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Did Life Begin On Comets?
New Scientist ^ | 8-17-2007 | HazelMuir

Posted on 08/21/2007 3:56:55 PM PDT by blam

click here to read article


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To: blam

if comets came from earth we would be able to expect to find life, as well as clay, inside.


41 posted on 08/21/2007 5:54:29 PM PDT by ari-freedom (I am for traditional moral values, a strong national defense, and free markets.)
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To: EveningStar
“Are you criticizing scientific speculation?”

I am using my limited “free” speech (limited by certain FR criteria, that is) to make the statement that rock-based origination of life is actually a belief-system, a religion, if you will.
42 posted on 08/21/2007 6:01:29 PM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: the final gentleman

Check out Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford and David Brin.

The people there did indeed eat the guts of a comet for lunch, with rather odd results.


43 posted on 08/21/2007 6:09:04 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: Jaysun

“Trying to dodge the whole God thing is a difficult business.”

God made comets.


44 posted on 08/21/2007 6:09:49 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: timsbella
Okay, I admit to being quite blissfully unaware of Tom Cruise in modern culture for years.

Save for South Park.

Can you clue me in on the reference?

As for my comet reference, I recall an article that was titled "Cory, The Comet, and Bandwidth" or similar.

The comet was SL-9 crashing into Jupiter, and the interest choked NASA's servers.

Cory was a college student that posed naked for her boyfriend, and they posted the pictures in a usenet group. The interest, well the guys dreaming of trying to create life with her, because of the pictures, choked her school's internet bandwidth.

Hey, it was the early 1990s...

45 posted on 08/21/2007 6:20:34 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: blam

My favorite Comet was Rin Tin Tin.

He was the first Star with a tail on it.


46 posted on 08/21/2007 6:21:56 PM PDT by Radix (Mr. Natural says..."Be like two fried eggs. Keep your sunny side up.")
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To: John Leland 1789

First of all, Freedom of Speech is between Government and the Citizen. There is no freedom of speech on any privately owned message board.

Second, how can a scientific theory be a belief system?


47 posted on 08/21/2007 6:23:25 PM PDT by EveningStar
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To: Radix

lol


48 posted on 08/21/2007 6:24:09 PM PDT by EveningStar
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To: PAMadMax

You were conceived on the kitchen table. Just imagine all the meals you ate there.


49 posted on 08/21/2007 6:24:33 PM PDT by GraniteStateConservative (...He had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here...-- Worst.President.Ever.)
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To: blam

We ara all part of the ort cloud.


50 posted on 08/21/2007 6:32:46 PM PDT by Delta 21 ( MKC USCG - ret)
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To: EveningStar

While claiming to be science, propagated to school children as truth, but having no way to test it as science. Children will believe it not as mere theory, but as fact and truth. This will not be discouraged by the science in-club. The word “theory” will take a back seat, and the more children will believe it just on suggestion (clay on a comet “suggests” . . .), it takes on the force and affect of a religious belief, because there is no way to test it as science. If seriously questioned by studious children, they will be ridiculed by the “science union” for not going along with the crowd. I qualified my statement on “free speech” to mean exactly what you said, and I was using sarcasm. There is no free speech outside the criteria of the moderators. You know that I understood that. But you felt threatened anyway by my remarks.


51 posted on 08/21/2007 6:37:31 PM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: John Leland 1789
While claiming to be science, propagated to school children as truth, but having no way to test it as science. Children will believe it not as mere theory, but as fact and truth. This will not be discouraged by the science in-club. The word “theory” will take a back seat, and the more children will believe it just on suggestion (clay on a comet “suggests” . . .), it takes on the force and affect of a religious belief, because there is no way to test it as science. If seriously questioned by studious children, they will be ridiculed by the “science union” for not going along with the crowd.

I hope you're not going down that "anything that conflicts with Genesis is atheist leftist propaganda" path.

52 posted on 08/21/2007 7:53:57 PM PDT by EveningStar
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To: John Leland 1789
I qualified my statement on “free speech” to mean exactly what you said, and I was using sarcasm. There is no free speech outside the criteria of the moderators. You know that I understood that. But you felt threatened anyway by my remarks.

I didn't mean that at all.

53 posted on 08/21/2007 7:54:59 PM PDT by EveningStar
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To: Delta 21
“We are all part of the ort cloud.”

Speak for yourself.

54 posted on 08/21/2007 8:08:10 PM PDT by the final gentleman
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To: EveningStar
Well, I’m not being unkind to you personally to tell you that I firmly believe the Genesis account of Creation, and that whatever conflicts with the Genesis account will be ultimately proven to be false.
55 posted on 08/21/2007 9:01:33 PM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: blam

Evolution theory stumbled when it was extended into explaining creation of complex life from complete randomness. Fifty years of lab experiments have failed to reproduce this article of faith for the scientific secular humanist community, so they now rely on various computer models and new theories to escape having painted themselves into a corner. Some of these new theories are cosmic rays kicking off the process on Earth or comets air dropping in the complex life or aliens bioengineering us or ... on and on.

The problem is, experimental results don’t back them up, probability theory doesn’t back them up, complex systems theory doesn’t back them up, and the laws of thermodynamics don’t back them up. Abstracting the creation of complex life to an external random event (like cosmic rays jumpstarting the liquid jello to create DNA) to start the process just further makes it less probable to happen. If complex life did come from an external source, now you have to believe it could survive transversing through space and somehow survive coming through our atmosphere without burning up. Given all that, the external source of complex life would still have to overcome the same hurdles that complex life starting on Earth does. Just because it supposedly originates from somewhere besides Earth, does not solve the problem of complex life being created from complete randomness. This new comet theory leaves those who want to believe in evolutionary creation theory in worse shape than just sticking with it all starting on planet Earth.


56 posted on 08/21/2007 9:47:46 PM PDT by Gen-X-Dad
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To: Uriah_lost

LOL


57 posted on 08/21/2007 9:52:56 PM PDT by Trillian
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To: John Leland 1789

“...because there is no way to test it as science.”

Yes there is. Go to a comet and take a sample, bring it back, and analyze it. Or test it in situ. Do this to a bunch of comets, publish the results.

The current concept of clay particles from comets comes directly from a visit to a comet by a spacecraft, not from an untestable hypothesis.


58 posted on 08/22/2007 6:20:43 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: DBrow
But nobody has ever SEEN life begin in clay. Life has never begun in laboratory clay. Life has never been seen BEGINNING from non-living substances or chemicals or compounds in any laboratory anywhere. Life has not been found by any spacecraft in any clay on any comet. What does finding clay on a comet prove. That a comet might carry clay. That’s it. zip.
59 posted on 08/22/2007 7:00:47 AM PDT by John Leland 1789
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To: John Leland 1789

If you had access to a comet, or samples, what sorts of things would you look for to see if it’s the sort of environmnet where life could exist?

I was surprised several years ago when they started finding bacteria in deep rock core samples.

What a wonderful universe God gave us!


60 posted on 08/22/2007 7:10:31 AM PDT by DBrow
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