Salty Ocean On Europa Could Mean Life 315
Arctic Fox writes: "Based on data from the Galileo satellite, scientists have evidence for a salty ocean under the surface of Europa.
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
Mmmm Fish Sticks (Score:5)
Re:Space program! (Score:1)
Discovery Show (Score:2)
Survivor? (Score:1)
2010 (Score:1)
The size? (Score:2)
Too bad we won't be going there in my lifetime. =(
Well, interesting. (Score:1)
We've got salty water; that's great. Doesn't say THAT much more for the possibilities of life, though.
It's like going downtown in a strange city and saying "Hey, we're downtown! There must be a good Chinese[-American] restaurant around here!"
Re:2010 (Score:3)
Re:The size? (Score:2)
It's really fucking cold and radioactive (still in Jupiter's magnetosphere, remember?).
Waitta minute (Score:2)
If I recall right, though, it takes an electric discharge, not merely a field to start life. Being under the surface, getting this discharge could be pretty hard.
Not positive about that though, correct me if I'm wrong...
Re:2010 (Score:2)
Actually, they were Soviets. :-)
Rich...
Probability (Score:1)
Re:Space program! (Score:1)
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
What benefits has the space program brought us? Prestige against the USSR? Useless space stations? Billions of dollars of expenses? Pictures of things that are so far away that they no longer exist? Please, can you give me some real benefits? I don't want to pay taxes for useless things. I pay taxes for the tangible services, like defense, that the government provides.
Ingredients for life (Score:4)
Place your bets now. Will there be life found elsewhere in our solar system? Secondary bets may be placed on the following, for those who prefer to wager on human nature rather than nature itself. Will the presence of life on other planets create significant doubt amongst creationists? Will the absence of life on planets which have all the supposed necessary ingredients create significant doubt amongst evolutionists?
Spontanious Generation (Score:1)
1) Spontanious Generation
2) Divine Intervention
#1 has been disproved multiple times...
So what is the basis for exploreing near-earth planets for life? If God wanted intelligent life to be near to us we would of noticed the species by now. Shouldn't we be directing our resources to more logical causes?
Re:Discovery Show (Score:3)
That soon? I think the technical challenges are too great to mount such a mission so soon. We might be dealing with an ice layer severel miles thick.
It is my personal belief that there IS life down there. I can't wait until we prove it.
Rich...
Re:Space program! (Score:1)
Re:The size? (Score:1)
Salty ocean on a distant moon?!?!? (Score:2)
saline fluid for their contact lenses once they get out there! (:
A bit biased perhaps? (Score:1)
Re:Space program! (Score:1)
Oh, for the love of god!
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Seriously, though - no, wait...you're obviously trolling, so nevermind. Thanks for playing!
Re:Discovery Show (Score:1)
Re:Spontanious Generation (Score:1)
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Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:1)
No Public Interest in Space Exploration? (Score:3)
The definiton of life... (Score:2)
Re:2010 (Score:1)
Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
Re:The size? (Score:1)
Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
"How can they objectively prove that an object millions and millions of miles away contains life forms."
How about "they go look and find some"? Actually, you can't prove they don't exist, but you can easily prove that they do (if they do, of course).
"If God had created any life outside of this Earth He would have written so in his word, the Bible."
Um, the Bible is a religious text, not a scientific one. The Bible doesn't say anything about electrons either, but you're reading Slashdot, aren't you?
(And yes, I have read the Bible, thank you)
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Re:Discovery Show (Score:2)
If God had meant us to fly... (Score:2)
Re:Probability (Score:3)
What does probability have to do with it? So far, the only evidence we have that the probability of life is anything greater than zero for a given planet/-oid/moon/nebula/toroidal gas-cloud/pocket dimension/Jon Katz is the evidence of our own planet.
And don't forget that we may all be evolved from Martian bacteria, or interstellar cooties, or whatever the Space Flavor of the Week is.
Of course, this week's Space Flavor happens to be "salt water on Europa". It doesn't really change anything, except maybe our understanding of the planet. Then again, it does mean that conditions for life as we know it may in fact prevail on parts of that remote sphere.
Not that it's a sphere, natch... but while I'm here, it occurs to me that every time we learn something new about Europa, it seems to be some new condition for terrestrial life that the moon has met. It certainly helps to build the suspense, don't it? Europa will turn out to be the Al Capone's Vault of the new milennium, or else one of the greatest discoveries in human history. Personally, I can't wait.
As for it being a moon, and therefore more extreme, I'll wager 100 interplanetary megabucks (or whatever base unit of currency we and the Europans end up using) that the conditions on Venus are not only more "extreme" than the conditions on Europa, but that the conditions on Venus are more extreme than the conditions on Venus' own moons. Honestly, you make even less sense than I do.
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
The discovery of penicillin, of X-rays, of radio, of electricity, etc. did not happen because individuals set out to cure disease, communicate thru the air, etc. They happened because these people were poking and prodding at the universe out of pure curiousity. Following your thinking, it would have been judged a massive waste of taxpayer money to pay to build these huge, costly machines thought up by weirdo mathematicians (e.g. ENIAC), when there are more pressing practical problems to be solved.
