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Life on mars?

  • Thread starter sarracenia
  • Start date
  • #21
we're talking about the odds of life originating in this planet. I think there's a 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
9999999999999999999999999999999999...+ % chance of life in other planets.
 
  • #22
That's what I'm sayin'.
 
  • #23
Well, Darwin's Black Box is one I haven't broken into quite yet, as I don't have to write a paper about it for several weeks. Your review has got me on pins and needles, Capslock
smile.gif
And yes, the origins of life are not really in the domain of evolutionary biology, but I do see them lumped together all the time, in the sense of evolving metabolic chemical pathways, which is not to say they evolved so much in the ecological sense, but in the more classical sense of evolution as gradual change. I'm fuzzy on the estimates I was speaking of, but I do believe that they're more on the conservative side... I'll see if I can't find anything about the margin of error, because I'd be interested in seeing that myself. Anyhow, I'm about to drop $3000 in tuition on 12 credits of "The Mathematical Origins of Life" and by the end of Spring I should have more information on this topic than any of us might ever want to know, so I suppose I'll see...
~Joe
PS - Abiogenesis, that's the name of the topic. Here's a little on it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html
This is kind of biased for abiogenesis - they don't seem to address mutation and other issues of variance in the part I skimmed but I doubt they'll skip it altogether - but it gets the point across. I think that the numbers I was remembering are definitely erring on the side of unlikelihood, whereas this is not. I'm not sure this paper addresses the recent changes in our models of Earth's early atmosphere, however, which has made the probability of organic structures emerging much less hopeful than the Miller-Urey experiment days.
 
  • #24
Seed and Caps, the problem I have with assigning probabilities to life arrising (on earth or elsewhere) is that a) we don't know (and maybe can't know) EXACTLY what the environment was like, nor exactly where it occurred. For all we know, there was a small area of the earth that made everything just PERFECT for life. Until there's a time machine, it will remain at least partially a mystery. b) Defining what "life" is can become a tricky, when is something just a chemical reaction, and when do we concider it alive? Where is the line? and c) Based on a and b, the probablities become a little like enron accounting. You can make them what you want them to be by (even unconciouly) making certain assumptions.

Now Seed, I have a small issue with what you said. While it may be true that a reaction isn't certain between any TWO atoms...we'll even say a 1 in 100 chance for argument's sake....when two chemicals are mixed, how often is it only one atom? Two ittsy bittsy gass bubbles contain more atoms that any normal person can fathom...so what if only 1% react? There is still a reaction and a product thereof.

I do notice, however, that it's only creationists of one form or another who argue that life is almost impossible, and therefore it must have been created.

Huh.

Well, I know someone who won the lotto, too. Jerk didn't share a penny....
 
  • #25
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] but I do see them lumped together all the time, in the sense of evolving metabolic chemical pathways,
well... they did evolve by the english word meaning but they didn't evolve by the scientific word (theory) meaning.... as long as you note the difference I'm fine with you saying they "evolved". ... we don't want more confusion now do we? :p
 
  • #27
Aw, go and spoil all our fun, Finch :p But it doesn't surprise me; as the latter article points out, the initial statements were pretty sketchy and didn't claim much. The former article does a good job of glossing over the fact that the methane fumes that have those scientists excited are only a vague indication and that a more precise data is needed.
But yes, I would tend to agree with your position, Schloaty. There is little certainty. I'm not looking for particular explanations; it's just fun to speculate, even if we don't have the full picture.
~Joe
 
  • #28
Hey, I don't care what they say.. they still don't know for sure and I still believe there is/was life elsewhere.
 
  • #29
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]they still don't know for sure and I still believe there is/was life elsewhere.
we're not talking about life in the universe. we're talking about life in MARS
nobody said anything about there not being life in the universe.
 
  • #30
Did I say "universe"? No. Mars is "elsewhere", now isn't it.
 
  • #31
I was obducted once but I don't remember it.
 
  • #33
What are you saying? *steely gaze*
 
  • #35
¬_¬
 
  • #36
elsewherer could be anyware if you dont name any specifics. did that reoprt alone convince you?
 
  • #37
One of the comments in Finch's link is, "The scientists at NASA seem to find signs of life anytime they can, which suggests a funding ploy rather than scientific reasoning." That says it all. Not that there isn't life at Mars or elsewhere in the universe, but that NASA has zero credibility.
 
  • #38
then why are we talking about their findings in this thread in the firstplace?
 
  • #39
Others are talking about playing Astrowars online, so a discussion of NASA seems appropriate.
 
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