Posted on 03/23/2013 6:00:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“It is dangerous to assume life is common across the Universe.” These were the words of Charles Cockell at a Royal Society event on March 11 this year. While many people have freely debated the existence of extraterrestrial life, Cockell’s words carry a bit more weight than most. He happens to be the director of the U.K. Center for Astrobiology, based at the University of Edinburgh.
Bringing to mind the argument made by Fermi’s paradox — if the universe is teeming with life, where exactly is everyone? — this may seem at first to be a slightly pessimistic outlook. Evidently, however, the intention is not so much to pour cold water on the astrobiology research community, but to call into question our assumptions in the search for life elsewhere.
As Cockell went on to explain, ”People are encouraged to think that not finding signs of life is a ‘failure’ when in fact it would tell us a lot about the origins of life.”
In fact, this one single statement sums up what is potentially the biggest problem in astrobiology. We, quite simply, have no idea how life started. We don’t know where, how, when, or why molecules managed to replicate themselves into ever-more-complex forms and, eventually, living organisms.
Earth is the only example of a living planet that we have in the entire universe, and we don’t even understand it. Even now, biologists can still argue over what really constitutes a living thing, highlighted a couple of years ago by the discovery of giant viruses with genomes larger than some bacteria. And even if we did fully understand life here, there’s nothing to say it would be the same elsewhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
We’re uniquely adapted to this planet but technology and adaptability could make close good enough.
Maybe they don't know, but I sure do.
GOD created everything.
LOL we’ve explored 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of the galaxy and he says life is rare, lololol what a maroon.
One thing that’s not rare lately is FR missing data on page loads...
Don’t stop him. He’s on a roll. The science is settled. Until it’s a problem. Then it isn’t again. Simple ;)
They’re landing all the time, dude!
Doesn’t he ever listen to Coast-to-Coast?
design ping
When I found out how rare earth is I just want to celebrate!
We have plenty of evidence that life is rare. It’s rare in the solar system and is even rare on Earth if one uses an objective measure like a ratio of living mass to non-living mass.
Elementary, said the lanthanides.
“Not so fast!” said Scandium and Yttrium.
Speaking of Ytterby, more elemnts come from Ytterby than any other single location on earth.
The Royal Society back in 1895 also stated that heavier than air machines were impossible. Yep.
I see what you did there.
GOD created everything.
You got that right!
Gewd Juan
Amen
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.