Prof Brian Cox on Life

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Tonight on ABC2 at 2030, Prof Cox examines the nature of Life, from a physics standpoint

Cheers

[Ric]

I'm looking forward to this show, it should be interesting.

[Suzy]

Yaaaaay!
Thanks Geoff. :thumbsup:

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

My attention was jerked back to the screen on this when Prof Cox remarked that from a physics standpoint, it may be that life of some kind is inevitable in the right conditions, like ours.

Fascinating I thought, must find out much more about that. I have not long read "The Eerie Silence" by Prof Paul Davies, in which he presents an argument (not the only conclusion presented tho) that life appears to be the result of such a long chain of very unlikely accidents, or coincidences, that we could well be the only intelligent life in the cosmos. Wow.

The truth is somewhere in the middle? What exactly is life, as well? If it only needs to be defined as the organised result of a proton gradient, how long is the list?

Any suggestions for the reading list?

Cheers

[seeker372011]

Yes, I thought some controversial assertions were made during the course of the program..but still visually quite engaging

[madbadgalaxyman]

The fact that highly informed people disagree strongly about the odds of life existing elsewhere in the universe, suggests that the best approach is to actually do the experiment and to look out there for life.

However, most of the people who have a professional-level knowledge of biology are definitely at the 'very low probability of life existing elsewhere' end of the spectrum of belief....... It seems that it is usually the SETI crowd and the 'passionate believers' who publicize the most wildly optimistic estimates about the odds of life existing in the rest of the universe; after all, their job depends on projecting an optimistic attitude.

Has Cox completed at least a few units of cellular and molecular biology at university? If not, I suggest that his views about the prevalence of life in the universe should be given little weight. You really need to have some tertiary biology to appreciate how 'super high tech' life really is.

An extremely detailed, but clearly written, discussion of the highly-multiple steps that have to be taken for complex organic molecules to organize themselves into a simple self-replicating life-form, can be found in :

"Life's Solution : Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe"
by Simon Conway-Morris
(Cambridge University Press)(Published 2004 and 2003)

(incidentally, some of the author's theological views do creep in to this book, but the scientific argument itself is impeccable)

The probability for the occurrence of all of the reactions that need to occur, in the very long chain of chemical reactions that leads eventually to the construction of a simple organic lifeform, is vanishingly small;
The gap in complexity between simple organic chemistry and the chemistry of a very simple lifeform like a bacterium..... is absolutely enormous.

This suggests, at the minimum, that the environmentalist ideology of 'reverence for life' and dismay at the destruction of species, may be justified on scientific grounds; life may be so rare in the universe that the nearest occurence of life away from our Solar System could be billions of light years away.

Added in edit:

P.S.
What is life? Nobody knows!!
But read the introductory book "What is Life?" by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan.

This is the book that got me interested in serious study of biology.
Margulis was a controversial biologist who had a brilliant and clear writing style that is very suited to clearly explaining the extraordinary complexities of life. I don't think that physicists like Cox really understand all of the 'observables' when it comes to life....it really takes a few years of full-time study to come to grips with this.

[colinmlegg]

I second Robert's suggestion to read 'What is Life' (Lynn Margulis). It was transforming for me when I read it as well.

For a good discussion on the improbability of complex life, 'Rare Earth' by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee is good. These authors conclude that simple life maybe common (give the right planetary conditions), but complex life is rare.

All Peter Ward's books are worth reading for a good intro to the history of life and the planet and how they are so intertwined. "Life and Death of Planet Earth" is good...if you like informed future speculation?

[Camelopardalis]

Cox is a physicist, they deal especially in the very big and very small. Statistically, he's probably right...the odds of us being alone in the universe is very small, but not impossible.

Likewise, however complex and improbable we believe it to be, what we classify as life has evolved at least once that we know of in an otherwise ordinary environment. Such environments similar to our own must exist many times over in our own galaxy alone, let alone the universe as a whole. What's to say it hasn't happened many times?

And that's all before we consider other possibilities to call life...which we've also discovered right here a home.

