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#1 2003-12-06 13:05:44

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Read Me

*Wow, this is fascinating (partial quote):

"Desolate Earth locale offers insight on martian life
Viking-like experiments find no signs of life in the driest area on Earth.
by Matt Quandt

Viking 1's biology experiments revealed lifeless conditions similar to those in the Atacama Desert.
NASA / JPL

To help put into perspective the results of past experiments that have failed to detect life on the Red Planet, an international team of scientists has conducted tests in the driest place on Earth, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The arid conditions of the Atacama Desert provide scientists an environment similar to Mars, and as it turns out, the terrestrial tests resulted in a similar negative returns, finding no signs of life."

*This definitely reopens (or at least keeps open) the issue as related to Mars!  Who would have thought a location on -Earth- (of all places!) could return negative results, as life detection goes? 

Also:  "'The Atacama is the only place on Earth that I?ve taken soil samples to grow microorganisms back at the lab and nothing whatsoever grew,' says Fred Rainey, a Louisiana State University team member who studies microorganisms in extreme environments."

*But Earth otherwise is generally lush with life, as of course we all know.  What might this say for terraformation prospects on Mars, I wonder.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#2 2003-12-06 15:02:43

Rxke
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From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Read that article too. Amazing they didn't succeed to cultivate anything from their samples. Imagine, a sterile place in the open...

Would be a good place to do more ground-sampling, compare em with other *almost* sterile places, to see what life does with the top layers of the earth... Very subtle differences could poit to the absense or presence of life, that way.

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#3 2003-12-06 18:58:24

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Hi Cindy!
    Yes, I noticed this item of news too.
    You're right, of course, that it does indicate you could find one or two sterile areas on a planet but that you would be unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from such sparse data.
    Even if the current wisdom is correct, and Viking really did establish that the Martian regolith is without life in the two places tested, we certainly cannot say the rest of Mars is lifeless also.

    But where does that leave us? I submit that we knew that already and that this result from the Atacama Desert, while interesting, doesn't really change anything as far as Mars is concerned. The situation, according to the present-day paradigm, is that Mars is most likely dead but that there could be isolated oases where life hangs on by its fingernails. If not, then perhaps we'll find fossils of life which developed early in Mars' history but later succumbed to the deteriorating conditions.
    That's what 'science' says about it today.

    You already know the way I feel about it!    :;):


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#4 2003-12-07 04:12:35

Rxke
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From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

also, don't forget viking's mini-labs were very 'insensitive,' esp. compared to today's technologies. Scientist went on record stating they'd be surprized if they would be able to actually find positive proof for micro-organisms. Worse, the engineering hardware on Earth never really worked 100%, so they were ecstatic to find, once on Mars, the mini-labs functioned at all (!)

Nowadays, because it is the only 'proof' , 'experiments' we did on Mars, the Viking results tend to be overemphasized, while they were totally *inconclusive*, be it negative or positive.

More tests would surely be welcome. Beagle 2 has one on board, the rovers not. I find that puzzling... When you see NASA apparently is so interested in the exo-life stuff, (but) they don't bother to do the actual searching for it. Maybe they're scared to find nothing conclusive and as a  result would see their budgets cut?

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#5 2003-12-07 07:35:48

Shaun Barrett
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From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

I agree with you 100%, Rxke!
    There is something very odd about NASA's attitude to the Viking results and their ensuing total disinterest in re-testing for life on Mars - and this in direct contrast to their stated enthusiasm about searching for extraterrestrial life!

    I smell politics and funding interests!   sad


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#6 2003-12-07 08:29:17

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

*Rxke and Shaun:  It seems, then (according to your comments), that NASA may actually be working in our favor (?)...odd as that may sound.  If they were to find absolutely no life there, the government might indeed slash further expenditure costs to Mars...or just give up going there altogether (robot-wise).  That'd be cutting our throats, no?

