03% Water - H2O
0.00025% Neon - Ne
0.00003% Krypton - Kr
0.000008% Xenon - Xe
0.000003% Ozone - O3
This does not take into account nitrates in the ground, which might have contributed to atmospheric nitrogen in the past. Also, the water % in the table above is probably going to be revised, perhaps, studies on Nitrogen density are likely.
Further, nitrosomas and nitrobacter are extremely common bacteria in earth water - ask anyone who's run an aquarium - I predict they may be among the first bacteria discovered on Mars.
My .02 cents
Agreed.
I also think that it's important not to patronize the ancient scholars who put Genesis together. Clearly the account has been compiled from several sources, a fact that the compilers, if not future generations, would be quite clear on. I also suspect they were also well aware that they were not writing a natural history text, although they probably attempted to be consistent with the known cosmology of their time.
The main point of the creation story, in particular the story of the fall is this:
To this, they answer the question with another question:
This way of answering is especially poignant if you imagine the compiler as a religious scholar or scribe, an educated sensitive person who would as part of his job think about things like the inevitability of death. What he is saying that knowledge and self awareness may be a blessing, but they are also a burden.
Taking Genesis as a text on natural history reduces a profound statement about the human condition to an obsolete and disproven speculation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Shouldn't you have solid evidence of your religion's claim, instead of requiring discoveries to come along to contradict it? Not every claim can be contradicted-- that's what falsifiability is all about.
Religion is unscientific and has no epistemological value whatsoever. It really is a "mind virus".
Anyway, life on Mars doesn't disprove any religion any more than it proves abiogenesis. ANY belief system can be justified with the right number of assumptions. If something like life on mars comes along, here's what will happen:
1. They'll first deny it
2. They will continue to deny it
3. Eventually scientific fact will slowly but surely embed itself into society, even if the topic is still controversial (evolution).
4. They'll think up more assumptions to let the new observations fit (the claim that god directed evolution and the 7-days story in the bible is metaphorical).
Essentially, the best assumptions are the fewest and the ones which fit into our observations the best. A consistent, materialistic world makes more sense than a random, "ghosts-and-goblins" supernatural one.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
So you're saying that a hard-core bible-thumping Christian would put intelligent alien life forms on the same level as cats and cows? That's my point: some religious whackos will believe that aliens are evil/inferior to us because they were not created in God's image.
:)
I can't wait until we meet some real live aliens so we can see what the bible-thumpers do.
Be happy. Nothing else matters.
Building on my last post on this topic - true - the Bible does not say that there's no life anywhere but Earth. But SOME Fundamentalists do take that to mean that things not explicitly stated in the Bible, can not be true. These are the same people who go to extreme lengths to explain why Pi=3, the Earth is really flat (round-earthers are a leftist conspiracy), and the Earth does not circle the Sun. And, of course, the moon landing and this mars junk were just a hoax filmed in some garage in Palmdale.
It all really depends on how literally the religious adherents take scripture. There is a strong Bible Literalist movement within Christianity. Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life could easily be rationalized away as demons trying to steer us from the truth, etc.
But there are also a great many Christians who don't believe that the Bible is the literal unaltered Word of God. (Like me). Often, I feel like we're a dwindling minority. It's as if the strength of their faith depends on the crutch of rationalized physical evidence the Bible represents to them. Sad that their faith is really so weak that they require physical evidence.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
God: Well, it took a few billion years to... oh, never mind, let's call it "seven days".
This is exactly what drives me nuts about the less imaginitive Bible followers. Most seem not to be able to rectify the "Seven Days" thing with evidence.
My personal interpretation is that the "thousand years" is still just a euphemism to make Man understand things; maybe history should be viewed logarithmically and not linearly. We're still in Day Six, the Creation of Man. Day Seven, the Rest, begins with the long dull period between the beginning and end of Revelation, and covers the rest of the history of the Universe.
[
maybe there is life under mars
One signature may be small magnetite crystals. One the controversies with the "fossils" in the martian meteorite was how to be sure they were really fossils. The argument pretty much devolved into two lines of reasoning when it was reduced to the simplest form. The objects pro) looked like fossils, but con) they were far, far smaller than expected from comparable earthly forms, but pro) contained magnetite (hematite) in a form that ONLY occurs in lifeforms on earth, but con) they came from Mars, which totals up to "no one has the vote." Interestingly, hematite was one of the attractions of the Opportunity landing site.
Religions were invented for two main reasons. First: Humans are a social species, we like to communicate with other members of our species, and even keep other non-human animals around. Deities were invented to give people hope that they weren't all alone. You can't have an indepth conversation with a dog, but you can pray to a deity, and just have faith that your prayers won't fall upon deaf ears. Second: Control. Without consequences for crimes earlier civilizations would have fallen apart. A murderer could kill people left and right without fear of anything happening, but religion was soon introduced to give a post-humous consequence for killing people, or raping people, etc.
Learn something new.
Today President Bush announced an emergency $5million to fund writers for employees at NASA upon hearing their speeches.
Seriously though, very cool. =) But my god people, get WRITERS!
Unfortunately for the incipient feeding frenzy, the mission scientists were emphatic that the evidence, while strongly suggesting that an aqueous environment was involved, was not sufficient to differentiate between a standing body of water and ground water (an aquifer) that percolated through the minerals in situ.
We may know better in a couple of weeks, since the "deposited in water" versus "affected by water" question is right at the top of the list for further investigation.
Trusted by cats.
Friday Feb. 27, 2004
:-/
We may have found water. I'm not sure if that's good or not. My GF wants to break up with me. She says I have my head in the clouds...that I'm too starry eyed. Kind of pisses me off. Sometimes I wonder if I really know how to love. Maybe the press conference next Tuesday will get me some hot bitches. You know how they go for physicists who just found water and shit.
Current Song: Styx - Come Sail Away
Current Emoticon:
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
You're right they pick and chose what science they want to use. So saying 'science is wrong' was bad on my part.
But my thing is how can they rely on any scientific fact? If their argument is about faith, why are they trying to convince others using outside data, not from the sources they claim are absolutely the last Word.
I think I just don't understand how you argue faith. You come to believe or you don't. There is no convincing.
-- taking over the world, we are.
If their argument is about faith
There's no such thing as an argument about faith, really... which is why this thread is dead right...about....now.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
Some folks would find a way to explain away the finding of a segment of the prehistoric Martian subway system complete with gumball machines and Martian winos.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
I know this must be exciting for the scientific community, but it really doesnt change anything IMHO. Mars *might* have had water at one point? I could have told you that yesterday or 20 years ago. The evidence is not 100% conclusive, just one more piece of the puzzle. Wake me up when they find *actual water* (or ice)
Actually, an ellipsis usually has three periods. An ellipse is usually a conic section whose plane is not parallel to the axis, base, or generatrix of the intersected cone.
An ellipse can be parallel to the base of the cone. A circle is an ellipse.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
The parent post is right.. perhaps it can be modded up..
/people on other planets would most likely be from earth).
Sounds like Stargate SG-1 actually (anything
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
I'm still amazed some corporate sponsor didn't get their name on one of those rovers. I'd think some water company would be all over that opportunity.
Having a religion does not exclude common sense.
No, but it often gets in the way.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
if there are other planets with life on them, Jesus would have had to visit them all in order to "save" them
Only true if the inhabitants of those planets had sinned. Animals can't sin, so they need no savior. According to the Bible, the vast majority of creation does not need salvation, as they are not created "in God's image". It's quite logical to assume that life could exist on other planets either in a start like the animals here, or in a state like Adam and Eve before the fall. Just because history took one course here doesn't mean it is mirrored everywhere else. Even if the story was repeated exactly, that doesn't reduce the uniqueness of Christ's sacrifice. Those beings might be trusting in the work He did here. It's also possible that Christ went there also, there is nothing in the Bible that makes that illogical at all.
I'm a Christian, and I have no problem whatsoever with life existing on other planets. I find new and "exotic" science like "string theory" quite interesting and exciting as well. It (string theory) seems a very logical explanation of God's working in this universe. Extra dimensions? no problem! Extraterrestrial life (intelligent or not) ? also not a problem!
I do not take any position saying this, but I would like you to explain something to me...
How is dismissing all religions, claiming that their followers are "sheeps who dont want to think for themselves", and instead basing all of your conceptions and beliefs in "science" is anything less than being a "sheep who dont want to think itself"?
I ask because you say, and I cite: "Every time religion is shown to be wrong, they internalize the error and come up with a new story that fits the truth that their flocks believe.". So how exactly is this any different than science as we know it? Theories are constantly "updated" to "fit the thruth". First, which truth? How are you defining "truth"? Again I ask because, as much as I really like science, maths, physics et all, I fail to see how they are The Truth (tm). They are only a process into which we try to understand our universe a bit better. It is only a differente way of seeing things.
Yes, there are peoples acting like sheeps. Some of them jump into religions to reassure them or something. But I know of people who do the same with siences, news, their neighbor, whatever. They will beleive their "truth source" no matter what "evidences" you present them. Sheeps are sheeps, it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the individual. So dismissing everything which is not "science" are whatever you "beleive" in is just the same from my point of view as those sheeps you were talking about.
