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R. Hoover / Journal of Cosmology
A field-emission scanning electron micrograph shows one of the filaments that was found in the Ivuna CI1 carbonaceous meteorite. The image includes labels for data about elemental composition. The bar at lower left shows the 1-micron scale. The filament looks similar to those seen in earthly cyanobacteria.
Last updated 4:20 p.m. ET March 6:
Are there traces of ancient bacteria trapped inside meteorites that fell to Earth decades ago? You can add that question to the list of unresolved issues surrounding the search for life beyond Earth, thanks to a just-published study by a NASA researcher.
The new study, published in the Journal of Cosmology, focuses on structures that look like the filaments that biologists typically see on micro-organisms known as cyanobacteria. Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, found the filamentary structures inside samples of meteorites that are thought to date back to the solar system's beginnings, more than 4 billion years ago.
If the structures are confirmed to be of biological but unearthly origin, that would serve as fresh evidence that life can make its way through outer space and "seed" planets, including our own, Hoover told me today.
"Life may have a wider planetary distribution than simply being limited to the planet Earth," he said. In the paper, Hoover said the evidence suggests that microbial life could well exist on comets or icy worlds such as Europa or Enceladus.
Most astrobiologists might be willing to go along with that broad conclusion. However, Hoover's specific claims could well end up in the same sort of limbo that surrounds the claims made 15 years ago about microfossils inside a meteorite from Mars.
The initial evidence was the subject of dramatic news conferences and huge headlines, but as time went on, doubts about the findings grew. Today, few astrobiologists see the Mars meteorite as containing any conclusive evidence for the existence of past or present Martian life.
Cautious and skeptical reactions
"This may turn out to be another one of those cases where it's controversial but remains unproven," Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute, told me today.
Shostak said Hoover's findings would be "important, if true." But he noted that the research paper relied on a highly technical interpretation of electron microscope images and chemical analyses. "Is it true? I'm not qualified to say that," Shostak said.
The Journal of Cosmology's editor-in-chief, Rudy Schild of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a note accompanying Hoover's study that 100 experts were invited to critique the research, and that any commentaries would be published beginning Monday. The overall tone of the commentaries is likely to be skeptical: Lynn Rothschild, an astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, said many biologists were "very concerned" about the claims.
More than one expert wondered why the research merited any news coverage at all.
"Many scientists have examined thousands of meteorites in detail over the past 50 years without finding any evidence of fossil life," David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center, told me in an e-mail. "Further, we know a great deal about the conditions on the parent objects of the meteorites, which (not counting the few meteorites from the moon and Mars) were rather small, not at all like planets.
"I would therefore invoke Carl Sagan's famous advice that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. At a bare minimum this would require publication in a prestigious peer-refereed scientific journal — which this is not. Cyanobacteria on a small airless world sounds like a joke. Perhaps the publication came out too soon; more appropriate would have been on April 1," Morrison said.
Questions about origin
The debate over the validity of Hoover's claims is likely to concentrate over whether the filamentary structures are truly biological in origin, and if so, whether they're the result of earthly contamination.
Hoover said that the filaments, which can measure more than 20 microns long, are of the right size and shape to match the characteristic structures seen in types of cyanobacteria.
"Because of the fact that they are so large and so complex, and many of them have specialized cells, these cyanobacteria can be identified — sometimes to genus and species — just on the basis of certain specialzed cells," he explained. One of the structures found in the meteorites is similar to that seen in the giant bacterium known as Titanospirillum velox, for example.
If the structures are so similar to those seen in earthly organisms, could that be because they're actually the traces of cyanobacteria that found their way into the meteorite? Hoover argues that they're not the result of contamination. He said that cyanobacteria are generally found in aquatic environments, but the meteorites are made of stuff that falls apart when exposed to liquid water. He also said chemical tests on the filaments could find no evidence of nitrogen, which should have been present if earthly cyanobacteria infiltrated the meteorites. One of the meteorites, for example, is known to have fallen to Earth in France in 1864.
"The inability to detect nitrogen in the filaments indicates that they are ancient, and since the meteorite came to Earth in 1864, that indicates that they were in the meteorite when it fell," Hoover said.
Previous analyses of the meteorites' chemical composition have concluded that they were formed during the solar system's earliest epoch, perhaps as comets. But Hoover said that doesn't necessarily mean the structures were present from the very beginning. They could have been picked up from debris that was knocked into space by cosmic impacts. They could even have come from Earth itself, as the result of a meteor blast that occurred millions or billions of years ago.
"That's absolutely possible," Hoover acknowledged. "I have no reason to say I could rule that out."
Hoover has made provocative claims before, and he fully expects that others will contest his conclusions this time as well. "I can only make my observations, based on the scientific results that I see," he told me.
What do you think? Is this a significant advance for the study of life beyond Earth, or a blip hardly worth writing about? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Update for 6 p.m. ET: Rocco Mancinelli, senior research scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, weighed in with this e-mailed critique of Hoover's paper:
"As a microbiologist who has looked at thousands of microbes through a microscope, and done some of my own electron microscopy, I see no convincing evidence that these particles are of biological origin.
"The techniques used may not have been appropriate for these types of analyses. It is stated that the implements were flame-sterilized, with no details of how this was performed. Were the implements placed in the flame of a Bunsen burner? If so, sometimes soot can get on them at the microscopic level. The usual procedure for flame sterilization is to dip the implements in ethanol then burn the ethanol off. Yet, these would be inappropriate for this type of analysis. You need to have everything clean and then bake at 550 degrees C overnight. These missing details would cause me to question not just about the photos, but the elemental analyses as well. I am also disturbed about the lack of nitrogen. There should be more. There are many technical flaws in this paper."
Update for 10:50 p.m. ET: Dale Andersen, principal investigator at the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute, sent his detailed reaction in an e-mail:
"I would be absolutely thrilled to see this story verified, and it would be even more exciting if we found evidence of life that was quite different from terrestrial life — say, for example, its genetic coding used different base pairs than Earth life. That would imply not just evidence of life from beyond our planet, but would demonstrate an independent genesis of life, something that would be absolutely astonishing.
"That said, one needs to look at this paper with a lot of caution, particularly with [the Mars meteorite] ALH 84001 in mind. That was a great story and generated a wonderful debate that continues even today — regardless of the outcome, I would say it was a success story. The best of the best have worked on that meteorite and tried in vain to prove or disprove the original thesis that ALH 84001 holds evidence of life from the planet Mars. While I think it's fair to say that the general scientific consensus is that McKay et al. [the researchers who did the Mars meteorite study] did not provide unambiguous evidence of extraterrestrial life, the process that accompanied the effort throughout was well worth the effort. The scientific community was compelled to think in new ways and to find better tools and methods to examine the evidence. This resulted in technological advances and a much better understanding of how to approach the problem and finding its answer. And the public was very engaged throughout, which was a good thing. I hope there is long-term, strong support for NASA's Exobiology program and that NASA is allowed to continue the search for a better understanding of the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe; it's a goal worthy of support.
"With respect to Richard Hoover's claims about finding evidence of life within the samples of meteorites he has observed, I think he has a very high bar to clear before this story is accepted by the scientific community. It should also be noted that Richard has published this thesis previously (e.g., in 2004: "Perspectives in Astrobiology" (NATO Science Series: Life and Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 366) [Hardcover] Richard B. Hoover (Editor), Aleksei Iurevich Rozanov (Editor), Roland Paepe (Editor)), and the ideas were not well-received nor did they gain traction within the scientific community.
"Peer review will include the examination of his and other scientists’ data and logic, and not until that has occurred will we see how the story unfolds. Occam's razor will eventually be used to slice and dice the carbonaceous chondrites used by Richard to present his evidence. Is it more likely that upon looking into the interior of a meteorite collected on Earth and finding photosynthetic cyanobacteria, which on Earth are usually found in water or wet sediments, their presence is due to contamination from terrestrial sources or that it formed inside the parent body of comet or asteroid in deep space? There will be many other possibilities to rule out before one arrives at the extraterrestrial answer.
"I hope the public does not assume that this story is a certainty — it clearly is not, at least not at this point. Mostly, I hope the general public is able to learn more about the scientific process and the use of critical thinking skills to arrive at the truth and are not confused by an endless parade of silly articles that neither enlighten nor inform. Let the debate begin.
"A side note: I am not an expert with respect to meteorites. It would be very useful to get some of the ALH 84001 folks to weigh in on Richard’s findings, techniques, histories of the meteorites used (where collected, handling), logic etc. And while it may be OK to express healthy skepticism in public forums — meetings such as AbSciCon, AGU, AAAS, etc. and the scientific literature are the places to really rebut and critique the body of work presented — the scientific process should be the judge. Perhaps that is the real story here. Let the facts demonstrate the truth."
I e-mailed an inquiry to David McKay, one of the leaders of the ALH 84001 research team at NASA's Johnson Space Center, even before Andersen mentioned the idea — and I'll report back if I hear anything.
Update for 3 p.m. ET March 6: More critical commentaries are coming in, from Pharyngula's P.Z. Myers as well as from Rosie Redfield, the microbiologist at the University of British Columbia who blew the whistle as well on the "arsenic life" research that made such a splash last December. Here's a link roundup:
- Pharyngula: Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites?
- RRResearch: Is this claim of bacteria in meteorite any better than 1996's?
- NASA Watch: MSFC astrobiologist claims he's found life in a meteorite
- Dot Earth at N.Y. Times: NASA scientist sees signs of life in meteorites
- NPR: Has evidence of alien life been found in meteorites?
- Discovery News: Has evidence for alien life been found?
- Bad Astronomy: Has life been found in a meteorite?
Update for 4:20 p.m. ET March 6: Rudy Schild, the astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who is also the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Cosmology, sent this open letter via e-mail today:
"The Journal of Cosmology had issued a personal invitation to 100 scientists, and a general invitation to over 5,000 members of the scientific community, inviting critical commentary on Dr. Hoover's landmark, paradigm shattering paper. All were given access to a PDF containing a preprint of Dr. Hoover's article.
