Mark,
I agree. It's becoming painfully obvious Mars has always been lifeless.
If
it didn't happen there, where conditions were similar to Earth, with all
the
right ingredients and parameters, then I wouldn't hold my breath while
looking for life in the rest of the Solar System. Abiogenisis is an
extremely rare thing, maybe even a singularity.
Science cannot define life using current materialist, reductionist,
physicalist methods. They think life, along with consciousness and
intelligence are just chance random byproducts of chance random
arrangements
of organic molecules.
Trying to understand life by studying the physical properties of the
building blocks, where they came from, whether or not the early Earth had
a
reducing atmosphere, etc., etc, is like trying to explain a Van Gogh by
microprobing his paints.
I'm not ruling out life elsewhere in the Universe, because according to
the
laws of probablility, if something happened once, no matter how weird,
bizarre and unexplainable it was, there's a chance it will happen again.
We'll know more in a million years.
Phil Whitmer
Joshua Tree Earth & Space Museum
Look deep underground (tough to do from Earth)> - That's fine if your
looking for Earth style microbes, but until we even formally define
life
(and not just some grey area about self reproducing molecules) would we
know 'it' if we saw it?
Seems to me if you chart the historical progress of the hunt for life on
Mars it's getting a bit thin and desperate, in 100 years we have gone
from
theories of there being colonies of Martians with canals or forests to a
small chance there may still be a few microbes hanging on deep
underground
near the equator, Nothing wrong with looking and we should, but at some
point in the near future we should probably give up and start face to
reality, and think about sending some resources elsewhere - where frankly
the chances are a looking little bit higher, e.g Europa.
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Michael
Mulgrew
Sent: 14 March 2013 19:04
To: Sterling K. Webb; Meteorite List
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Astrobiologists Find Stuff
Sterling,
Look deep underground (tough to do from Earth), any life remaining on
Mars
will likely be found there.
Michael in so. Cal.
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