For me, religion can not explain everything, science either. But both can give me insight and trigger reflexions, be it "spiritual" reflexions or "scientific" ones.
And f*ck that if I loose some karma, but I fail to understand how you can be modded INSIGHTFUL with such a closed mind, accusatory tone, trollish comment. Because I dont know what pattern you saw in the gp post, but I sure see one in your!
I'd rather be sailing...
Oh no, not the fiery pits of hell!
You know, when I was five, I may have been scared of this crap (like that South Park episode, where Cartman becomes the preacher and scares all the kids into giving him money).
I've since grown up, and cannot be frigtened by made-up creatures, be they orcs, the boogie man, sasquatch, or, yes indeed, the devil.
Grow the fuck up.
----
Unless this was meant to be funny, in which case... ha ha... freedom to fornicate... ha ha...
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
Reductionism is a mind virus. Why are fewer assumptions better? Sounds like an assumption in and of itself. Without faith or assumptions or whatever... all you can really know is the Self. Solipsism is not considered to be very practical... hence the need for belief.
No.... wait for it... now. ::)
Hehe, sorry too much caffine.
-- taking over the world, we are.
The ISS and Mars have the forest. Hubble needs a tree.
The cost so far for this most recent mars mission is over $800 million. Budgeting through further missions is set to exceed $15 billion. The ISS outdoes even this, with an expected cost of near $30 billion to finish the station, and estimated operating costs of $1.5 billion a year once completed.
Hubble needs about $100 million for a single shuttle launch. $200 million in equipment has already been constructed and is only waiting in a warehouse for a mission.
I don't deny the importance of the ISS and Mars missions. All these projects have significant importance for science, technology, and society as a whole. Hubble is about far more than "getting to see a black hole". We have made dramatic advances in astrophysics with the help of the telescope. We have gained immense insight into the depths of our universe, to an extent that won't be possible again for a very long time.
Taking relative cost of the three projects into account, Hubble is by leaps and bounds the most effective. Do the math. Fixing the hubble will only take 0.2% of the cost of the ISS and Mars missions. Given the advances in science and technology we have extracted from Hubble, the return on this small investment is tremendous.
That's why I sigh.
"How can any religion survive that revelation?"
The same way it survived the other revelations.
BTW, this Buddhist sees no reason to lose my religion over the posibility of bacteria on Mars.
-jls
Techno-pagan
Given infinite time even the most improbable event will happen again... and again... and again...
A mind virus? Relying on direct observation and verification a "mind virus"?
You may have a funny way of justifying your weird beliefs by making a huge web of rationalizations, but I'll just go on my observations.
Oh, and if you knew anything about philosophy and science, you'd know that there is no such thing as an absolute proof and one does not need an absolute proof to claim to know anything. Why, again, are you in a SCIENCE topic if you don't know something that simple?
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
What's simple life? Single celled organisms?
I't pretty likely, I think, that we'll find evidence of this somewhere in our Solar System. In fact I've been sure of it ever since the news about the Mars Rock in 94.
Or is simple life, something more like plants? I wouldn't be suprised if something like this was found on Mars or even Europa. Why not?
Some say that plants are sentient in their own way. They feel pain, react badly when plants around them die, etc. They don't seem so simple, yet when they're discovered, the religious folk are going to explain it away and religion will survive.
BUT, what happens when we find little rotini worms running around under mars' ice cap? What's gonna happen then? Will religion survive? Probably.
But what happens if 1200 years from now we find little furry animals running around on the 4th planet of Vega?
Or if we find something like intelligent rocks on Venus?
I think that religion will find a way to survive no matter what gets thrown at it... And if by some unlikely chance we find people someplace, the religious folk will STILL say it's God's plan. And religion will survive.
Not that I like religionj or anything myself, but for some reason it seems to survive change pretty well.
wbs.
Huh?
Speaking as a thoughtful Christian who still holds some of the beliefs that many of my Slashdot bretheren would take great pleasure in savaging... I've asked myself a few times what it would take to firmly disprove my religion, short of dying. For instance, a device that can "look back" in time and disprove the Ressurection once and for all. (Without that, we have nothing; that's said directly by Paul in the Bible.)
Encountering an intelligent, human-or-above race with absolutely no conception of God as I know him, and absolutely no conception of such anywhere in their history (perhaps they've strayed, after all), is another one. The logic is hard to verbalize but at least for myself it would be a deathblow. It is possible that something in the encounter would cause some other belief to be viable (perhaps they had some other conception that clearly showed ours to be a misinterpretation), and I can see middle grounds where it would a toss-up, but if they were clearly 100% atheistic and always had been, that would leave my faith in tatters.
On a somewhat weaker note, I don't expect to actually meet any extraterrestrials in this life; Original Sin is clearly highly contagious and we should be kept isolated. There's been some science fiction in similar veins. On the "100% confirmation" note, it would be interesting if we encountered a race that had no original sin. Regardless, while I can't speculate what would happen well until it actually happens, meeting extraterrestrial intelligent life would have some effect on me.
Non-intelligent life doesn't faze me in the slightest; besides, it may still be of Earthly origin even if it's on Mars. If life is found and it has identical DNA (same acids, et. al.), that will be the most likely conclusion, that both planets have the same basic source of life, carried via cosmic events like asteroid impacts. (Which planet it started on would probably be absolutely impossible to determine, if it turns out both were capable of supporting life at roughly the same time.)
Something like 20 Mars rocks have been found on Earth. Most were on top of Antarctic ice where they are readily found. Mars rocks have a Martian atmospheric composition in their tiny air vesicles. It is thought a rock could make the journey from Mars to Earth at least every million years, so thousands of more may have arrived. Most would go into the ocean or be eroded on land.
So once life evolves somewhere in the solar system, it is likely to infect every other semi-hospitable place, including the wet moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
It may be likely that life evolved on Mars first because it was smaller and cooled down faster after creation. Then a meteor ejection would have infected earth fairly quickly.
"The opening story in Gensis resembles a Pharaonic Drama"
And its funny how it uses the plural when refering to God... It reads, in literal translation "In the beginning, the Gods..." (BRAShIT BRA ELHIM where ELHIM is the plural form of ELOH (God)).
Its a wonder that Christians, Jews and Moslems aren't in the least bit suspicious about that.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Ahem. _The_RNA_World_. Get it. Read it. Accept it. I worked with the authors during a lab rotation at the University of Utah.
Points to keep in mind: amino acids and nucleic acids are abundant in the universe. They form naturally in the interstellar medium. They are detected in nebulae all over the sky. They are part of the basic building blocks that exist all over the universe.
Next point: there are numerous other helpful items in nature that lead to SELF ORGANIZATION. Self organization is an area of scientific study if you are inclined.
Next point: there are various scaffolds available that can act as substrates for projected proto lifeforms (self-replicating nucleic acids, RNA molecules).
All life involves is basic chemistry that exists everywhere in nature, abiotic and biotic.
Combine all the above naturally occurring elements and you have all that is needed to produce, ultimately, life from non-life. Life is not magic. It is ultimately about self-replicating, sustained, chemical reactions.
It is possible to derive self-replicating RNA molecules. Once such a molecule exists, it is subject to evolution, plain and simple. There are no "buts", there are not "wait a minutes". Once you have a self-replicating ANYTHING, it is immediately subject to evolutionary forces. Given time and range(and we are talking BILLIONS of years here and a virtually infinite sized universe) you have plenty of time and opportunity to evolve virtually any type of possible lifeform. No magic. Just plain old chance, chemistry, and evolution. All plain logic and mathematical simplicity.
It took something like a billion years for life to evolve on earth into a form that is recognizable as life. A billion years is a LONG time. It is much longer than you imagine, much longer than you CAN imagine. You cannot take in that amount of time and really get a grasp on what it really means. A billion years is a long-frickin'-time. Time enough.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I've actually wondered this too. Imagine if Mars were in close orbit around Jupiter! The tidal forces of Jupiter would cause Mars's closest side to be pulled on harder than the far side, causing it to elongate slightly. As Mars rotates, the once far side of the planet comes around and gets tugged on, while the once near side relaxes back into shape. This stretching back and forth is exactly what happens to the moon Io, and is so vigorous that the moon has a molten core and tremendous volcanic activity. Of course being that close to Jupiter places Io right in the most dangerous radiation zones around Jupiter, so there could probably have never been life on that moon.
What was that Rabbit thing. opportunity photographed on Mars and why did Nasa destroy it ??
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Job 26:7 -- "He suspends the earth over nothing"; "God hangeth the earth upon nothing."
.
BIBLICAL REFERENCE DISCLAIMER: Blahblahblah, I'm not a creationist, I've read lots of translations of the Bible AND english translations of Kuran and Bhagavad-Gita and I think that religion should be a personal thing and I don't think that the earth was made in 6 days and I don't use religion or god or satan as mythological boogiemen or scapegoats for my problems blah blah blah . .
Anyhoo. Just thought I'd point out that (in support of your point) since so much of belief is dependent on personal interpretation of texts, it's not impossible by any means to devise an interpretation of the bible that requires direct contradiction of laws of science or known reality.