"Within hours of making it available, it was downloaded over 1,400 times.
"After issuing an open invitation for scientists to search for flaws and to report them in a scientific forum, as of March 6, the Journal of Cosmology has received 12 commentaries.
"Five detail what could best be described as minor quibbles. One offers an alternative explanation as to the origin of these fossils but does not dispute the evidence. We will publish all commentaries so far received, this evening.
"It is natural to have doubt. Skepticism is the nature of science. Debate is healthy and is good for science. We are frankly amazed that we have not received an avalanche of critical commentaries.
"Perhaps the reaction could be described as 'stunned silence'?
"As to those who post insults on various websites, this is not to be taken seriously.
"On the other hand, Dr. Hoover's article, and the lack of scholarly, critical dispute, may be an indication of a paradigm shift; similar to the realization that Earth was not flat nor the center of the Universe. What I mean is: Most scientists and perhaps most of the public realize life must be everywhere throughout the cosmos and not just confined to Earth, and Dr. Hoover's paper simply confirms what most already suspect.
"This may also account for why the over 150 news articles and blogs so far published (with the exception of MSNBC), the response has been generally favorable or positive in nature.
"The inability, so far, of the scientific community to find and present any major flaws in a scientific forum and to submit and publish them in a scientific Journal which has invited critical commentary, speaks for itself.
"However, the jury is still out. Our deadline for receipt of scientific commentaries is Monday, the 7th. We will extend that deadline.
"The Journal of Cosmology will publish critical commentary. We encourage it. We ask the media to encourage the scientific community to send us critical commentary.
"However, so far, the verdict appears to be: We are not alone."
Earlier, Schild forwarded some additional reactions to Hoover's paper. Here is a quote attributed to Carl Gibson of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at Scripps Institute and the University of California at San Diego:
"Dr. Hoover has provided the world with extraordinary evidence to back up extraordinary claims. This discovery completely changes our perspective of the nature of life and our place in the universe. The world will never be the same."
Here's a quote from Chandra Wickramasinghe, director of the Astrobiology Centre at Cardiff University, who has also stirred up controversy for his views about life from space:
" Dr. Hoover has provided the world with decisive evidence that we are all aliens. Life is a truly cosmic phenomenon. ... We believe Dr. Hoover's evidence, coupled with other findings and recent genetic studies, indicates life has a genetic ancestry which leads over 10 billion years back in time. Some of these life forms were delivered to Earth, in comets."
I've started up a new item with further reaction, from the Journal of Cosmology's commentaries as well as other sources.
More controversies in astrobiology:
- Definition of life: Arsenic debate just won't die
- Strange find on Titan sparks chatter about life
- Mars methane mystery: What's making the gas?
- Meteorite study revives debate over life on Mars
- Search for alien life may take giant leap forward
Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
A GIVEN?
BY
DAVID H. HALSEY, P.E. BES
We are trapped inside our own bodies. The only way we can communicate with the outside world is by using our senses: sight; smell; hearing; taste; and touch. The level of sophistication to which senses have evolved, genetically and/or learned, will determine how well we can understand not how life began but how life, in the classical and quantum worlds in which we find ourselves, got to this particular spot in the Universe.
The classical laws of physics are obviously friendly to life because we exist! But, the fact that “living” cells exchange information may be the definition of the quantum world. Thus the quantum theory just may turn out to be the theory of information and “is not really physics at all”[1]. Within the quantum world a virus is enormous whereas in the classical world the Universe has that distinction.
The microbes that NASA found in California’s Mono Lake (2010) appear to have evolved by substituting arsenic for phosphorous as a nutrient to survive. This is one more clue that life is very resilient. The more knowledge we gain about the “particles of life” the more we are led to conclude that the Universe was designed to accommodate and sustain life. This paper presents some of these arguments.
The elements[2] to sustain life are continuing to be created in the evolution of the stars. It all begins with the simplest and oldest element, hydrogen, which is the fuel of stars. From this basic element, every other element that forms our body is manufactured as “star stuff”. This part we know. So the question begs: “Was the Universe designed to perpetuate life based upon the design criteria recorded in the DNA helix?”
One could begin to wonder if the complex DNA helix was in fact “made” within the lifetime of the Universe. We’ll never know. However, what appears real, besides the complex magnitude of life on this oasis called Earth, are the “conveyors of life”, comets, which exist throughout the realm of the visible Universe. Comets are made of water ice and most agree that a search for life is a search for water.
Will we eventually accept the fact that we are not alone? Earth’s population of life may be the only atypical copies in the Universe but there are other forms of life in other worlds that have evolved by adapting to the environments of their “planet”.
The prime ingredient that makes the Universe real is energy. When organisms (life) came along the flow of information, not energy, became the prime mover. We know that a unit of life exists because “communication” of molecular information allows for survival in an entropic[3]” world. Once life existed on Earth, Werner Loewenstein says: “Given its abundance, it is not surprising that Evolution chose light as an energy source to drive living systems.” Even the writers of the Bible got it right when they wrote, before life came along: “And there was light.”
A one cell animal, the Amoeba[4], has the capacity to process information that would fill more than 300,000 pages of a book. The human’s body cells contain, collectively, enough information to fill a library greater than any that has ever existed.
Both living and non-living matter are made of the same kind of atoms, yet the living can perform coordinated functions (e.g. the cells in your heart muscles are the same type cells in your leg muscles yet the heart cells all have the same rhythmic beat) where the non-living cell cannot. Thus to repeat living cells do what non-living cells cannot do, and that is extract information from their surroundings.
When a living creature is fashioned, the building structure, cells, is given different job assignments. The aggregate chores are designed to make the whole body function. That is to do those things that give it the best chance to survive in its environment long enough to replicate the DNA matrix and nurture the next ‘copy’, assuring continuance of the specie. This is done by passing on information to and from each cell by a control center (for a human the communicator is the mind which resides in the cells of the brain). Entropy, which in living entities is called aging, will win out after the next generation is produced and nurtured. This disorder that our living body cells go through to become a “pile” of atoms after death is entropy.
The time flow on Earth has proven to be an ideal environment for Earth-like complex life to evolve. “From Everest’s peak to the floor of the Mariana Trench, creatures of one kind or another inhabit virtually every square inch of the planetary surface[5]”. Earth’s incubator has allowed microorganisms, such as bacteria and viruses, to become a diversity of life that is certainly “Earth like”. Life that evolved on Earth can only survive elsewhere in an Earth like environment. However, microbes have proven that they can survive in space and there is some circumstantial evidence that the “seeds” of life planted on Earth did arrive from space. Not only are we made from “star stuff,” but our microorganism ancestors are Universal!
A bacterium called “Deinococcus radiodarans” can live through radiation so intense the glass of a Pyrex beaker, in which they reside, will cook to a discolored fragile condition. These critters can with stand radiation about 1,000 times that which will kill Homo sapiens. A small number will survive three (3) million rads[6]. 1,000 rads will kill a human in one to two weeks. These guys are ‘super bugs’ and certainly are candidates for space travel.
When the first astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, they retrieved a piece of an unmanned moon vehicle, of the “Surveyor”[7] series that were sent to recon landing sites. Bacteria found on the retrieved part, exposed to the moon’s environment for more than seven years, were still alive.
There was an experiment on board the space station that exposed microbes to space. The shuttle Challenger’s crew was supposed to retrieve this experiment and return it to researchers on Earth. Challenger exploded on lift off and the microbe experiment remained exposed to a space environment for more than three years. Examination of the experiment found the bacteria had survived by creating a cocoon around some members of their colony.
There is evidence that microbes can remain dormant indefinitely. About thirty million years ago a bee was killed by resin that over time turned into amber which served as its tomb until now. Within the bee’s belly a microbiologist, Raul Cano, found more than two thousand species of bacteria and yeast that had survived those millions of years of entombment[8]. When environmental conditions in a pristine laboratory reached life support levels, these critters came alive!
Almost every global influenza outbreak involves microbes that are unique to that particular outbreak. The influenza pandemic of 1918-19 killed from 20 to 30 million people from every inhabited continent. Physicians were helpless as “The origin of this influenza variant is not precisely known”. The accepted thought was that the virus originated in China where a rare genetic shift took place to change the virus[9].
Immediately after Halley’s Comet visited the Solar System in April 1910 Earth’s orbit took the planet directly through the comet’s plume. Water[10] latent dust and other debris entered Earth’s upper atmosphere. Some researchers believe the influenza virus that caused the 1918 outbreak could have arrived via Halley’s Comet. Circumstantial evidence leads one to believe that eventually the seeds of life will probably be found in the dust debris left by a passing comet.
The aforementioned evidence drives the search for life on Mars and elsewhere in space. The Viking Landers of the 1970s were design to search for life on the surface of Mars. Several experiments were on board that involved the collection of soil, applying nutrients to that soil sample and analyze the waste that could have been generated by microbes. The first experiment used a radiation marker which gave a positive indication that something alive had processed the soil sample. Further experiments could not verify these results so NASA retracted their findings that life had been discovered on Mars. Later, experiments were conducted on Earth using twin Viking instruments that analyzed soil enriched with microbes and the devices failed.
NASA has a meteorite that is definitely from Mars that contains a fossil that was left by a microbe. The meteorite was examined several years ago without a conclusion. However since that exam new instrumentation have been developed, and the sample is being revaluated. Conclusions are pending.
There are many clues that the Universe is populated throughout with life in the form of microorganisms. The age of Earth almost certainly excludes time for life to originate. It is a logical assumption that the seeds of life originated elsewhere at the microcosm level. “Our DNA is simply too paltry to spell out the wiring diagram for the human brain.[11]”
It’s conceivable that Nature’s purpose for a collection of atoms coming “alive” is to replicate the double helical structure we call DNA. These two chains are wound round each other and linked together by hydrogen (the oldest and most abundant element) bonds between specific complimentary bases to form a spiral ladder-shaped molecule. The molecule can encode vast amounts of data, save it, and pass it on through countless generations nearly error free. Because it operates at the quantum level only a particular arrangement of atoms is possible[12].
