Life on Mars?

I actually totally agree. most liberated minds i'm sure would be on the edge of their seats, if this were the case. The sciences and those who are dedicated to pure knowledge, have everything to gain, if evidence came to light. I would the first stowaway onboard the first ship going that way. All i'm saying is, is that those lovely grey faces behind the bureaucratic red tape, the theological community, and other "small" minded people who generally find themselves in positions of power, might not be to excited about this type of world shattering information. Especially if it undermines their view of "Their world We live in." Where i come from even a forum such as this, would've been seen as a threat not to far back in our past. Ideas beget ideas. The last thing our last regime wanted, was the proliferation of good ideas/Knowledge.True knowledge is power... and is the one thing that any oppressor fears the most.To actually be able to sit here right at this moment and have these discussions with you, my learned friend, is a luxury. Purely because we can exchange ideas and learn from one another. Maybe i digress, but i hope this gives you more insight as to where i'm coming from.
My old man always used to tell me "A leopard doesn't change it's spots": There are still some very nasty people out there, who have no interests but their own, at heart (if they have one)Anyway, thank you (to all) for at least giving enquiring minds the opportunity to strreeetch, grow, and make mistakes.

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We're not all there, that's why we're here... Anon

In evolutionary theory, life evolved in water, therefore water is necessary for life. One of the main purposes then for NASA's moon trip was to discover water as a preliminary step to searching for life. As many of you have noted, the hype in the media is somewhat premature. Even the evidence for water is not definite; although if it were, this would have no intrinsic connection to life, despite what the commentators are all saying.
I suspect that [i]Beagle 2[i], if it had survived, would also have sought life as a primary objective. Note the significance of the name.

So, if creationists had launched Mars landers, they'd be desperately searching the Martian surface for dust?Seriously, though, I don't think anybody seriously thinks that the purpose of the landers was a search for life. The presence of water on Mars has ramifications for Martian geology - areology? - as well. I imagine it's these areological concerns that motivated the mission, not a search for life.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 03-09-2004]

holmes wrote: Does this mean that evolutionary theory has scant knowledge of mechanisms whereby abiogenesis might have occurred? Life definitely sprang from nothing, but the exact means are still unclear?

Sorry, not to drift off topic but I had to tell crashfrog that for once he and I are in concord (regarding the 'fake moon landing people' in message 20).

In that case, how come I've heard about the prospects for life on a watery Mars and not the prospects for areology on a watery Mars?

Because the phrase "life on Mars" sells newspapers.As far as I know, the tools on the lander are pretty much geological in nature, for testing the composition of rocks, etc. Do you know if they have any tools to test for the presence of life or it's remnants?

For earth's life it is... but can you prove it is needed for all life? some how I doubt it. You never know whats in the Universe.... there can be new elements and compounds better then water... you never know[This message has been edited by DC85, 03-09-2004]

Please remember that evolutionary theory is about how life forms change. It can't by definition (pretty much) say anything about things which are not already life forms. Therefore evolutionary theory is simply not concerned with abiogenesis.It is exactly like geology isn't concerned with the processes in supernovae that created the different elements that make up rocks. It takes 'em as it sees 'em.The exact means are certainly still unclear. The exact means may stay that way.

The landers are not intended to explicitly search for life. The Beagle II was, as I understand, more directed at this.

Nosyned has already made the (correct) point that evolutionary theory does not cover abiogenesis, but let me address the concept of whether abiogenesis can be considered a theory without complete knowledge of mechanisms...As a scientist I would freely admit that those who say chemistry based abiogenesis DEFINITELY occured on this planet to form the life that exists here, would be making very UNscientific statements.However it is clear that at one time life did NOT exist on the planet, and then it did. That leaves us with two choices. Either life began/formed somewhere else and then came here, or it began/formed here. In either case abiogenesis occured, though the range of possible environments would be greater in the first one.It is also true that either case of abiogenesis could be chemistry based, or "other force" based. Given that we have absolutely NO evidence for any forces besides those described in chemistry, that pretty well leaves us with chemistry based abiogenesis, either on this planet or off this planet until more evidence comes in which might be a realistic competing theory.We currently cannot say what are the exact chemical environmental REQUIREMENTS for life, because we have not examined every single possible chemical environment. Nor have we then narrowed down geological theories regarding early possible earth environments.Does this act as some hindrance from accepting abiogenesis? Not really. As we see above some form of abiogenesis must have occured, whether chemistry was the mechanism cannot be ruled out because we don't know WHICH chemical mechanism was responsible.A good analogy is this... After visiting a friend in the US, you returned to NZ. A few weeks later that friend knocks on your door. How did he get there? You can't possibly know which mechanism your friend used to get to you, but that does not suddenly make a fiery chariot of god as or more likely than the normal physical mechanisms (plane or ship) we understand are available.It could be added that somehow you rule out plane or ship as the mechanism your friend used. Before jumping to fiery chariot of god, your more likely (credible) choice of mechanisms would involve normal physical laws... a super helicopter, or a submarine, or a large pontoon vessel. Even riding a dolphin would hold more credibility than the fiery chariot of god, which has absolutely no precedent for its existence and knowledge of how it would work.Thus, while it is true scientists cannot currently say where and how life originated, it is equally true that chemistry based abiogenesis remains the more likely theory.I might add that science is making some headway in narrowing down environments for greater possibility of chemical abiogenesis on earth.Hope this helps.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

