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Making Tracks on Mars
An anonymous reader writes "In a remarkable series of orbital pictures, the Mars Global Surveyor's cameras have imaged the tracks of the Spirit rover on the surface. Individual debris pieces including the backshell and lander are visible with remarkable clarity using an innovative roll of the satellite."
Can't we go to just ONE other planet without scattering our garbage about willy-nilly?!?!
Any chance that they can use this process to search for Beagle?
You know the Surveyor guys are like "oh, sure, NOW you can look around and tell us what's interesting to investigate!"
-Styopa
First, it's astronomy, not astrology. One is a science with reproducible experiments and predictable results; the other is a pagan near-religion whose results are entirely vague, and impossibly subjective.
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Second, you're talking about a statistical sample of 2 planets (out of what, thousands of billions?). (And I daresay we've hardly explored #2 - heck, there are great chunks of EARTH we haven't explored.) To wash your hands of it saying 'well, haven't found life yet, we must be alone' is a bit presumptuous.
Second "Things like irreducible complexity in bacterial flagelli or the inability to intentionally design life from scratch while claiming that a roll of the dice made all this seems absurd." NOBODY (except Creationists commonly hiding behind the title of 'intelligent design theory' and busily building strawman arguments) has ever suggested that life is the result of the 'roll of the dice'.
We KNOW that in the presence of radiation, complex hydrocarbon chains such as those found around the universe will form amino acids (found both in liquid water on earth, and in insterstellar dust clouds http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0328/p11s01-stss.ht
We KNOW that these acids can spontaneously form proteins and quinones, among lots of other stuff, which in turn form proteins and (it's surmised) possibly the precursors to RNA.
Granted, we're not clear on that last, teeny step. But give scientists some benefit of the doubt - they've resolved the simplest forms of life down to the point where serious research projects are going on now to create life at a molecular level; to the credit of the researchers in the field, there seems to be a hesitation going on while some of the ethical and moral issues are discussed before proceeding.
I don't dispute with you your essential point - it IS pretty amazing when you think about it. I find the system of the universe a glorious and joyful ballet of energy, matter, and life. I don't know why people feel compelled to assume that God isn't competent enough to build it from the beginning to do what He wanted, and that He would have to stick his hand in and 'make' stuff happen.
-Styopa
So it's old news to people who worked on the project - however, I think it's safe to say that doesn't include the vast majority of people reading this.
No, I don't want a free iPod
Yeah, but you didn't design and build your car from scratch to get to your "exotic location". I'd be taking pictures of my car if it landed on another planet.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
Do the AnswersInGenesis people know that you're trying to defend their point of view? Maybe you should just link to the site and leave it at that. Yours has to be one of the worst arguments for your point I've seen in a long time, and that's saying something. Let's take a few swings, shall we?
...the mysteries of an apparent Cambrian explosion in the fossil record?
> People have been discussing Asimov's three laws of robotics for decades. But we're no closer to robots with synthetic intelligence than we were in the glory days of AI research. (i.e. we're not close at all).
And you know this exactly how? In 1899, the vast majority of the world's brightest minds were openly saying that there was very little left to learn in the realm of physics, since Newtonian mechanics had been quite thoroughly explored by that point. It only took six years to turn that on its ear, and nobody (not even Einstein) knew it was coming. How you propose to know what technological or innovative breakthroughs will or won't occur in AI is beyond my understanding. As simple (to us) a device as the steam engine took more than 300 years to develop, and societies as far back as the Romans had the materials to make it happen, just not the innovation.
> There is no evidence these projects that you say are "going on now to create life at a molecular level" are likely to succeed.
Nice spin, but to reverse it, there's also no evidence that they're likely to fail, either. See above. Isn't acting clairvoyant a violation of Christian ethics?
> See this for reasons why the 1950s Miller experiment was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions...
Since that particular experiment doesn't have much to do with current efforts (because, y'know, it was not an accurate replica of supposed primordial conditions) this point is irrelevant. If they simply wanted to replicate the old experiment, then they'd have done so.
> You must have considered the apparently unique earth we have: it's wonderfully balanced Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycles, the temperature and the position of earth w.r.t. to the sun, the qualities of water, and the wonder that is the water cycle,the wonderful balance of plant and animal life...
I'm familiar with this argument, but it's not valid because it's two-sided. You argue that the Earth is perfectly designed for humans, and I argue that humans developed specifically to survive Earth conditions, and these things support both points, so they support neither point.
>
I agree that there's no good explanation for this as yet. Again, though, it doesn't disprove any reasonable theory, it puts bumps in the road for the theories. Whether we will learn what caused it will remain for time to tell, but I see no reason to accept the young-Earth theory on the strength of this alone, and so far it's the only thing you mentioned that I can't answer directly.
> Consider how the continents were one supercontinent to begin with (as the Bible describes in Genesis) or how the Bible, rather off-handedly, describes the earth as a sphere (Book of Job).
In a book the size and scope of the Bible, you will find plenty of references to stuff that turns out to be true. However, you must counter mentions in the Bible of stuff that turned out false as well, if you care to use it as a scientific reference. You might start by Googling for "geocentrism".
> And then there are the smaller details: look up and consider how the sun, and the the moon have the same relative size...
What? What relevance could this possibly have? If you think this is anywhere approaching a good piece of evidence in defense of the existence of God, you're going to be very easy to dismiss. Besides, they're not all that close, unless 20 percent different is "close enough".
> how all humanly-recorded history begins 5000 years ago...