All known life on earth, from bacteria to trees, including humans, are all descendants from a single ancestor and share the same kind of genetic material, i.e. DNA. Living cells use DNA to store genetic information and use the same code for turning this information into proteins and living organisms.
For a collection of atoms to perform the chores of life, it would appear to take eons of time to synchronize. These crude groups of microbes must have existed in a slower time zone, thus in the beginning of microcosmic life there was no need for replication or subsistence. The bee entombed in the amber proved this concept. It was not until the “seeds of life” arrived on Earth that the need for renewal became parameters of necessity for continued existence. The primary consequences of the computational nature of the Universe are that it generates complex systems, such as life[13]”. Consciousness may be an emergent phenomenon that does not exist at a lower level of complexity than that to which we have evolved.
Everything that is a ‘living’ entity depends upon the flow of information between the living cells. The time clock within each creature appears to allow this communication to take place, thus the entity that defines us as being alive. What some defined as a “normal” human being may simply be an entity with an internal clock that’s in sync with its surroundings! The life span of any earthy creature, that is to say the aging process, is defined by time and its ability to replicate.
The current state-of-the-art in science cannot define why, what or how ‘life’ exists. Our concepts of life, from birth to death, are constrained by having only observed a single instance of evolutionary life[14]. Since our brains have not evolved to the point where original thought can occur, we have designed a world to live in that is not of the natural world. From this “virtual” world our brain must contend with instincts (genetics) and the rules that are put forth to survive in “our” world. A person’s senses determine how well they can cope.
EPILOQUE
So the two questions that are most important to scientists, “How did life begin?” and “What is consciousness?” go unanswered partly because of evidence and mostly because of the fabric of our philosophical upbringing. Our descendants will continue the quest for scientific knowledge about the basic nature of life’s origins.
The works of Nature are absolute. There are no constants, chaos, probabilities and static states. The whole and all of its components must follow the same ‘laws’. Time allows Nature to progress in a predetermined way throughout its microcosm and macrocosm components. Natural selection through evolution has given Homo sapiens the ability to focus our mind’s eye in whatever direction we freely choose. Our world will, in time, die as the Sun dies, but nature will continue!
“It is what it is!”
DHH_MMXI
[1] Fuchs, Chris 1998: Gilder, Lousia, “The Age of Entanglement”, Vintage Books, 2008, Ppg 334-5
[2] Every element except hydrogen listed in the Periodic Table, up to Iron, was created in the life cycle of a star including the nova (star explosion).
[3] The decay of any object, system and/or critter is referred to as entropy. An antique table is going through a process of entropy; a rusty nail; etc.
[4] Loewenstein, Werner, “The Touch Stone of Life”, Oxford Press, 1999
[5] Wilson, Edward O., “The Future of Life”, Vintage Books, 2002
[6] A radiation unit i.e.-curie, roentgen, rad, and rem.
[7] The unmanned “Surveyor” instruments were sent to the moon to recon landing sites for the Apollo program.
[8] Warshofsky, Fred, “Stealing Time”, TV Books, 1999
[9] In 1918, China was essentially a closed society thus the perfect scape goat.
[10] Scientists have determined that Earth’s water was delivered to the upper atmosphere by comets. A phenomenon that continues today.
[11] Schwartz, Jeffery M., & Begley, Sharon, “The Mind & the Brain”, HarperCollins, 2002
[12] Schrodinger, Erwin, “What is Life”, (1958; repr., Cambridge University Press, 1967
[13] Llyod, Seth, “Programming the Universe”, Alfred A. Knofp, 2006
[14]Heudin, Jean-Claude, Editor, “Virtual Worlds”, Perseus, 2004
Gee, then they can check yours!
TO: mgo-1426388
TO: mgo-1426388
Hey, you ignorant turd! Whether you like the policies or work of Obama, who has delivered fully in less than two year on his five greatest campaign promises (Best records in U.S. History), is your own business; that's just politics.
However, for you to assail his intelligence is either racist screed or just pure, slack-jaw ignorance. He is a Harvard trained lawyer and was also a law professor there, hence the successful product of our most intellectually rigorous and best education available in this country.
Thus, to impune what is "in his head" is a form of destructive lunacy that puts you and way too many others on the wrong side of history or any good sense.
Go back to readying the Classics Illustrated version of Mein Kampf and stop polluting this system with your intellectual sewage.
mgo mgo...... Just couldn't resist injecting a little hatred into a totally unrelated discussion could you? President Obama is Cum Laude graduate from Harvard Law. He also holds a Juris Doctorate. I think there is proof that there is life inside his head.
Anthony,
Why is it that anything vulgar said about Obama is automatically racism? Nothing said about Obama has really been worse than what was said about Bush, yet you do not get the same cries of bigotry that you get with Obama haters.
When it comes to politics, vitriolic hatred is always going to be spilled by "the other side". This has nothing to do with racism but everything to do with improper discord between people of different factions. Just like MGO spreads hatred, so do you.
Getting back to the original topic, yes, life abounds elsewhere in the universe. Do researchers think that only proof will answer this question? Earth has won some universal lotto of life is hard to believe. We should be searching the universe for intelligence, because we need some here badley.
anthony stone
"Whether you like the policies or work of Obama, who has delivered fully in less than two year on his five greatest campaign promises (Best records in U.S. History), is your own business; that's just politics."
Which 5 promises were those? We can count healthcare as one, even though it will do nothing to reduce costs and will probably be overturned in court. What were the other 4?
Bob...., the one where he said in his books that he wanted to send the wealth of the USA to the Third World; and they are right as he has succeeded in doing that, at our expense that is.
Bob Randall-1218482 - Who cares? Did you get lost in all that "sciency" stuff?
Funny how they never collapse any criticism or belligerent name calling that insults George Bush or any other conservative. But they waste no time when you make a joke about the anointed one Obama. MSN as partasian as ever. I guess you will collapse this comment to.
Words were pearls cast to swine.
1. End the war in Iraq - as best as possible what with all the Republican jingoism still haunting about.
2. Staunch the economic bleeding to death of our country, wholly due to Republican war on economic equality and trashing of the years of the 40s -70s sound governmental regulatory scheme that took this nation through 30 years of the greatest economic prosperity for the greatest number of people in the history of the world.
- Even though the program to do this was given him by the previous lunatic Administration.
- Hey, look around; it worked. Not completely of course, no one can undo eighth years of economic mayhem committed by the Bush cabal; it will take a good deal more time, but we're no longer going under.
3. Reigning in Wall Street with new, long overdue regulations to stop the greedy, filthy madness of the "Bush Years" from ever happening again.
4. Create a consumer financial administration to stop the greedy predation of money-fatted bankers on good working people.
5. Given us a health care program that sees to it the most of the 40 million uninsured ( A national disgrace tolerated no where in the civilized world!) some hope that their alternatives will not longer be stay healthy, or die.
Get with it man, read some history! You don't need to go back much further than the 1930s. Unless you're heir to some fortune, your ancestors and mine were poor working slobs with 6 day, ten hour a day work weeks, no medical insurance, no workers compensation or workers safety, no minimum wage and no retirement!
Big government was not the problem then or now. I'm a member of the upper 5% income group now, but perceptive enough to admit that if it hadn't been for the "Big Government" programs and regulations given in the 40's, I'd be employed filling the BMW and Mercedes gas tanks of Republicans.
Explore yourself and your nation's history before you go public; had it not been for the good government I've described, unless you're a member of the Forbes, Wainwright, Rockefeller or Stanford family, you'd be right next to me washing the bugs off the windshields, or maybe in a "training program' learning how to precisely say, "Would you like fries with that?"
Due a little research and some clear thinking on your own instead of heeding the vicious mob mentality of Palin and the Teabaggers.
Stand up for everyone who works or tries to work up to a decent standard of living. It's the right thing to do for EVERYONE, the poor and yes even Republicans and their wealthy puppet-masters.
mgo, you did make me laugh:)
Mark-941197
"Bob Randall-1218482 - Who cares? Did you get lost in all that "sciency" stuff?"
Mark, I responded to what Anthony said. Do you have a problem with that? He must care or he wouldn't have brought it up.
As for the "sciency" stuff, I'm not into suppositions. Are you? Bring me the facts.
@ Bob
SCIENCE IS FACT
ur prob just a christian, facts IS here, di du even read the dam article, i swear anyone who ever complained bout science is in a religion base don DENIAL, yes you
i dont know where your heading but w.e,
next thing we know, theres a convo bout gawd existing..
In my opinion all but two posts should be collapsed on the basis that they are completely irrelevant to the subjecty. Yes Bob. I think they did get lost in all that "sciensyness"
Bob, my apologies for directing that comment only towards you, as it should have been directed at all comments not associated with this article. Somehow, politics and religion always get interjected into these science threads.
I can almost understand the religious interjection, (as I am also guilty here) as science has always been a threat towards religion. But politics? Come on.....
Maybe , Might be, probably, Could, IF IF IF Things were as we think them to be but not might be
looks like fluff, like ascribing animal shapes to clouds or star formations.
Science for the most part is a Religion, like a flea on a dogs back looking up and describling things as it wants to see them.
Of course there is Intelligent life out there, the existence of which has always been known, just not accepted becuase it don't fit there own narrow perceptions, wants and desires and becuase of there attitude they will never find anything out untill he wants to reveal himself, except then it will be to wipe out those who perferred to belive the lie rather than the truth. he allows them to think thier correct because their rejected.
just because man thinks if it dosen't happen with in his tiny life span nothng is happening how arrogant. he cannot explain how a single blade of grass grows and replacates yet he looks at far grander things and says it was by chance, an accident multiplied over and over again in every species of plant, animal Bacterial life and the crown jewel human life, The FOOL has said in his heart there is no Jehovah.
@ Bob
Science is not fact. Science is an attempt to determine what is fact. Much of what we assume is fact turns out to be wrong. Look at it this way, what do you think about the science of, say...500 years ago, or even 100 years ago? There was a great deal of assumptions made by science that were completely wrong. 500 years from now I wonder how we would view much of the science of today? My point is, science is continually learning, but it is subject to agendas and biased assumptions, and sometimes we make honest conclusions based on what we know only to learn more later that completely negates what we thought earlier.
anthony stone
"Words were pearls cast to swine."
