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Science / AAAS
A photomicrograph shows a strain of bacteria called GFAJ-1 that was said to incorporate arsenic into its cellular machinery.
Last updated 2:15 p.m. April 2:
Is there life beyond Earth? Over the past few months, scientists have repeatedly suggested that there could be — but the science behind those suggestions remains frustratingly murky and controversial.
Astrobiology's X-Files were the subject of a talk I gave on Saturday in the Second Life virtual world, at the invitation of the Meta Institute for Computational Astrophysics. Here's the vidcast of the talk — which gives you a taste of how Second Life works as well as how the search for extraterrestrial life works.
Arsenic life
This talk came exactly four months after researchers shook up the scientific world with claims that they were able to get the cellular machinery of microbes from California's Mono Lake working with arsenic instead of phosphorus. That's an amazing result, because arsenic is supposed to be poisonous to living things. If organisms on Earth could be tweaked in such a dramatic way, perhaps life could arise in other environments that don't seem conducive to life as we know it ... the Saturnian moon Titan, for example.
The implication of the research, published in the journal Science, would be that we might be missing strains of "weird life" that just might exist under our noses. (Perhaps literally under our noses, as a "second Genesis" that has gone undetected.)
The study ran into a lot of skepticism from the start. Some microbiologists and chemists have faulted the research team's laboratory techniques, or the conclusions that the team drew from their data. In response, the research team insisted their science was sound — but also encouraged their detractors to run their own experiments and report the results. Science pledged to publish a follow-up.
That follow-up is still in the works, but commentaries on the "arsenic life" are showing up in peer-reviewed journals such as BioEssays and FEMS Microbiology Letters. These papers have sparked a secondary controversy: Does scientific criticism really count if it's just on the Internet?
The BioEssays paper sees no "fatal flaw" in the original paper, and the paper's authors contend that Internet-only discussions "are not components of the peer-reviewed literature and thus are not placed on record as part of the official scientific discourse." The Microbiology Letters commentary complains about "the magic and nonsense that floods cyberspace."
As you can imagine, that's sparked a lot of counter-criticism from the folks who have been using the blogosphere and Twittersphere as a sounding board for their own review of the research. To get that side of the story, check out the postings from Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia, Zen Faulkes from the University of Texas-Pan American and Michael Eisen from the University of California at Berkeley (who attended an informal seminar given by Felisa Wolfe-Simon, the lead author of the arsenic-life study).
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 filament looks similar to those seen in earthly cyanobacteria.
Meteorite life
Less than a month ago, NASA astrobiologist Richard Hoover published a paper in the online-only Journal of Cosmology, suggesting that a number of meteorites contained microbes that could have come from outer space. Once again, the study created a splash, in large part because of the NASA connection. There was quite a furor over whether or not Hoover was misinterpreting what he was seeing, and some critics pointed out that the research had been submitted to (and rejected by) other, better-known journals before it wound up in the Journal of Cosmology.
The story went big on a Saturday, but by the following Monday, executives at NASA disavowed the research, and the debate quickly died down. The Journal of Cosmology's editors said they were selling off the publication. Hoover, who has had a long and distinguished career as a researcher at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, faced sharp questions about his academic credentials.
Today, Hoover came in for an added dose of indignity: The James Randi Educational Foundation named him one of the year's "five worst promoters of nonsense," alongside anti-vaxxer Andrew Wakefield, televangelist Peter Popoff, TV doctor Mehmet Oz and the CVS pharmacy chain (for offering homeopathic remedies). The last thing Hoover needs right now is a "Scientist Pigasus Award" from the Amazing Randi.
NASA / LPI
Some scientists have suggested that tiny wormlike structures seen within the Mars meteorite known as ALH84001 may be "nanofossils" of biological origin.
Life on Mars
You could argue that the sharp debate over the prospects of detecting microbial life from beyond Earth began 15 years ago, with Science's 1996 publication of research about "nanofossils" found in a meteorite from Mars. Some might go two decades further back, to the much-debated life-detection experiments that went to Mars aboard the Viking landers.
Even after 15 years, the microfossil debate is still percolating. The researchers behind the original study have been setting out other lines of evidence to argue that they're seeing the fossilized traces of ancient organisms rather than modern-day contamination from Earth, or geological shapes that just happen to look like critters.