As for the practical spinoffs spinoffs from the space program, you're making use of them each time you use a teflon pan, or fly on a hang glider, or use instant orange breakfast drink, or listen to a CD. Understanding the workings of other planets and moons helps us to understand our own planet better and to better predict the environmental consequences of our actions. Many other examples could be given.
Incoming message (Score:2)
Attempt no landings there.
Comment removed (Score:5)
Re:Waitta minute (Score:3)
Then in the eighties, it became popular to throw random chemicals together to create life.
These days, the more existential sci-fi justs conjures life out of mid-air, some how dealing with will-power and bulging frontal lobes.
Right now, I'm creating an army of fire-breathing penguins on Europa and directing the linux-kernel mailing list there, in the hopes that the large amount of flaiming will heat the planet enough to create a tropical paradise by my retirement in the mid 2030s.
Re:The size? Moonish. (Score:3)
Europa [nasa.gov]'s diameter is 3,138 km (1,946 miles), just a bit smaller than Earth's moon [britannica.com].
The surface gravity is also slightly less than that of our moon, which is 1/6 Earth gravity. That wouldn't stop people from living there, but the fact that the entire surface is ice would make it a bit, well, slippery.
I know it's far away, but how does it compare to Mars?
Europa isn't really comparable to Mars in many ways. Mars has an atmosphere -- thin and unbreathable, but much more substantial than vaccuum. Also, being much closer to the sun, Mars would have more energy available for things like growing plants and generating power from wind and sun.
On the other hand, I suppose that Europa's oceans (assuming they exist) could be more hospitable than the surface! Anything's possible... especially when monoliths are involved.
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Re:2010 (Score:3)
Having just read the book (and working on 2061), I'm really disappointed by what was left out of the movie. Not that it's a poor movie, but the book is (almost always) so much better.
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:5)
Really, you don't want to take the lack-of-inclusion-equals-false approach to using the Bible truth-o-meter. The bible never explicitly states that the square root of 9 is three, Bill Clinton smoked pot or my shirt is blue... but all those things are true.
there is really no way they can verify this without actually finding existing life
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
This is kind of touching on my religious turmoil right now...
Why would we have been told. What would that have done for us. Nothing really.
I used to have those Time-Life boks on UFOs and other mysteries and there was an old painting that had Jesus in a space ship.
Also there was a movie called Enemy Mine In this movie a human got stranded on a planet with a rival alien. They taught each other their language with the aliens spiritual book. When it translated it was the Bible. I just always thought that this was a neat thought.
I think that finding that life... even "non-intelligent" life would bring about lots of changes on earth. Mostly socially. We would realise that we are not really the center of the universe and might actually try to get along.
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:3)
Other than the blasphemous assumption in the second paragraph, it was pretty good. But, there are Fundamentalist Christians who actually do make those kind of categorical statements about what God would or would not do, without any Scriptural support.
Oh -- one thing. You assumed Europa existed, despite the fact that it's not visible to the naked eye and isn't mentioned in the Bible. A line about how astonomy moved straight from serving Satan through astrology to serving Satan through godless science would have served well.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
Also note that Genesis is written in a high literary mode; it's not the same literary style that would have been used for e.g. a history.
Chances are the language is, indeed, figurative. (Some other tip-offs, too, like the sudden appearance of cities before Adam and Eve have had that many children)
It is admittedly easy to go too far with this and simply declare the entire mess to be figurative. It's not. Couched in the symbolism, there are two elements which are, in fact, particularly important, and historical:
As for other specifics, I doubt Genesis was intended as a scientific treatise, contrary to what many extreme fundamentalists and atheists seem to insist.
Re:The dinosaur conspiracy (Score:2)
Re:The dinosaur conspiracy (Score:2)
Show me one insect that naturally has four legs (Leviticus 11:23)
Show me one.. just one fossil or sekeleton of a Nephilim or giant (gen 6:4)... I'll take a partial!
Hey, gen 7 tells me that the earth was covered in salt water for an entire year. You show me one species of flower that can survive a year under dozens of meters of salt water. Just one.
You show me one of those things. But remember that you've been shown thousands and thousands of dinosaur fossils (provided you bothered to look).
Let's see if you can meet the standards of proof you hold neo-darwinists to.
I must say (if redundant, please do not hurt me) (Score:2)
Visit DC2600 [dc2600.com]
Re: i think you are referring to the s (Score:2)
i think you are referring to the stanley miller experiment.t in 1953 he set up an electric discharge in an atmosphere of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and waer; and whadda ya know, after a week, found a bunch of amino acids floating around in the residue. the electric field they are talking about in the article (what must be a very weak one) is the supposed suspect of producing the magnetic field anomaly around europa. in other words if there is a magnetic field around europa it is almost certainly being produced by a salty ocean.
Life (Score:4)
Finding life, of any sort, elsewhere, would give us a great deal more information. If it's similiar to ours it implies that there's similar processes going on elsewhere, or that we're related. If it's different then it gives us entirely new insights into how complexity evolves. Either way it's exciting stuff that could advance our understanding of biology, biochemestry, evolution, complexity, etc. immensely. It could even give us better numbers to plug into those formulas for figuring out how likely we are to have neighbors.