Obviously, he was talking to you.
"1. End the war in Iraq - as best as possible what with all the Republican jingoism still haunting about."
Actually he said: “I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary — likely to be necessary — to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq,” Mr. Obama said this week as he introduced his national security team."
Didn't happen. We are still there and will be for a long time.
"2. Staunch the economic bleeding to death of our country, wholly due to Republican war on economic equality and trashing of the years of the 40s -70s sound governmental regulatory scheme that took this nation through 30 years of the greatest economic prosperity for the greatest number of people in the history of the world."
Record deficits. That is the way to stop the bleading. Higher unemployment, bigger government. 7% unemploymeny when he was elected and his policies raised it to 9% +. Nice move.
"3. Reigning in Wall Street with new, long overdue regulations to stop the greedy, filthy madness of the "Bush Years" from ever happening again."
Didn't happen. Dems love Wall Street too. Just ask Nancy Pelosi, who's husband is an investment banker. Bet you ignored that fact. They are still getting bonuses and so is her husband.
"4. Create a consumer financial administration to stop the greedy predation of money-fatted bankers on good working people."
Didn't happen except for more government. Where do you get this crap?
"5. Given us a health care program that sees to it the most of the 40 million uninsured ( A national disgrace tolerated no where in the civilized world!) some hope that their alternatives will not longer be stay healthy, or die."
They are still uninsured while the cost keeps rising. The legislation will be found unconstitution on the grounds that the government can't force people to buy health insurance.
"Get with it man, read some history!"
Get with it man, read some history. You are locked into MSNBC. No history there. All leftists like you. Revisionist history at best.
Come back.
Anthony,
Lets see:
50k troops in Iraq still.
Record profits for many US companies, yet no increase in jobs.
Wallstreet got their loses covered, and now what do they do with it? Drive up commodity prices. If Obama really cared about reigning in Wall Street, he would not allow hedgefunds to needlessly drive up the price of oil. Sure they can lie to you and say that the crisis in Lybia and Egypt is what caused the increased the costs, but it is all BS as oil production has not been hurt.
Credit Card companies can increase their fees on you whenever they feel like it.
More and more uninsured since healthcare was passed.
So much for closing Gitmo.
Obama has done more to push the Bush agenda than he has to undo all the terrible things Bush did.
Supporting democrats does not mean supporting the working class, as they are for the aristocracy just as much as the Republicans are.
One has to consider the possibility that the rock came from earth. We have rocks here that scientist believe to have come from mars, due to an impact event.
sockurmouth
"@ Bob
SCIENCE IS FACT
ur prob just a christian, facts IS here, di du even read the dam article, i swear anyone who ever complained bout science is in a religion base don DENIAL, yes you
i dont know where your heading"
I am just telling you that all science is not a fact. Anything called a theory is based upon faith. I am an engineer, based upon provable facts, but all science is not fact, yet you seem to be lacking the education to understand that fact.
I would also bet that you have no science backgroung or you wouldn't say it was all a fact. You listen to whoever you think is smarter than you and assume they know what they are talking about, because you have no clue.
Mark-941197
"I can almost understand the religious interjection, (as I am also guilty here) as science has always been a threat towards religion. But politics? Come on....."
Don't they call that political science? Just about everything is about politics, wanting the government to pay for seudo science.
Winesman
"Science for the most part is a Religion, like a flea on a dogs back looking up and describling things as it wants to see them."
I agree for the most part, but there are some things in science that can be proved in our reality, like how much a beam with a known moment of inertia will bend with known dimensions and weight exerted on it. That is simple compared to universal science, which is mostly a best guess.
Physics and science evaporate in a black hole. So what was the big bang? No one knows, pure speculation, since the current science says nothing can escape a black hole. So again, what was the big bang? Pure speculation based upon extremely limited data. completely outside of known science and physics.
Wow im confused
Gossman8310
@ Bob
"Science is not fact. Science is an attempt to determine what is fact. Much of what we assume is fact turns out to be wrong. Look at it this way, what do you think about the science of, say...500 years ago, or even 100 years ago? There was a great deal of assumptions made by science that were completely wrong. 500 years from now I wonder how we would view much of the science of today? My point is, science is continually learning, but it is subject to agendas and biased assumptions, and sometimes we make honest conclusions based on what we know only to learn more later that completely negates what we thought earlier."
I believe that is what I already said said, but in different terms. Bold letters doesn't make the truth or fiction more plausible. The fact of the matter is that we know nearly nothing about the why or how of existence. A microscopic worm looking think in a metorite proves nothing. What we thought earlier compared to what we think today proves nothing. All theories perpetuated by those who want to make a buck.
I make bucks by doing what will work, without the politics. When America gets back to that principle, it will thrive again. Green won't get us there for a long time. It will only slow us down.
Actually, in current science, various things can escape black holes. X-Rays and various other theoretical particles can be discharged from a black hole.
To Bob Randall-1218482:
That statement is laughable. I would love to know what drugs you are on.
The meteorite samples could be contaminated. A single case of this is deceiving. I would like to see more evidence show up.
About the other stuff, how much taxes did bank o America pay last year? We will never plug the hole bleeding us of most of the tax revenue as long as the rich with offshore tax shelters are the ones voting on it! LOL if you want but I think that is L7.
of course life is a universal constant. why would god create dead worlds? of course obama is a ninny. he's so afraid that anybody (read: "Crackers") might confuse him with being a muslim instead of the idolatrous, and wealthy, white man christian that he is.. and regarding obama's warmongering, including the insanity of drone warfare, forget any rational or compassionate outcome there:
transition time, sitting on the white house veranda: George bush and obama/ Bush: i'll tell ya boy* (don't call me boy, sir) ok obie,, is that ok? well, sir... anyway, you wanna know why i started that Iraqi war? It wasn't fer oil like them people say, it was for american jobs, boy, i mean obie. sorry about that. The military industry needs jobs! we need to keep them bombs falling. and you gonna need to keep them bombs falling too, because, i'll be truthful with you... the economy's tanking, and we gotta keep them war jobs going. I'll tell ya something else Obie, that's why kennedy was killed, yup. he was going to stop the vietnam war but they wouldn,t let him. hell, it ain't got nothin to do with them arabs, they're just in the wrong place, and we gotta keep them wars going from now on..
*the "boy" business, is just to indicate the obvious that bush is an racist like most of our rogues gallery of presidents were.
So many irrelevant comments, we're talking about "extraterrestrial life" not politics, history or anything of that sort. If you're not going to contribute to this subject than go elsewhere.
.
I'm confused as to the debate. There were microbes found inside of other meteor rocks before. Yes there is life outside of this planet. The fact that there are microbes found inside of the meteor pretty much proves it. Possibly finding more recent samples would be more convincing.
There is only one branch of science where there is absolute certainty and everything is provable. Outside of that branch, everything else is based on scientific theory. Scientific theory is accepted so long as it continues to function. For instance theory - burning hydrogen produces water. So far, this theory hasn't been disproved. Everyone that burns hydrogen, gets water. Therefore this theory holds true.
Faith works differently than science. Religious theory - God answers your prayers. This theory can neither be proved or disproved as not all prayers are answered in the same manner. At least the results of the lottery drawing show that not all of us are millionaires, so for the most part, I'm stating that not all prayers are answered positively. No still counts as an answer; but, the no answer could also just be unanswered. No real proof either way. That's why it's called faith.
The only branch of science by the way that is 100% proven is mathematics. By definition 1+1=2. Man created it more than discovered it.
Bob Randall,
Your interpretation of what science "is or isn't" is wrong. Science is methodological naturalism. It aims to analytically explain workings of the natural world through experimentation. In case you missed Science 101, here's how it works:
Obervation/idea/serendipity >> hypothesis >> experimental design >> experimental observation >> analysis of data >> refined models >> attempts to disprove models/peer review >> verification or falsification >> Theory >> continued attempts to falsify, more peer review.
Well, you are correct in one thing: Science itself is not "a fact." It is a way of analyzing facts, and producing reliable, often utilitarian interpretations of those facts. Facts are synonymous with data in the scientific world. Conclusions are based on facts, and used to formulate models/theories, which are then tested repeatedly. In this way, a model achieves a closer approximation of truth. This is the essence of science - it doesn't serve to "give us answers," but rather reduce uncertainty, so that the conclusions we arrive at are very likely to be correct. Leave the education comment out of this, it only weakens your case.
Your biggest mistake is to label science as being faith-based. That is a load of BS and you should know it if you flaunt your superior scientific education here. Faith is the belief in something absent evidence, often in the face of contradictory evidence. Science is a disbelief in any claim absent evidence, and a persistent effort to find contradictory or confirmatory evidence in a non-biased manner. Do you understand the difference? Saying science is faith-based is an incredibly ignorant statement; please do not fall prey to this line of illogic.
You claim to have scientific background. You are an engineer, which is great, but I wouldn't say that gives you any expertise in this area. You are making an argument from authority on those grounds, but in reality have no more qualifications to comment on this than the average lay person. Leave technical critiques to the biologists/geneticists/biochemists/geologists here. You're entitled to your own opinion, but from what I can tell, you feel as though you are entitled to your own facts.
Undue credulity is a problem though. I will agree with that. Skepticism of all claims is necessary before any reasonable decisions can be made. Petty jibes about intelligence are not.
Regards
It must be understood that nothing happens in a vacume. If this Meteor actually fell to the Earth 1 million years ago, then why was it not buried under layer upon layer of material? If as we know, the Earth's Orbit is getting larger and larger (further and further from the Sun), then how close was it 1 million years ago? So close NOTHING but molten lava existed. Lastly "All known life on earth, from bacteria to trees, including humans, are all descendants from a single ancestor" is Macro Evolution which has no basis in Science. i.e Single Celled Life, has a very limited DNA chain. Humans have a very complex DNA chain. The difference is added information. You can take 2s, 3s & 5s all day long and reorganize them, but they will not include a 7 or a 9. Color Vision in Humans cannot of evolved from simpler life as they never had that information, no matter how you organize their DNA. Micro evolution, i.e the differences between squirrels on either side of the Grand Canyon, or the Virus described, is entirely within Science and doesn't conflict with any Religion, but Macro Evolution does not share that.