Other studies, conducted as part of NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander mission, have shown the presence of perchlorate, a chemical that could be associated with particular kinds of exotic life on Earth. Those findings have revived discussions over what Viking found (or failed to find).
Although the debate over past life-on-Mars experiments is continuing, most astrobiologists say it's going to take additional studies on the Red Planet to resolve the controversy. That's the goal of an experiment being proposed by MIT and Harvard researchers, known as the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genome, or SETG. Right now the researchers are facing one big challenge: They don't yet have a spot on a future Mars probe.
Even if SETG's genome sequencer went to Mars and detected a snippet of DNA or RNA, would that serve as sufficient evidence that life arose on other planets? Or would such a claim end up in the same limbo that surrounds earlier claims for alien life. I suspect that the latter would be the case — but what do you think? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below, and check out Saturday's hourlong presentation.
More controversies in astrobiology:
- Strange find on Titan sparks chatter about life
- Mars methane mystery: What's making the gas?
- Search for alien life may take giant leap forward
- What exactly is life, anyway?
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 my book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."
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Sad thing about being a naysayer, you get more money and attention than the people doing the actual work....A whole lotta negativism...we should all bat some right back at em.....who the heck is this randi foundation?...They got any "real" experts on non-terrestial biology?...I ASK THEM HERE AND PERSONALLY...can they do a fesem???...didn't think so..IN my opionion THEY are the quacks and if they get dollar one of any federal, state or charity money,THEY should submit to the federal inspector generals office for a complete review of THEIR operations....after all, if this is a sample of non terrestial life then they just trampled ALL over national security, (yea, I get to tort the acts too) and if it is not, big deal, besides, like I said, how did they figure that out?? I suggest the .the micrograph sure looks biological, it POSITIVELY needs more examination. As for the martian metorite...looks good. It is hard to believe that of all the matian meterorites to date, only this one has this feature..either we overlooked something in the others or the area of mars where it came from is special or...there just was never any life on mars...We all hold that as a possibility...in the meantime, the ignoble awards await the truely unfounded and absurd sciences, not these clown outfits...they will never get dollar one from me...rest assured. And you shouldn't patronize them either....the only thing that is worse than bad science are those that profit from it. Period. Education foundation my butt, take thier degrees away, they were obviously given in error.
Meh.
James Randi is a example of the new "skeptic". Which is not really a skeptic at all especially in the sense of the origins of the term. Really just another form of believer that pretend to be anything but.
"They got any "real" experts on non-terrestial biology?"
A "real" expert on non-terrestial biology would be someone who has studied non-terrestial life forms?
"THEY should submit to the federal inspector generals office for a complete review of THEIR operations"
Yes - and all papers claiming the existance of ET should be submitted to a rigorous peer review before publication.
"the only thing that is worse than bad science are those that profit from it."
My thoughts exactly.
Shouldn't the greatest proof that life exists elsewhere be the fact that life exists here?
If we want to look for life in this solar system, we shouldn't be going just to Mars. Moons with liquid water also hold great promise. I'd bet money on finding life on a moon. $1 is all I can afford right now, but who will take me up on the bet?
"Shouldn't the greatest proof that life exists elsewhere be the fact that life exists here?"
Proof??? Here try this statement.
Shouldn't the greatest proof that I will win the lottery be the fact that Jim has won the lottery?
The correct response to both statements is "what are the odds?"
Once you understand the process of winning the lottery then it actually becomes a strong argument aginst me winning the lottery. Likewise, once you understand the process of how life came to be here on earth, which we don't even have a clue yet, then it will be an argument either for or aginst life existing elsewhere.
But in either case it will never be proof.
Lgc, what you say is true but one factor you left out is that the odds for life out in the universe is much more likely then the odds of winning the lottery, Comparing winning the lottery to the possibility of life in the universe is like comparing an apple to a orange. There is no comparison.
I get the point of your comment but your example was way off and that there is no way you can compare willing the lottery to the possibility of life in the universe.
The truth is we may never know if life exists we could very much get a good idea if the possibility once we can freely explore our own solar system. if we find bacteria or some other simple form of life the it can pretty much be a given that life exists elsewhere, the question is at that point how intelligent could that life be.
