Tranquil environment around Earth may be unusual

(Mitch Alsup) wrote:
"Larry" wrote in message . uk...
For life to arise on Earth, an improbably large amount of things had to go
our way, I guess this is yet another one of them.
[snip]
Cancel the word 'improbably' and I will agree with you.

I agree. I really don't think life is particularly special.
Intelligent, technologically advanced life might be fairly rare (due
either to initial conditions or the lifespan of technologically
advanced species - we don't have the data to decide), but I fully
expect us to find at least bacterial life on other bodies in our solar
system. Why? Why not! So far almost every inhospitable corner of our
planet we have explored has found unexpected lifeforms - the bottom of
the ocean, beneath frozen lakes, in sealed caves...

I rate those who say there is no life other than on Earth right up
there with those who said the Earth was flat.


Tim
--
My last .sig was rubbish too.

(Brian Tung) wrote in message ...
I (Brian Tung) wrote:

For instance, the average human lives longer than the average cow. It
is therefore right to say that a randomly selected human is likely to be
older than a randomly selected cow. Aside from that, however, there is
nothing about being a human that makes one intrinsically older than a
given cow.

That's an interesting way to put it Brian!

I just looked up Epsilon Eridani in Sol station and the latest
research apparently indicates that "This main sequence, orange-red
dwarf (K2 V) is a relative young star that may be only 500 million to
a billion years old" noted he
http://www.solstation.com/stars/eps-erid.htm

I wonder if they base this conclusion *principally* on its
faster-than-solar rotation rate and low "metallicity" (abundance of
heavy elements and iron). I think we have a human here younger than a
cow... to borrow your analogy.

(Brian Tung) wrote in message ...
I (Brian Tung) wrote:

For instance, the average human lives longer than the average cow. It
is therefore right to say that a randomly selected human is likely to be
older than a randomly selected cow. Aside from that, however, there is
nothing about being a human that makes one intrinsically older than a
given cow.

That's an interesting way to put it Brian!

I just looked up Epsilon Eridani in Sol station and the latest
research apparently indicates that "This main sequence, orange-red
dwarf (K2 V) is a relative young star that may be only 500 million to
a billion years old" noted he
http://www.solstation.com/stars/eps-erid.htm

I wonder if they base this conclusion *principally* on its
faster-than-solar rotation rate and low "metallicity" (abundance of
heavy elements and iron). I think we have a human here younger than a
cow... to borrow your analogy.

Tim Auton tim.auton@uton.[groupSexWithoutTheY] wrote in message . ..
(Mitch Alsup) wrote:
"Larry" wrote in message . uk...
For life to arise on Earth, an improbably large amount of things had to go
our way, I guess this is yet another one of them.
[snip]
Cancel the word 'improbably' and I will agree with you.

I agree. I really don't think life is particularly special.
Intelligent, technologically advanced life might be fairly rare (due
either to initial conditions or the lifespan of technologically
advanced species - we don't have the data to decide), but I fully
expect us to find at least bacterial life on other bodies in our solar
system. Why? Why not! So far almost every inhospitable corner of our
planet we have explored has found unexpected lifeforms - the bottom of
the ocean, beneath frozen lakes, in sealed caves...

I rate those who say there is no life other than on Earth right up
there with those who said the Earth was flat.


Tim

Fair comment and I agree we should definitely keep an open mind.

I suppose its back to that fundamental question of whether life arose
on Earth from organic chemical compounds or whether it was "seeded"
here from another part of the cosmos via some kind of a time capsule
(such as a frozen comet).

If there was a show of hands as to which of these two possibilities
rings more 'true' in people's minds, I wonder if the result would be
50/50 or skewed one way or another...?

Abdul Ahad

"Tim Auton" tim.auton@uton.[groupSexWithoutTheY] wrote in message
...
(Mitch Alsup) wrote:
"Larry" wrote in message
. uk...
For life to arise on Earth, an improbably large amount of things had to
go
our way, I guess this is yet another one of them.
[snip]
Cancel the word 'improbably' and I will agree with you.

I agree. I really don't think life is particularly special.
Intelligent, technologically advanced life might be fairly rare (due
either to initial conditions or the lifespan of technologically
advanced species - we don't have the data to decide), but I fully
expect us to find at least bacterial life on other bodies in our solar
system. Why? Why not! So far almost every inhospitable corner of our
planet we have explored has found unexpected lifeforms - the bottom of
the ocean, beneath frozen lakes, in sealed caves...

I rate those who say there is no life other than on Earth right up
there with those who said the Earth was flat.


It would be almost inconceivable that life exists solely on Earth, since
there seems to be a hell of a lot of it here, in all kinds of environments.
The question of technologically advanced life is more difficult, since it
seems to have taken a significant fraction of the age of the Universe for it
to evolve here after the formation of the Earth, and we may therefore be one
of the first. Moreover, once beings capable of being technological had
evolved, it happened almost instantaneously on a cosmic timescale, within
50, 000 years or so. There must surely be another planet somewhere, sometime
where this might happen again. Another question is, will these 'people' read
books, drive cars, play tennis, use an internet (what will they call the
web, if spiders don't evolve too ?), watch crappy soaps on tv etc. etc.

AG

Andy Guthrie wrote:

"Tim Auton" tim.auton@uton.[groupSexWithoutTheY] wrote in message
...
(Mitch Alsup) wrote:
"Larry" wrote in message
. uk...
For life to arise on Earth, an improbably large amount of things had to
go
our way, I guess this is yet another one of them.
[snip]
Cancel the word 'improbably' and I will agree with you.

I agree. I really don't think life is particularly special.
Intelligent, technologically advanced life might be fairly rare (due
either to initial conditions or the lifespan of technologically
advanced species - we don't have the data to decide), but I fully
expect us to find at least bacterial life on other bodies in our solar
system. Why? Why not! So far almost every inhospitable corner of our
planet we have explored has found unexpected lifeforms - the bottom of
the ocean, beneath frozen lakes, in sealed caves...

I rate those who say there is no life other than on Earth right up
there with those who said the Earth was flat.


It would be almost inconceivable that life exists solely on Earth, since
there seems to be a hell of a lot of it here, in all kinds of environments.
The question of technologically advanced life is more difficult, since it
seems to have taken a significant fraction of the age of the Universe for it
to evolve here after the formation of the Earth, and we may therefore be one
of the first. Moreover, once beings capable of being technological had
evolved, it happened almost instantaneously on a cosmic timescale, within
50, 000 years or so. There must surely be another planet somewhere, sometime
where this might happen again. Another question is, will these 'people' read
books, drive cars, play tennis, use an internet (what will they call the
web, if spiders don't evolve too ?), watch crappy soaps on tv etc. etc.

Planet Earth has had several mass extinctions, the last one kick-started
the rise of one intellegent species. (We don't know if the previous one
gave rise to intellegent dinosaurs).

I therefore believe it's reasonable to assume that intellegent life will
arise on any planet that supports life and which suffers mass
extinctions. It's only a matter of time, chance, and having a reasonable
interval between mass extinctions for new species to establish
themselves.

--

Peter