[Rob_K]

Biologists are absolutely the worst people to listen to in the discussion of life in the Universe, simply because their field is myopic, bound up in complexity. You can argue all you like about the complexity of biological processes and logically posit that life should be vanishingly rare (and hence we shouldn't exist either??). But a physicist can say, let's chuck a lot of star-stuff together, mix it up for a few billion years, and voila we have life. Where? Here! It didn't matter how complex the processes were, it happened! Right here in our own backyard, one backyard amongst countless similar backyards (as we are now understanding more and more). Physics can move backwards from the physical reality of life to unravel processes, while biology is mired in forwards moving processes, each of which presents a new layer of complexity (leading inevitably to impossibility!). Not that we'll ever understand life without both!

The universe creates and orders matter (what is matter LOL?) by processes we only have the crudest understanding of. Life is nothing more than another level of ordering of matter. One example is all that is necessary to know that the ordering of matter to create life is something that the universe does. We have that example.

Unfortunately human thinking is also influenced by religion - I don't mean we are all religious, but that our upbringings & exposure to religion or religious-type ideas colour our attitudes. "The Miracle of Life" etc. The idea that we are special, separate from the Universe in which we live. A hard hurdle to get over because it impacts on the meaning each of our lives has to us, regardless of how strenuously we may deny it.

As far as the probability of other life existing in the universe, the simplistic calculations of the biologists don't cut the mustard. What are the chances of a single hydrogen atom existing? Of putting together all the bits - different parts in different energy levels, let alone the constituent bits of the different parts, going down to who knows what at the fundamental/string theory particles level, all in their correct fuzzy places. Pretty damn small if you think of it as a random assemblage. And yet the universe has done it, abundantly, ubiquitously, profligately. Our lack of understanding of processes limits our ability to make meaningful predictions.

So we are left with only one certainty - that the universe creates life from star-stuff. Good enough for me!

Cheers -

[allan gould]

This all sounds theologians arguing about the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.
As a molecular biologist for the last 40 years might I suggest that some of you should get a far deeper understanding of molecular biology as well as evolution before commenting.

[Steffen]

I've started by watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa1A0pPc-ik

My mind is blown now, although I thought the major groove protein was cute. Am I on the right track?

Cheers
Steffen.

[spacezebra]

What more can you ask for => smart, a physicist and good looking!!! :-)


Cheers Petra d.

[taminga16]

Thank you Allan, Brian Cox is just a face with a background, no where near as convincing as Sir David, and it is after all, just television.
Greg.

[Herb]

Madbadgalaxyman wrote

"Has Cox completed at least a few units of cellular and molecular biology at university? If not, I suggest that his views about the prevalence of life in the universe should be given little weight. You really need to have some tertiary biology to appreciate how 'super high tech' life really is."


Thankfully, some of the greatest amateurs in the history of science ignored arrogant attitudes such as this and built the very foundations of scientific knowledge.

As an aside, I doubt Gregor Mendel (ironically, a physicist) completed any units of cellular or molecular biology.

regards

Herb

[FlashDrive]

Robert....Well said and to the point....I agree :D

Flash......

[astroron]

Too Flash and Robert

I think #14 post is more to the point.
One doesn't have to have a degree in any particular subject to
know what they are talking about.
I am sure Professor Cox just like Carl Sagen,can talk on many different
Scientific subjects without mastering it at university.
How do you know he hasn't studied biology.
I am sure he would have had the relevant scientific advisers to make sure he was giving the right information.
Why the tear down ???
He is like David Attenborough,Carl Sagen, and others is trying to get science and nature out to the public,and in my honest opinion is doing a bloody good job.
Cheers:thumbsup:

[Ric]

Have to agree Ron

It's a great series and I'm quite enjoying it. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[allan gould]

Herbe
Mendel actually as the poster boy for genetics was not a good scientist as his notes on pea genetics and hence inherited traits have been rigorously analysed and shown that he "cherry" picked his results to get the answer he believed was correct. Not a good scientist. Just a small footnote to the history of genetics.
Allan

[FlashDrive]

Yes....quite right...you have a point there.....but I have a problem with things being ' said ' ...as if they are the ' real facts ' about how things ( life ) came about.

I certainly don't know how ' life ' came about because like myself, Brian Cox wasn't there in the ' beginning ' when it ' ALL ' started....no one was.
To me...it's all speculation,lots of good ' theories ' being passed around over many decades etc.

Anyway....I guess Brian and other members of the Scientific Community are doing their best to ' explain ' things the best way they can ' according ' to what they ' deem ' is a possible ' outcome ' of how life began.