We should have joined with the international community a long time ago to send an unmanned international roving science lab to the surface of Mars, which can drill down a short distance to extract tiny soil samples for microscopic examination and culturing in sterile culture media. I am personally appalled that our scientific community has not done this yet. It would be a marvelous way to test future soft lander technology designed to land human beings on Mars one day. This should have been something what President Obama pushed for in his recent review of our U.S. goals in space. But then there are a lot of things which President Obama has been horribly deficient in since he took office. - Rick Carter
PS - This roving science lab should also have the ability to carry promising samples back to the soft lander for return to Earth, as a way of also testing our future capability to one day return human beings back to Earth. - Rick Carter
Rick,
I agree; we should be funding these sorts of scientific missions to reach out, explore, finding new things and pushing our horizons out a bit further, not just hunkering down over our pile if stuff here,
playing defense. But our president is too busy trying to hand out goodies to others to get anything worthwhile done. If the guy worked one-tenth as hard funding scientific achievement as he has spending our grandchildren's money, we'd already be well underway on getting toward a manned Mars mission and many other space-related projects. He's only interested in handing money to those that might help him stay in office, and let's all pray he is NOT successful. This second term of Jimmy Carter is bad enough, and we DARN sure don't need a third term of such crap.
I don't believe it would have happened any sooner, cheaper, or with any greater chance of success (and by success, I simply mean a safe, intact arrival on Mars) merely by being 'international.'
Too many wars on Earth to pay for outer space exploration. Ya can't have it all, and we need the wars more than we need the science.
I don't say it, it's the leaders whom the electorate keeps voting into office.
You nailed it. before we explore the vastness of space, don't you think it is smarter that we all get along on our own planet. let's say there is intelligent life that is probaly more advanced than us, they would think we are worthless. because our own planet is being destroyed by "leaders" that are so quick to launch missles at each other.
Fritz, if we wait for Utopia, we will go nowhere. We can, must and will expand into space, with our warts, or without them.
And, currently we can't know if ETs would think us the scum of the Universe, or not. Aliens, almost by definition, will have unknown, possibly unknowable values...
A "roving" science lab sacrifices a lot, just for the sake of mobility. You can pack a lot more instruments into a fixed lab, as evidenced by the Mars Phoenix experiment. That's the tradeoff. I think our Mars scientists are following a methodical, step-by-step approach to analyzing the Red Planet. They are narrowing down the regions and "following the water" to pick the most promising sites to drop probes onto. It makes no sense to plop down a $billion probe in the middle of a sterile, featureless desert. We can afford to wait until we know where and what we are looking for. Meanwhile, our orbiting and surface probes are still sending back amazing data.
Screw that.
Let's just "Get our butts to Mars." and take a look for ourselves. Which would have many benefits, reducing population pressure on Earth amongst them.
But then again, I almost forgot. No one out there really wants to know "The Truth", do they ??? Otherwise they would have already confronted President Obama on "The Truth". President Obama promised the American people he would never lie to them, as one of his major campaign promises for getting elected. If President Obama lies, he will not just be lying to the American people, he will be lying to the entire world. The entire world really needs to get President Obama on the public record regarding "The Truth" about the Roswell Incident, since the future of all mankind potentially hinges upon this watershed event known as the Roswell Incident. But unfortunately, most of the human race would simply rather go on living in the dark, instead of really finding out any form of "The Truth", the ultimate truth being there is other life out there in the cosmos which did not originate here on Earth. (I personally know "The Truth", because I actually lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather was second in command there.) - Rick Carter
Two very credible sources to look at is the documentary FASTWALKERS and the website for Disclosure Project, for anyone wondering if there is ET lifeforms.
Hmmm. Rick are you referring to "The Truth" being your version of Judaism and Christianity as an alien virus? Would the author of the article below be you?
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1443.html
While I think the mathematical odds are pretty good that there are other lifeforms in this universe besides us, I also think that, no matter who wrote it, this article falls a bit into the "tin hat needed" area.
Rick: if most of the world is comfortable living without the truth, who are any of us to spoil their good time?
ANDROLOMA, problem is when people start claiming that the non-truth is in reality the truth. Then they are not living happily but in a delusional state, which is considered a mental illness.
Wow... just took a look at that link that Beth tabbed in and the author uses the word "ultimately" 5 times in the first 5 sentences (although the 1st sentence was free of the word, meaning--you guessed it--one gem in there had the word twice in the same sentence!)
Really awful writing. No offense intended to the author, but seriously? Was this ever proofread? There's this thing called "repetition" that you should look into. Also, "redundancy." Purchase a thesaurus. Or hell, use Dictionary.com's thesaurus.
Excerpt:
Wow... just wow. I would like to know how this author came by this information, specifically the "Delusional Artificial Intelligence" bit-- cause it smacks of Terminator's Sky-Net muddled with the plot from the Halo franchise.
I can't resist. One more excerpt:
Flawed logic here: we're in the @!$%#ing galactic boonies. We're not a stepping stone to anywhere. We're as backwater as it gets, flung out on the edge of the galaxy. We're practically riding the rim! The premise of the article was supposed to explain the Roswell incident, but it has traipsed across ancient astronaut theory, delusional AI "gods," intergalactic warfare, made fun of the Jews, claimed that Jesus is a virus code to precipitate "the programmed Christian Apocalypse" and has yet to mention anything about Roswell except as an opening statement. I haven't finished reading this laugh-attack yet, but I'll let you know if he ever gets around to explaining Roswell. With all of this "evidence" he's compiled about the sociological conditions and predilections of these warring ETs, I'm sure it'll be a hoot.
Well, I got to the end, and despite this claim:
The article never returns to the subject. Ever. Instead, he claims that Christianity is a virus, Jesus is an android, that monotheistic religions are superior to polytheistic religions because polytheism has some kind of degrading effect on scientific advancement (tell that to the Hindus. India's got nuclear power, atomic weapons, a space program...) and claims that Christianity (the virus) is responsible for our nuclear capabilities and that the end-of-days is a "predictable" future event that will be triggered by... well, he left that part out. He also didn't ever mention when his (very flawed) model of galactic interaction would predict this event-- despite being a "computer virus for biological systems" and working off of a digital number system which supposedly makes it easy to predict. He may also not have gotten the memo that Oppenheimer cited a polytheistic, Hindu text immediately after the first atomic bomb test: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." A quote from the Baghavad-Gita regarding Shiva.
In brief: this is pure insanity. Very scary to think this guy may actually have an on-line following. Read it for a laugh, but be prepared to cringe at all the repetitions, especially of the following words/phrases: "ultimately" "eventually" "increasingly" "Human Software Virus" "ET Civilization" "ET System" and my personal favorite refrain: "programmed Christian apocalypse or World War III."
Oh, and he also claims that Christianity caused the atheistic populist movement, Communism. That would be news to Marx!
Its too bad that people with the understanding, experiences and their own proof that alien life exists elsewhere are ridiculed. Saul Good hit it on the nose with the Disclosure Project. These are a few hundred government officials spanning almost every office in the military and elsewhere saying that not only does alien life exist but we've been in contact with them for some time. Tin foil hat or not, this is possible weather people want to believe it or not. Everything these people say all ended it with "I will testify to this being true to Congress if I must". Dr Greer is the one heading it up and if you look at his past and his families, they have been involved in politics and science for a long time. Bottom line, once the government says this to be true, it will change everything in the world, good and bad. If anything the governments, especially the US government, are afraid of the worst happening and that's why it will be some time before we ever hear the truth. But there seems to be a bit of desensitizing going on these days.
Pink-- it's one thing to say that life exists elsewhere, that intelligent life exists elsewhere and even that said intelligent life has/is contacting the earth-- but it is quite another to claim to know their entire cultural history, their goals, values and leadership hierarchy, and to state that religion (a verifiably human experience found across all cultures in a multitude of forms) is a programmed virus intended to start world war 3 (never mind that there was no possible way for the aliens to have predicted ww1 and ww2 beforehand). There is speculation, research and hypothesis that leads to theory, then there's this wart of a diatribe that provides no scientific backing of any kind. Tin foil hats are required to swallow this incoherent rambling.
(BTW: I believe in ETs-- just not this guys interpretation of them)
Even if they suddenly found life, there would be those who say it is a fake or a hoax. Even if an alien creatuer walked right up to our probe and posed for a pic, most would not believe it. Even with evidence of possible life, many choose not to believe, Yet so many will beleive in a god, with absolutely no proof. Nutz!
Maybe, but you can't shy away from asking the big questions, merely because a few people won't believe the answers you get, no matter how well supported...
Even with no evidence of possible life, many choose to believe.
Yet so many will beleive in ET, with absolutely no proof. Nutz!
Um, the James Randi Foundation is dedicated to exposing quackery and nonsense. You make a claim about finding a cure for cancer, finding extraterrestrial life, whatever? You'd better be prepared to prove it. Haven't we had enough of frauds and hucksters?
And the JRF is independent. It is certainly not funded by the government.
Go search on James Randi, and tell me what you find out about him.
I agree you should have to prove it, but it's pretty clear looking at Hoover's record that the man is not just some crazy quack. He may or may not be right about having found life in those asteroids, certainly scientists should be scrutinizing his work...but listing him alongside anti-vax proponents is just WRONG.
Ax - I disagree. The anti-vax proponent was a qualified and respected researcher, whose findings and methodology were published in a respected medical journal. There are plenty of instances of well-qualified and (previously) well-respected researchers, scientists, and academics proposing outlandish theories on a variety of subjects, only to be later debunked when their 'findings' were exposed as their personal bias or predelictions. Hoovers work draws conclusions from speculation and extrapolation; that's not science. If he asked more questions, that would be fine, since that's all that his speculation supports.
god is infinite, so his universe must be too. Thus in the excellence of god magnified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest:he is glorified in not one but in countless suns, not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand, thousand I say an infinity of worlds
-Giordana Bruno
1584
Whether or not there is a God does not matter.
Didn't Bruno get burned at the stake? :P
In what sense does it "not matter" if there is or isn't a god? From a scientific point of view everything in the universe matters. If there is a god that sure as hell is important to our understanding of the universe and how it works.
I'm not trying to say either way, but it's a cop out to say that it doesn't matter.
What's wrong with the God /Godess being MOTHER UNIVERSE?
(Never could figure that out, especially when homo sapiens has trashed her earth.)
You all should read Scott Adam's "God's Debris" for a scientific, albeit fictionally written, account of God and where his presence can be found. (For those of you who don't know, Scott Adam is the fellow who wrote the Dilbert comic strip). It's a thought provoking piece of philosophy, couched in a fictional tale about a UPS employee who delivers a package to a strange man who seems to know an awful lot. He provides it for free to anyone who wants it: just type in "God's Debris" in google and get your free pdf. I won't ruin it for you. It's a quick read, and well worth it. Pay attention to the challenge in the forward. He loves to hear criticism and can be contacted on his blog.
Cheers!
Of course there is life beyond earth. Not to accept that reality expresses ignorance and arrogance. That life ranges from tiny microbes to advanced intelligence. Some of the advanced intelligence life forms are extremely hostile and dangerous to earth. Therefore, we should not draw attention to ourselves.
we already did when we used nuclear technology for devestation instead of advancement. best analogy i heard on topic was "oh sh*t the kids found the matches. i think if they wanted to harm us they would have along time ago. I think they are more worried about us hurting them with our primitive mindset. how many instances are documented and recorded world wide of military pursuit of UFO's? Maybe if we greeted them with open arms instead of loaded ones they might be more inclined the share the wealth for lack of a better term.
You state unproven assumptions as fact. While I think that it boggles the mind to think that there is NO life elsewhere, the existence of alien life has not been proven. There is also no proof, one way or the other, that such life, if it exists, is hostile toward Earth.
You may keep your reality that ET exists. I'll keep my ignorance that requires proof and my arrogance that requires peer review.
You may keep your reality that ET exists. I'll keep my ignorance that requires proof and my arrogance that requires peer review.
Booooring
"Booooring"
Logic and reason are usually that way. Fiction and fantasy typically generate most of the excitement.
With the Earth being the only planet we can really study up close, we find it teams with life, it is everywhere. From the tops of the high frozen mountains to the bottom of the cold dark seas. And everywhere in between. Why should it not be so in the universe. When we finely get past low earth orbit and begin to really study exobiology we will find life everywhere we go. In astonishing places, and in even more astonishing quantities. And if I'm still when alive when we have first contact, I will be greatly pleased, and content with the universe.
"God is infinite, so His universe must be too. Thus in the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His kingdom made manifest: He is glorified in not one but in countless suns, not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand, thousand I say an infinity of worlds." -from yoyoma's post
Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe was in fact infinite. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Inquisition found him guilty of heresy and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal.