@ Alan Boyle,
As a fellow scientist, I feel your (assumed) frustration for a topic such as this to be overtaken by a bunch of political hacks arguing about Obama.
@ Dan,
I believe the main difference between this meteorite and the others, including the Martian one, are that the bacteria have found to be inside of the actual rock, rather than on the surface.
Overall, this supports my personal belief that comets are the galactic "seeders" of the universe. They are traveling balls of ice/gas that constantly streak through space, going unimaginable distances before slamming into other planets/suns, with a giant "ball" of frozen bacteria, ready to spring to life after God knows how long in suspended animation.
I think a good analogy is a retention basin. Having worked in the construction industry through college, it was only a matter of months before fish would appear in newly constructed, lifeless basins. The stray bird accidentally dropping a fish with eggs into it, a large flood, etc always, always occurs, it's just a question of when. And this is complex life, not single celled bacteria which can live in various forms of suspended animation for indefinite periods of time. If you look back at Earth's history, "life" essentially sprung up overnight on Earth after billions of years of essentially nothing.
Like spreading your seed. Screw around enough and you make a baby. Drop enough protolife on a planet until some of it takes hold and starts evolving.
However, a lot of good seed fails to fertilize, or Heaven forbid, falls on the "ground" or into a star, and never takes hold.
@ZipZag: your post has Zero Zilch scientific content. Your "facts" are so off that they are not even wrong. (Look that line up - you may find it of interest - Wolfgang Pauli)
<em>>I say "Ni"!<</em>
anthony stone, you are suspended for a day for violating rule # 1 of the Code of Honor.
Comment # 1.1, # 1.11, and # 1.30 deleted. Obama derails and a racist remark from john-3140091.
You are also suspended for a day for violating # 4 and # 5 of the Code of Honor.
If we are natural products of the universe, it would be remarkable if we are alone.
man's created by God, but theres no doubt in mind that theres life beyond Earth.
Man was created over millions of years of natural selection, a theory with so much evidence even the Pope believes it to be true.
But I agree, there is no doubt that there is life beyond Earth. When considering the fact that there are billions and billions of planets in our one out of billions and billions of galaxies, the odds of at least another, if not a few thousand, planets existing that could sustain life are insurmountable.
How credible is the Pope?
It is not the Pope's credibility which adds power to the theory, but his status. If the religious leader of the largest denomination of the largest religion in the world accepts the scientific explanation instead of the literal Garden of Eden story that fundamentalists prefer (believing the bones of dinosaurs were placed in the ground 6,000 years ago to test their faith), it gives the preferred modern theory a sense of compatability with spiritual beliefs.
passiveobserver "Man was created over millions of years of natural selection, a theory with so much evidence even the Pope believes it to be true"
Citizen-2301191's post did not dispute that. I believe is entirely reasonable to claim that evolution was God's method of creating creatures and man.
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.
Where did you get your info about the Pope. I have never heard that. I am sure that if the Pope said he beleives in evollution it would make front page news. BTW I an NOT Catholic
*Facepalm* How do people get the idea that evolution is how God had life created?
People obviously don't understand the basic concept of sin and death. The Bible says that God created everything perfect, so sin was not apart of the world. Since sin is how death entered the world (only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God), how could death have been around FOR MILLIONS/BILLIONS OF YEARS before Adam and Eve were even ALIVE! Come on people (mainly intended for Christians), don't just blindly accept what scientists are saying because they ARE NOT always right or truthful (big ex. Nebraska Man). And Natural Selection is NOT EVOLUTION, Micro =/= Macro. The Bible states natural selection in Genesis 1:24.
The Pope is about as far from the truth as you can humanly get. What he believes is as irrelevant as he is. BTW - It was the previous Pope that said evolution was sound. If he had actually opened a Bible, which he is supposed to believe... well, that's asking too much - they botched that centuries ago by saying the earth was made in 6000 years (not what it says).
Anyway if you read it (the Bible) you'll see that there IS life beyond earth, and YES some of those life forms did interact with humans and not for the good, of course there's more to it - but other than that is not known at this time. I asked about this very subject when someone showed up at my door - interesting reading.
Who cares what the pope thinks? I mean come on, science and religion are opposite ends of the spectrum on almost everything. Science uses theories based on facts, religion uses outdated books written by man. Any admission by the church comes basically only when pressured by total embarrassment of indisputable facts.
On a serious note, one about the article, I would tend to believe microscopic life could survive frozen in meteors and transferred from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy. Why not, we have creatures that are not microscopic here in earth that are frozen solid, only to thaw and continue to live a normal life afterwards.
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
What is remarkable about physics and science is that it claims all came from a big bang, but when they reduce the universe back into a "black hole" physics and science run out of theories. So, what was before the big bang, if there was a big bang? Was there more than one? Was it god? Fact of the matter is that it is unknown.
To say there is no god is baseless in science and science can't explain the why of the universe, much less the how. A true scientist would leave all options open, because even some science depends upon faith, which is another word for theory, since theory, by definition, is something not proved.
:-)
It is a shame that there have been so many who claimed to be religious and that claimed to read the Bible, but are so ignorant of its contents. They are not relavent to the discussion.
There are also some well known holes in the evolution theory and the idea of survival of the fitest. Indeed, the Pope caved in and supported the idea of evolution in order to make the church more attractive to people of the modern secular society where evolution is taught as fact in school. Its the same thing that happened with Saturnalia/Christmas 1600 years ago, except this time it is forging a partnership with atheists instead of the contemporary pagans.
Regarding the origins of life, there is no mathematical or scientific way that something as complex as life could have arrisen, reproduced, survived, and developed into the complex variety that exists today in our finite universe, even with the hundreds of billions of galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars in the 13.5 billion year time period that the universe has existed - the numbers are too astronomical as to be considered remotely possible. The odds alone of one strand of DNA spontaneously assembling itself, let alone the rest of the complex "computer code" needed for any organism to live and reproduce, gets into a number with so many zeros I don't feel like trying to type it out, but the point is this - the consistent observation has always been that life comes from life, and in the beginning there HAD to be an intelligent first cause. Nothing else is logical or scientific.
@ATS
Fact-Man created God in his image. As a matter of fact many other Gods were created thousands of years before the Hebrews created what you know as God. What seperates scientists from "believers" is that they create theories and then perform experiments, and write mathematical equations to prove physically (physics) that their theories are correct. Many scientific theories that were once believed impossible are proven every year. Believers-as I call them-base everything they know on a books written 9 thousand years ago from unknown authors, and then brainwash themselves because of the fear of the inevitable death. Some proof that the Holy Bible are just stories or parables can be seen in another story written by a known author Gilgamesh, telling of a flood in almost an identical fashion as the STORY of Noahs's Ark; which was written at basically the same time. The difference is Gilgamesh' Flood was brought down by one of many God's.
If one takes the bible in the true literal sense, life originated not on earth but was brought here by an extraterrestial...God...after all it is stated in the bible that he came down from the heavens and brought forth the creatures then man..No where in the bible does it say that earth has a monopoly on life.......
passiveobserver
"It is not the Pope's credibility which adds power to the theory, but his status. If the religious leader of the largest denomination of the largest religion in the world accepts the scientific explanation instead of the literal Garden of Eden story that fundamentalists prefer (believing the bones of dinosaurs were placed in the ground 6,000 years ago to test their faith), it gives the preferred modern theory a sense of compatability with spiritual beliefs."
First, Islam is the largest religion and they want you to be a part of it, even if it kills you. The pope is not into science. He is into converts thru peace, at least for today. Regardless, he will go where the flock takes him to stay on power.
Super T Anvil
"Fact-Man created God in his image."
I would bet you couldn't even prove that you exist or don't. I am not saying you are wrong, I am just saying that you can't prove you are right anymore than the above article can prove life exists beyond earth. The only way to prove either is verifiable evidence and there is none for either other than faith.
And, by your post you obviously don't understand the concept of how life arose on this (or any) planet.
Take your own advise and don't blindly accept what your priest, preacher or a book (written by man) says either! Because they ARE NOT always right or truthful as well.
Just because you can't fathom something as how life began in the universe, or for that mater, the origin of the universe itself, does not make it a fallacy!
I'll agree with you slightly based on the fact that people only have to look to one "higher" figure despite the religion and judge the rest as the same for example, most if not all of Christianity is judged based on the actions of the catholic church and the pope. That however, does not make right. you can't blame or subject certain people to a certain standard based on the actions of what is perhaps the majority idiots. The pope and the catholic church are sell-outs in terms of defending the bible, the simple answer for that being that they don't know what the bible says though they like to boast they do.
Furthermore, Catholicism is no longer the largest religious group in the world, might want to re-check that.
lastly, science does harmonise in with the bible just not in the way you think. By that i mean in the way you've heard the catholics in particular the pope explain it. normally when people are bombarded with so much evidence against their belief, they can become too lazy to dig further into their own beliefs to find an explanation or they are too busy trying to find a way to re-butt and if that fails, they choose complacency.
You can't believe in evolution and at the same time believe in the genesis account of creation which personally now renders the pope's position void. like most countries that scrap their monarchy systems i think this is another system that should be scrapped. if you can't perform the duties you signed up for i.e do you're job you should be fired and since no pope can seem to defend the bible against critics the position is officially useless.
A consultation into the bible would show that there is no need for a war between science and God. People simply need to understand both science and God from the bible to see that both are compatible. one does not render the other mute. what science fails to answer, religion accounts for and vise versa. for example the bible is silent on topics about our complex make-up but thanks to science we can see the intelligent design behind all creatures on the earth and a smart person wouldn't dismiss that as proof that there is no creator but instead acknowledge the intelligence, brilliance and power behind such a being. science on the other hand is silent about why we are here, what happens when we die (the bible does not say we go to heaven, contrary to what the pope may say).