"Do you honestly expect every single thing God created to be written down?"
I sure remember thinking so the time I finally sat down and read the Old Testament's Book of Numbers all the way through. Yeesh!
They have found extremely compelling evidence that there was/is water on mars. Essentially the only questions that remain are, "How much water?" and "How long was there water?". True, the evidence isn't 100% conclusive, but it is definitely within a range that several scientists are willing to place their reputations in jeopardy to announce.
To know is to have knowledge....to understand is to be enlightened.
(j/k)
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
(assuming you're talking about evolution vs. creation)
Creationists who think rationally would understand that human life DID come from one place (Garden of Eden, or more recently Noah's Ark). It's just a matter of how people came into existence in the first place that's disputed. (I'm not trying to create a flamefest thread, so please don't)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Maybe Mars was Eden and Adam and Eve were exiled to Earth and Eden was destroyed?
cpeterso
What would prevent a "unique Jesus" from visting multiple planets? There is only one of me, yet I can visit multiple states and countries. (I'm still working on the multiple planents thing.)
cpeterso
I'm going to bite. Does it really matter how long it took for God to create earth? I mean seriously, why be so concerned about it. Human beings have no concept of time. We've created a system that suits our needs. A system that in which we dictate the rules. God's concepts of days are more than likely vastly different.
Do you even know what Taoism is about? Are you claiming that every non-scientific statement is worthless? What makes you so sure a complete, consitent, materialistic explanation for all phenomenon is possible?
Look I know it's exciting when you start learning a little bit of pop philosophy and think you know everything. But you really should do some more thinking/reading/exploring before you proclaim yourself The Almight Know-It-All that you think you are.
Happy people make bad consumers.
I could imagine something like this (were there life instead of water):
Hello there, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. So... let's start with this press conference...
Once upon a time there was this big... gigantically big black void, called the galaxy. In this big.... unbelievably big void there were small lightbulbs. Tiny... real tiny lightbulbs compared to the gigantic big void, called suns. Next to these small lightbulbs were even smaller drops of dirt. Tiny... small drops of dirt, called planets.
And yesterday, on one of those tiny tiny tiny drops of dirt, we found an even tinier thingie... a tiny tiny animal. Just like those you see in the zoo. Those nice animals with their furry coat, that make you laugh, ha ha.
But this tiny tiny animal is actually about as big as your house... multiplied by two-hundred. And now that animal can come and eat you alive ! It has huge teeth and great claws, and will happily eat you!
Now... that was the story of our discovery. Good night everybody and sleep tight !
I guess they shouldn't make that a horror-writer.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Yeah, that's kinda the same thing as discriminating against racists. What was the question again?
"Biblical scholars did predict that the Earth was the center of the universe, that the Sun orbited the Earth, that the surface of the Earth was static (not shaped by plate tectonics and erosion), that Earth was the only home of life (and, indeed, the only planet), that species were static, that the Earth (and the universe) were a few thousand years old, and on, and on, and on."
A biblical scholar may have made these predictions (although you provided no references) but as human beings we are very prone to making mistakes. Actually if you read the Bible you'll find that none of the above examples are even mentioned.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
The ignorance here is astounding. It is NOT possible to derive self-replicating RNA molecules simply by mixing the precursor chemicals together. They won't form. The intermediary chemicals are unstable and will collapse back into the primordial goup. That's why the time frame is so ridiculously long.
And many of the precursor chemicals do NOT exist outside of living organisms. You may find Adenine in a nebula, but I don't think you're going to find N10-Formyl-THF in an interstellar gas cloud.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
The explanation: the Heart of Gold strikes again.
Probability of ten to the twenty-sixth to one and falling...
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
You need to re-read the book; Dawkins makes the exact opposite claim in Watchmaker. Namely, that ever-increasing chains of replicating molecules eventually build to the point of reaching self-replication.
So you start with molecules that self-organize -- crystals. These molecules tend to provide a focal point for other similar molecules; the crystal structure grows bigger and bigger.
Eventually, parts of the crystal recombine in a way that produces faster replication, at the expense of having a larger and more complex molecule. You now have a different crystal, one which is more complex, and which is 'better suited' towards survival because it can increase in size more rapidly (eating food, in effect).
Repeat this a number of times, and you eventually get a molecular structure that is both complex and capable of self-replication; you would expect that this molecule would follow its crystaline roots, by having a more-or-less fixed structure composed of simple compounds that interact with other readily available compounds to replicate.
Sounds like DNA to me.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
A biblical scholar may have made these predictions (although you provided no references) but as human beings we are very prone to making mistakes. Actually if you read the Bible you'll find that none of the above examples are even mentioned.
This is largely a restatement of what I just said. I'm not sure what your point is. I could theorize that my liver is made of cheese and it would not be contradicted by any of these examples, either. That doesn't mean it's true. The test of a theory is whether it can make positive predictions. In the case of the "liver made of cheese" theory and the cosmology of the Bible, the answer is "no, it can't." Or, to be as generous as possible, "no, it hasn't."
"Pop philosophy"? Oh, just because I don't subscribe to ancient "Eastern Wisdom"? I never said that any non-scientific statement is worthless, as science itself is based on philosophy. So much for science being "pop philosophy", O Enlightened Chinese... heh, wisdom of the ancients... The "wisdom of the ancients" isn't building us rovers to go to Mars, modern science is.
Anything making an empirical claim is within the reach of science or at least the methodologies behind it. If it's not testable, it might as well not be there-- and even if it is, there is no reason to assume so, as there will never be justification to believe it's there. If there is a god, spirit, or anything supernatural, we will have nothing to show us it's there-- no evidence.
Conceptual claims, which much of science and philosophy are based on, are obviously not really scientific, but they can be a part of science, and possibly can be backed up by scientific methods itself. Obviously, Occam's razor is not necessarily a scientific claim but a conceptual one.
Unlike you, anything I believe can be shown to be based on flimsy evidence, or can be backed up by more or stronger evidence. You go on "gut feeling" or because you like the way it sounds.
And, believe it or not, if we don't know exactly how something works or if it exists, we... we say so! Imagine that! No inventing silly deities, magical forces, etc, instead we look for a suitable answer!
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
It seems to me that assumptions will need to be broken down in order for religion to make more sense anyway. For example, how many wise men were there? If you automatically said three, then you need to do some critical analysis. There were three gifts, but one person could have brought two of them. Likewise, two people could have brought gold. Make a list of all the things you think you know about Christ's birth, and then try to prove them in the Bible. You'll find a lot of speculation and tradition.
Religion can make a lot of sense. I cannot find any valid reason at the moment why life could not have been created (or even evolved) on other planets.
(note to Christians: read the Bible. For most of you, all your pastor knows is what he/she was taught about other people's opinions on the Bible. You CAN make your own decisions with sufficient study and wisdom.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
You do NOT need to find ALL of today's chemicals of life (on earth), from all the amino acids, to all the nucleic acids, in order to get the precursors of life. All you need are some basics. Once, by chance, they polymerize into a form that self-replicates, that's all you need. From that point on, you have the only thing needed for more complex life to form.
There is more than simply adenine in space. There is more than just one or two amino acids in interstellar space. There are also a LOT more than must the 20 _standard_ amino acids or the A(T/U)GC bases available for use in proteins and genetic material as well. We, today, use a particular subset of these.
As for self-replicating RNA, I do not say that you can throw all the precursors into a test tube and viola! Self replicating RNA. You CAN get such given enough time (billions of years), energy (thermal, UV), and repeat occurances (billions and billions of galaxies, each containing many billions of stars, covering a timespan of billions of years).
It should be no mystery to the organism on planet x that it exists on planet x as if it was just inexplicably "created" perfectly for it to exists. C'mon. Billions of stars, billions of planets...chance absolutely assures not just one instance, but MANY instances of random chance leading to life. There is no mystery here, just huge blocks of time, huge numbers of potential sites, and plentiful precursor molecules available.
Given enough time and separate instances, then even an infintesimal chance for event x to occur assures without question that x WILL occur. That is what life is.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
But SOME Fundamentalists do take that to mean...
So what? I'm Catholic and I believe that people take the bible way to literally. and I think a zealot is a zealot (and therefor often wrong) no matter what the issue is.
Not everyone hold much faith in the post-apostolic era.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Of course life "could have" come from another planet. Science, unlike religion, does not claim to know the truth absolutely and recognizes it is fallible.
However, it certainly relies on more assumptions and web-weaving to construct a scenario where life was created or came from another planet. (Although it both cases it begs the question of where the creator came from-- if a creator doesn't need to be created, why can't you ascribe that to life? They say every watch has a maker, but every "maker" is also made.).
There is no evidence to support that statement. We do not make up crazy ideas and try to find out how they are wrong (like I said, any number of assumptions could "prove" an idea to be right or very likely") but we look at what's available to us now and draw out the most likely path it took.
Why do we have heliocentric theory now, when epicycles could predict the motion of the planets very well under platonic cosmology?