Nobody is expecting anything on Europa to pop up & greet us with a "Codex Universalis" - just there being anything lifelike* would be enough. Even there being nothing will tell us something
-- Michael
* We still don't know enough about life yet to come up with a really good definition anyone is particularly comfortable with.
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
That's getting outside my immediate realm of knowledge.
I do recall that the copying procedures that were generally observed by the "mainline" rabbinical types through the centuries were amazingly anal, though. Munge a letter, start over. Observe certain rituals when writing "YHWH". &c... &c...
Re:Discovery Show (Score:3)
I've just discovered this planet called Earth, which may or may not have life on the surface it. Unfortunately the life seems to be beneath an unpleasant gaseous layer. I'd like to launch a mission during which we'll freeze the entire atmosphere, and make contact with the life on the planet surface who will no doubt be extremely friendly and appreciative about our visit... Who is interested in helping fund this endeavour?
He did. (Score:5)
If I might paraphrase your avatar's words upon his reported ascension into space,Therefore fundamentalists and trolls should expect to find some sort of "sheep" elsewhere in the universe. Your ass is covered on that account.
But you might be in trouble in other regards:
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Re: Why not an attachment like the Huygens probe? (Score:2)
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:4)
In fact, C.S. Lewis, originally an athiest who became one of the most famous Christian authors of the last century, also wrote a little bit of science fiction. Besides that, he wrote an essay on the subject of what it would mean to Christianity to find life on other planets. Basically, it wouldn't be a big deal from a theological perspective, although it would be incredible scientific discovery. After all, if you are willing to believe God created life on earth, why wouldn't He create it other places as well? Most of the essay actually considers the potential Christian responsibility to meeting intelligent aliens - what if they have a different religion, or no religion, or are morally perfect and don't need Christianity, or totally evil.
An interesting essay, at least for Christian-type nerds.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Re:The size? (Score:4)
It covers most of the "interesting" moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto and Titan. It's pretty interesting to hear how the scientists have changed their opinions of these moons as our technology has improved. This may be a case of improvement without any real benefit, but it still goes to show that they will freely admit they don't know everything and sometimes get things wrong.
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wow neat (Score:2)
Re:The size? Moonish. (Score:2)
Re:Probability (Score:2)
At the intuitive level, I'm inclined to agree with you.
But when we step back to analyze it, we should ask ourselves by what benchmark we judge the probability that we are here. Maybe it's low. Maybe it's high. It's hard to tell with a single sample.
> And the intelligence of these beings is even less likely to develop.
Again, a very hard probability to judge. If a great meteor hadn't smashed into the earth 65 million years ago, would intelligent life have evolved? (Would Lizard Men be playing D&D, imagining what it would be like to fight ugly pseudo-intelligent mammalian creatures with furry heads and short snouts?)
I doubt that we could all even agree on a definition for "intelligent life", much less identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for its arisal.
> Being on a moon, the conditions are more extreme than most in this solar system.
Arguably, the moons are more nearly the norm, and sweet Earth is an extreme case, which just happens to suit our lifestyle. We may be the freakiest of the freaks among the galaxy's life forms.
Personally, I would not be surprised by microscopic life on Europa, nor even by "weird undersea thingies". I would be surprised, by large and/or morphologically complex life forms (fish, etc.), more so by intelligent life forms, and most of all by life forms with any sort of technology more sophisticated that chimpanzees have.
But ultimately, I'm eager to see what's there. It might help us predict the probability of life elsewhere, somewhat better than the WAGs we have to resort to now.
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Re: uhm...no (Score:2)
by the way as long as you list divine intervention as being the only other choice for the creation of life, why dont you note leprechauns or evles? they have just as much evidence for being the Creators of life as your god.
Re:Space program! (Score:3)
Could you imagine the medical and material science possibilities of finding another naturally-developed form of life? Look at the myriad uses of crude-oil. The massive amount of pharmaceuticals developed from esoteric wildlife. Imagine if we find something equally useful on Europa. Sure, it'd have to be pretty damned important to merit importing it across space, but if we didn't check, we'd never know at all. We won't find ET, but we could find something we can use.
I do agree that most space research is, by and large, abstract knowledge. But some of it has very real possibilities. International space station is such a possibility. If we can make a sustainable orbital platform in orbit, where else can we build one? Around Europa? In the asteroid belt for its rescources? NCC-1701-E wasn't built in a day. If you ever want it to happen, you have to give people a chance to get there.
Inspiration for: My Europa (Score:4)
Ooo my little pretty moon, my pretty moon
When you gonna show me some life, Europa?
Ooo you make my mission run, my mission run
Gonna look in your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
Gonna look a little closer huh
Whatcha got?
Close enough to look in your brine, Europa
Keepin' it a mystery, gets to me
Running down the depth of your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
When you gonna show to me, show to me?
Is it just a matter of time, Europa?
Is it d-d-destiny? D-destiny?
Or is it just a game in my mind, Europa?