This is where I come in.....do I accept what their saying as ' plausible ' or as ' fact ' ... especially by the way they present it to the viewer.

Somethings I accept....somethings I can't......because they don't ' sit well ' with my own ' perception ' of things.

That's the joy of human nature....being able to ' decide ' what each of us accepts as ' fact ' ...or ' truth '

BTW...I love watching Sir David and other types of Doco's relating to Space or Nature ...I have lots of these in my Blu-Ray collection.

Cheers......Col. :D

[bigjoe]

At the end of the day, its all about getting a very smart poster boy to get young and alll interested, thinking, and to take up science

[GeoffW1]

Joe, you cynic, you :lol::lol:

[astroron]

A very Smart poster boy.:)
Carl sagen went through the same sort of criticism
when COSMOS was released.:rolleyes:
Cheers

[el_draco]

Hmmm, interesting conversation this and sure to heat up.

This may be worth considering. We have ONE lab experiment running here... planet earth. That lab has had the living crap, (no pun intended), belted out of it for thousands of millions of years. Its been frozen, fried, blasted, radiated and recycled so many times it doesn't worth mentioning... and yet! We can't even count the number of species that exist here, and are constantly amazed by the diversity of environments and the resilience that life has shown in them.

So, if earth can do it, and there are probably countless trillions of other "labs" out there, then the answer to the, "Is there life out there question", is a no brainer.

Still waiting for the intelligence bit though.... Maybe they are all around our solar system saying, "Shhhh, if we stay quiet long enough, maybe they'll evolve or die off..." ;)

[bigjoe]

Don't get me wrong! The guys got a winning smile Proton potential s etc thus life follows Human life who knows.The dinosaurs where a winnin superiority over all until a gigantic piece of rock intervened. It seems very intelligent life needs an astonishing number of sequences to go exactly right and just as astonishing, luck.:thumbsup:Cheers bigjoe:)

[joe_smith]

Well then could you please explain to us how life started on earth, and how that life evolved into the countless species that have been on planet earth? What have you got for us in that 40 years. As a molecular biologist, what answer's do you have for the questions of how life started and evolved? I'm not talking about evolution as in a finches beak growing long or short using data it already has in its genetic code. but evolution as in the basic building blocks of life forming the genetic code to start it all off. How did it start? how did DNA form? how did the first cells form?
Being a molecular biologist what is your view on the life in the universe question?

[Steffen]

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I am harbouring a lot of similar questions to molecular biologists. Such as:


When are we going to progress past the spaghetti principle for developing pharmaceutical drugs? Right now, it seems to be all field trials and statistics that determine which drugs are effective and which aren't. How about actual cause and effect?
At what generation of cell division after intial fertilisation (4, 8, 16, 32,…., 4069 cells, etc) do cells decide who becomes a skin cell, a liver cell, a nerve cell etc, and how do they communicate this among each other, having all the exact same genenic information after all?
Knowing that you understand a few (maybe even a lot of) individual mechanisms of cell biology, do you concede that you haven't got the faintest clue as to how the whole comes together as a system?


Cheers
Steffen.

[FlashDrive]

This is getting interesting :D

Flash.....:D

[bigjoe]

Well said steffen. Tounge in cheek and a chuckle is always welcome ,but petulance, I don't think so .Cheers all.And don't get too serious please.God only knows what's going on here.Er sorry about that chief.

[mr bruess]

the probability of other life existing in the universe is high in my opinion.Its is just plain silly to claim that life has low probabilty of existing elsewhere.This is just plain "we are at the centre of the universe "type thinking.
It is a statisitical probabilty that life has got to exist elsewhere in the universe.Its like saying no one can ever win powerball or lotto because the probabilty of the event occuring is too low.But someone is always winning it and beating the extremely high odds and getting rich instantly.

[Suzy]

Surprise, surprise,that's me out from watching the series....
After watching two, I just can't get into it. He talks as slow as a tortoiuse walking up a mud slide. Pick up the pace Brian!
Looks will only take him so far in my book. :shrug:

Joe, I couldn't agree more. He's done a great job.
But I'll add to that by saying that he also presents things in a very easy to understand manner & talks slower so we can have time to digest what he's said. Except for this current series- he talks too slow & too many pauses. Get to the point already.:mad2:

[bigjoe]

Hi Suzy hi all.Watching our hero dithering. around picking up earbones umpteen times etc,calling gators croc(there are major and obvious differences)
Etc does not inspire any sort of confidence at all.He was advised on certaiin aspects but it may just be that he is out of his or anyones depth. Ill still be a watchin though, because after all its, ;);)our hero

[Satchmo]

Obviously you didn't appreciate the main point of BadMads's post at all. He was saying that life is likely to be much rarer than we think, which is a poignant point that should give us more passion about protecting the planet and all the species which go extinct every day .

