Terraforming Mars

[dcmike]

I am not the author of any of these theories. I merely threw them in the mix for the sake of interesting debate, and you can't deny the response was lively at the very least. Is this about debate or is it the reciting of ancient verse? Today ancient can be five years.

There are many theories "out there" and many have some merit and at the same time areas of discrepancy. Even the hallowed Big Bang theory has holes (some black!) and there are astute theorists nipping at the heels of the likes of Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein. However the concept of "can't happen" is getting as risky as the arena of wild possibilities used to be.

Theories that shock the scientific community are popping up in droves, and the very possibility that somehow they could possibly happen in a quirk merits their right to exist. The interesting part is we live in a quirky universe - very quirky. It was indelibly engraved in stone tablets that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - but a German professor proved that wrong by sending and then retreiving data (intact) at nearly five times the speed of light. That opens up the possibility of some sort of time travel - even if only retrieval of information.

In science today, nothing is "sacred".

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”...Albert Einstein

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand..”...Albert Einstein”

[modest]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

No one has suggested the absoluteness of any of these things but there is evidence for them and in some cases it is more over whelming than the evidence of the cause of gravity.

What evidence do you have in mind?

-modest

[dcmike]

Modest - you are a refreshing voice, as your name implies.

As I said before enlightnment is always preceeded by humility. The human ego is necessary for survival but if it reaches Nietzschean proportians it can cloud the logic.

Though I don't doubt their existence, I have never met an Übermensch!

[dcmike]

Originally Posted by Moontanman
"no one has suggested the absoluteness of any of these things but there is evidence for them and in some cases it is more over whelming than the evidence of the cause of gravity."

I would beg to disagree, though you have not been as consistently autoritarian as Thunderbird.

Also, gravity is well understood now as caused by the warping of time and space and the resultant pushing back by the force that was displaced by the body displacing it. There is no such thing as empty space - there is no vacancy in space. Ninety six percent of all matter is invisible (dark matter and dark energy) but there none the less. When a planet, asteroid, etc gains mass it pushes what was there out of it's way, like when we get into a bath tub - except there is no where for the "water" to go, so force is created. Dark matter and dark energy, though they are not tangible in the way we are familiar with, exert gravitational force.

Earth literally "free falls" around the Sun - riding the flange of that warp like a rollercoaster on the down trip. Unlike a rollercoaster, Earth is never slowed down - there is no up or down out there.

On the other hand I know of no conclusive proof of where the first microbe here originated from - do you?

Forgive me for reciting - I usually like to keep it philosophical.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by dcmike

Forgive me for reciting - I usually like to keep it philosophical.

And therein lies the crux...

I agree with you, dcmike, that lack of evidence does not mean unproveable.
If we could place all the evidence for either claim on a scale, the scale would certainly favor a terrestrial abiogenesis model. Nonetheless, this does nothing to discredit the possibility of exogenesis. I personally prefer the terrestrial abiogenesis model, but I can't say that it is "right".

This is a philosophical argument.

I do hope that this thread can return to the topic of Terraforming Mars.

[dcmike]

Originally Posted by freeztar

And therein lies the crux...

I agree with you, dcmike, that lack of evidence does not mean unproveable.
If we could place all the evidence for either claim on a scale, the scale would certainly favor a terrestrial abiogenesis model. Nonetheless, this does nothing to discredit the possibility of exogenesis. I personally prefer the terrestrial abiogenesis model, but I can't say that it is "right".

This is a philosophical argument.

I do hope that this thread can return to the topic of Terraforming Mars.

I agree with you about the scale - for the moment at least! But, as I said we have no way of knowing which, or all of the above. They may well all have had their moment for all we know. There is a revolution going on and it seems that almost everything is up for grabs now.

The Catholic Church, at the demand of Emperor Constantine, solved the debate of "Is Jesus a God, a man or the son of God?" They invented the Holy Trinity - "He's all three at once - problem solved!!" Now that's what I call a solution.

And you are only the second to catch that mine was a philosophical debate. This all started with an offhand remark about a couple of interesting theories I heard (a "what if we threw a war and nobody came" kind of thing) and it was met with a flood of authoritarian dogma. Forgive me if I entertained myself with the results. ;-}

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by freeztar

And therein lies the crux...

I agree with you, dcmike, that lack of evidence does not mean unproveable.
If we could place all the evidence for either claim on a scale, the scale would certainly favor a terrestrial abiogenesis model. Nonetheless, this does nothing to discredit the possibility of exogenesis. I personally prefer the terrestrial abiogenesis model, but I can't say that it is "right".

This is a philosophical argument.

I do hope that this thread can return to the topic of Terraforming Mars.

Changing the genesis of life to an extraterrestrial source does nothing to solve the problem of whence did life originate and how. It's turtles all the way down......

Terra forming mars would best be done by genetic engineering, engineering Terran plants to live on the surface of mars and slowly changing the environment as they do so would be the key. while I'd like to see giant stands of genetically engineered trees it's more likely to bacteria and or at best something like lichen. Of course we could colonize mars and pump the atmosphere full of waste chloro-flouro-carbons

[Moontanman]

It was indelibly engraved in stone tablets that nothing can go faster than the speed of light - but a German professor proved that wrong by sending and then retreiving data (intact) at nearly five times the speed of light. That opens up the possibility of some sort of time travel - even if only retrieval of information.

I'm tired of this discussion, do you have a link to this experiment, I would like to read about this.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by modest

What evidence do you have in mind?

-modest

Lately most of the evidence I've read about comes from inside bacterial cells themselves. Lots of theories, lots of evidence no absolute proof, either you see abiogenesis as the way it happened or you believe in a super natural creator. I think the idea of abiogenesis is much more likely given the evidence of the way chemical reactions can be pushed to complexity by surplus energy. So far I see no evidence of a super natural creator, sublime or other wise.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

either you see abiogenesis as the way it happened or you believe in a super natural creator.

I prefer abiogenesis, but I do not completely discount exogenesis. This does not mean that I believe in a supernatural creator. I prefer exogenesis to panspermia for this reason.

I think the idea of abiogenesis is much more likely given the evidence of the way chemical reactions can be pushed to complexity by surplus energy.

I wholeheartedly agree!