Maybe some of NASA's policies actually work in our favor...you know, do a little harm in order to preserve/protect.  I definitely am willing to give the benefit of the doubt that a few bigshots in NASA are being very careful with their approaches (beneficial to us).  It seems there's some tight-rope walking going on. 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#7 2003-12-07 14:02:57

Josh Cryer
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Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Certainly if life was found on Mars, it would be a lot easier to sell a manned expedition. Is it DNA life? Does it have a relation to Earth life? etc. This is why I've frowned upon the conspiracies pertaining to the Viking label experiment.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#8 2003-12-07 16:50:54

Mad Grad Student
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From: Phoenix, Arizona, North Americ
Registered: 2003-11-09
Posts: 498
Website

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Wow, that really surprises me that there's actually somewhere on Earth that bacteria can't live. There must be something in the Atacama, we're just not looking hard enough. While the Beagle and MER missions certainly won't absolutely prove positively or negatively that there's life on Mars, it will bring us one step closer to the truth. Of course, if the Beagle actually finds live Martain bacteria, that will alomost completely prove that something exists over there, I'm sure that many people at NASA would be very happy.

From the evidence I've seen, Mars at one time was almost definately crawling with microscopic organisms. Then something made its core fizzle out, it lost its atmosphere, and the oceans got locked up in permafrost and polar caps. Granted, Mars is a nasty place now, but bacteria can live ANYWHERE, almost. Live spores were found on one of the poorly steralized Surveyor probes on the moon, after 5 years in zero atmosphere, after all. Even if nothing exists today, there must be some fossils around, but it might take humans with big brains and equipment to find.

This might be going a little off topic, but I recently discovered something that's a very good argument against life on Europa. Apparently, the European Ocean is constantly bombarded by free oxygen molecules coming off of Juipeter's magnetic field. Sure, virtually all life on Earth today depends on oxygen to survive, but it's deadly to life when it first starts out (Oxygen breaks down almost all organic compounds). Earth was practically oxygen free when life evolved, and the planet was more like Venus  than modern Earth. If this is true, life would've had a very difficult time getting started on Europa.


A mind is like a parachute- it works best when open.

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#9 2003-12-07 18:12:21

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

This might be going a little off topic, but I recently discovered something that's a very good argument against life on Europa. Apparently, the European Ocean is constantly bombarded by free oxygen molecules coming off of Juipeter's magnetic field. Sure, virtually all life on Earth today depends on oxygen to survive, but it's deadly to life when it first starts out (Oxygen breaks down almost all organic compounds). Earth was practically oxygen free when life evolved, and the planet was more like Venus  than modern Earth. If this is true, life would've had a very difficult time getting started on Europa.

*Hi Mad Grad Student.  I'm a huge Europa fan (always on the look-out for additional news pertaining to it), and really appreciate your adding in this information.  smile 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#10 2003-12-07 21:24:37

~Eternal~
Member
Registered: 2003-09-25
Posts: 211

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Perhaps we are looking for the wrong type of life(both here and other planets)   ???
There could be carbon based lifeforms that breath helium and give off methane as exhaust(possible Titan lifeforms?) or Oxygen based lifeforms that give off Ozone exhaust(both Europa has plenty of).


The MiniTruth passed its first act #001, comname: PATRIOT ACT on  October 26, 2001.

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#11 2003-12-07 23:19:30

Rxke
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From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

That free oxygen should be no problem, since all life (if there is life, of course,...) would be shielded by the thick ice layers on the surface; this life could possibly be feeding on the stuff 'black smokers' eject, like on earth's sea bottom, along faultlines.......



(Edited: Hmmmm... Never post at 6.20 AM. Boring job later on to remove the most obvious typos, and 'fleshing out' telex-styled prose...)

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#12 2003-12-08 07:49:55

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy, I think you may well be right about 'tight-rope walking going on'.
    I'm not sure what the game is but there are inconsistencies in the way NASA carries on; the most recent one being their claims about being interested in looking for life, particularly on Mars which is the most obvious place to look, and their failure to place life-detection equipment on the large MERs!
    I think Mars has abundant life, if not on the surface then at least under it, and I'm inclined to believe Dr. Gil Levin when he says his Labeled Release experiment on Viking discovered some of that life.

    Whatever the logic behind it, it seems to me that NASA sees some advantage in playing down the Viking results as inconclusive, deliberately avoiding any further search for life on Mars, while pretending to be enthusiastic about exobiology.

    If Beagle 2 crashes, I've got a sneaking feeling nobody at NASA will be terribly upset about it. It's almost like the longer they can delay unequivocal proof of life on Mars, the better they appear to like it (?).
    But why?!
                                            ???

