NASA Discovers New Life
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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How the fuck is this new to the scientific community? Am I really the only person who was open to the possibility of organisms using different elements in their composition?
This isn't even the first time I've been struck dumb by the narrow view of typical science on this subject. For Christ's sake, all they ever look for when looking for "planets that could have life" are planets that could support carbon based life forms and other things unique to Earth, like that's the only possible option. As if there aren't more possibilities in the infinite expanse of the universe.
Where is your imagination Science? Where?
This isn't even the first time I've been struck dumb by the narrow view of typical science on this subject. For Christ's sake, all they ever look for when looking for "planets that could have life" are planets that could support carbon based life forms and other things unique to Earth, like that's the only possible option. As if there aren't more possibilities in the infinite expanse of the universe.
Where is your imagination Science? Where?
TGBA said:
I agree on both points. I was at least hoping for something found in Martian ice or something.Daystar Clarion said:
and everyone else going through nerd-rage, read the article more carefully: It clearly says that the Horta are Silicon-Based...although I guess that could have been edited since 'silicon' was in italics...
None of that explains why you might be enraged at us researching this to prove it's possible. Do you think nobody has ever looked for anything besides life exactly like us? We tend to concentrate our effort where it would be most likely though, and now we know to broaden that a bit.Jabberwock xeno said:
In particular your earlier example of looking for water being a bad idea is just wrong. Water is useful in biology for a lot more reasons than that it simply is a liquid. It's probably possible for life to use other liquids, or even no liquid at all, but H2O is one of the most common compounds in the universe and it's also chemically neutral, which allows it to be used to carry other chemicals around our systems without any kind of special protections. That's a lot of stuff for life to find other ways of replicating, especially considering that it's going to take a lot of things that are all less common than water.
Sure, maybe life has found a way in places where there is no liquid water. Life is good at that, but we have no idea what it might look like, or how to go about finding it, so what good does that possibility do us? It makes a lot more sense to look where we know what we're looking for. Every bit of real knowledge we can gain about how other life might actually work expands our ability to search. Screaming that it's obvious that we don't know everything is unhelpful and, well, obvious.
Proof, that's what.A Curious Fellow said:
This is the first proof of this new type of life, therefore it's pretty big news. Science isn't about making assumptions or "What ifs?", at least not in furthering an area of research. It's about proof, and this is proof.
Searching for areas that could support carbon based life forms was a good idea because we know that they exist, and in great abundance on earth.
One thing that has always confused me in NASA's search for aliens: Why do they look for earth-like life? If we do happen to find aliens wouldn't they adapt/develop to their planet and use the common chemicals there? It seems like with all the possibilities you can't rule that out, even if it might be more unlikely. Then again my knowledge of biology and space is limited to high school.
I think the point of this was to say that... It wasn't carbon-based?DannibalG36 said:
I don't get it to well, but from what I understand this is the big discovery that is implying we now have proof that life is possible in absolutely any way, shape or form.
Meh, this is okay. I mean, it's certainly huge and a great achievement for America (In your FACE Russia and China, we beat you too it, AGAIN!). I certainly hope that this will lead us to finding extra-terrestrial life.
Science isn't based on imagination, it's based on observations both direct and indirect. Not things that may be observed sometime in the future, but actual observations. Proof, if you will. The scientific community has never held the view you ascribe to it, i.e. that only carbon-based life is possible. But we could never assign any degree of likelihood to it because there had never been any observations, any proof, that it was out there. Now, bam, definite proof, and you're calling the scientific community stupid and narrow-minded for being, you know, scientific, and not just taking wild guesses then calling it a day.A Curious Fellow said:
We don't have any such proof, just evidence that suggests it. Shakily suggests it, as well (though than we've had)--I don't even know how you could prove, using physical evidence, that life is possible in absolutely any way, shape, or form other than finding every example of life that does come in all shapes and forms. Just because there has been a great deal of variety hardly means that the universal rule is variety, that's inductive thinking.Tdc2182 said:
So it took a discovery like this for them to figure out that maybe, just maybe, life forms on entirely different planets might not function in exactly the same way as those on this one?
Not to belittle this discovery, but am I the only one who thinks it's painfully stupid to not think like that before?
Not to belittle this discovery, but am I the only one who thinks it's painfully stupid to not think like that before?