I'd love to know if such delicate strucutres such as bacteria, or bacterial spores would be able to survive the violent acceleration that it takes to blast off a planet. If such an event can be survivied, it would be kind of a challenge to verify an origin other than earth. Since plenty of material has been blasted off earth over the last 4.5 billion years, most planets and moons in our solar system should have received material from earth (or in other words, such an event could not be excluded). There is plenty of life in every little piece from earth, and bacterial spores are pretty hardy if they can survive the acceleration of the initial blast off and the landing. Some of the organism living here might be able to survive on some other planetlike bodies in the solar system if they make it there. So if transfer of life from planet to planet is possible I cannot see how one could verify an independent source of that life unless you have it in the laboratory and can analyze the molecular differences of this "new life" compared to what we find on earth.
Absolutely bacteria can survive the space liftoffs, the astronauts have to be sterlized before and after each liftoff because they dont want mold and other bacteria and crud growing in the ISS, plus they have done numerous nongravity experiments in space and can actually grow seeds into plants and etc...
Do I think that it is possible that there might be a life form other than our own somewhere in the endless universe? Yes. Do I think it is some intelligent form that flies to earth in a space ship and beams people up? No.
After one look at THIS planet, any visitor from outer space would say:
"I want to see the Manager."
(William S. Burroughs)
This comment section went from science to fantasy so fast it made my head spin.
There are things you know.
There are things you think.
There are things you think you know.
Well, if you want to go even deeper...there's not much you CAN know. Pretty much everything we "know" is actually just stuff that we "think" or "think we know", because we're shackled to our senses. We COULD be brains in jars or computer simulations. Heck, we could be dreaming. This may all seem real now, but we'll wake up in a world completely different from this and go "I just had the craziest dream." It all comes back to Plato's famous allegory of the cave. Or Descartes "I think therefore I am." That pretty much sums up the total of what we can know for sure...that we exist. Descartes spends the rest of that book trying to get away from his own insight, but he doesn't manage it very successfully.
From a realistic point of view we live as though what we sense is real and accurate, we have not other choice. My point here is that you can list those statements like pearls of wisdom, but that the lines between them are not always as clear cut and simple as we might want them to be.
That's not to say that aliens are zipping about the universe or any other crazy idea. Just to remind you that what we "know" is not set in stone in many cases.
Epistemology. It's a huge field that has been explored for a very long time.
Sorry, Ax. I never had much use for existentialism, or existentialists, for that matter.
I'm not an expert philosopher or epistomologist, but to the best of my understanding, Plato's point with the Cave Allegory was that he held that there was (or is) a "higher" lever of reality, a world of "pure forms", which exists outside the rudimentary "cave" of the reality we perceive around us, which is supposedly just composed of shadows of the pure forms. This might make for interesting philosophy, but I for one hold it to be no more true than the supposition that there are angels and demons who sit on my shoulders urging me to choose this or that option as I express my free will.
jr, mikey mike--
you might be interested to know that some physicists are exploring very similar concepts with regard to string theory/TOE. The idea that there are higher, more pure forms is suggested in the concept of higher dimensions. (I think the current leading theory pegs it at 11 dimensions, of which we only occupy 4-- the 3 spatial dimensions and time). Existentialism is actually a pretty important fundamental for dealing with cutting edge physics.
What I like about all of this, people continue to say something can't be possible or that it is not capable. If anything we should be looking at it from a vantage point that allows for the possibility of doubt but pretty much anything is possible and capable. Without going through an exhaustive list we already know that eventually something the science community says can't, isn't or never tends to become true that it is possible and end up with evidence of that truth that something formally can't, isn't, or never has become can, is, and does.
It is more than likely based on what little knowledge we have garnered in the past few thousand years that we can be an authority on life in the universe when we barely have a grasp on life on this planet. It is more than likely that life is flourishing even if only on a microbial level in places we don't think it can. It's probably living off things we wouldn't think possible and we will eventually find it may be not in my life but eventually.
People really need to temper the naysayism and put it where its due with hoaxes.
People really need to temper the ET evangelism and put it where its due with religion, because that's what it is. You offer no proof, no evidence that ET exists and expect me to just "believe".