[For God's sake, somebody please tell me it's nothing to do with fundamentalist bible teachings!!!
                                                             yikes   sad  ]


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#13 2003-12-08 13:13:42

~Eternal~
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Registered: 2003-09-25
Posts: 211

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy, I think you may well be right about 'tight-rope walking going on'.
    I'm not sure what the game is but there are inconsistencies in the way NASA carries on; the most recent one being their claims about being interested in looking for life, particularly on Mars which is the most obvious place to look, and their failure to place life-detection equipment on the large MERs!
    I think Mars has abundant life, if not on the surface then at least under it, and I'm inclined to believe Dr. Gil Levin when he says his Labeled Release experiment on Viking discovered some of that life.

    Whatever the logic behind it, it seems to me that NASA sees some advantage in playing down the Viking results as inconclusive, deliberately avoiding any further search for life on Mars, while pretending to be enthusiastic about exobiology.

    If Beagle 2 crashes, I've got a sneaking feeling nobody at NASA will be terribly upset about it. It's almost like the longer they can delay unequivocal proof of life on Mars, the better they appear to like it (?).
    But why?!
                                            ???

[For God's sake, somebody please tell me it's nothing to do with fundamentalist bible teachings!!!
                                                             yikes   sad  ]

Thats very biased of you to say something like that, not all of us Chrisitans believe evolution is impossible hmm.


The MiniTruth passed its first act #001, comname: PATRIOT ACT on  October 26, 2001.

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#14 2003-12-08 15:38:25

jadeheart
Member
From: barrow ak
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 134

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

i think you guys are right on the money with this nasa foot-dragging thing.  i remember thinking the EXACT same thing when i found out that beagle was actually going to directly look for life while spirit/opportunity would only look for "signs of past water."  after some thought i came to the conclusion you all did here-- nasa gains an advantage by drawing things out: they get to send more missions. 

which is fine with me, as long as they don't draw it out TOO long.  what're they gonna say if the europeans scoop us?

it's one conspiracy theory i'm willing to buy into.


You can stand on a mountaintop with your mouth open for a very long time before a roast duck flies into it.  -Chinese Proverb

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#15 2003-12-08 16:13:45

dickbill
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Registered: 2002-09-28
Posts: 749

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Whatever the logic behind it, it seems to me that NASA sees some advantage in playing down the Viking results as inconclusive, deliberately avoiding any further search for life on Mars, while pretending to be enthusiastic about exobiology.

    If Beagle 2 crashes, I've got a sneaking feeling nobody at NASA will be terribly upset about it. It's almost like the longer they can delay unequivocal proof of life on Mars, the better they appear to like it (?).
    But why?!
                                            ???

[For God's sake, somebody please tell me it's nothing to do with fundamentalist bible teachings!!!
                                                             yikes   sad  ]

It's true that after the grand fanfare of the martian meteorite
ALH 84001 , announced in press briefings to contains fossils of microbes, we must think that NASA wanted life on Mars, but then, not biological experiments onboard the rover ? does it make sense ?
If NASA think that life can hide underground,  then a penetrator drill/probe would be needed, and maybe all the payload would have to be dedicaced to that drill....
For next time maybe.

Of course, the right place to drill in straight below "the Face"  :;):

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#16 2003-12-08 16:38:08

Palomar
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From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

i think you guys are right on the money with this nasa foot-dragging thing.  i remember thinking the EXACT same thing when i found out that beagle was actually going to directly look for life while spirit/opportunity would only look for "signs of past water."  after some thought i came to the conclusion you all did here-- nasa gains an advantage by drawing things out: they get to send more missions. 

which is fine with me, as long as they don't draw it out TOO long.  what're they gonna say if the europeans scoop us?

it's one conspiracy theory i'm willing to buy into.

*The only other suggestion I can think of (I'm sure this has occurred to others as well) regarding the NASA foot-dragging thing (how about we abbreviate that as NFDT "officially" from now on? <lol>) and seeming inconsistencies in what they say versus what they do, would be possible tremendous amounts of in-fighting at the top of the NASA chain of command.  Might be too many captains steering a boat up a mountainside. 