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
Perhaps the water has not been lost at all. Perhaps it was always underground, in a vast network of huge caves, created by early volcanic activity. Couldn't there have been oceans underground? (The water would still occaisionally be sent to the surface during volcanic eruptions... now THAT would be a geyser to see!) Damn... now we're gonna have to send spelunkers to Mars!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
My friend drew (look him up on the boards at holophrastic.com) once wrote a beautiful essay on how the speed of light can be used to prove the Bible wrong on its creationist timeline. (He concluded by telling all the fundies to give us their toasters and go back to the stone age. It was coarse but intellectual. I love drew.)
Anyway, since there is a big section of Christians who already believe that Genesis is not exactly literal and/or chronological, they could easily fit life on Mars into the story of creation, somehow. The real question is, which of them will WANT to, and which will just add to their belief that science is evil.
Personally, I'd like to see the whole thing blow up. Pat Robertson lives in my neck of the woods, and he is a constant source of entertainment. I would love to tune in one day to something like, "Today on the 700 Club - Life on Mars: Scientific Proof of God's Love, or Evidence of the Location of Hell?" (Mars being the planet of War, ruled by Aries the Ram, a Fire Sign, etc. and so on...)
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I am really tired of people "looking for life on (insert planet/moon name here)." If it can't jump up and say "Howdy!", prance around in a skipmy outfit like that Vulcan chick from Enterprise, or shoot a ray-gun with a tentacled appendage, who cares! Evolution is king, baby: let's not coddle those weak little Martian organisms. If they can't handle the competetion with some strapping Earth-born organisms...fuck em!
Think about how long it takes to terraform a planet. Shouldn't we have started by now? It's past time to seed some plants to eat the carbon dioxide, release some oxygen and let them begin digging the water out of the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere.
Speaking of plants, I wonder if tossing cactus/sensamilla seeds out of a baloon bourne lander would be a good way of finding water. Those plants are pretty hardy, and anywhere the plants start to grow would potentially have water sources near the surface. I bet I could devise some wicked experiments to carry out on Mars with plants that were modified genetically to withstand the harsher conditions.
If only the scientific community would grow some gonads we would have a great decade of science and experimentiton ahead of us.
What is the matter officer? I have obeyed all of your silly Earth laws!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
The word translated "worlds" there is actually the Koine word "AION", from whence we derive the English word "aeon".
A better translation would be "ages", or "the universe".
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
This is a dumbed-down statement of Pascal's Wager, and was proven silly a long time ago..
To put it simply, if I choose to believe in no god, and you choose to believe in a Christian god, we could both be wrong, as Islam might be the "correct" religion. Therefore, you, in choosing the Christian god, are in no better a position than I am for choosing no god at all.
I would suggest doing a little research about Pascal's Wager. There are many sites which present a more thorough description of it's refutation. Perhaps it'll make you think a little deeper about your faith, as well, which can only be a good thing, no matter what the result.
I agree with you that some people will see aliens as evil but I wouldn't necessarily assume that all of these people will be Christians. Our history has proven time and time again that humans will always fear and/or hate what they do not know or understand.
On a side note, and completely off-topic, I noticed you used the term "Bible-thumping Christian" a couple of times in your reply and I have to say that I've known/seen quite a few people that I guess could be called that and quite frankly I'm embarrassed by them. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are to force our faith on others. If Jesus wanted to force everyone in the world to belive in Him He would have done it Himself. But He knew that unless we decided to accept His death for our sins on our own it wouldn't mean anything. Christians who fail to realize this go against almost everything Jesus taught. I say almost because the Bible does teach us that we should share our faith with those who don't know Jesus but these people go about it the wrong way.
Sorry for the tangent but I don't want people to think that all Christians are "Bible-thumpers" as you call them. The truth is the vast majority of us are trying to do things the right way. Unfortunately those Christians who try to force people to believe in Jesus usually end up be the loudest.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
the SPICE!
I never said science was pop philosophy. I love science. I'm saying your analysis of religion and beliefs are pop philosophy.
I agree, all empirical claims are within the reach of science. But scientific thought (as is probably all thought) is based on a metaphysical framework. As can seen by the advances science has given us, the framework upon which science is supported is fantastic FOR WHAT IT IS MEANT TO DO. I'd argue, however, that science isn't the right tool for all problems. Like a sense of well-being, compassion, or morals.
Unlike you, anything I believe can be shown to be based on flimsy evidence, or can be backed up by more or stronger evidence.
I never told you what I believed in. I don't believe in silly deities or magical forces. You just wanted to be an asshole and assume it about me because I dared to give you an opinion other than your own. I am a pantheist (some would say that I'm really an atheist). I don't believe in the supernatural. I also believe that no materialistic view of the world can explain all physical phenomenon without contradiction. This leaves room for what I'd consider "religious beliefs" that can exist without contradicting science. (Sorry. Not much time to get into more detail than that). I also freely admit when I don't know exactly how something works.
Now do you want an honest, thoughtful discussion or do you just want to continue being abusive?
Happy people make bad consumers.
Christianity doesn't require you to believe in the uniqueness and specialness of human life in the universe. We are noted as the caretakers of Earth in Genesis, which doesn't necessarily put us above animals. We are also supposedly made in the image of God, but that means different things, and though we be made in God's image on Earth there may be others created in God's image elsewhere.
But generally these things aren't terribly important. What is more important is how I treat you, that I actively do what I can to make the world a better place, and that I return God's love as much as I can.
odd rock formation
Richard C Hoagland (remember him? No? Remember the "face"?) has an interesting theory, called the Mars Tidal Model.
c J: www.enterprisemission.com/files/TIDES.pdf+&hl=en&l r=lang_en&ie=UTF-8
It's a long but awfully interesting read. You can find it here, though it is in PDF:
http://www.lunaranomalies.com/images/TIDES.pdf
Google claims you can view it in HTML, however this isn't working for me:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:aM0G3cEtDy
Richard's main site is http://www.enterprisemission.com/ . Some of his stuff is waay out there, but some of it is truly interesting and possible.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
I apologize...I re-read my comment and I did not make my point clearly. I read your logic like this:
A prediction was made using the Bible as a reference.
That prediction is false.
The Bible is not reliable as a reference.
Let's use your "liver made of cheese" example. You theorize that your liver is made of cheese and you cite a book on astronomy as a reference. Your theory is false but that does not make the cited reference unreliable. It was just used incorrectly.
Like I said before nowhere in the Bible does not say anything about the examples you mentioned. Likewise, nowhere in an astronomy book will it say that your liver is made of cheese.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
Note the line of dichotomy. On one side there is ample evidence of a long history of impacts of all sizes. The other side of the line is several kilometers lower in altitude, and relativly unscarred.
The current thinking that big craters = old craters and small = new needs to be re-examined. Even if the theory were to hold mostly true, we shouldn't arrange the cronology of craters on their size alone.
In order to support oceans, it is reasonable to assume that Mars must have also had the requisite atomsphere and magnetic/gravitational forces support it. The lack atmosphere and oceans can be explained by a near miss, but the loss of the magnetic and gravtiational energies can only be suffeciently explained by a very large impact.
The unscarred side of Mars would seem to indicate that this took place fairly recently, and I would say more recently than the advent of simple life here. I geuss we don't hae any definiteve way of dating the event yet, but my hunch is that it was more recent than we'd expect, even within the last 100 million years.
I need to burn some Karma
exobiology experiments
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Here at JPL, it is an interesting mixed feeling the scientists are having.
On one hand, we've acomplished almost all of the stated goals of the mission. I saw the Long Term Planning briefing and the chart had item after item checked off... only the endurance section was left unfinished.
Think about it. We landed not one but two fully functional rovers on mars, with the most comprehensive science package ever sent to another world. We have spectrometers of unmatched precision, we have the ability to examine betneath the surface of rocks and outcrops, and we've taken the most detailed pictures of mars ever recorded.
We've explored rocks and craters and soils, and that was just the first few sols! All of this is an incredible accomplishment, especially considering the track record. The engineering part alone is enough to consider the mission a success.
But since last week it's been clear to us here that we've found what we were looking for: evidence that clinches the case that Mars was once wet. That's when I say, "Mission Accomplished". That's more than many hoped to find, though we sent the mission as it is primarly because we expected this was *possible* if even somewhat unlikely.
But we're not done yet. In fact if anything we have more questions to answer now. Mars has never failed to throw curve balls at us. There's all kinds of minerology that we're not sure about. We don't even know yet if this was just ground water, or actually lakes or oceans. But as long as these rovers still have life in them we'll continue to advance our scientific understanding of the planet.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about the specifics of the President's plan, it's clear that public support for the program is very high now, considering that we have learned from our mistakes and have accomplished more than we could have hoped. I'm very optimistic that future missions will unravel many of the new mysteries we have discovered. It is truely, as they said on the briefing, a great time to be alive. The field of astrobiology is finally beginning to be taken seriously by the scientific community and even the public at large. We have seen that Faster, Better, Cheaper *can* work - as long as we don't try to bite off more than we can chew.
I don't know when we'll actually have humans on Mars, but I'm hopeful that there's a real chance that in my lifetime (and maybe even my parents') we will find evidence of previous life on Mars. It'd be nice to know we're not quite alone.