[colinmlegg]

:rofl::lol: .. you need to start that FB page Suzy :P

[colinmlegg]

+1 to that. :thumbsup:

[bigjoe]

Even though Ive been lampooning the series etc,in all seriousness.THE PROBABILITY that highly intelligent beings able to evolve, have something like an opposable thumb to build tools , a fire, let alone a spacecraft, is vanishingly small.Just to get to paramecium ,amoeba type stage and find that kind of life anywhere within thousands of light years ,would be an historic achievement.Unless some being has found a way to overcome the monster effects of aging ,inertia on an accelerating body, fuel etc,and cover vast tracks of space just to say hello!, and visit the cesspool we are creating? .And what for ?I KNOW to save us from our utter stupidity!:):) cheers all

[colinmlegg]

I would imagine 'curiosity' would the main reason to visit. We are the product of a 4 billion year experiment and that would be very difficult to simulate on computers of any conceivable size. If another intelligence has evolved and is capable of star travel, finding other examples of that process would have to be interesting. Especially if it is exceedingly rare.

ps. They certainly won't be coming to eat us or colonize... access to energy, raw materials and engineering at the nano scale should have been solved long ago...if they are cruising between the stars.

[Steffen]

The probability for any particular life form to evolve seems vanishingly small, yet Earth is full of them. Given enough time and an ever so small pressure, or tendency, for matter to organise itself it can be argued that the emergence of life is inevitable.

As I have alluded above, molecular biology is not the prism through which we will be able to discover and understand the nature of life. Just like we cannot understand the function of the etax program by studying transistor patterns on a microchip. DNA molecules and base pairs and amino acids and even proton gradients are mere implementation details. They are essential, but they're not the big picture.

I think the big picture has to do with information – its storage, transmission and interpretation. Having only fairly recently been inducted into the circle of physical entities I think information itself is the key to understanding life, and it will take cutting-edge physics to understand information.

If anyone can explain life it'll be a physicist.

Cheers
Steffen.

[lacad01]

And here I was thinking all along that it was 42 :doh:

[bigjoe]

I believe in abiogenesis.Life forming from self replicating molecules like ribozymes then dna which alone to form from them is a wonder of structure and arrangement.
Its almost as if it was put together by intelligence..Fred Hoyle himself a physisist and many others, ( Watson and Crick were astounded) thought it almost impossible to form in the time frames just from randomness.But it has and here we all are.So dont get me wrong.Life here even needed the existance of impacts, according to many and ultimately to us humans ever evolving.There could even be evidence that Mars had its own ribozymes etc so God only knows. I gotta stop sayin that hmm.cheers bigjoe
Ps: we have made synthetic self replicating ribozymes in the lab under strict conditions but they usually decay quickly.ribozymes are a form of information from which it appers life follows so maybe Steffens right on track
But are self replicating molecules in themselves life .I dont think so.cheers

[colinmlegg]

Problem is we are missing a good chunk of the fossil record. Possibly a billion years worth. 4.5 - 3.5 billion year ago. A billion years is a long time for all sorts of things to evolve. Sadly for us, rocks from that period are very rare on Earth. So randomness is not the right way to think of it...think in term of a billion years of pre-biotic evolution.

[bigjoe]

Col, Oparins prebiotic evolutionary theries and others like it have largely been debunked.The urey amino acid experiment for instance No one has gone from amino acids to proteins doing this simulating conditions back then.Though no one knows for sure just how much hydrogen and oxygen, methane etc was in the atmosphere
then.So its all just conjecture from all of us cheer:)s

[colinmlegg]

Yep, that's the point. All theories because we have very little record of that period. Mars maybe our best chance for hard facts? Lots to learn.

[madbadgalaxyman]

It is not arrogant to assume that a detailed knowledge of molecular biology and cell biology and evolutionary biology (and much else) is necessary in order to have an informed view about the existence of life in the universe.