I get plenty of answers to many questions by mixing science and the bible and not disposing of one or the other. Granted not all questions are answered but that's where faith comes in. One thing i will never understand though is how certain scientists can discover certain things about life and discredit God as creator as this renders their accomplishments false since they choose to believe everything comes from nothing. So what about their research, did it just do itself?
One of these moot points. They have a theory that life originated from outer space.
This is another of those atheistic theories from scientists with an axe to grind.
Look, it doesn't matter either way, but the theory is an explanation without a cause. Life may have come from outer space. Fine, sure, but so what? You can create organic matter synthetically in a lab, but can you make it live? A godless universe doesn't work because certain things don't work without the simple act of creation. Sure, it might use a number of scientific means (the Big Bang, for instance), but without organization they don't cling together. Making those particles combine takes an active force. Making those particles LIVE takes something we can't fathom.
I believe in creation, I believe in evolution, but I don't believe in nature selection. "Survival of the fittest" doesn't seem to work with our generation of couch potatoes.
It is because we are far more unnatural than any previous species on this Earth. Think about it, does buildings, elements with an atomic mass higher than Uranium, computers, cell phones, etc, etc, etc exist in the natural world? Do they grown on trees? No.
You can't apply survival of the fittest to the human race because we've already survived and have taken control. We don't have to beat out other species because we've already become so intelligent and modernized. If bears unite and become organized and attack the human race, we can isolate the attack and eliminate the threat with a fair amount of ease. We, as a race, can already protect ourselves and are therefore the fittest and will continue to survive until something out of our control, such as a collision with an asteroid, destroys us. And even then, a few of us might survive.
Evolution without natural selection is like astronomy without gravity or physics without atoms...its a necessary part of the theory. Accepting evolution but rejecting natural selection is like accepting Christianity but rejecting Jesus...it doesn't make sense. "Survival of the fittest" doesn't mean having more muscles than fat will mean you'll survive longer...though I suppose a case could be made for that. Your example does work in that this generation is the first to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Though this is linked to lifestyle rather than genetics...though a case might be made for metabolism of fats etc...won't get into that here.
Natural selection merely means that organisms that have traits that make them even minutely better at surviving and reproducing than organisms without, will, in the long run, outcompete the others. Its a fairly simple logical concept when you think about it.
If you don't believe in natural selection then how do you explain antibiotic resistance in bacteria? Especially ones that have multiple resistances like MRSA.
In May, 2010, Craig Venter shared with the world that he and his team of scientists had (after 15 years of intense research and experiments) created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA.
I think it's self explanatory that this classifies as "synthetic life." Humans continue to amaze me with their inventions that were once deemed impossible. The splitting of the atom, particle accelerators and dark matter probes (just to name a few). Just remember one of the basic rules of physics as a collective: with enough energy, anything is possible. (literally, not metaphorically)
Excerpt from press conference:
. "Survival of the fittest" doesn't seem to work with our generation of couch potatoes.
hee hee
To Gregorian, I congradulate the team of INTELLIGENT scientists that, over the course of 15 years of hard work, CREATED something that could reproduce itself by means of synthetic computer code that someone developed. So, what exactly was this supposed to prove? It seems to prove that life cannot happen by accident - to make that statement would be a pure insult to the hard work of these scientists and engineers who produced this thing.
With enough energy, a lot of things are possible, but more than energy was needed to make this self-reproducing cell.
Hello Good Vinesters -
Darwin never used the term "survival of the fittest" in Origin of Species. Herbert Spencer an economist and sociologist used that term.
I'm not sure what your trying to get at Will. Does it bother you that Man can now create and alter life?
The big bang theory only points to "a begining', now who or what was responsible for that "begining"
NOT a simple explosion or LONELY" bang" as in a chaotic unregluated explosiion, bang or Pop.
Scientists have since discovered that space is interestingly expanding and "accelerating" in a simple unregulated explosion the particles fly away decelerating! So much for a mindless unintelligent blast of energy or a Godless Start
Apparently the term Big Bang is a misnomer of which scientists now admit so it explains nothing in the way of de-explaining a intelligent Creative begining. Actually quite the opposite
Creative Days were not periods of 24hr (earth days)
Now the cretaive days were not based on earthy days as the time increments existed before the earth was formed. universal time exists on a much grander scale.
A Day can be 1000 earth years or even as in the creative days seven thousand earth years in length for each creative day the majority of so called creationists get that all wrong saying the creative days were earth days of 24 hrs each- Not so
The idea that life came from outer space is an old theory, neither proven nor disproven. But, even if it did originate from off-Earth (or for that matter if it did originate on Earth, after all), we are still left with the old chicken/egg question. Where did the life come from in the first place?
""Survival of the fittest" doesn't seem to work with our generation of couch potatoes."
Yes it does. Evolutionary fitness is defined by reproduction. If you have two fat lazy slobs sitting on a couch (one a man the other a woman), and they have nasty sex and produce a half-dozen children, then they are fit.
Similarly, if you have a population of fish where the smaller ones are better at avoiding predators, then they are more fit than the big ones.
Fitness doesn't apply to those that look better.
Winesman
"The big bang theory only points to "a begining', now who or what was responsible for that "begining""
And that is the big question that no one knows. Some think it was with Obana, while others think it was with Adam. Does it really matter? A few think no, but most think yes. Does the majority win? The last presidential election shows that the majority lost, even though they want to believe they won.
So what did they win? Record national debts while they blamed the Bush. they wanted Iraq war to end, and it didn't. They wanted Afghan war to end, and it didn't. They wanted Gitmo to close, and it didn't. Yet they still believe in the false prophit. And the same are saying there is no god, that all scientists rule, behind Obama, of course. The world is burning up due to global warming (not by science), and think oil is bad, even though their life as they now know it will come to an end without it.
They think green energy is the answer and in might be a hundred years from now. Unfortunately, today, it will bankrupt the country far beyond what Obama has done.
Should I get into global the warmer fah science and alternative energy which can't pay for itself? Nah, let the believers in government answer that question.
To Super T Anvil - I think you missed the point. It doesn't bother me at all when INTELLIGENT people are able to produce highly complex things. It goes to prove that this is the only way that highly complex organized things come into existence - by means of an intelligence directing them.
Regarding the comments about survival of the fittest -
1. Over macro time, yes, a species that has traits that make it more suited to survive in that environment will allow it to do so. This is why my house is currently infested with stink bugs - no natural predators. Or why there are NOT palm trees naturally in Canada - they just couldn't survive.
2. Yes, species have the ability to CHANGE over time within certain paramaters. This is why there are Teacup Poodles and German Shepherds. I would even give you that over time, an animal could change sufficiently that it could branch into its own species not capable of interbreeding with the species it branched off from.
So, how does any of that disprove an intelligent first cause? For that matter, this ability to adapt and change is only a testament tp how complex and adaptable life is. It was designed well and therefore dynamic enough to survive.
BTW, why are we intelligent enough to even ask these questions and have this discussion to begin with? Why does our ability to ask where we came from make us better able to survive? How did we develop this?
Only when we find a common enemy will we stop fighting amongst ourselves.
It's not that we're alone, but we're pretty much on our own.
J.E.R.M
MICHIGAN; ------- Buildings exist in the natural world. Have you never seen a termite mound, a beehive, a wasp's nest, a bird's nest, a spider web, a dirt dauber's nest, and many, many more natural structures...??????
Marmo OHSSSHTTT
I like that. Simple, well said
Matilda-Very good point!
Matilda Tuscany
"MICHIGAN; ------- Buildings exist in the natural world. Have you never seen a termite mound, a beehive, a wasp's nest, a bird's nest, a spider web, a dirt dauber's nest, and many, many more natural structures...??????"
Great point Matilda. Maybe we should all embrace the Architechture of insects. Ya, that's the ticket.
Bob-- we already do:
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/taipei-cicada-pop-music-center
Any one can look at that pic and tell it lloks wormlike and even looks like it is molting shedding its skin likw a little snake. There is life out there we are not alone.
Look, I may be 12 but i know that life on other planets is false. It has been on Earth for decades, and it could be the bacteria of an animal of some sort.
If it is they will be able to determine it through a comparison of know species, and it's chemical makeup.
tamkins
"Its pretty pathetic that I live in the United States and am having a hard time getting accepted into an insurance plan. Group coverage was cut at job and my family and I have to buy an individual plan. We are currently waiting to hear if we are accepted with a major insurance company, we have already been denied by one who stated I have a bunch of deniable conditions, which I have NOT been diagnosed with. We make too much for Medicaid and if we get denied again, then we CANNOT get any decent health care. So frustrated with insurance companies and high premiums and the insurance still does not cover anything, but preventative!"
Life sucks then you die. Get used to it.
Yodog,
Please think for yourself and NOT listen to what your preacher, priest, parents or anyone else tells you. Read anything and everything you can get your hands on and research the matter for yourself. After you've done that then make the decision whether or not life does/can exist elsewhere in the universe. You seem to be a smart kid. Continue with that and don't let anyone or anything sway you from your goals in life. Trust me, you CAN be smart (a nerd) and cool at the same time!
Yodog-- check out the Drake Equation. Mathematically speaking, we cannot be alone-- not when considering the billions upon billions of star systems within our own galaxy, and the billions of known galaxies distinct from our own-- think trillions upon trillions of stars with planetary systems, all of which are potentially capable of containing life, as all material in the universe (the elements) are constant-- Hydrogen is the most common element, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
This study just lends more credence to the Panspermia theory of life origination. According to this theory, the building blocks of life are present in the universe at large, and can be transported throughout the universe by interaction with stars, planet formation and meteors-- essentially cosmic hitchhikers picking up a ride to their final destination (ostensibly, a life friendly planet).
"Mathematically speaking, we cannot be alone-- " is a statement of faith, not science.
We do not know. Any statement of certainty is not warranted by the data.
We know of one planet with life - ours. The Universe may be brimming with life, or our wee little home may be it. Until we have found life beyond the Earth, or until we have searched far and wide sufficiently to be reasonably certain that we are alone, WE DO NOT KNOW.