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Re:The size? (Score:2)
The radiation in a planetary magnetosphere is high-energy electrons and protons. You wouldn't be happy being exposed to it, but all it's going to do is ionize you down at the molecular level, not make you (or anything else) significantly radioactive. That would require something like neutrons or gamma rays, neither of which are affected by the magnetic field which accelerates and guides the charged particles. /pedantry
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Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
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Re:Salty ocean on a distant moon?!?!? (Score:2)
Vote [dragonswest.com] Naked 2000
Re:No Public Interest in Space Exploration? (Score:2)
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ETs: Where are they? (Score:2)
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
I hope so...
I don't see any hope of finding intelegent life on earth....
If theres no life anyplace but earth we are pritty much screwed for intelegence...
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
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The single most important product of space (Score:2)
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
Don't forget that Neil Armstrong used one of those pens [globetechnology.com] to hotwire the ascent stage's arming switch, after he'd broken it off trying to move around the tiny LM cabin in his spacesuit. Let's see ya try that one with a pencil!
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Re:Inspiration for: My Europa (Score:2)
A C K T H P T, T H P T
He can make up words to the tune of Sharona
He is on
Getting on my nerves this male - Madonna
Trolling on
on
Stuff that matters
News for Nerds
News for Nerds
For the hell of it
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my got
Re:No Public Interest in Space Exploration? (Score:5)
I've given this a fair bit of thought, because one of the few hopes I have for our race is that we win the great game of civilization :), and get off the planet to establish a permanant, self-sustaining presence in space. Never before has a species that's evolved on this planet been able to leave the world that it was created from - and guarantee that it will not be easily extincted. It's too bad that alone isn't a noble enough cause.
People DO care about space, however, contrary to what you say - or at least, once upon a time, they did. The problem is that they were never given a reason to think that it in any way affects them - you don't even need people in space to sucessfully launch satellites. I once worked for a very smart man who was a astrophysicist on the apollo program (Even had a extremely cool certificate signed by all or most of the apollo astronauts). He left because he realized he would never see space himself - the will wasn't there. So, this generation of people becamed disallusioned with the greatest achivement of mankind - that flag on the moon. Those people were the parents of the 20-somethings here, and they didn't push their kids to chase something unobtainable.
Something else I wonder about is how many people that live in the cities have ever really been far enough away to truely apprecate the stars - when there's no light, on a clear night in winter, there's almost more white than black in the sky when you look up - it's amazing. (I live in Canada, YMMV).
On top of all that, it's pretty good for western peoples on earth right now, and they're the only ones that have the means and wealth to undertake a major space push - and they don't wanna. I'd love to have a box on my income tax where I could donate money to NASA tax free. Never happen. (hell, it's even foreign, the Canadian Space Agency is a national political joke located in buttf-ck nowhere Quebec. Great way to attract the best and brightest! ).
So, the way I see it, something has to happen to the current political climate on earth, and none of it is very pleasant (I, personally, will never see space first hand, nor will 99.9999% of the populace, and it's discouraging - where's our real-time feed of earth in HDTV that Clinton promised many years ago? Eh? Scared of people seeing the aliens? :)
So, let's talk about what might change attitudes:
Discovery of life in our solar system.
This is a biggie. However, it's hard to concretely prove life is somewhere without sending someone there first hand to test on the spot. So, we've got a catch 22 here, assuming that Europa has, or mars had, life on it.
Earth getting to be a nasty place to live in a hurry
A couple things could happen here. The most likely is that a medium-sized asteroid hits earth and kills millions of people, but doesn't distrupt civilization - this would wake people up in a hurry. Of course, it would suck to be unfortunate enough to be a martyr. Just hope it hits land, and it's not too big (this definately will happen eventually, but nobody knows when). A side effect of this is that it might trigger a small war accidentally, but NORAD and I assume the Warsaw Pact nations still track asteroid entries into the atmosphere for this very reason!
Another possibility is a small / medium sized nuclear war that ends up seriously shortening lifespans (40 years in developed nations due to cancer). The need to leave would be pressing, then.
Huge leaps in technology that enable easy lift capacity and/or near FTL speeds, or some warp technology
There are calculations that prove warping space is possible - there's been a few postings to /. in the past few years - the energies required are not practical. This, or a breakthrough along the lines of a unified theory that related electromagnetism and gravity and allowed us to develop gravity-based technologies (That's why a unified theory is such a big deal in physics, but nobody will say that, since they would sound crazy). These are unlikely because any technology that allowed this would COMPLETELY destabilize the economic structures of the west (we run on oil, and on capitalism - unlimited free energy ends capitalism), and as such, would be repressed under severe penalties and/or disinformation. Who knows what mysteries the hydrogen bomb researchers might have found? We'll never know. That of course is the other problem - unlimited energy or a unified theory might make weapons of mass destruction much easier to obtain. There was a good outer limits on this one, and might explain why we haven't detected an advanced civilization yet - they all go boom.