There is a difference between ET and God. ET we can try and find, thus submitting proof of its exsistance. You cannot do the same as God
"There is a difference between ET and God. ET we can try and find, thus submitting proof of its exsistance. You cannot do the same for God"
With the zeal that some people have proclaiming ET exists I wonder if ET is just another god they make up hoping to be saved from this world.
When ET appears, Halalujah, the planets will allign and we will enter the age of aquarius and everything will be just peachy!! Can I get an Amen!
lgc-- the Drake equation is all the proof I need.
Obama, there is a simple law of power that anything in a supreme position of it never has to do anything covertly unless it is out of good will or they care what we think...
@!$%#in sad Obama, @!$%#in sad...
We are being awfully arrogant to say we are the ONLY place out of billions or possibly trillions of solar systems that the right sequence of proteins came together in some primordial soup... And that soup has been cooking for 13+ billion years, somebody needs to run the probablity math on that one. I'll bet you the number is a lot bigger than we suspect...
The math "expert "is Professor/Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and one can find out by studying his website in London what he thinks.
Books, presentations, even questions answered via email if you're lucky .
Another problem: why do we think that some other civilization is on the same timeframe as us? It's possible that other civilizations existed millions of years prior to ours. And it's possible that life is its infancy somewhere else. Earth is just one grain of sand on a huge beach.
You're right about that. The odds of another civilization being in the same stage of development as Earth are quite low. Think about how much different our civilization / technology is from that which existed 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago. Yet, 100 years is nothing on a geological time scale.
We probably couldn't communicate with a younger civilization as it would lack sufficient technology. Are we afraid to communicate with older civilizations?
Up until the time of the continental railroad it took about six months to travel from New York to San Fransisco.
Either on sailing ships around the horn or overland with covered wagons.
After the railroad was completed it took six days.
With jets, airport to airport, about six hours. Aboard a Mercury Space Capsule, about six minutes.
All this happened in less than 100 years.
The Wright Brother’s first powered flight was in 1903. They flew for about 12 seconds. In 1947, 44 years later, Chuck Yeager flew faster than the speed of sound, mach 1.07.
22 years later, in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.
So in 66 years we went from wind power, horse and buggy, to landing on the surface of the moon. From walking along the Oregon Trail to walking around the Sea of Tranquility, 66 years.
God bless the Amazing Randi. Oops - I mean: Flying Spaghetti Monster bless the Amazing Randi.
It is idiotic to assume that among billions and billions of world like Earth in this universe, that this planet is the only one with life!
I agree. But, assumptions and probabilities are not the same as proof.
Until we find definitive evidence of ET life, even something as simple as a bacteria on Mars, it's all guess work. That's why these reports which are referred to in the article are so controversial. If, indeed such proof has been found, that'll be a really big deal, and as Carl Sagan used to say, "Extraordinary claims require an extraordinary level of proof." So far, it ain't there. So far, but we're still looking.
Which is why Hoover's claim is that much more mind-numbingly stupid. He has done nothing to verify that claim. At least the folks from the Mono Lake bacteria experiement are waiting for independent verification before its saying its possible. In the mean time there is no shame in them standing by their work.
Who knows, maybe that SETG thing might actually get some results. Should be interesting to see.
Ray smith-
Here's a quote from the James Randi Educational Foundation's website regarding Hoover:
"Richard B. Hoover, who recently announced for the third time in 14 years that he had found evidence of microscopic life in meteorites. Along with the crackpot Journal of Cosmology—a now-defunct publication founded in 2009 to publish articles advancing the scientifically unsupported idea that life began before the first stars formed and was spread throughout the early universe on meteors—Hoover pitched his warmed-over ideas to Fox News, an outlet not known for their attention to facts. Predictably, Fox News ran with the story, convincing many people that NASA had discovered extraterrestrial life."
The issue their raising is that it's completely unscientific to release your findings to news organizations before it's been peer-reviewed. This kind of headline attention-grabbing science does no one good and only makes the scientific community as a whole look bad.
-Seth
Actually, I suspect that the Journal of Cosmology's editors are the ones who pitched the publication to Fox News. When I called up Hoover on the Saturday when the story took off, at first he declined to comment because he thought the research was embargoed until Monday. It's only when I told him that the story was making its way out to the public (in somewhat distorted form) via other media that he decided to discuss it with me. He was not aware of the Fox News angle. So maybe Randi needed to do a little more research on that "pitching warmed-over ideas" claim.