My congradulations to the science team for an incredible discovery, and I extend that to the taxpayers that graciously fund us, and to our supporters in all nations of this earth. We could not have made these discoveries without our valued partners in Europe, and they deserve to share much of the credit.
I know some of you on slashdot ask why fund the space program. I hope that this makes it clear that you are getting your money's worth. Thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Science Activity Planner Developer
Mars Exploration Rovers
And did Jesus have to visit other continents to "save" inhabitants there also? Or did it suffice to wait for us to rape^H^H^H^Hcolonize those continents and 'spread the good word'? Thus maybe our goal is to spread God's word throughout the universe. Those Jehovah's should be starting a space program soon...
"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Peace and love, y'all
... what are the chances that there were more complex life-forms? fish like creatures? Is there any evidence that if anything existed it would have been limited to simple single-celular organisms?
"In fact it's perfectly safe," said one of the officials,
"it's built so that even if the ship does break up, the
storage holds cannot possibly be breached."
Young Zaphod Plays It Safe
Peace and love, y'all
The recently just-released image log just prior to encounter shows how the Global War on Terror truly knows know bounds. Don't worry, that debris originated on Earth, though its extinction now seems complete. Th-th-that's all, folks!
--
make install -not war
Mars is already contaminated with Earth Bacteria. There has been significant exchange of materials between Earth and Mars as a result of meteor impacts splashing small bits of each planet into space. It has been demonstrated that lots of bacterial species can cope with the tremendous forces and pressures that these bits would be exposed to, so they could (and almost certainly do) easily survive an interplanetary trip. Discovery of DNA-based life on mars, or anywhere else in the solar system, would not answer the question about whether or not we are alone in the Universe, as all that life is very likely to have come from the same single source.
I realize this is getting more and more offtopic, but I'm interested in how you can be perceived as an atheist while being a pantheist?
You say "I don't believe in silly deities or magical forces." and yet claim "I am a pantheist". Doesn't Pantheist mean effectively "Many Deities". Or do you use it in another context?
Do you actually believe in many deities, or just accept that there might be deities (number unspecified) out there. Perhaps that makes you agnostic rather than pantheistic.
If you don't believe in the supernatural (your very next sentence) in what way are your gods not supernatural ? Are they natural beings ? If they are natural beings, aren't they therefore subject to study or verification or falsification? Or are they simply natural, but outside the universe in some way? Doesn't that make them supernatural?
You "believe that no materialistic view of the world can explain all physical phenomenon[sic] without contradiction", and then say that religious beliefs can exist without contradicting science.
What are these contradictions in materialism to which you refer ? Are there physical phenomena which cannot be adequately examined and perhaps explained with scientific thought? That is not to say there are no holes in human knowledge, that there are theories which have been wrong, or inadequate... no, you assert that there are phenomena which will never be so explained. How do you know that ?
Or perhaps you are referring to conflicting scientific theories. There are plenty of those. That's one of the beauties of the scientific process. You can have multiple contradictory theories that are equally valid, until you get more evidence to distinguish them from each other.
Furthermore, most religions which have anything to say about the physical world (as opposed to the spiritual) often contradict modern human knowledge. For example, it is accepted by most scientists that the age of the earth is a number much larger than 10000 years. A literal interpretation of the Bible contradicts this figure (asserting the earth less than 10000 years old). How is that reconcilable with science? Or are you being select in those religious beliefs? Only some religions have valid beliefs then. How do you determine which ones?
Are such religious beliefs as valid as information gathered through scientific inquiry? What if future scientific theories contradict some of these beliefs ? Which ones do we throw out if they're equally valid ? Or are these religious beliefs only ok until they contradict science and then they automatically get thrown out in favour of science ?
Admitting you don't know how something works doesn't give you a free pass to bring in any old superstition as a valid hypothesis for how it might work.
Actually, I think there were problems with the epicycles theory when it came to actual observations. By Galilleo, Kepler and Newtons time it became apparent that some of the eccentricities of the planets (and the moons) motions in the sky ran counter to the epicycle theory and supported the Copernican hypothesis beyond a reasonable doubt.
As some people are fond of saying "The Devil is in the details".
Adam named all of the animals. This suggests that they were all subordinate to him, although he was still appointed to care for them, not exploit them.
:)
Yeah. And there's a bit in there about "dominion over all the animals." And then there's the bit where Jesus mentions birds, and how "if God cares so much for a bird, how much more he cares for you?" -- which... ok, yeah, maybe we are better than animals in the Bible. But it still doesn't mean anything about life on other planets.
That revelation, I suspect, is reserved for when we get to that point.
Given enough time and separate instances, then even an infintesimal chance for event x to occur assures without question that x WILL occur.
Given an infinite time, which we don't have. And even then your conclusion is only valid for a uniform random distribution, which is most certainly not given either. (and that's not all... you're making a lot of assumptions.)
Otherwise you are saying that, at some point, a 747 with every seat occupied by an encyclopedia salesman named "Fred" has flown out of a black hole. If you believe that then I have 440 sets of encyclopedias to sell you.
The subterranean catacombs of Mars, teeming with vampires, are no place for water, either dripping on tomb soil beds or flowing near ancient collections of art & literature. Overhead water bodies on the surface would obstruct travel, as vampires cannot cross water. Water does nothing for vampires, except make blood drinkable, but they're way beyond getting their food "on the hoof" like we usually hear about on Earth. Water, the key to life, is abhorrent to the biters. They've gotten their water problem under control in their Martian vampire paradise. And now we're going to reignite the old war that ended in effective stalemate, by bringing it on in their own turf, without getting our SOLASER defense shield up. Get behind our only hope now, and turn the sunlight on this scourge here at home, and wherever our age-old enemies make their lair!
--
make install -not war
"How is welfare a good investment? Unlike funding for Mars missions, we get nothing for that. "
Ahhh, the eternally young, the joyfully healthful, the for ever productive...
It's such a coincidence that (sadly too) popular US thinking goes along that line along with statistics that are the laughingstock of the western world concerning homicide, poverty, perceived insecurity, quality of life, education.
Surely this is another case of "Ask not what your country can do for you." Well, a lot of people who are now sorely in need of welfare never asked that question and willingly gave themselves for god and country.
Individualism is a great thing, but when taken to its cold, cruel extremes it can be extremely harmful both to the individual (maybe you, down the road, down on your luck, dumped by your employer, your private insurance company and banks) and the whole of a country.
And welfare is a long-time and ongoing investment in stability, happiness and prosperity. Not as in "dump all your dough in here please" but as in "there is no economical gain in letting good people slide below certain poverty levels".
I'm personally sort of a sucker for space exploration and find it hard to doubt the use of it, however subjective that may be.
There is however no doubt in my mind that good social security makes a prosperous and overall happy country. Go and look up those poor starving Swedes, or those mass-murdering Canadians shooting down their school mates or fellow workers.
And anyway, a good social security gives everyone hours of good bitching over beers on whether the money is well spent or not. The upside is that everybody involved can pay for a round.
BTW most of the insults and sarcasm were intended to shock the reader into another mode of thinking. This because merits of welfare can't be measured by simplistic thinking along the lines of "If I help a wino, he won't come back to me to help me". It's a bit more complicated than that, but one doesn't have to look too far to see examples of states with a slightly different approach and huge payoffs in overall prosperity and happiness.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
And what's with all those dudes in the old testament having their "miracle contests" ?
I mean - Moses throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a serpent and the Pharoah's wise ones don't batt an eyelid. They throw theirs down and it isn't until Moses' eats theirs that they're remotely impressed. If Yahweh was all that, why weren't the other priests impressed right away ?
And even then Pharaoh has to suffer through a gazillion plagues before he thinks "well maybe this nameless god dude is pretty tough".
I mean there are 235 references to other gods in the old testament. Sounds like God wasn't all that singular back in those days.
But he's done a smashing job of eliminating all those other pesky gods in the mean time.
Well, for example, the Catholic church considers pantheism to be atheism in disguise. (Which I personally disagree with).
You say "I don't believe in silly deities or magical forces." and yet claim "I am a pantheist". Doesn't Pantheist mean effectively "Many Deities". Or do you use it in another context?
Actually, pantheism means, "All is god." So I consider the universe and everything in it, taken as a whole, to be god. There are many varieties of pantheism, some more supernatural than others. Hinduism, for example, is a highly supernatural form of Pantheism. Spinoza, on the other hand, had a very un-supernatural form of Pantheism. I read once that Einstein wanted to unite the pantheism of Spinoza with atheism. I don't know how that would be possible but, hey, I'm no Eintstein. ;)
What are these contradictions in materialism to which you refer ? Are there physical phenomena which cannot be adequately examined and perhaps explained with scientific thought? That is not to say there are no holes in human knowledge, that there are theories which have been wrong, or inadequate... no, you assert that there are phenomena which will never be so explained. How do you know that ?
I don't know that for sure, it's just a belief. Part of it is a gut feeling (faith I guess) and various strands of evidence of science (such as Godel's Incompleteness Theorem). Informally, what I feel is that we must experience the world around us second-hand through our senses. To process it, we must make assumptions to create a logical framework to make sense of how all we see works together. Since the universe doesn't need to make assumptions (it just acts) I believe that no understanding we can form about the universe can explain it all adequately. No matter how much science we do, there will always be some inconsistencies between scientific theorems or phenomenon we cannot explain. If this point is disproven, my pantheistic belief system falls.