Contact with intelligent aliens
This, of course, would change things overnight, and unify humanity. I'm a skeptic of most UFO sightings, but there is a LOT of evidence out there, and the one that stands out in my mind is the footage and radar information that the Beligan Air Force shot - it's completely fucking unexplainable, even the Beligan government says so. It's a great watch, it's on TLC every now and again. This would also change the political power structures as humans would see their might be other things they should be worried about, and would funnel resources into thinking about how we can advance technology quickly.
Arrgh, I can't believe I wrote all that. Just some rants..
Re:Study Earth first (Score:2)
Searching for the possibility of life on Europa has many more potential benefits than simply the discovery of other life forms.
Looking at the other life forms on earth is a very good goal, and can teach us much, but in the end, we're still investigating life on earth, and are therefore limited to the results of that environment.
Look at it this way: Assume we've catalogued all life forms on earth (non trivial, I know). Maybe we find one or more life forms that are radically different at the biological level than the life forms we know now. In that case, we have distinct morphological biologies that can be compared and contrasted, and we learn more than if we only find life similar to known life. And if we find only life that is similar to known life, we still only have a data set of one.
Now, assume that by some chance, we find life on Europa (of any sort). If this life is different from any we find on Earth (no matter how many different types there may be), then we have yet another distinct biology to study, providing even more insight into the mechanism of life.
But suppose that by chance we find life on Europa that is very similar in content to life on Earth. In this case we learn something that we simply CANNOT learn by limiting our study only to life on Earth, no matter how many different types of life we find.
We learn either that the mechanisms of life formation are very similar on at least two different worlds, providing substantive data to further studies of abiogenesis and other evolutionary theories. Or we learn that there may be a common source for life on at least two different worlds. Data from two worlds won't necessarily allow us to choose one or the other view with certainty, but it is invaluable knowledge nonetheless.
Science is not merely about confirming the results of experiments and hypotheses, but attempting to do so using as many different mechanisms as possible (or at least feasible). If two (or more) different experiments investigating the same hypothesis produce equivalent results, then that hypothesis is further strengthened.
No matter how many forms of life we find on Earth alone, we are limited in what we can postulate from those results. Finding life on two or more different worlds increases the data set and allows us to strengthen (or modify) our hypotheses in a much more meaningful manner.
Hmm ... vicarious observations? (Score:2)
Ahem
Reminds me of Clueless:
"You have to work out regularly, not just sporadically."
"How do you know if you're doing it sporadically?"
Cheers,
IT
Re:No Public Interest in Space Exploration? (Score:2)
Nuff said
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:5)
We are all originally atheists. Newborns have no knowledge of or belief in god[s].
After all, if you are willing to believe God created life on earth, why wouldn't He create it other places as well?
My big concern is that if you're capable of believing that god created life on earth, what aren't you capable of believing? The "all powerful" creature that works in "ways that cannot be understood" is a monsterous monkeywrench in critical thinking. There are people who believe the earth is hollow. If you believe in the all-pwerful/not-understandable god, you have no basis to disbelieve or be skeptical of the hollow-earthists. The supreme and incomprehensible being could easily hollow the earth out. Go and look, see the earth isn't hollow. But it could have been filled in seconds before you looked and hollowed out again as soon as you turn your back. Or it's non-hollowness could be an illusion. With an omnipotent/incomprehensible god it's as equally probable as any other possibility.
Everything becomes arbitrary, subject to the whims of an omnipotent and incomprehensible force. Anything is possible and even your senses cannot be trusted (an omnipotent being could spoof your senses surely). The laws of physics could change tomorrow, pi could be rounded down to three...
If you believe the Bible, you believe nothing...
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
I hear ya... but I hate being misunderstood more :)
I think there's a cover-up behind the pen here.
So do I, but I think my theory about that is different than yours. What exactly do they mean by a $2M pen? Let's say we have a scientist who make $52K/yr. He spends a week on the pen. No biggie, but we could now argue that we have a $1,000 pen. Obviously, the pen needs to be manufactured and this, obviously, requires personell and equipment (we can skip raw materials, realistically). So, let's say they contract Parker to make this pen. They shutdown 10% of their plant for 1 day to re-tool to make the pen. Parker makes a million dollars profit a year so their loss is 1/3650 of a million. Now, we want to actually get the pen into space to test it (testing is part of the manufacturing process afterall). Let's say the pen takes up 1/10 of 1% of the space ship that costs $50M to put into space... hm.
It's easy to inflate the price of things if you start factoring in fixed and ambient costs. I bought some cable clamps at home depot for 45. If I factor in parking, gas, loss of time from contract work I could have been doing, vehicle depreciation and insurance for the duration of the trip yatta yatta, I've go a $75 cable clip.
I live in a province that's a hotbet of neo-populist right-wing economic theory and I am surrounded by people who use this technique to prove that the government is frittering away our tax dollars on junkets, paper clips and wallpaper for 24 Sussex.
Coca-Cola-Corp. relies completely on public complacency
Well, technically, so does the government. NASA's on the more-for-cheaper kick big time. This isn't because of some illustrious insight or attack of mental illness, it's because of public opinion that NASA spends too much and is part of "fat, inefficient" government. The result of this new faster-cheaper philosophy, or course, is a dramatic increase in litter on Mars, but that's a digression.