Of course there is life beyond earth.
Add the word "likely" to your statement, and I'll agree with you.
An interesting article, but where does it really get us.
Anyone with a rational brain knows there is life out there beyond our planet. It's not a matter of if, but when we find it.
The debate on the chemistry will go on until direct evidence is found. Theorising now is totally academic. We are also so accustomed to our own carbon, et al, paradigm that minds with limited imaginations assume this is way it MUST be everywhere else. This debate can and will go on until evidence is found. That is the essence of Science, evidence.
It is disappointing to see such poor behaviour by researchers involved in this area. The rush to judgement is embarrassing for Science. NASA's behaviour has been embarrassing. And as far as Randi is concerned, please spare us ! Randi wouldn't know Science if it slapped him in the face, and the same goes for his organisation.
This whole thing reminds me of the comments that some make about Columbus. "Columbus didn't discover America," they say. Well, so what? Columbus was the first to be able to do something about his discovery.
Is there life "out there"? It really just doesn't matter much to me. When they knock on the door wanting to visit, then we can really talk about life "out there". In the meantime, all this speculation means little.
It seems that the issue here is not the science but rather the vastly less than scientific human tendency to circle the wagons when there is an attack. One can hear a loud and paradoxically virtual "Harrumph!" from the offended establishment of scientific publications that looks down its nose at online peer review sources. It is not that their skepticism with respect to blogs and columns that purport to be a sea of knowledge is entirely off base. In too many instances such forums permit the promiscuous interjection of uninformed opinions in such a way that they take on the appearance of validity simply because they become submerged in the background noise of such socialized media. If that were the only manifestation of online peer review, then the aristocratic disdain that print publications exercise would be justified.
Those publications, however, are throwing out the baby with the bath. A rigorous submission and review process is not compromised simply because the end product appears in electronic media and not in a publication that one gets in his U.S. Postal Service mailbox. What is compromised is the pecking order that print publications enshrine. Printed publications' size and weight have much to do with the amount of content that appears in any given edition, so gaining a spot in the publication is hardly the result of a democratic process. The most notable names are given first shot even if they have missed the most salient observations.
Online publications do not suffer from this limitation. They can be representative in ways that print publications cannot be simply because they are not subject to being delivered by the payment of postage. Online publications’ content can be voluminous and democratically selected. That, of course, means that there can be more of both wheat and chaff.
Since print publications have practical economic limits that regulate how much information can be shipped in each edition, it is often presumed that if something appears on their pages, it must be reasonably trustworthy. Is that the case? What mechanism does a print publication have to subject its own internal personnel and processes to expose biases and bad judgment? It should be the job of peer review not only to subject the propositions offered to the community to the scrutiny of its members but also to expose the soundness of the reviewers’ opinions and reasoning to the community. This provides a way to recalibrate the review process and to ensure that it is not so fundamentally flawed that it becomes a sham.
In the case of arsenic-activated life, the proof is in the pudding. It is either true or false. The critique of the methods and reasoning applied to the evaluation of the data should be open to review from the widest audience
possible in the scientific community, and the merits of one's observations should be tempered by the value of one's expertise relative to another's. This can be achieved without performing obeisance to the existing scientific aristocracy, but it does require more of a meritocratic social media than now exists.
What a crock! Are you really going to argue online vs. printed publications. That's totally non sequitur! The limiting factor for publication is not the number of pages in the printed journal, it's number of researcher available for peer review. I seriously doubt that online publication will have any advantage over printed in the availability of researchers. And besides, it's not a question of publication media but of quality of research. The online publication in question failed to do even the most rudimentary check of the authors credentials which is neither and endorsement of printed media or a condemnation of online media.
So how is this brave new world of yours going to help advance science? If, as you say there will be "more of both wheat and chaff", then that is bad for science. Because someone is going to have to come along after publication and do a "real" rigorous peer review in order to separate the wheat from the chaff. Then their review will have to be published either in print or online. Only then can the research be added to the body of knowledge and used by other scientist to advance our understanding of the world we live in.
Excellent videos and enough to keep most learning for the better part of an evening/rainy day.
Terrific family affair.
Thanks!