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"Are we not all hoping to
find whales swimming in the oceans of Europa?"
Yes. With narwhal-like tusks many miles
long so that they can drilll breathing
holes up to the surface when they need oxygen from an
atmosphere so thin
as to be still largely inferred, rather than
observed. Indeed, whales were the first
thing that occurred to me when I read the Europa
might have an ocean covered
with miles of ice.
Absolutely. :-/
What would drive you is not what would drive a
scientist. I could sympathize
with Percival Lowell's attraction to the Mysterious
Orient because that's where
I am now -- and I've spent almost as much time in
Japan as he did. And I love
the poetry of Lowell's
writing about Mars, when he shifted to that arena of
popularization on the theme of a distant, alien
civilization. At the same time,
however, it's pretty
clear that Lowell made
his name in Asian studies much
as he later did in
Areography -- by
getting a little too "entrepreunerial
with
the truth."
"Whims, hopes and
dreams" are all well and good, but there is one
advantage
to a sort of
ascetic self-denial of fantasy: the truth, when it
comes, isn't
going to be compared to
the fruits of wishful thinking, and can be appreciated for
itself, and for the cleverness and intelligence
applied in arriving at it.
Or even just for its serendipitous revelations --
many scientific discoveries
underscore how we're not half as imaginative as we
imagine ourselves
to be.
-michael turner
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2003 2:42
AM
Subject: RE: No life detected in
Atacama Desert in Chile
Point well taken.
Thanks for the interesting references; they will make good reading. The
scientific method indeed is our best means of accumulating reliable
information about the world and worlds around us. However, I believe, we
are driven to seek such information by the whims, hopes and dreams within
us. Are we not all hoping to find whales swimming in the oceans of
Europa?
One reason scientists are cautious is in taking the lesson from
Percival Lowell and the planet Mars from a century ago.
Poorly
seen natural marking on the Red Planet were turned into giant
canals for an ancient, dying civilization by the Boston Brahmin.
This is one reason that planetary science and astrobiology were
put down by the mainstream astronomical community for decades
afterwards.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From:
Michael Turner
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2003 10:28
PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: No life detected in
Atacama Desert in Chile
John Ingrassia:
> ... As a non-scientist
watching eagerly from the sidelines, I wonder why
we even start
>
with the proposition that 'life' would have to be physical in nature
at
all, rather than some
> form of energy, or other as yet
undiscovered component of our universe. I
realize that
>
the physical, organic, carbon based beings may be easiest for us
to
discover, but surely
> we don't think that that's everything,
do we?
Surely we don't *know* whether or not that's
everything. Science proceeds
largely by disproving falsifiable
hypotheses, and by allowing some weight of
evidence to accumulate for
any other hypotheses still standing. If you want
to
dispense
with this methodology, you can always join Eckankar, and fly
to
other
worlds in your dreams, enjoying a universe chock full of
interesting
extraterrestrials.
And you'll have lots of company in
your belief that the universe not only
has
extraterrestrial life,
but civilizations as well. You just won't have
any
proof.
If you hew to scientific methodology, however, you
have to admit that a
search
for life must, at least, start from
what's known, and be based on what's
physically
verifiable.
This can be rather boring, and it can lead to a lot of
argumentation
and
hard, frustrating work, at the end of which one might only have a
pile of
disproved
hypotheses and not much else. As a scientist
of my acquaintance put it last
week,
one of the big disappointments
of his early career was the realization that
life is
not a Tom
Clancy novel. Crash programs are mainly a great way to waste
a
lot of
money. Realism slows things down, and makes you very
cautious. And you
require
that evidence be "physical in
nature" because all other paths lead to
angelology
and
demonology. You test, and eliminate, hypotheses in the most
economical
manner possible.
In this view, the recent inability
to discover life on Earth (in regions
where is
most resembles Mars,
using observatories) is, in fact, a useful discovery in
itself.
Perfecting instruments for a search using a more conventional
picture
of
life doesn't mean that the search will be called off if life isn't
found
that way -- it just
means that the search will have to shift
to other hypotheses. They are just
working from the most likely
hypotheses at the moment. Nothing wrong with
that. It
doesn't make them closed-minded. Just practical.
Christopher
England wrote:
> If there's anything certain, it is that any
>
life we find off the Earth will be different, likely extremely
>
different.
Different? Yes. Even if the life turns out
to be terrestrial
in origin, it will have adapted. But that's
true even of life
that has stayed on this planet. "Likely
extremely different"?
That's not clear at all. It may well be
that, for one reason
or another, it all comes down to conventional
organic chemistry.
We just don't know yet.
-michael
turner
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----Original Message-----
>
From: Christopher England [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent:
Wednesday, August 06, 2003 8:03 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc:
BioAstro
> Subject: Re: No life detected in Atacama Desert in
Chile
>
>
>
> It's knowing where to look, and for
what to look. I don't think we (we
> Earthfolk) are there
yet. If there's anything certain, it is that any
> life we
find off the Earth will be different, likely extremely
>
different.
>
> Chris
> ==
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