If anything, they would have benefited $2Million Dollars of research funding.
I wonder, really, how much we learned about zero g fluid dynamics as the result of this pen. Potentially quite a lot. Ultimately, the great breakthroughs are generated by the urges of curiosity or showing off....
Anyway, to reiterate:
1. I'm skeptical that the pen really cost $2M.
2. The public backlash against government spending (Thanks Ron!) has seriously damanged NASA (and a lot of other things...)
3. Showing-off and "poking about" generate a lot of progress as a spin off. Did the pen generate progress spin off. I suspect so.
Besides, they sell them for $40 or so each to the general public. Who knows? Maybe the pen's turned a profit?
Re:Still a long way to go (Score:2)
How about reading something from Richard Dawkins eg. "The Selfish Gene" he deflates the whole irrecducible complexity arguement quite easily. Plus the book does not take into account things such as Chaos, Quantum Phenomena as extended to biology etc. etc.
Do yourself a favour and read the pro-evolutionary side of the debate. I read both and come out better for it.
PS. Why does this mean there is a God by the way. Could not have Odin designed mankind, or Zeus, or Shiva etc etc for all you know it could have been
me!!!!!!!!!!!
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:3)
Emerson,
The Bible is a grand, beautiful book, and I think that Christ was one of the greatest teachers and thinkers that ever lived (despite my being agnostic). However, to take the word of the Bible literally (or to "literally imply") is to fall into that same trap as so many others have fallen into i.e. people who have used the word of the Bible to justify all sorts of less-than-cool stuff.
It's one thing to subscribe to a belief system, especially one with as many good things about it as Christianity. But these systems must adapt to the times -- the Christian of today doesn't believe many of the things that a Christian of 1000 years ago believed. Does that make today's Christian more or less of a Christian as judged by the standards that existed then?
Creationists all too often see science as trying to 'disprove' the existence of a divine being. I think that this is a negative way of looking at it. I like to think of science as trying to find out more about the universe that God (if there is a God) made.
Regards,
John
Exciting, but... (Score:2)
- "There could be life on Europa" doesn't mean there is.
- We would have to get there (long, expensive).
- Bringing alien beings to Earth:
- Could be dangerous for us (epidemies, invasion, etc. - just watch both Alien and Outbreak again - )
- could also be dangerous for these beings (the shuttle would need whatever to keep it alive)
- Would be long and expensive (several years)
- Would require sophisticated hibernation technologies
If there appears to be no life on Europa, we could anyway settle some terrestrial life forms there, like micro-organisms aimed at bio-chemical experiments or whatever. We are still far from settling there but it may be easier for our Martian-born descendents.--
Re:The size? (Score:2)
Ryan
Re:Space program! (Score:2)
Love's like playing "Marvel Vs. Capcom" with the default Dreamcast controller: Lots of fun but it hurts like hell
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
Ryan
Neither, probably... (Score:2)
Similarily, the absence of life on other planets just means the beginning conditions weren't right there. (And there are so many planets that there won't ever be a point at which we can claim there's absolutely certainly no other life). I don't think anyone would claim a plain rock would eventually evolve into life.
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
But the Bible says pi is 3. And if you square pi you get about 9.87, not 9. Either you're wrong or the Bible's wrong. C'mon Frymaster, fess up. And you shirt is aqua, not blue.
I refer naysayers to Kings 7:23 [gospelcom.net]. Identical wording is present in Chronicles 4:2 [gospelcom.net].
Ryan
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
How do you know that what your percieve is real? What for that matter is "real"?
What follows is an section of an essey I wrote a long time ago that touches on this subject. Enjoy!
More of the same can be found here [fortunecity.com].Thad
Re:The dinosaur conspiracy (Score:2)
Well, sure. The movie was just a movie. You know how Hollywood can get carried away and distort the truth. HOWEVER, _Jurassic_Park_ was also published as a BOOK. A real, authentic, authoritative book. Just like the Bible.
Ryan
Re:The dinosaur conspiracy (Score:2)
Show me one insect that naturally has four legs (Leviticus 11:23)
I even have a photo! [microsoft.com]
Show me one.. just one fossil or sekeleton of a Nephilim or giant (gen 6:4)... I'll take a partial!
Unfortunately the Nephilim were drowned in the salt sea you mention below. Their bones turned to limestone along with the shellfish.
Hey, gen 7 tells me that the earth was covered in salt water for an entire year. You show me one species of flower that can survive a year under dozens of meters of salt water. Just one.
European flowers [slashdot.org], for one. Also, Noah was commanded to take every kind of food [gospelcom.net] with him on the ark, presumably this includes nuts and seeds.
Ryan
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
"And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." -Judges 1:19
Omnipotent my rosy red ass.
"but he is also Holy, full of perfect love."
"I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs." -Dueteronomy 32:23-25
Yea, a real nice guy.
"You can't have faith in something like that when there's no reason to."
Faith is belief without evidence, reason does not come into it at all.
"Belief in revelation from the Bible does not exclude rational empirical research, nor can the latter disprove the former (much as people have tried)."
