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Cassini Peers Into Titan's Haze
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn has peered closer at the moon Titan to reveal two thin, outer layers of haze high in its atmosphere."
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On the off chance that we actually do share the solar system with another intelligent species, all its base are most likely belong to us. We've already got weapons capable of global devistation if deployed in sufficient numbers(easier on a smaller world like Titan), and so far, we haven't seen or heard them moving around. If they were within a century or two behind us, you'd expect some radio transmissions, or even an artificial satellite or two. If we ever do run into actual Europans, Titans, or Martians, the'll be lucky to be out of the stone age before we finish dressing them up in Nike shirts for TV commercials.
That aside, if there's life on Titan advanced enough to have a sense of smell, it probably wouldn't be able to smell methane if it did have a smell. Just like we don't smell oxygen and nitrogen. Its part of our atmosphere, so we're always exposed to it. If we could smell it, we'd have a constant sensory input interfering with any other smells.
I think it's funny that every couple months someone posts on slashdot about how X will finally end the debate between the creationists and the evolutionists. This new finding wouldn't settle the debate between evolutionists and creationists any more than Dr. Miller's 1953 experiment (recreating this environmnent in the lab) did.
Most creationists acknowledge that the low level aspects of our bodies operate according the laws of chemistry. They acknowledge that natural selection is real and happens. And they acknowledge that there have been macroscopic and DNA changes to species over time (although most contend about the length of time). What they don't acknowledge is that natural selection is what caused new species to come about. And there is nothing short of having a first hand view of millions of years of life that will ever prove that to thier satisfaction.
Like the AC said, it wouldn't solve anything. Henry Morris said if we could find one instance of helpful mutation actually occurring, it would severely impair his entire theory on origin of life, but that we never would find it.
Anyway, enter a common college lab experiment. In just about any bacteria, if you damage the gene that produces a neccessary enzyme in a population of bacteria, then the population will very often manage to recover and repair the gene, and sometimes it comes out slightly different - change in an amino acid in a nonactive point in the string, or different codons for the same amino acids - sometimes recognizeable fragments of completely different genes - eliminating the possibility that some of the bacteria escaped the original transformation.
After that, the creationists backpedaled and said that such mutations weren't irreducibly complex, and at least one creationists said that we'd have to find proof that a leg could turn into an arm or a leg or wing - a problem which is "irreducibly complex," and THEN evolution would, unfortunately win.
Enter the T-box genes, which did just that, and the debate has only gotten worse. Then it was bombadier beetles, but all the strucutres of their biochemical gun exist in all other insects, and all other insects use the same chemicals used in bombadier beetle's reaction, but only a few species of ant and beetle mix the two chemicals intentionally as a defense. Then it was the flagellum of bacteria, and even now nanotechnology is hinting at how such structures could be spontaneously self-assembled from simpler molocules.
We could litterally observe the moment that the spark of life kindles on Titan without quelling the debate. Even if it means falling back onto a wildly fantastic explanation that raises questions about their own beliefs (the creationists have never had problems taking positions in stark disagreement with most of the bible just to defend the first ten verses), there will be a fallback position somewhere.