Happy people make bad consumers.
That's really not that crazy. Terraforming is an important goal of astrobiology. There are significant risks, and several ethical questions involved, but it's not unrealiseable. Within 100 years we could warm Mars to almost the same temperature of Earth - the seas that we think existed would flow again, and *cross fingers* we'd see a whole new biology erupt before our eyes. It's really very exciting. Check out Nasa's Astrobiology website for more details at: http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/ I took a course on it at my university - I'd assume other colleges offer similar courses. They come highly recommended. I have a real appreciation for the work the biologists do in determining the origins of life, both here and *out there*. Neat stuff...
In your example, the literal interpretation of the Bible is wrong. I believe that religious beliefs must stick with metaphysical claims, or informal perspectives on the world around us. Otherwise, they are treading on territory best-suited for science and are likely to be proven incorrect over time. However, many people feel that metaphysical claims are worthless and "informal perspectives" should be made formal or thrown out. But if my point about a complete materialistic explanation always falling short is true, then MP claims and informal statements will always have a place. Then religion becomes defined as a way for people to arrive to some kind of overhead view of our undefinable world. Taoist philosophy does this very well, in my opinion.
Are such religious beliefs as valid as information gathered through scientific inquiry? What if future scientific theories contradict some of these beliefs ? Which ones do we throw out if they're equally valid ? Or are these religious beliefs only ok until they contradict science and then they automatically get thrown out in favour of science ?
They're valid for the aims they are best-suited for. Science is king when it comes to making precise predictions about the world and getting the best materialistic simplification possible for now. Religion would be used to see everything together informally to deal with what can't be made precise. If religion is used to do science's job, it is likely to make mistakes which need to be thrown out when science discovers them.
Whew... I hope my responses answered your excellent/insightful questions.
Happy people make bad consumers.
This is of course not entirely dissimilar to the scientific progress. I would argue that sometimes the religions are more stubborn and slow to believe the new theories / allow the branches to be officially not dooming those scientists that work in them to Hell(TM), than the scientific community as a whole is to absorbing these new ideas. I say sometimes, because the scientific community is also capable of being closed-minded to new theories on occasion.
Organised religions which have become corrupted in some way are advantaged by having their followers unable or unwilling to think for themselves, as the absence of discussion about the correct direction for the church will occur. This leaves the current power-holders in charge, and allows for the pillaging of the open purses of their followers. I certainly won't accuse any specific churches of being in this situation, but it is certainly possible and has very likely occurred in the past. Hence the 'sheep' analogy, which is widely used to describe those who follow others without giving their course some thought.
I hope this explanation is illuminatory without being ungenerous.
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
I'd have to look it up, but it's on the order of 10^26 against,
Don't bother. Read this instead.
People like to have a religious conviction, which is why it survives change so well. Whether this is a good thing or not is not important.
Religion can be a powerful force for helping to build/control a society - those with religious convictions tend to be less violent towards those who profess the same convictions. Having a social structure is what has enabled us to be so successful as an organism. You can argue that religion has caused a lot of suffering and violence as well, but it is hard to determine whether the greater "harm" or the greater "good" has come of religion.
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
So does this mean Heinlein won the bet?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Pardon my ignorance, but how exactly to you calculate the probability of abiogenetic reactions when you don't even know what they are let alone fully understand their reaction rates?! No one knows exactly HOW precursor molecules reacted to form RNA (then DNA) so placing probabilities on their rates of formation in a prebiotic Earth is patently absurd. More likely it is that we simply haven't figured out what make these reactions stable and probable. There is progress here though, on Jan. 9th. of this year researchers at the University of Florida foud that Borate minerals completely stabilize the reaction necessary to form simple sugars like ribose(as in RIBOnucleic acid). There is no logical reason I can think of that will prevent scientists from 'cracking this nut' when it comes to figuring out how abiotic synthesis happened, and when it is figured out it will be one of the most triumphant moments of science in history.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Degenerate!
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
Actually, the Copernican hypothesis was about circular epicycles. He just modeled the epicycles around a different center. It was Kepler who figured out the mathematics of the elliptical model, and Newton who hypothesized why.
I'm thinking they were testing the maneuverability of the rover, that's why they veered away from a straight line.
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
Read carefully. Levin also believes that the Labeled Release experiment of the Viking landers proved the existence of life on Mars. The article says he is a "former Viking Mars lander investigator".
There is a reason that high profile scientists have not reiterated Levin's apparently blindingly obvious conclusions.
Adam
This doesn't make the slightest bit of sense.
If God is omnipotent, then how can he be incapable of making man understand creation?
If God comes to us in ways we understand, then how come he never appears to a nuclear physicist?
Ahh Pantheism (1) instead of Pantheism (2) = Polytheism... consider me corrected.
.. science can't know these things, but this philosophy can, and I can prove it... that would really be something.
I've also been introduced to some concepts that go along with this feeling... such as the assertion "All models are wrong. Some models are useful." My general reaction to this is "So?" The fact that humans might not be able to ever satisfactorily model the entire universe, or come up with a "theory of everything" for example, doesn't actually worry me, since we have tended (through scienctific inquiry) to come up with models that approximate enough of the universe to be useful. I hope that the current trend back towards mysticism and stupidity doesn't stop these advances.
Now you may well be correct - that we cannot know everything about the universe. I tend to agree with you.
However, this doesn't propel me into the arms of mysticism or superstition, since evidence has shown that our evolving models of the universe have been and probably will continue to be efficacious. Furthermore, most forms of mysticism prove to be useless in attaining knowledge of the presently unknown. I see no reason to "fill in the gaps" of the unknowable with suspicious mumbo-jumbo.
Now to say something like
But how do I choose which religion or system of dogma to believe in when none of their claims or promises can be verified ?
Now we find another local planet with ancient water on it.. The next find I expect is simple life living on Mars.
:)
How can any religion survive that revelation?
I know you're a troll but it's a decent question.
I work at JPL on this mission, however I'm also a Christian. And as a Christian I believe personally that God made some damn cool stuff for us to explore. If we find past life on Mars (and believe me, we are a long ways away from that) that won't make me feel any worse about how I believe. I will feel more awe, not less, at what I see around us.
I'm not advocating my religious beliefs but it's amazing how many people assume all Christians are violently against the existence of extraterrestrial life. The Bible says we are special compared to what else is on this planet, and nothing more. Personally I'd be surprised if God wouldn't make more awesome, different types of "people" to enjoy this crazy universe
Cheers,
Justin Wick
Mars Exploration Rovers
I found water in my bathtub this morning. You don't see my holding a press conference.
Did people once tell you that your bathtub could never have possibly been covered in water before?
http://mediagoblin.org/
Think about it. There has to be some reason why Mars once was covered in water and now isn't. Could the same thing happen to our own planet?
http://mediagoblin.org/
Sorry - I didn't include enough detail. It is very interesting that Galileo, for much of his life, was offended by Keplers elliptical model (or perhaps his mysticism) calling it inelegant. So even as he was a staunch supporter of Copernican heliocentricity, he couldn't bear to mar the perfection of the circle by admitting that Kepler was correct.
:) You are quite correct - it was Kepler through and through.
However, Galileo, Kepler and Newton were almost contemporaries (Newton was born in the year Galileo died, and several years after Kepler died), so I referred to that as "Galileo, Kepler and Newtons time" to refer to those who were heavily influenced by the Copernican heliocentricity..
Hmm. but I did imply that it was Copernicus who suggested ellipses - I should proof read my posts more often.
"Informative"? Yeesh.
FeH doesn't mean anything, because iron has valence 2 or 3 in stable compounds.
FeS3H2 doesn't spell anything but ignorance.
Iron sulfate hydrate is FeSO4.n(H2O). "Hydrate" means it has water bound up with it.
Congratulations on being able to count atoms on both sides -- and even multiply small integers, wow! -- but there's a lot more to chemistry than that.
That's why the latin is more elucidating. You're fallacy is falling into a linguistic trap. Cogito ergo sum. Think do I, thus am I. The first premise is think, the rest follows. Counter arguments that you can't think that you've thought until you have thought are Zeno-eqsue (google Zeno frog well) or that you perhaps only think you are thinking (google Chuang Tzu dream butterfly) are self-evidently moot. Dang, the frog ate the butterfly again. I hate it when that happens.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
Did people once tell you that your bathtub could never have possibly been covered in water before?
By the amount of grime in it, yes.
That is exactly the problem of his claptrap. I found that the believers eventually get down to "faith", and then accuse the scientific types of being religious even though they don't have the slightest idea what the difference between faith and empiricism is.
Sadly, they believe in "absolute proof", that things can be "mathematically proven" (which in itself is a myth!), which is their out on whenever there is no evidence that shows previous evidence was likely to be wrong or misinterpreted. They think things must be disproven in order to be invalid, and that's simply not the case. They don't understand how an elaborate system of assumptions could make -ANY- thing true, no matter what is observed!
