JF Mezei wrote:

On 2017-04-29 03:37, Fred J. McCall wrote:

One the basis of even a rudimentary understanding of biology.


Has it ever occured to you that our understanding of "biology" is based
on how life exists on Earth's conditions?


Has it ever occurred to you that extremophile conditions don't create
magic?


What if there is totally different type of life which can exists on Mars
conditions? How can you declare that it could not have any impact with
our biology?


What if a herd of unicorns come through and **** magic pixie dust all
over everything? How can you think anything adapted to Martian
conditions with no common biology and no evolution against anything
remotely like a human host could possibly affect our biology?


And if your immune system doesn't detect this thing that is eating your
body, it won't fight it.


Without a billion years or so of coevolution, why would this magic
'thing' of yours ever develop the ability to be "eating your body"?


Just because the odds are low doesn't mean you can categorically state
they don't exist.


How close to zero do they have to be before you agree there is no
essential difference between them and zero?


Odds are low, yet whenever we launch probes, we still make damned sure
the probes are as sterile as we can make them.


That's because we don't want to contaminate our tests at the other
end, you nitwit.



how do you think a microbe with no common heredity with us is going to
"cause havok"? Magic, perhaps?


If your body does not consider it to be a microbe, that entity can do
whatever it wants without detection. Or perhaps the body does detect it,
but white globules are food to that entity instead of poison and makes
it grow even faster.


Microbes don't 'want' to do things. They do things their evolution
has programmed them to do. What Martian host is similar enough to an
Earth human for a Martian bacteria to develop the ability to infect
it?


The rules of physics may be common across planets, but that doesn't mean
that all organisms have to be made form same components and behave the
same way.


So if it's made from different components, why the hell would it
'infect' carbon based life? Makes no sense.



Think about the conditions on Mars
for the last several billion years and the direction that that will
drive any life and then ask yourself if that stuff could survive under
Earth conditions or could somehow infect Earth life. The answer is
that it almost certainly could not.


Or the reverse: it exists on Mars, but if brought to Earth, without
adverse conditions will multiply at accelerated rate.


So magic, then.


You can't make statements that stuff we don't know about is perfectly
safe to humans (or planet earth).


So we can only ever send one way toasters, since we will never be
omniscient and therefore there will always be stuff "we don't know
about".

Look, biology (of whatever extremes) follows similar rules. Biology
isn't just "reach into your ass and pull out an answer that appeals to
you". Life evolves to create energy and reproduce in whatever
conditions it evolves in. Think about what that means for any
potential 'Martian microbes'. Now stick those things in an Earth
environment. How well do you think they're going to do and why would
you ever think they could 'infect' an Earth animal?


Consider Zebra Muscles. Wrecking water systems for towns in great
lakes/St-Lawrence river. Brought in by ships form sea and they spread
rapidly in freshwater and block water intakes, cover ship hulls (slowing
them considerably etc).


You're comparing apples and, well, zebra mussels and drawing
conclusions based on your ignorance about zebra mussels. Your claims
about how they have been spread are incorrect. Please provide a
citation for your claim that they "cover ship hulls (slowing them
considerably)".


You'd think a species designed for salt water would have died in fresh
water instead of multiplying rapidly.


The Zebra Mussel (note spelling of 'mussel') is a freshwater species
of mussel, you twit. It lives in lakes, river estuaries, and canal
systems. They spread to North America from Russian ships that picked
them up in their ballast systems from their native range and
discharged them into the Great Lakes.

It is small surprise that a species designed for fresh water
flourishes in fresh water.


--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson