Terraforming Mars

[Thunderbird]

I don't think so TB. Viriuses could easily survive an impact to something like the moon (hardly any atmosphere).

 

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

[freeztar]

I agree,... but there does seem to be groups.... NASA, that think they need sell their projects by false advertising. If you were making 120 grand a year to do research you would tailor your theories to a public that believe in aliens and not organic chemistry. You understand ? I’m fine with research, but I do not need it packaged as a search for alien life.

 

Well, I don't know of the specific research/projects you mention, but I'm all for exploring the cosmos! :(

[freeztar]

[ATTACH]2318[/ATTACH]

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

 

And your point is?

[Thunderbird]

And your point is?

thermal sterilization

[Moontanman]

[ATTACH]2318[/ATTACH]

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

 

It does seem unlikely that anything alive could suvive such an impact but I think the idea was that as comets travel around the sun they leave dust in their wake and this dust contains viruses that can infect humans. IE the 1918 flu pandemic, I refuse to believe this, no way no how, it flies in the face of everything we know about viruses. As though viruses are being created by the ton inside comets that are pre-evolved to infect complex life on the Earth! Not going to happen........

[freeztar]

It does seem unlikely that anything alive could suvive such an impact but I think the idea was that as comets travel around the sun they leave dust in their wake and this dust contains viruses that can infect humans. IE the 1918 flu pandemic, I refuse to believe this, no way no how, it flies in the face of everything we know about viruses. As though viruses are being created by the ton inside comets that are pre-evolved to infect complex life on the Earth! Not going to happen........

 

I'll agree with you MTM. Theories involving "viruses falling from the sky" are ill-founded. Bacteria have been found to be efficient catalysts of ice formation, but no mention of viruses there.

 

Bacteria Assists in Formation of Ice and Snow : NPR

[Moontanman]

They've found water on Mars! check this link!

 

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/WaterOnMars2_gcc.jpg

[dcmike]

Well well - there seems to be a plethora of absolutes here! Even details of some*Einstein theories have come into question lately - and he was a huge proponent of open minds. The greatest minds in science claim we know so little, because as we open one new door we are privy to a new room full of paradoxes - things that "can't happen." The science of quantum physics / mechanics is the study of possibilities and uncertainty. I have been truly fortunate to encounter a such a group of people here who have all the answers - in the purest form of absolute.

 

This all started by me as a "what if" - not a tenured verity. Sub atomic particles disappear to some unknown place and pop back into "reality" with no alibi. Extremophiles live in boiling water and survive radiation. We live in a era where the cutting edge of intellect is wary of unwavering laws of reality, and here everything is known. I sense a lack of wisdom - the same lack of wisdom in many religious debates. Religious fanatics espouse total belief in fantastic scenarios and atheists claim they can prove there no God. The truth is, no matter how fantastic some religious tenets sound you can't PROVE it doesn't exist - there is no physical matter to bring to the courtroom. Your only choice is to believe or disbelieve - there is no proof of either concept.

 

The only sensible voice in recent pages has been Freeztar. He realizes that there are many possibilities that, though not yet empirically proven at this moment, are not empirically disproved at this moment. Nasa has visited a comet - up close and personal and states what could possibly be. Moontanman and Thunderbird - how many comets have you been on lately? As for viral "life" (they are technically not alive) surviving an impact: the Earth receives tons of cometary dust and debris annually, that just leisurely floats down through the strata without burning up at all. When a comet gets warmer it loses some mass (the materials in the tail) that just gets cast off.

 

Those of you here that empirically state what absolutely cannot happen could be among those with a 'dumm' look on their face in the days ahead. I, however am immune to this because I have never given any evidence and-or stated empirically that it is absolutely so - no argument.

 

It is just as foolish to to be mindlessly skeptical as it is to be born yesterday.

[dcmike]

Moontanman "I refuse to believe this, no way no how,...."

 

And you have every right to disbelieve. On one discussion group a young poster said to me - "I think you are an insane idiot!!"

 

My response was - "You are absolutely right! You do think I am an insane idiot!"

[Moontanman]

Moontanman "I refuse to believe this, no way no how,...."

 

And you have every right to disbelieve. On one discussion group a young poster said to me - "I think you are an insane idiot!!"

 

My response was - "You are absolutely right! You do think I am an insane idiot!"

 

I have reasons for my lack of faith in the "virus' fall from the sky pre-evolved to infect complex earth life. If you had read more of the posts you would have seen several really good reasons.

 

First would be that virus' are not primitive life forms, they co evolved with their hosts, they don't just pop out of no where already evolved.

 

Second would be that virus' are very host specific, literally billions of virus' exist on the Earth only a very few infect any one creature.

 

I have no problem with microscopic life falling to Earth, if it exists in space for any reason it could find it's way to earth but....

 

These two reasons are more than enough to cause my disbelief. I am well aware that my disbelief will not change reality but neither will believing in something that cannot or does not happen.

[dcmike]

Moontanman Said - "I have reasons for my lack of faith in the "virus' fall from the sky pre-evolved to infect complex earth life. "

 

Now that is a more scientific approach - who could debate you on that.

[Moontanman]

Moontanman Said - "I have reasons for my lack of faith in the "virus' fall from the sky pre-evolved to infect complex earth life. "

 

Now that is a more scientific approach - who could debate you on that.

 

Evidently you do, care to explain why you think virus' fall from the sky preevolved to infect complex Earth life? I'd really like to know how you can think such a thing is possible.

[dcmike]

"care to explain why you think virus' fall from the sky pre-evolved to infect complex Earth life?"

 

Again I state, I am not a biophysicist but only referring to claims made by scientists who believe in the feasibility of Panspermia and or Exogenesis. I can’t tell you what particular vehicle they use to get here. For all I know they get to a certain distance and then call a cab. However, it is believed by some that some primitive media could survive the trip. Life makes a habit of overturning theories. Just as I am not personally in possession of unequivocal evidence that it did happen, you are not in possession of irrevocable proof that it cannot.

 

On May, 2001, two researchers from the University of Naples claimed to have found live extraterrestrial bacteria inside a meteorite. Geologist Bruno D'Argenio and molecular biologist Giuseppe Geraci claim the bacteria were wedged inside the crystal structure of minerals, but were resurrected when a sample of the rock was placed in a culture medium. They believe that the bacteria were not terrestrial because they survived when the sample was sterilized at very high temperature and washed with alcohol. They also claim that the bacteria's DNA is unlike any on Earth.[24] They presented a report on May 11, 2001, concluding that this is the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, documented in its genetic and morphological properties. Some of the bacteria they discovered were found inside meteorites that have been estimated to be over 4.5 billion years old, and were determined to be related to modern day Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus bacteria on Earth but appears to be a different strain.

Panspermia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[25]

 

The theory postulated concerning the 1918 flu pandemic was that it drifted down from the upper strata and was then harbored by birds in some way. They ask the question – how could a new strain of microbe infect the whole world at once without a transmission vehicle? Scattered and remote tribes of Eskimos who were not only cut off from the rest of the world, but also each other, caught the same strain of virus at the same time the rest of the world did.

 

Evolution? Fruit flies, via some genetic tinkering, evolved right before the eyes of a single researcher. Fruit flies are far more complex than viruses. Are not viruses just genetic strands wrapped in protein capsids? Life here is based on the five most common elements in the entire universe.

 

In quoting me “rules” that pertain to life here on this planet you are failing to persuade me that you are in possession of all knowledge of all possibilities of all life everywhere in the entire universe.

 

We are not really even debating the same issue. You are trying to convince me that nothing we are not in full command of can happen. In my other ear Günter Nimtz (a German physicist at the University of Cologne) says that even Albert Einstein’s cherished belief that nothing can go faster than the speed of light (not even light) is no longer bullet proof. He encoded a laser beam with music data, sent it nearly five times the speed of light and subsequently played the music at the other end. His method – quantum tunneling.

 

My debate is not about biology, it is about philosophy. You want to convince me that nothing can supersede the orderly limitations of tenured theories. My only response to you is that the path of history is littered with the remains of dogmas stating ‘what can’t happen’.

 

 

“

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions

.”…… Albert Einstein

[Thunderbird]

Objections to panspermia and exogenesis

 

 

 

Objections to panspermia and exogenesis

 

Life as we know it requires heavy elements carbon, nitrogen and oxygen (C, N and O, respectively) to exist at sufficient densities and temperatures for the chemical reactions between them to occur. These conditions are not widespread in the Universe, so this limits the distribution of life as an ongoing process. First, the elements C, N and O are only created after at least one cycle of star birth/death: this is a limit to the earliest time life could have arisen. Second, densities of elements sufficient for the formation of more complex molecules necessary to life (such as amino acids) only occur in molecular dust clouds (109–1012 particles/m³), and (following their collapse) in solar systems. Third, temperatures must be lower than those in stars (elements are stripped of electrons: a plasma state) but higher than in interstellar space (reaction rates are too low). This restricts ongoing life to planetary environments where heavy elements are present at high densities, so long as temperatures are sufficient for plausible reaction rates. Note this does not restrict dormant forms of life to these environments, so this argument only contradicts the widest interpretation of panspermia — that life is ongoing and is spread across many different environments throughout the Universe — and presupposes that any life needs those elements, which the proponents of alternative biochemistries do not consider certain.

 

Space is a damaging environment for life, as it would be exposed to radiation, cosmic rays and stellar winds. Studies of bacteria frozen in Antarctic glaciers have shown that DNA has a half-life of 1.1 million years under such conditions, suggesting that while life may have potentially moved around within the Solar System it is unlikely that it could have arrived from an interstellar source.[32] Environments may exist within meteors or comets that are somewhat shielded from these hazards.

 

Bacteria would not survive the immense heat and forces of an impact on Earth — no conclusions (whether positive or negative) have yet been reached on this point. However most of the heat generated when a meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere is carried away by ablation and the interiors of freshly landed meteorites are rarely heated much and are often cold. For example, a sample of hundreds of nematode worms on the space shuttle Columbia survived its crash landing from 63 km inside a 4 kg locker, and samples of already dead moss were not damaged. Though this is not a very good example, being protected by the man-made locker and possibly pieces of the shuttle, it lends some support to the idea that life could survive a trip through the atmosphere.[33] The existence of Martian meteorites and Lunar meteorites on Earth suggests that transfer of material from other planets to Earth happens regularly.

 

Occam's Razor implies that when developing a hypothesis, we should avoid making evidentially unsupported presumptions about things if at all possible. See heuristic arguments. From this perspective, geogenesis appears to be the default assumption when compared with panspermia or exogenesis. The former assumes a single step: that life originated on Earth, where it is now commonly observed, excluding the presumption that life formed elsewhere, in places where it has never been observed before. Geogenesis eliminates the unsupported presumption of life existing beyond the Earth, but requires a lot to happen in a relatively short time frame in order for life to arise. Exogenesis allows for a longer period of time than could be offered on Earth. Given that an understanding of life's emergence remains speculative, however, the perception of which presumption (life beyond Earth or life emerging rapidly) is preferable can be less than clear.

 

Supporters of exogenesis also argue that on a larger scale, for life to emerge in one place in the Universe and subsequently spread to other planets would be simpler than similar life emerging separately on different planets. Thus, finding any evidence of extraterrestrial life similar to ours would lend credibility to exogenesis. However, this again assumes that the emergence of life in the entire Universe is rare enough as to limit it to one or few events or origination sites. Exogenesis still requires life to have originated from somewhere, most probably some form of geogenesis. Given the immense expanse of the entire Universe, there is a higher probability that there exists (or has existed) another Earth-like planet that has yielded life (geogenesis) than not. This explanation is more preferred under Occam's Razor than exogenesis since it theorizes that the creation of life is a matter of probability and can occur when the correct conditions are met rather than in exogenesis that assumes it is a singular event or that Earth did not meet those conditions on its own. In other words, exogenesis theorizes only one or few origins of life in the Universe, whereas geogenesis theorizes that it is a matter of probability depending on the conditions of the celestial body. Consider that even the most rare events on Earth can happen multiple times and independent of one another. However, since to date no extraterrestrial life has been confirmed, both theories still suffer from lack of information and too many unidentified variables.

 

Source: wikipedia article “Panspermia”

[dcmike]

From the quote in my last post

 

(from meteorite)"..........Geologist Bruno D'Argenio and molecular biologist Giuseppe Geraci claim the bacteria were wedged inside the crystal structure of minerals, but were resurrected when a sample of the rock was placed in a culture medium. They believe that the bacteria were not terrestrial because they survived when the sample was sterilized at very high temperature and washed with alcohol.

 

Pretty robust, no? There goes thermal sterilization.

 

"..........and were determined to be related to modern day Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus bacteria on Earth but appears to be a different strain"

 

And these were apparently billions of years old. Puts into question the issue of eons of co-evolution.

 

And here is my point from your post....

"Both theories still suffer from lack of information and too many unidentified variables."

 

As stated above - neither theory is absolute.

 

Again, we debate on different levels. You fight valiantly for stolid absolutes and I defend the science of uncertanty. If this issue were any other philosophical issue I would take the same track and state that no matter how much we collectively know, it is very little in regards to what there is to know. And he who claims to have the last word on reality is fooling himself. The last word, like tomorrow, never comes. It is more important to know what you don't know than be so assured of what you do know!

[Thunderbird]

 

As stated above - neither theory is absolute.

 

Again, we debate on different levels. You fight valiantly for stolid absolutes and I defend the science of uncertanty. If this issue were any other philosophical issue I would take the same track and state that no matter how much we collectively know, it is very little in regards to what there is to know. And he who claims to have the last word on reality is fooling himself. The last word, like tomorrow, never comes. It is more important to know what you don't know than be so assured of what you do know!

 

Life emerging from the terrestrial environment is an actual theory because we have real models to study. Panspermia and exogenesis are not theoretical models because their is nothing of any real substance to study. Just because there exists unresolved information gaps in our understanding on origins of the first life is not a qualifier for opposing scenarios as equal, or validate other scenarios as actual scientific models. You still need enough critical provable information to warrant calling it a theory.

 

The same applies to UFO's as extraterrestrials, if they are, are they are not, is not a real scientific debate, because their is nothing that can be called real information to study.

[dcmike]

"The same applies to UFO's as extraterrestrials, if they are, are they are not, is not a real scientific debate, because their is nothing that can be called real information to study."

 

Though an interesting concept, I pay no attention to UFO stories. Neither do I state that because there is no hard evidence to support, that constitutes hard evidence that they do not exist.

 

"an actual theory" - is linguistically an oxymoron -

1 - "For the scientist, "theory" is not in any way an antonym of "fact"."

2 - "In common usage, the word theory is often used to signify a conjecture, an opinion, a speculation, or a hypothesis."

 

Hence, both panspermia and exogenesis are indeed theories.