Science gives us testibility, verification, etc. Science is designed to fix itself-- although some "scientists" may lack integrity, that certainly not true of most scientists.
Religion, on the other hand, just claims knowledge. It's ridiculous that people still adopt that fallatic and archaeic way of thinking in these modern times, but eh... people are stupid, I guess.
Yes, there are things people will never know. And there is no need for religion to speculate on it, because it's not fact or knowledge: it's speculation, that's all it is, and much of time it's most likely not true.
If we can't know it, don't try to find an answer.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
But as Thomas Paine said, "To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
As Richard Feynman used to say, "Scientists are no better outside their area of specialization than amateurs."
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
Yeah, anything that disagrees with the GREAT FORCE OF KNOWLEDGE that is Taoism is "pop philosophy".
One thing's got nothing to do with the other. There are many arguments against Taoism that I can respect. But you seem too willfully ignorant of what Taoism is about to make them.
You do know realize that science is a branch of philosophy, right?
You have yet to explain how materialism is contradictory when science itself is materialistic
Right. Science is materialistic. If materialsm is incapable of explaining all natural phenomenon without contradiction, does that mean that all science is bunk? I know I don't think so.
Snipped a bit of ranting
Metaphysics is just the question, "What is reality?" At least it was the last time I took that Metaphysics philosophy course. That and metaphysical claims are claims that cannot be verified or disproven with the senses. Not trying to look smart - they're very simple concepts.
Sorry kid, I don't mean to troll you or anything but your ideas are the ones that are lacking. Just because you want "more to life" doesn't mean that there -is- more to life. Empirical observation beat speculation any day.
You still refuse to try and understand my point of view, don't you? There are many many philosophers, scientists, and thinkers out there with opinions contrary to your own. Read them. You don't have to agree with them, but you can at least try to argue against what they say instead of what you want them to. And you might be able to respect them, too. I'm sorry that you cannot repect mine.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Yahwish never excluded the existence of other gods; Yahweh was simply the god from which all other gods derived their power. Thus the other gods were all power less against Yahweh because he gave them their power.
Yahwish was only monotheistic in the sense that Yahweh was considered to be the only god with any real power. As for Christianity; what do you thing an angel (messenger) is? Basically a lesser god the way I see it.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
There is a Mesopotamian creation story (I forgot which one) in which Marduk splits the water goddess (Tiamat?) in two and creates the earth in between the upper and lower waters of her corpse. The sky is blue, the sea is blue. Naturally it follows that both are water.
Both Yahweh and Marduk are storm gods as well. Marduk was even made the head of the pantheon as a result of his destruction of Tiamat and the creation of men (I know Mami [I think that was her name] birthed man kind, but Marduk did the convincing) to do all the work for the lower gods. The resemblence between the two is interesting.
One doesn't have to take everything written in the Tanakh as being literal or entirely factual in order to accept the whole thing as being generally sound.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Something off of the internet... "Genesis chapter one is clearly false and here's proof" 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now it is certaintly true the before life first evolved, heaven or "space" and the planet earth had to first be created, and there is no scientific evidence disputing this. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. Of course primitive single cell life did evolve at some point. Early life would not have had any way to detect robust forms and would have found their surrounding a void. Yes, life most likely would have come about on the surface of the planet, thus "the deep" would have been devoid of it, and, as is still the case today, dark. And, if we interpret the "Spirit of God" as being life itself, it most certaintly moved, whether through primitive cellular locomotion, or only via tidal currents, primarily over the face of the waters, where science does hold life began. 3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. Sure, at some point primitive single cell life forms would have developed the chemical ability to rudimentally detect light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And sure, when life "saw", it only makes sense that this "God", whatever that is, was able to see also. And of couse, being able to detect which direction light was in would have aided the survival of life and this, just to give the text the benifit of the doubt, was good. And yes, life would have been able to detect and act on the fact that some areas were light and some areas were dark. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. Primitive life would have experienced the motion of the earth relative to the sun which brings about day and night. Science has no evidence that there was a time in earths history when it did not move thusly. This time period of single celled life eventually able to detect certain wavelengths of the UV spectrum did indeed constitute a major epoch in life's development. 6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." It is not disputed by reputable scientists that there was a time at which the atmosphere changed from its original clouded greehouse state. The was indeed accomplished through photosynthesis which, simply put, does separate one molecule of water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of light from the sky. But this passage is hardly clear. 7 And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. This separation of water would have eliminated the greenhouse and revealed the sky and made clouds less ubiquitous. Sure the atmosphere changed a great deal, but this sentence is hardly clear in its meaning which is the first strike against this obvious fable. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. The change of the atmosphere and the subsequent changes in the way life survived also constituted a major epoch in the story of life. 9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Sure, the continents as we know them (in differing locations) did appear after the change of the atmosphere, since the end of greenhouse conditions allowed for the icecaps to form. But are we supposed to believe there was no dry land at all before this time? What fools do the authors take us to be? 11 And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth." And it was so. Sure, primitive lichens and mosses did sprea
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
Something off of the internet (fixed formatting, sorry):
"Genesis chapter one is clearly false and here's proof"
The creation myth presented in the first Chapter of Genesis is clearly false, and here's proof.
Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Now it is certaintly true the before life first evolved, heaven or "space" and the planet earth had to first be created, and there is no scientific evidence disputing this.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.
Of course primitive single cell life did evolve at some point. Early life would not have had any way to detect robust forms and would have found their surrounding a void. Yes, life most likely would have come about on the surface of the planet, thus "the deep" would have been devoid of it, and, as is still the case today, dark. And, if we interpret the "Spirit of God" as being life itself, it most certaintly moved, whether through primitive cellular locomotion, or only via tidal currents, primarily over the face of the waters, where science does hold life began.
3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
Sure, at some point primitive single cell life forms would have developed the chemical ability to rudimentally detect light.
4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And sure, when life "saw", it only makes sense that this "God", whatever that is, was able to see also. And of couse, being able to detect which direction light was in would have aided the survival of life and this, just to give the text the benifit of the doubt, was good. And yes, life would have been able to detect and act on the fact that some areas were light and some areas were dark.
5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Primitive life would have experienced the motion of the earth relative to the sun which brings about day and night. Science has no evidence that there was a time in earths history when it did not move thusly. This time period of single celled life eventually able to detect certain wavelengths of the UV spectrum did indeed constitute a major epoch in life's development.
6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
It is not disputed by reputable scientists that there was a time at which the atmosphere changed from its original clouded greehouse state. The was indeed accomplished through photosynthesis which, simply put, does separate one molecule of water into hydrogen and oxygen with the help of light from the sky. But this passage is hardly clear.
7 And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so.
This separation of water would have eliminated the greenhouse and revealed the sky and made clouds less ubiquitous. Sure the atmosphere changed a great deal, but this sentence is hardly clear in its meaning which is the first strike against this obvious fable.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
The change of the atmosphere and the subsequent changes in the way life survived also constituted a major epoch in the story of life.
9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Sure, the continents as we know them (in differing locations) did appear after the change of the atmosphere, since the end of greenhouse conditions allowed for the icecaps to form. But are we supposed to believe there was no dry land at all before this t
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." -- Philip K. Dick
It would still just be from a martian tap
But I agree, there would be a definite possibility that any Martian life was related to life on Earth.
The real Captain Avatar is a fictional character, so I suppose he doesn't mind if I impersonate him.
religion survives because it changes. science survives in the same way, by changing and updating its theories. the way in which it changes is a bit different since it is bound by the scientific method but in principle is the same. besides, religion isn't an abstract theory out there to be proven or struck down. human beings created religion for reasons unrelated to any scientific revelation that may come by from time to time. religion is here to stay.
I agree with your main argument. Assigning probabilities to events which we don't fully understand is somewhat rediculous. Any sort of argument that uses a figure like "10^26, yada yada" is interesting because its the best science with the knowledge we have right now. But trying to figure out how life began/was created is so difficult, we don't even know what we don't know. Any statistics we come up with are derived from a hopelessly incomplete picture.
The notion that Mars has been contaminated via meteor impacts is still a theory. It's a plausible theory, but just a theory. It's, in fact, a theory we could try to confirm by examining what kind of life, if any, exists on Mars. That in itself would be a spectacular scientific result.
But once Mars has been contaminated by bacteria from earth, that opportunity is gone because we won't be able to distinguish bacteria we brought from bacteria that traveled via meteor impact.
We don't need to contaminate Mars with the Earth Bacteria...
Why? You can distinguish between earth and native Martian bacteria via testing. Not that our bacteria would get very far there, and we would also take some percautions I'm sure (like no spitting, for one).
The argument not to go to Mars because of contaimination concerns is one of the weaker ones.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Which is exactly why we should send a manned mission with a microbiologist or two who can spend a year and a half looking at various types of sediment for hundreds of kilometers.
For that amount of money and effort, we can send literally hundreds of unmanned probes. The overall risk with the unmanned probes is going to be much lower and the overall scientific benefit is much greater.
Manned travel to Mars just makes no financial or scientific sense at this point.
NASA has never lost a human in space, so sending them on a 1.5 year mission is actually safer than throwing them to orbit.