Empirical research can do so if you make the insane claim, like fundamentalists, that the bible is all true. According to the scientific method all one must do is show that one example is untrue and the infalibility of scripture is disproven, like say:
"And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword." -1st Samuel 15:7-8
"And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.And David smote the land, and left neither man nor woman alive..." -1st Samuel 27:8-9
"And it came to pass, when David and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the Amalekites had invaded the south..." -1st Samuel 30:1
Those pesky Amalekites just won't stay dead. Voila, the verity of scripture is disproved due to scripture's inhearent self-contradiction. Of course if you (in the general sense, I don't know if you personally believe such a thing) drop the 'it's all true' crap you need not worry about disproof because there is nothing to disprove but the definitavely personal revelation.
plants need oxygen as well (Score:2)
Oxygen and Water are required for carbon based life. Those phototropic plants have simply figured out how to get oxygen in a different way, haven't they?
Moller
Little green fish (Score:2)
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:3)
Your characterisation of those who believe the Bible is a straw man. I could do the same for those who subscribe to the various "anthropic principles". The Weak Anthropic Principle, for example, suggests that the improbability of life arising is of no matter, since only those universes which contain observers (and thus life) are observed. One could go on to say that all probabilities are irrelevant, since we are just one of an infinite number of universes in which, no doubt, all things can and do happen.
Everything becomes arbitrary, subject to the whims of chance in an infinite number of universes. Anything is possible and even your senses cannot be trusted (infinite possibilities include universes where your sense data bears no relationship to reality). The laws of physics could change tomorrow, pi could be rounded down to three...
Or not. Most people who hold to the Weak Anthropic Principle don't take it to this extreme, and most people who believe in the Biblical God don't believe that He changes things around at random, even if he can.
Re:People Against Airplanes (Score:2)
The link can be found here:
http://www.pervenio.com/paa
Re:There is no life outside Earth (Score:2)
Faith? Based upon what? Some priest/minister/pastor's say so?
Or based upon evidence from your life experiences?
Why is your belief any more valid that someone else's? The beliefs of the Dogon people specificly include visitors from another part of the universe, they knew of Sirius B thousands of years before any human eye had ever caught sight of it. One could make a much better case for the validity of their religion over that of MANY others.
Keep your religious arguments confined to your bible school class.
LK
Re:What about the dinosaurs? (Score:2)
I'm gonna have to disagree here. Nobody can figure on what really happened to them dinosaurs. Hell, they might living in it up on a solar system close by watching us through big binocs.
I subscribe to the theory that we are the product of an interferring race that came down and genetically engineered us from apes way back when. They needed creatures smart enough to follow orders but dumn enough to not get any bright ideas. They took away our strength so we couldn't revolt effectively. Then they had us mine precious metals and left us to fend for ourselves when they got what they wanted. Hey it explains the missing link and wouldn't we do the same if we could?
He definitely did (Score:2)
There not a single mention of him in any text, record, or any document whatsoever during the time he allegedly lived.
Wildly incorrect. His existence was very well known at the time. The reason that existing records don't bear it out is because of their systematic destruction by the Catholic church over the centuries, the most notorious of which is the destruction of the library in Alexandria.
In recent years archaelogy has unearthed things like the Gnostic Gospels which have allowed us to put together a more well balanced picture of contemporary religious thought, which also explain a whole lot of stuff in the canon which makes no sense otherwise.
The first reference which can be unambiguously identified as Jesus Christ of the Gospels is a piece written by the Roman military governor in AD 48 referring to "the followers of the Egyptian magician." This explains why Jesus was persecuted by the rabbinical establishment; Judaism has always been extremely tolerant of differing interpretations of its scriptures, but has resisted fiercely attempts to merge beliefs from different cultures. And the winemaking, walking on water, raising the dead, all that stuff -- those weren't anything particularly special at the time, they were well known tricks of the initiates of the Egyptian mystery schools. Note, for instance, in Acts where they go up against Simon Magus doing the exact same tricks that the Jesus worshippers were pulling. And that bit with the feet anointing that freaked all the watchers out? Ritual straight out of Isis worship.
So that's why the Establishment did away with him -- nothing to do with claiming to be the Messiah, they were actually expecting said Messiah to show up somewhere around that time, and dozens of cult leaders were claiming that They Were The One, not just Jesus -- it's because he was an Egyptian assimilationist mofo!
As an aside, it seems that Coptic Christianity is the extant flavor that bears the greatest resemblance to what Jesus actually preached. But I digress.
It is the energy source (Score:2)
Keep in mind that the following conditions are required for "life":
An energy gradient (i.e. "an organized", dense energy source near an "energy sink" so living things can grab that energy and use it)
The ability to reproduce (share traits with the next "generation")
Responds to stimulus
In addition to this, in order to be a "carbon-based" life form, using DNA for storage of genetic material, the only other items you need are:
Water
Carbon
Nitrogen (Can be ammonia or NH3)
Everything else can be manipulated or created with basic protiens around these items to create a DNA based life form. On the Earth, living things have been found in such inhospitable places as the bottom of a gyser, Antartica, Marianas Trench, thermal vents, Surveyor 4 (a lunar probe recovered by Apollo 14) etc.