H-
your logic is a little off. Let me assume NOT GOD!You set it up correctly but once I try to think if this is an either or it MIGHT not be!!Namely a very very very smart civilization seeded life here and once we KNOW this it would be LIKE WHAT YOU MAY HEAR RELIGIONISTS SAY O F god but only THEN we would have knowledge that we did not think correctly but we can not know this LOGICALLY before this very fact"".There are really deep historical issues in "abiogenesis" which I have not ventured a foot in the edge of this water on this board but perhaps now is this time. There may be NO other environement than this and yet whatever created the godLIKE intelligent thing created it provided these "gods" are able to communicate THAT to you or me!I hope that made clearer what it is we can only visually make clearer.

The clarity of your post compels me to answer!

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your logic is a little off. Let me assume NOT GOD! You set it up correctly but once I try to think if this is an either or it MIGHT not be!!

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If I read you correctly, you are suggesting that I am making an assumption that there is no God. This is not true at all. But let me be more clear...I am saying that we know of chemical processes, and we know that our bodies (and all life right down to bacteria) are composed of specific chemical processes.It is not such a leap to imagine that these specific chemical processes were formed by other chemical processes, rather than by some unknown organizing force for which we have no direct evidence nor concept of how such a thing (if it existed) interacts with matter.I thought my analogy of the friend that came to visit was clear on this. I hope it did not come off as meaning that the friend could not possibly have used a chariot of the Gods, or been blinked there by a genie... certainly the friend may have used these alternative mechanisms... it is just that in a absence of evidence for any such FORCES (much less how they work as mechanisms), the mechanisms based on known physical forces (even if outlandish like riding a dolphin) will take precedence in science, until evidence arises for the alternative forces.This is not a cheat, but a valuable way of whittling down all POSSIBLE explanations, to those that are most PROBABLE for further inquiry.

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Namely a very very very smart civilization seeded life here and once we KNOW this it would be LIKE WHAT YOU MAY HEAR RELIGIONISTS SAY O F god but only THEN we would have knowledge that we did not think correctly but we can not know this LOGICALLY before this very fact"".

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I alluded to the "seeding of life" by mentioning the possibility of abiogenesis occuring outside of the earth. Whether sentient life sent seeds down, or unguided natural processes (microbes forming in asteroids) did the seeding is irrelevent. Both the sentient life and the microbes require abiogenesis of some kind.You are right that from the vantage point of earthlings today, sentient alien "life farming" in the past could look identical to the activities of Gods. Depending on the nature of alien abiogenesis such a differentiation might never be possible, leaving us with the only question of did earth life come from aliens or Gods?But that is taking several strides farther than we logically can or should right now. There is no necessary move off of earth, because there are still great potentials of organizing chemical environments that may have generated biological life.

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There may be NO other environement than this and yet whatever created the godLIKE intelligent thing created it provided these "gods" are able to communicate THAT to you or me!

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Unfortunately I did not quite understand this sentence, could you please rephrase it?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I think your reasoning is more probable than a simple faith but it was me not you who assumed there was NOT a god.I heard Eigen lecture in Bake Lab at Cornell about this chemical thing but beause I ALSO heard Pauling LEcture in the same room where what HE had to say was only about how connected any bunch of chemicals was (density) AND that his response to questions was only about whether there is any cabalistic influence of the #5 in Euclids elements I remained unconvinced. Yes you are correct it is not "much of leap" I likely only changed seats on those two occassions.I am not ready to discuss "forces" in this context yet so rest assured you have answered well for me at least for now as I am would only be able to speak momentarily of Einstein on MACH and it is far from clear should life HAVE to have all the inertia INERT gave Einstein adjectivially. I have never seen any one on the web reply to this question next of mine , "Do seeds fall to the earth or the sun or some other orbit?" In a similiar development Einstein wanted to know how an electron re-enters a Bohr orbit. Yes, Eigen's reasoning is reasonable but Crick seems to have taken from this work that selection of RNA means that there is no intellectual base THEN for vital forces. I would rather discuss Weinberg on Wolfram via a wrong Feynmann but that is just me as a physical chemist which I am less than my bioloigcally centered understanding that doubts any existence no matter how probable of "other life". Yes life may exist on Mars but there will not be martians unless they can communicate to me in my own understanding of PHYSICAL REALITY. Debate is something else but I think that negative and positive curvature and negative and positive pressure combined provided a potential for cross level effects that Gould thinks is BOTH not a ding an sich but some kind of thing. Being able to read German may see the Causcus Mnts from here.

MSNBC reports today that scientists now believe that the site currently being explored by the Opportunity rover was once the bottom of a salty sea. This is helpful in the search for a fossil record of any life that may once have existed there.In other words, scientists are now apparently certain that the site was not merely a groundwater spring but rather a full-blown sea like the ones we have here on earth.