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
WMG, panspermia may or may not have been the origin of life on Earth, however, that still does not answer the question of how life began. If it began elsewhere and was deposited here, we still don't know what sparked life in it's original location.
If life was seeded here, it still originated elsewhere.
You are correct! I didn't mean Panspermia to be a theory for the origin of all life, only life on Earth-- sorry that I didn't make that clear.
Michael-- I will concede that we don't know until we know, but mathematically speaking the odds are preposterous. Trillions of stars across billions of galaxies, and not one speck of life except us? Those odds are what a gambler might call "fixed."
WMG - I'm good with that.
I was becoming tired of "only a moron" sez this, and "only an idiot" sez that. So many who are so certain when all we have are educated guesses.
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
i definetly think theres other living things out there beyond earth. with the amount of different planets out there, Earth cant be the ONLY planet that has life. just think, our telescopes and technology can only see so far into space. just think of all the things we cant see
If evolution is true then we ARE alone. The mathmatical probability that we and other life forms on this planet exist is so remote that it could only happen here. Of course I don't believe in that rubbish - just saying. Look up the math and see what the brilliant scientists say regarding that (for just one life form), Earth has millions.
The problem with your appeal to probability is that it is based on a faulty premise. Your math assumes chemical reactions are purely random. They most certainly are not. The chemistry of life follows the very consistent and mandatory laws of carbon chemistry. That cuts the odds of the rise of life in any suitable environment down to a very reasonable number. Given a very reasonable amount of time (measured in geological terms), the rise of life is inevitable.
@John CArter- Also is the very real possiblity that life doesn't necessarily have to be carbon based if life was created in different atmospheric conditions
That's true Super T. There are other possible chemistries for life. Carbon is the best bet, but it isn't alone in being able to support the complexities needed for life.
fairy3497
"i definetly think theres other living things out there beyond earth. with the amount of different planets out there, Earth cant be the ONLY planet that has life. just think, our telescopes and technology can only see so far into space. just think of all the things we cant see"
You scientists say we can't go faster the the speed of light. Therefore, assuming there is life out "there," you will never be able to witness it. How does that make you feel, not knowing what you want to believe.
Partially incorrect there Bob. Scientists say we can't go faster than light...yet. But, it was only a little over a hundred years ago that is was 'impossible' for man to fly or go over a hundred miles per hour because our bodies couldn't handle it. Well, what'd ya know! It may not occur in either one our life times, but it will NEVER happen if we don't try!
The most frightening fact of all is that we are not alone. That didn't work out well for the Mayans and the Incas, and it probably won't for us. Hopefully their first encounters will be Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan. That might send them packing.
no doubt about it
I want to believe, I want to believe.
Do thies scientists believe in god is my main question. Science and god have been at war for over 300 years. 1 if you believe in a god of some sort and you believe in science shoot your @!$%#ing brains out. Yes I said take a gun or a knife and @!$%#ing kill yourself. Why you ask? why should I kill myself? because god and science CANNOT coexist in this artical. now take 100 none religious people into that same picture and that let them comment. I honestly would love to know out of all those people. who go to church and who believe in god. We proved were different, We proved the earth wasnt just made 500 years ago but millions of years and even if you dont believe in other life but god then let me ask this. was god human or was he SOMETHING ELS? this isnt the black pleague, this isnt the dark ages, god is starting to be ingored as science show's us what we are. We have limits because of our brains and body's. understand that life isnt limited by earth cause if a big enough rock crashed into earth and left a big enough piece of sample alive. it will grow, it will evolve and will eventully become a new form of life.
Science and god have been at war for over 300 years
i think a tad longer than 300
At gar-3139852. Maybe a tad longer than 300 years, but not by much. Scientific though followed by theory didn't really challenge any religion until the early Renaissance period. Before that it was religion vs. religion.
You know what? To think there is no God is crazy. Okay, so you think it's crazy to believe in a God that created everything...but you don't think it's crazy to believe that life came from non-life? Really man? Think about it a little bit.
So life came from non-life...somehow non-life just created the diverse creatures we are now?
I think the answer of God is a WHOLE lot more reasonable.
Agreed! Anything we don't currently understand must be magic!
Guess I'm crazy then. It's really not that hard to understand. It's just like cooking; take the right ingredients, mix, throw in some time and energy then PRESTO! Yeah yeah I know; "where did the ingredients come from"? "You can't create something from nothing!" If that's true then god can't exist either. But god wished into being! Wrong. You can't have it both ways. See, told you I was crazy! I'm having a conversation with myself! LOL
@gar-3139852 "Science and god have been at war for over 300 years"
I think science is winning
We are created and under the divine protection of our Creator.
Otherwise the Romulans would have surely destroyed us years ago.
Hey no fiction. This is science with the harsh realities of data. ooops
It's not even possible that we are alone.
first off...anyone who is dumb enough to think we are the only life forms in all of infinity is nothing less than a moron...second...people who really think "GOD" created the heaven and earth are equally as moronic...and last but not least...who really cares if theres life out there or not...we can't even control what goes on here on our own planet..how can we host life from another world and be successful at it...get real people...space has no beginning and no end..there is no start to it nor is there a finish...it boggles the mind to think that great big huge balls of earth and stone can just hang in the middle of nothing...believe what you will...personally I believe that space and all its contents always was and always will be and man will never know the real story behind it....
Odd that you state old dog-2699000 "people who really think "GOD" created the heaven and earth are equally as moronic" and then tell us that "..personally I believe that space and all its contents always was and always will be..." which is definately not in line with scientific evidence to the contrary.
People like you are also moronic for not believing and God.. Tell me friend who you believe in??? Since you believe in everything else that Scients are telling you that happend even before we even existed ..Yea that's the way to go.. Believing in something that this people say happend millions years ago..
Actually, Rob- Seattle, scientific belief IS that space always was and always will be. Before the Big Bang, there was just a tiny, tiny "ball" of pure energy, thus, space always was. And it can't just spontaneously disappear, so yes, space always was and always will be.
I believe that there is truly a G-d, but not quite like thye bible states. To explain the dinosaurs being here before mankind is simple. The bible is not totally clear nor does it cover everything. I think before he created MAN, he created Dinosaurs and got bored with them. He then created Man because they are more entertaining!
There is no way that you can convince me that from ONE LFE CELL billions of years ago that now we have millions of different forms of life today.
That's right Concerned-2804997.
Magic makes more sense.
Concerned-2804997 - I too had an imaginary friend when I was young, I also believed many other unlikely impossible feats. But as I grew older, I realized the differences of truth and imagination.
Using your terminology, there is no way you could convince me that there was a creator (god) that created the earth and our universe.
Perhaps for you to understand how single cells can (and do) evolve, you should also try to understand how long it actually took to do so. Individually, a human lifetime of 75 to 100 years is a mere split second in the evolutionary process and timescale of the universe.
We witness evolution on a microscopic level within a years time or less. Now expand that by a hundred, then a thousand, then 10,000, 100,000, then a million, then a hundred million. I can't even fathom trying to imagine how long a billion years actually is, but I sure know it's enough time for some sh!t to change dramatically.
Now think back on which animals ruled the earth in the past. Man is the latest, but not the first. This is proven, there is evidence. If there were a "creator", one who was intelligent and had the power to know all, create all, or whatever. Then you must also admit he wasn't all that bright, what took him billions of years to fugure out how to "create" humans?
And lastly, if you truely don't believe in evolution, please explain why man has a tail bone, why organs in animals are basically placed in the same areas of humans. There are too many similarities using simple science, without even digging deeper and using fossil evidence.
Look, to be honest, I was taken to church weekly throughout my upbringing, but I was also curious and asked simple questions for which no answers were, or could be given by the church. So in order to satisfy my curiosity, I had to refer to books and science. Somehow, I found many more answers using these techniques, and actually lead a very happy and fulfilling life.
@ Mark,
We have never witnessed evolution, we have only assummed micro evolution within a species.
Honestly most of your arguments are not very good, but let me offer one of the best arguments against evolution: the fossil record. If you believe in evolution, you have to believe first, everything came from nothing, the non-living universe produced the living universe, and countless life forms existed on earth for billions of years and vanished without a trace. But the only life forms that vanished happened to be the transitional life forms that support evolution. We have billions of fossils in our posession but they are all fully formed and functional. The oldest fossils of each life form we find is 100% identical to what we see today. No transitions.
Let me explain smply. Imagine if evolution were true, as live evolved, it would take tens of thousands of evolutinary changes, each change taking tens of thousads of years. These transitionary life forms would be so vast in number and would have lived on the earth or so long we would have fossils or some kind of proof they existed. We would have a fossil record, so complete, you would be able to see the coninual evolution of life. We dont have that. Not even remotely close, yet we do billion of fossils, even dinasour fossils which are supposed to be older than any human fossil. All the fossils we have show fully formed, functional life forms tha are 100% identical to what we see walking around today. If evolution were true, what happend to all the transitional forms, and how could they all vanish without trace? Why do all the fossils we find support creation more than evolution?
i totaly agree with Gossman8310 it dosent make any sense at all to try and fix everything
Gossman8310:
Honestly most of your arguments are not very good, but let me offer one of the best arguments against evolution: the fossil record. If you believe in evolution, you have to believe first, everything came from nothing, the non-living universe produced the living universe, and countless life forms existed on earth for billions of years and vanished without a trace.
But the only life forms that vanished happened to be the transitional life forms that support evolution. We have billions of fossils in our posession but they are all fully formed and functional. The oldest fossils of each life form we find is 100% identical to what we see today. No transitions.
Why do all the fossils we find support creation more than evolution?
We would have a fossil record, so complete, you would be able to see the coninual evolution of life
oops, messed up the quoting
I am a muslim who believes in creation but I also believe in evolution because I have like others witnessed its stagees in a continual time line - belive it or not. others might not try to think simple. simply, Man started as a sub-cell, then combined to be a single cell, then multiplied to a tiny creatures with simple functions, living in water of course, so it does not dry out. then organs started to evolve and change over time to support breathing out of water, pop, there he is a living human being. all of this really happened during the evolution of my daughters birth which took around 9 months, so dare someone denies evolution as i have a cd of all of these stages...