Why would "losing a human in space" be a big concern in deciding whether to send a manned mission to Mars? That wasn't a concern during any of the other great explorations of humankind. But the sad fact is that safety just isn't what makes manned interplanetary missions disproportionately expensive, it's the weight and basic requirements of human beings in general that do.
I suppose "cogito ergo sum" is actually a philosophical appeal to empiricism, since, to be meaningful, the logical assumption that "thinking implies existence" must be empirically self-evident.
i.e. sensing anything is evidence of existence; and reflecting upon that sensation allows us to empirically "prove" our own existence (even if only to ourselves).An interesting sig, though I don't know what the language-game is. It seems to depend upon your definition of "thing" and beg the question of defining a variable encompassing both "thing" and "empty".
This reminds me of another potentially confusing quote: "Nothing is too good for you... and that is exactly what you'll get." In this case, the differing definitions of the word "nothing" must be considered.
Ho hum... after re-reading this post, it seems rather arbitrary and silly, but seeing as I've already written it and I'm sleepy... bah.
The real answers can be found here. David Icke knows the TRUTH. It's the lizards from outer space. And the British Royal Family. And the Freemasons. And the Devil Worshippers. And he doesn't take his pills.
Stick Men
DUH! Sex with a martian mare. I hear they grow tits this time of year...
You Insensitive CLOD!
OK its a wild suggestion but perhaps the 'beads' are in fact small stromatolites. Hmm. Some of the beads are split so it shouldn't be too hard to get a very good close up image to see if this is the case, stromatolites have very distinct internal structures.
Bitter and proud of it.
Earth or Mars?
Which do you want to nuke ?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
True, I just stole the definition from somewhere. I had a correct one, but it didn't sound as fancy as this :)
I also know tht ellipse is a synonym for ellipsis. I just wanted to be a dick.
-no broken link
...he basically admits that abiognesis is required involving some VERY unlikely chemical combinations, before evolution can get started
The Blind Watchmaker was written in the 70s.
You really want to read Stuart Kauffman's "The Origins of Order" (or more probably the layman-oriented version, "At Home in the Universe"). John Maynard Kaynes and Eors Szathmary's "The Major Transitions in Evolution" is also recommended for a less theoretical expose.
Basic point: chemistry is not passive. Self-reproducing chemical sets are easier to generate than one might think. Defining the probability of abiogenesis by multiplying the probabilities of each component in a modern RNA molecule or in a protein is meaningless.
Thomas Miconi
I understand perfectly, having grown up with parents who where themself "sheeps"... Now, they do not follow this religion anymore, but they follow something else which is not any better.
I like your post, and I agree that there is not many (Well, I do not know of any) religions able to, or willing to, really pursue the goal of "finding the truth" which is why I do not follow any either. But I do not consider myself an atheist because I do not adhere to any specific branch or religion, no more then I adhere to the view that there is no god (or whatever its name) at all.
Maybe I'd just been a bit easy on the trigger with my original reply, but I hate it when both side accuse the other of being closed-mind or "sheeps" when they seem to be as closed mind or as much a sheep as their "opponent".
Thanks for rational reply!
I'd rather be sailing...
What is the point of proclaiming something diminished which can't be measured? For that matter, how can you even do it?
::shakes head::
It strikes me that this is somewhat similar to the argument that allowing gay marriage somehow diminishes the sanctity of marriage.
In what units does one measure sanctity?
+++ATH0
... religious wars are something specific to just us humans. Maybe they'll think fighting over how tall Jesus was would be silly. Imagine that.
+++ATH0
Who pissed in your Cherrios? What "huge web of rationalizations" are you talking about? I mearly pointed out that your claim that fewer assumptions makes your beliefs better is something that you have been conditioned to believe. You have no justification, no proof, that your claim is correct.
Oh, and on your tidbit about knowing anything about philosophy and science and no such thing as absolute proof. You are wrong. Mathematical proof is absolute proof.
Also, mathematical theorems require absolute proof... but maybe you are too stupid to understand mathematics. Wannabe-scientists are often the worst mathematicians.
First, I didn't mean my original post to be a troll. I asked those questions in all seriousness.
To respond to your point, no, it doesn't really matter how long it took God to create earth -- that's not the issue. The issue is that our religious leaders had been telling us one thing for hundreds (thousands?) of years, and as soon as science disproves them, they change their story to "well, we didn't mean LITERALLY seven days".
Given that these leader rely so heavily on "faith" (that is, unquestionable trust), how does this kind of backpedaling not strain their credability? How many times does someone need to be told to trust something that turns out to not be true before they figure out that the person can't be trusted?
The only explanation I can come up with is that these doctrinal changes happen so slowly that within a given person's lifetime the doctrine appears to remain fairly constant, but I'm not sure I buy that.
Erm, no - Adolf attacked Russia in early July.
'Erm', yourself, fool. I know when the attack was launched, thank you very much! And it was a moronic battle decision. The Nazi soldiers didn't have the proper supplies or plans or anything to mount an attack on Russia. They didn't even have cold weather clothing prepared in stand-by. Winter generally follows summer, and only a chowder-head like Hitler is full of wishful thinking enough to not realize that to fight Russia is to fight Russia in the snow. Period. Just look at the results of the battle.
And I'm sorry, but I didn't realize we were supposed to be working with first names when it came to, 'Adolf'. Are you one of those sick fucks, or just a jack-ass?
-FL
How can life on another planet destory a religon? I go to church every Sunday and I can tell you that I have never been head it said that earth is the only planet with life.
I agree with all your statments and I can answer your question.
Q. How can any religion survice that revelation?
A. By taking comfort in the knowlege that God is much greater than we have ever imagined.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I only respect rational ideas.
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
This is /. - you can't go around accusing people of being rational! ;-)
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
> a period every 7 years where you must let the land rest
Um... That is good farming practice regardless where you live or whom you pray to. Of COURSE it will turn up that way. Ever stop to think that since the people writing this (down) were farmers? Maybe they knew this bit of very good advice and wrote it down?
> God promised those who go up to Jerusalem, that their property would be protected while they were gone.
That would only be a good example if you could prove that no one ever had anything stolen while on pilgrimage. I seriously doubt it is the case, nor could you prove it.
> why would someone faking it even make such a promise if he could not back it up
Assuming he exists.... BECAUSE HE'S A GOD and believers will believe him no matter what he says. If it turns out to be wrong, there will be a way turn turn it around so he is right some other way (or it will be mistranslated by ignorant nomads for centuries to follow).
> Only someone who created all the animals could possibly say this.
Hmm, no. If I went back in time I could say it. Maybe there was a clairavoyant/psychic helping out. It's not LIKELY, but The Creator is not the ONLY answer. Actually, to me, time travel sounds more realistic than a boogeyman staring down at me ready to send me to one of two mystical places (4, if you're cathoholic) of fire or clouds.
I'm sure you can come up with at least three assertions in the bible that didn't turn out to be true/exactly right.
> the book of His words (Scripture) and the book of His works (the Universe). Conflict between the two represents a failure of human understanding.
No, it COULDN'T be a failure of the writer. What a crock of boogyman shit.
The problem is, you have two different things here.
First, you have the bible, the original inspired word of God... but written down by men, in a form that men could understand. (Thus, 'Adam was created from dust', rather than 'Adam was created from molecules')
Then you have men trying to understand exactly what the bible means. Unfortunately, the church has historically insisted that whatever interpretation of the scriptures they hold is the only valid one.
Twenties Retirement
Seeing as Christians believe in a plural god (father, son, hold ghost) why would the plural form bother them?
Twenties Retirement
Hubble needs about $100 million for a single shuttle launch. $200 million in equipment has already been constructed and is only waiting in a warehouse for a mission.
If the shuttle cost $100M per launch there would be no need for alternative boosters for the next 30 years. $100M for 55000lbs of payload to LEO is super cheap. I have never seen that low number for even crack pipe estimates of the 1980's. A Delta 2 costs in the high 80's and it only lifts 3000lbs to LEO. But the shuttle really costs over $500M per launch, more if you consider the depreciation of NASA facilities and the loss of 2 orbiters. It may be closer to $700M. Then figure in the cost of new Hubble instruments and gyros and other electronics. My number of $1G is pretty close.
Hubble is amazing. You don't need to convince me. I would happily vote to abandon IIS now and fix Hubble. I don't see that happening because the US made commitments. Cancellation of IIS would wipe out the manned programs for Russia, Europe, Japan.
an ill wind that blows no good
We have/have had close enough to infinite time for the point to be irrelevant. BILLIONS of years and 100s of billions of galaxies, each filled with 100s of billions of stars. Plenty of occurances, plenty of time.
Another point. Chirality. There isn't even a fully random set of aminos, sugars, etc. They are predominantly chiral. They are not a random mishmash of left and right handed aminos or sugars. They are the kind we use and, presumably, all other life in the universe. The aminos available are plentiful. The nucleic acids are plentiful. It is all there and in huge amounts (throughout the visable universe). There is no mystery here, no magic. Just chance and inevitability. Life is inevitable from simple precursors.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
This is my 666 post.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"