It is precisely because of some of the harsh environments that living things have been found (even from the moon, although it was clearly of Earth origin) that make people suspect that life should be fairly easy to find on Europa. Martian life may already be there, but perhaps brought there courtesy of the governments of the USSR (pre-breakup) and the United States.
BTW, there is an office at NASA [nasa.gov] that is responsible for certifying space probes that go to other worlds. Places like Venus and the Moon are given a blank check, where as Europa and Mars are given "clean room" treatment. I can't find the division right off from the NASA web site (I looked) but I do know that it exists.
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
After all, for gawd's sakes, we've seen meteoritess with -amino acids- embedded in them!
This is the reason why a Mars mission returning samples of the planet's soil and rocks and a mission to land a spacecraft to Jupiter to land on the ice of Europa to do remote sampling may be critical in our future. If we can prove that life at least evolved to the cellular level on both Mars and the liquid water beneath the surface ice of Europa, it would be the final proof that life can exist on somewhere else besides Earth.
However, how religions will deal with this discovery is going to be a -big- problem. If you remember Carl Sagan's novel CONTACT, he mentions a lot about how humanity will deal with proof that there is life in outer space. Even though it's not as exciting as getting a signal from an extraterrestrial source, just the proof that life can exist off our planet will have a huge impact on our religious and philosophical views of our place in the Universe.
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
Check out the claim here [ideosphere.com].
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
Ack! it's "Epistemiology 220" all over again!
Ultimately, all epistemilogical contentions are unprovable and circular. The only thing you can do is weigh the contending theories as to the knowable and, based on that, pick an epistemiological theory from the veritable smorgasbord provided to you in the buffet of the mind we call First Year Liberal Arts... Personally, I went with predictability. The laws of physics and chemistry are predictable. Biology too, although they're far, far more complex and actually getting enough data to make anything vaguely resembling a functional prediction is about zero, but it could be done. The result of this choice is twofold:
1. Atheism. "God" (name brand term for generic concept, like Kleenex) is inherently unpredictable and implies an unpredictable and arbitrary rule. Occam's razor is applied and the supreme being winds up on the cutting room floor.
2. Determinism. This one sucks. But working on the (valid for lack of effective contrary evidence) assumption that state T is always a function of state T - 1, all T's from the big bang to "the end" (colloquial use) are predictable. Throwing out free will is, natch, a toughie. My solution was not to get uptight about it and just decide that I would ignore it for the sake of my quality of life.
It is quite possible (although quite hideous) that - as I mentioned in my last essay - everything around one is also just a machine,
Firstly, I would question why it is hideous. This is solely an argument from semantics. We have cooked up a word "machine" and used it describe a certain class of things. As we delve into the concepts of what life is and isn't, we find that the concept "machine" can be extended to living creatures, but it comes with pejorative connotations from generations of usage. Purely semantic, actually. Besides, there are dramatic qualitative shifts across the spectrum of devices defined as "machines". A ramp is a machine. A printed circuit borad is a machine.
Re:Ingredients for life (Score:2)
This has a (not so) vague hint of historical revisionism to it...
1. The inerrency of the bible as touted from 400ish CE to post-1500-ish CE effectively quashed any scientific investigation that might have reached conclusions contrary to scripture. If the bible says there's a fixed firmament, then there's a fixed firmament... and don't you go building no "firmament testing machine".
2. Original sin was the quest for philisophical knowledge. If questing for knowledge is a sin then I'm a heretic (thank you very much)
3. The "medieval insistence on the rationality of god" probably worked contrary to scientific pursuit. More time was spent attempting to figure out the "rationale" behind God's actions than actually studying the phenomena in question.
4. I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of light and heat. I admit Newton was a Smart Guy, but what the hell is he thinking with a statement like this? Of course the sun's distance is "perfect". If it wasn't he wouldn't be around to wonder the question in the first place! There's no life on Neptune pondering why they got the wrong ratio! Ack. Maybe if he hadn't consulted his bible daily he would have got past this one...
5. Some of the greatest pioneers of science were committed Christians Well, that's just an appeal to authority and an anecdotal one at that... There have been numerous studies [webspawner.com] showing that Christianity tends to impede scientific thought in general. This is a dangerous game, however. Most white supremacists are Xtians (the Aryan Nations is a registered church, for example). Then again, a very large chunk of the civil rights movement where christians as well... In this line of argument, there be danger!
6. Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent Well, if that isn't a "chilling effect" on scientific inquiry I don't know what is...
7. This is just a cheap shot, but considering the hevy reference to Newton, I'm gonna take it. Democritus of abeda almost assuradly discovered some form of Calculus before Newton. There are many references to his work on "calculating the volume of cones" which resided in the Library at Alexandrea. Unfortunately, St. (yes, that's "Saint"!) Cyril's mob had the head librarian (hepatia?) skinned alive with sharpened conch shells and burnt the structure, books and all to the ground. Calculus goes up in a puff of holy smoke (ha! holy smoke! get it?) and we have to wait for Newton to get it back. So, what if jesus had never been born? We might be living on Europa now!