Shaun:  I believe I understand your statement regarding fundamentalist religionists as pertaining strictly to the reluctance and/or opposition on the part of some of those folks to explore space, go to Mars and the like, etc., because of their strong belief in "The End Times" (which means, to them, what's the point of doing anything pertaining to space since the end of the world is supposely upon us).  I also believe I understand your comment had -nothing- to do with Christians in general, nor with evolution; rather, it had to do with extremists who want humankind to stop advancing, pursuing, exploring, etc., because of their belief in the nearness of the end of the world.  smile

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#17 2003-12-08 17:07:44

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,374

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

might i profer a theory?

Going to mars to answer one question will equal the costs of exploring multiple questions by just researching in space.

put another way, do ONE BIG thing, or a bunch of smaller things, bias aside, which is better?

just a thought.  big_smile

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#18 2003-12-08 18:06:07

Mad Grad Student
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From: Phoenix, Arizona, North Americ
Registered: 2003-11-09
Posts: 498
Website

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Perhaps instead of looking directly for life right now, the unmanned probes should look for fossils. Granted, even if we found some fossils there would be much debate over it, as there was over ALH 84001. However, it might be easier than finding living bacteria, and you don't run into the problem that the equipment on board wasn't good enough, you either see a fossil or you don't.

Perhaps a probe could be sent to a likely place to find fossils, an old oceanside clif, perhaps. From there, a big, as in around 40 pound rover would be sent out to look for evidence. This rover would need to be that heavy because in my plan it would carry ultrasonic ground-penetration gear, a multispectric camera, and a power supply to keep it running for at least a year or so. Slowly the rover would take seismograms of the ground down to about 50 feet (Which would also disclose details about aquifers) while the cameras scan the cliffs and ground for signitures of stromotolitic remains. The rover would essentially keep looking until it found something interesting.

I would think that there are probably some fossils on Mars somewhere that resemble stromotolites on Earth. These are basically big clumps of cyanobacteria that flourished about 2.5 billion years ago. One piece of evidence that these existed on Mars comes with the ground, using Monty Python-like logic. The soil on Mars is red, right? What makes rocks red? Iron oxide, of course, which turns a deep rusty red in the presence of oxygen. Now what makes oxygen more efficently than any other known source? Plants, which convinently had an oceanful of water to live in. The problem is finding them.

I doubt that there's any big conspiracy behind NASA not sending the MER's along with life-detecting gear. It's simple, the government slashes their budget, which means that they send as few instruments as they can to get the job done. Maybe someone blurbed to a told a politician that finding water would be enough and then that politician decreed that life-detecting instruments were not necessary, and wouldn't let NASA send them. Although, it would be embarrasing for NASA after saying that there's no life on Mars to suddenly turn around and say the Vikings were wrong.    ???


A mind is like a parachute- it works best when open.

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#19 2003-12-09 00:32:26

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy:-

Shaun: I believe I understand your statement regarding fundamentalist religionists ...  because of their strong belief in "The End Times" ...

    Thanks Cindy for your recognition of the kind of exasperation which caused me to make that comment about fundamentalist bible teachings. Indeed, I was not denigrating christians in general and have no problem at all with people exercising their absolute right to follow any religion they choose. And I understand that not all christians, by any means, reject evolution; the Pope himself is on record as saying that evolution must now be regarded as more than a theory.

    As well as the notion of "End Times", which is tailor-made to create an atmosphere of 'what's the point of doing anything' (as Cindy aptly put it) ... [my emphasis], I was referring to an episode involving Dr. Gil Levin, of Viking fame.
    Dr. Levin took his son, who had expressed an interest in studying a branch of chemistry, to an interview with the Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry at, I believe, Brown University somewhere in the U.S. (I regret I can't remember every detail of the story).
    The Dean, upon realising who Dr. Levin was, made the observation that the Viking search for life on Mars was futile since the bible made no reference to any such life and, therefore, there couldn't be any!!