Gossman8310 says:
Have you ever heard of a virus? Do you understand what happens when we use too many antibiotics to try to kill off bacteria? These are simple examples of evolution we witness everyday.
The simple answer is probably to believe in some kind of magical creator. As I remember in Sunday school asking the priest many questions about the bible that didn't make sense with real world situations. The normal answer was usually, "we don't need to worry about these things".
The questions I asked started out as simple ones, innocent questions, like why didn't the tigers eat the zebras on Noahs Ark? Or, why is Jesus light skinned and have blonde hair when everybody else in that part of the world have dark hair and darker skin? You know common sense questions!
Being inquisitive, I learned to search elsewhere for answers instead of relying on faith alone. I was considered a trouble maker in Sunday school, I asked to many questions.... That's a bad thing when it comes to religion!
I think that we would want to know another more advanced race, so perhaps they can teach us not to kill each other and live this short life without all pseudo information we believe.
We're not the first and we most likely won't be the last to rule this planet.
We are what we are today most likely because of billions of viruses that have affected us over time.
Life is too complex to have just "happened", so God must have created the Earth and mankind.
However, God is very complex, so God must have also been created. Who, or What, created God? That's who I want to worship!
It is illogical that a fully grown adult male [with a navel nodoubt] ever just popped out of the ground. An ancient race wanted to propagate their "image" so sent the "Eden" on a trip that would result in a fully grown adult to populate the earth which was prepared for it. Sci-fi writers refer to it as "terra-forming". It was truly a group effort because the Bible speaks of the "we" of a materialistic temporal existence. I would suggest to cease trying to find an event that occurred, yes significantly, billions of "years" in the past of NOW. What is a year? Most people relate it to the earth's revolution about the sun of 365.24225 rotations of this planet. "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd."
How do you know Adam and Eve had navels? Just askin.
Science does show we all came from Adam and Eve except that Eve lived 80,000 years before Adam. So much for Eve coming from Adam's rib.
@ Shylanel
just stopped in from beta hydrus on my way to epsilon eridani. is there a good restraunt in this part of the orion arm of the galaxy?Â
heart attack grill AZ
5 star
Hey, did anyone catch that last episode of Jersey Shore?
Why, does it have people acting like lower forms of life?
Perhaps the objects in question were blasted off the surface of the Earth?
i really dont care how intelligent you are...if you think earth is the only source of life in the universe..then you are still in the dark ages...
Nothing is known until it's proven. Until then it's simply a theory. It's called science.
Can you really hear Who's?
Lol about the Whos thing.
But on a serious note, sure it can't be proven (yet) that other life exists, but the odds of life existing outside of Earth are extremely, unimaginably, unearthly high.
Considering how complex and deep the diversity of life is on one planet, the third rock from a star, it's just as implausible that there is no life anywhere else in the univerise.
Theory and philosophy have two angles...
Just as in the eyes of pure logistic, New Age thinkers, it still remains possible there IS a God...
That's a good one Horton,.....wtg!!!!!!
if your god created only one planet with life in this universe...then hes not that creative...
That's all well and good, BUT there are five obvious questions that have been ignored here: what are the features that are labelled "1", "2", "3", "C", and "S" in the picture? Yes, I read that the "filament" was similar to terrestrial cyanobacteria, but obviously an expert or group of experts determined that there was something special about those 5 details in particular, SO... what are they, and why are they important?
I see this kind of thing fairly often, and it always bugs me - IMO, if you're writing an article and you're going to use a "labelled graphic" like this, then you should AT LEAST include the legend that goes with it. Ideally, the specific features should be referenced in the article, with an explaination of their significance.
Alan did link back to the journal article, where you could have found the following caption for the illustration:
I think that Alan's caption is a bit more "general public" friendly"
Cheers! ~Michael (AFM*Radio / Astronomy.FM)
Thanks for the assist, Michael ... you're correct: I wanted to use the image, but I didn't want to airbrush out all the letters and I didn't want to have to explain what all the letters stood for. So I just included a general reference saying that the letters and numbers were added to point to chemical data. I should have mentioned that if folks wanted to get more detail about that they could refer to the linked paper.
Something to hope for, something to fear. Take your pick. Makes no difference until it makes a difference.
TOGETHER; Dr. Isaac Asimov gave a reasoned argument that any aliens to land on Earth would be benign. Although, he admitted he could be wrong, he did say that he felt that the chances would be excellent that any intelligent species which was far enough along to make it to another planet would have to have been emotionally mature enough to not have already blown themselves up just like we seem to be close to doing on this planet, Earth.
No you dumb agnostic Crackers. We are alone. There are no aliens. God made us stop denying the truth and suck it up
in the Bible it says "every hair on your head is numbered and every star has a name" get it hairs are static...worthless, so they are numbered ,on the other hand , PLANETS (stars) are dynamic living worlds, so they have names.
I think you have that backwards. Suck it up and stop denying the truth that when you die you experience nothingness. Bleak, I know.
On the other hand, why don't you stop sucking up the fairy tale that everything is and has always been the way it is now! This planet, and certainly not the universe, are NOT static! They change and always will whether we're around or not. Dinosaurs were real, breathing, living creatures. Dinosaurs were NOT placed here by satan or some other being to test our 'faith'! DEAL WITH IT!
this is the way I picture it. At one time our ancestors sat on the beach and looked out over the vast ocean and thought...is there life out there besides ours. As we do gazing into space. Then ships were created that carried people to distance shores that answered the question, yes there are people on the other side. Just as the ocean is a medium we have to transverse like space is. Island and othe continents are like planets. That's why we have different races on different continents ...it is one of the peices of the puzzle to show us that other planets will have other races also. anyway in 300 trillion years the milkyway will cool off and our planet will be a giant snow ball, so we got to get moving and find another place.
Actually, we'll be hit by plenty of asteroids before the galaxy cools off, so we have to find another place in millions, not trillions, of years.
@ LA1Impala- Unfortunately though, it is physically impossible for a mass to reach the speed of light or faster; which would have to be necessary for interstellar travel. The possibilities of wormholes are our only hope.
Er.. just to let you know, long before we're a giant snowball due to the cooling of the universe, we'll be engulfed in fire as the sun goes nova 4 billion years from now. But as others have said, chances are asteroids or comets will make the question moot within a million years or so. @super T Anvil: Generational ships are just one of many ways we can reach nearby stars without exceeding the speed of light. Assuming we can get close we can reach Alpha Centauri in four years (let's say eight with acceleration and decceleration). If we can keep some astronauts from SPACE MADNESS during those years, who's to say we couldn't reach Alpha Centauri before 2050 if we really really wanted to?
We don't have to travel faster than the speed of light to get somewhere faster than light does. Star Trek is fiction but theoretical physics does say if we can warp space (like gravity) we can travel faster than light. The closest distance between two points is a straight line.
from the time we have been here thinking, analyzing,there are only certian laws that have been received by our genetic make up; more to follow
the helix has yet to emerge and develope into a constant stream of infomation;the greater map
the gene make up and pool has yet to be divided so it can fully understand the secreet strand not yet seen; the encoder
microbes are truly amazing stuff,very hardy
we all came from this ancient stuff
light, water and hydrogen
not alone; for sure
Did you read the paper? The nitrogen content is perfectly reasonable for the material and type of non-living matter this is, as discussed in the paper. Please remove the "email" comment at the end of the piece, it is not peer reviewed as this paper was and does not deserve the same play.
Well, the e-mailed comments are below the item itself, so they don't get quite as much play. And I make no claim to use only "peer-reviewed" material. I've included a lot of commentary on the end of this piece because I think people will find it interesting and it does come from folks with authority in the field.
It must be understood that nothing happens in a vacume. If this Meteor actually fell to the Earth 1 million years ago, then why was it not buried under layer upon layer of material? If as we know, the Earth's Orbit is getting larger and larger (further and further from the Sun), then how close was it 1 million years ago? So close NOTHING but molten lava existed. Lastly "All known life on earth, from bacteria to trees, including humans, are all descendants from a single ancestor" is Macro Evolution which has no basis in Science. i.e Single Celled Life, has a very limited DNA chain. Humans have a very complex DNA chain. The difference is added information. You can take 2s, 3s & 5s all day long and reorganize them, but they will not include a 7 or a 9. Color Vision in Humans cannot of evolved from simpler life as they never had that information, no matter how you organize their DNA. Micro evloution, i.e the differences between squirrels on either side of the Grand Canyon, or the Virus described, is entirely within Science and doesn't conflict with any Religion, but Macro Evolution does not share that.
So, ZipZag, are you saying that microbes devolved from humans? I'm assuming that, since you seem to think you cannot add, only subtract.
By the way, humans do not have the most complex DNA structure on Earth, nor even the longest. Human DNA contains 3.2 Billion base pairs; the marbled lungfish, 130 Billion; An amoeboid, "Amoeba" Dubia, has 670 Billion; and many plants have over 100 Billion as well. By the way, an ameba, or amoeba if you prefer, is a simple, single celled organism.
Science/History FAIL... 1 million years ago early-humans were setting the stage for what would become civilization as we know it:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801174826.htm
Geologically speaking, we know that there has been life on the planet for hundreds of millions of years.
Now, billions of years ago, you might have had a case, but only 1 million? Not a chance. Every field of science that deals with that era refutes you.
Occam's razor is a mental, rather than scientific, test of any theory. In short, the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is usually correct. The meteorite in question is postulated to be of solar origin, we know of one place life has evolved in this solar system, therefore if the filaments are proven to be of biological origin then they likely came from earth. Too many people spout sensational hypotheses and believe they are doing science. Unfortunately, this type of self aggrandizement is both foolish and detrimental to the scientific community.
Piltdown man comes to mind.
all this was going on before and since we were here and before here existed. Its nothing new overall. Something new 4 scientists 2 talk about & governments 2 hide if they find something
Aw, come on, you know the Romulans never had real guts, like the French