    Eternal, this is another example of the kind of fundamentalist 'biblical logic' I was thinking of when I added that last sentence you found to be 'very biased'.
    It seems that in America people with decidedly fundamentalist religious mind-sets can attain positions of power and influence. That Dean of Chemistry was one such person and I'm led to believe President Bush may be another. How many of them are there in the higher echelons at NASA?
    If you, Eternal, or others out there, think I'm biased because I don't want people making scientific decisions based on religious texts, then yes I guess I'm biased.
    And if I'm biased for that reason, then I'm not just biased ... I'm proudly and incorrigibly biased and I propose to stay that way!
                                            smile

Cindy again:-

Might be too many captains steering a boat up a mountainside.

    Well, I think that's just about the most bizarre metaphorical mix-up I've heard in a very long time!!
                                        yikes   big_smile


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#20 2003-12-09 06:04:29

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy again:-

Might be too many captains steering a boat up a mountainside.

    Well, I think that's just about the most bizarre metaphorical mix-up I've heard in a very long time!!
                                        yikes   big_smile

*If I recall correctly, that's an old Japanese proverb akin to our "too many cooks at the kettle will ruin the recipe."  wink

Shaun also writes:  "The Dean, upon realising who Dr. Levin was, made the observation that the Viking search for life on Mars was futile since the bible made no reference to any such life and, therefore, there couldn't be any!!"

*I've encountered this attitude in my life, even amongst a few family members.  My response has been:  Well, the bible doesn't mention light bulbs or cars or sunspots or aortas or McDonald's either...

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#21 2003-12-09 13:52:35

Bill White
Member
Registered: 2001-09-09
Posts: 2,114

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy again:-

Might be too many captains steering a boat up a mountainside.

    Well, I think that's just about the most bizarre metaphorical mix-up I've heard in a very long time!!
                                        yikes   big_smile

*If I recall correctly, that's an old Japanese proverb akin to our "too many cooks at the kettle will ruin the recipe."  wink

Shaun also writes:  "The Dean, upon realising who Dr. Levin was, made the observation that the Viking search for life on Mars was futile since the bible made no reference to any such life and, therefore, there couldn't be any!!"

*I've encountered this attitude in my life, even amongst a few family members.  My response has been:  Well, the bible doesn't mention light bulbs or cars or sunspots or aortas or McDonald's either...

--Cindy

Shaun & Cindy -

You might find it interesting that the Illinois Catholic bishops (Roman Catholic) have issued a statement rejecting the "Left Behind" message as being anti-Catholic and a serious mis-reading of the Bible.

http://academics.smcvt.edu/pcoutur....tio.htm

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#22 2003-12-10 12:38:12

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Cindy again:-

    Well, I think that's just about the most bizarre metaphorical mix-up I've heard in a very long time!!
                                        yikes   big_smile

*If I recall correctly, that's an old Japanese proverb akin to our "too many cooks at the kettle will ruin the recipe."  wink

Shaun also writes:  "The Dean, upon realising who Dr. Levin was, made the observation that the Viking search for life on Mars was futile since the bible made no reference to any such life and, therefore, there couldn't be any!!"

*I've encountered this attitude in my life, even amongst a few family members.  My response has been:  Well, the bible doesn't mention light bulbs or cars or sunspots or aortas or McDonald's either...

--Cindy

Shaun & Cindy -

You might find it interesting that the Illinois Catholic bishops (Roman Catholic) have issued a statement rejecting the "Left Behind" message as being anti-Catholic and a serious mis-reading of the Bible.

http://academics.smcvt.edu/pcoutur....tio.htm

*Hi Bill:  Actually, I'm not surprised.  Although I haven't read the books written by the authors in question, I have little doubt the ICB are mistaken regarding an anti-Catholic slant in those books (due to my past familiarity with the authors and the theology/favored dogmas which I've known them to subscribe to -- and which I doubt has changed much, based on past personal [involuntary] familiarity with that particular belief system -- etc).  My parents' denomination was anti-Catholic; still is, based on what I hear (from my mother...who still attends that denomination).  If you are familiar with Jack T. Chick and his "tracts," you'll know what I mean. 

Without wanting to go too far off-topic, I must admit that despite my feelings about religion in general and my agnostic stance, the modern Roman Catholic church (with a few notable exceptions...won't go into those) does seem more open-minded, grounded (realistic), and humanitarian in scope than many of its Protestant counterparts. 

Enough said.  smile

Thanks for sharing that link.  I did read it. 

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#23 2003-12-10 19:24:41

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

Hi Bill!
    Yes, I read it too. My overriding impression is (always has been, really) that the Catholic church is so structured in its catechism.
    I'm reasonably familiar with much of the old and new testaments of the jewish/christian bible and it's always amazed me that the Catholics have managed to build up this 'instruction manual of faith' based on papal interpretations of the scriptures over the centuries. And the detail in the interpretations is staggering! And all of it rests squarely on the premise that the Pope is the infallible mouthpiece of God and his musings on the biblical stories are necessarily correct.

    I've never been able to reconcile any of that with reality as I perceive it. Why anyone would regulate their daily activities, habits, even their very thoughts, in accordance with the ponderings of a series of all-too-obviously-human religious leaders, is beyond me! I personally have been completely unable to find a reasonable basis for most of the Catholic catechism in the new testament.
    Not that I have any objections at all to anyone following the Catholic faith, if that's what 'gets them through the night', and as long as they don't have plans to force me to join them!
                                          smile

    I tend to agree with Cindy that the Catholic church is arguably relatively benign today in comparison with some of the other organised religions. (However, their stance on birth control has led to a lot of trouble over the years, I'm afraid.)
    What is potentially very insidious is this alleged infiltration of christian fundamentalism into the various corridors of power in the U.S. If what I read is true, America's constitutional separation of church and state is under constant attack from within. I know for a fact that christian fundamentalists have tried, often successfully, to put their stamp on the U.S. education system. And now I'm hearing rumours that the highest decision-making strata of American politics are contaminated with fundamentalist doctrine.
     This is a disease which, if it's really there, must be treated like a malignant cancer and excised with some degree of urgency.
    Judging from the Dr. Gil Levin incident in the offices of the Dean of Chemistry at Brown University, this fundamentalist religious problem may well have a direct link with what we're all talking about here at New Mars. I and others have implied that NASA's behaviour with regard to the search for life on Mars is illogical. But NASA's actions may begin to make more sense if you factor in the possibility that the decisions being made are influenced by people with fundamentalist beliefs.
    It's a scary thought but America's whole attitude to human exploration of Mars may have become tainted by christian religious extremists with their fingers on the levers of power!

    I don't even like to think about it being true!    sad


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#24 2003-12-11 18:14:02

jadeheart
Member
From: barrow ak
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 134

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

While this topic has spun off on a somewhat wild tangent, I feel compelled to offer my .02 worth.

While I too am concerned about Christian fundamentalism infecting our government (all the way up to W) I am pretty skeptical of it being pervasive enough to control policy at such levels as NASA sub-programs.  I don't think these folks are pervasive and even if they were they'd have bigger fish to fry than a few microbes on Mars.  (Certain extremists from other fundamentalist religions come to mind.) Religion is about owning human souls-- assuming such things exist-- and controlling the actions of human minds & bodies here on Earth.  I have a hard time believing that any fundamentalist ideologues would give a rat's ass about the possibility of finding a few microbial fossils on Mars.

Even if you assume there is an ideological conspiracy going on, it will be more concerned with money (another instrument of power) than with exobiological speculation.  Which brings us back-- kind of-- to the point:  NASA's dragging things out IMO for reasons of money, not because somebody high up in the gov't is concerned about extraterrestrial life (which, if found on Mars, may not even really be extraterrestrial!) undermining huge sectors of human religion.  In any case religious types will surely be able to spin their response to any such findings so that their ideologies aren't threatened.

If religion controlled space policy we would not be in space at all except to maintain military superiority and provide for economic endeavors.  If these folks were in real control of the NASA purse strings they would've squelched pure science-related missions long ago like they tried to do w/ Galileo & Copernicus.  Micromanaging things at the mission level just doesn't seem likely--  because these 'conspirators' aren't there (probably) or, if they are, because it's below their consideration.

I sure hope nobody's up at night losing sleep over this.
cool


You can stand on a mountaintop with your mouth open for a very long time before a roast duck flies into it.  -Chinese Proverb

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#25 2004-10-11 14:08:34

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,433

Re: A "Must-Read" Article - desolate Earth locale/Marsian life

I guess searching for life on mars is going to harder than we had thought.

Second year of project to find life in desert brings as many questions as answers
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04285/393663.stm

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