If someone's 'amateur' knowledge of biology does not include the knowledge gradually built up and tested over the last 600 years of biological research by means of observation, dissection, experiment, simulation, and hypothesis, then just about any random opinion about life can be entertained by such a person.

Amateur life science research is possible, but you really do have to understand a lot before you have any idea about how life actually works.

I do not mean to say that you have to get this knowledge by going to university, but I can say (from personal experience of having completed some tertiary biology units) that some extended and very-difficult formal study of biology is a big help in understanding the difference in complexity between life and non-life.

Life science research requires an understanding of the physical mechanisms of life.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Allan,

I absolutely agree with you 100 percent.

I am sure that some of the correspondents in this thread know a lot of astronomy, and some of the statistical arguments about the number of stars and habitable planets that may exist in the universe.

However, it seems quite obvious to me that quite a few of them have never actually read a biology book.

I certainly do not pretend to expert knowledge in biology, but I am an enthusiast who tries hard to learn all the biology I can;
as I do with the science of astronomy, I enjoy the beauty and intricacy and the very complex problems of biological science.

Best regards
Robert

[astroron]

Robert,as I said further back,How do you know Brian Cox has not studied some Biology.:question:
Carlo Sagen Wrote books which contained masses of Biology, he was not just an Astronomer.

Have you or any of the detractors of Brian Cox picked up any obvious faults in his presentations:question:
Please let us know :)
Cheers:thumbsup:
BTW I have never read a Biology text book,I am not that clever to understand it all,
So when I get people like Brian Cox and Carl Sagen explaining it in layman's terms I can get some sort of understanding.

[bigjoe]

Hi all.We all need somebody like cox to popularize the usually uncool science subjects.He must have done some first year biology at least and read absorb, much more later on.Even the greatest experts cannot agree what the atmosphere was like back then and, so, soo much could be explaned diffently.Just all remember he is a PRESENTER of this series and NOT its author.Please read the credits carefully next time round.Cheers bigjoe.PS:personally I like him and what he is trying to achieve as a whole

[Camelopardalis]

These celebrities have all kinds of advisors. The BBC can't just make stuff up and broadcast it as fact, they have to recruit people for this stuff. Many scientific people would be/are glad to give some time to contribute to a show that inspires so many people and breaks from the usual reality tv rubbish...

[bigjoe]

Highly educated one, but am:)en to that.:)

[rogerco]

At the risk of starting a argument about the accuracy of Wikipedia, here is his bio:-

"... Brian Edward Cox, OBE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_British_Empire) (born 3 March 1968)[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-birthdate-1) is an English particle physicist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_physicist), a Royal Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society) University Research Fellow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Fellow), PPARC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_Physics_and_Astronomy_Rese arch_Council) Advanced Fellow, and Professor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor) at the University of Manchester (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Manchester).[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-microsoft-8)[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-9) He is a member of the High Energy Physics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_energy_physics) group at the University of Manchester, and works on the ATLAS experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATLAS_experiment) at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-10)[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-11) at CERN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN), near Geneva, Switzerland. He is working on the research and development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_and_development) project of the FP420 experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FP420_experiment) in an international collaboration to upgrade the ATLAS and the CMS experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Muon_Solenoid) by installing additional, smaller detectors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_detector) at a distance of 420 metres from the interaction points of the main experiments. ..."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29#cite_note-12)

I think he might have read a book or two. Maybe even did a unit or two in biology (I did a unit it music at uni, but you wouldn't think so if you heard my piano playing :P).

I am not a keen fan of his presentation style, as Suzy says a bit slow and it seems to have a a lot of him "gazing into the distant horizon" but that's not the point. Like Carl Sagan,Neil deGrase Tyson, Brian Greene, David Attenborough. and all the other people who have presented TV programs, some of them qualified in their field others not. The point of the program was to inspire and prick our interest, hopefully raising the level of interest in science in the community so that more people go further with it so that we have the scientists to do the research that will one day have some more of the answers.

Just for the record, I go with Carl Sagan's character, at the end of the film, "the universe is a very big place, so if we are the only ones in it its a an awful waste of space". ;) Of cause there is, or has been other life forms, it just they may not survive, check out the Drake Equation.

[bigjoe]

Hi Roger,all.I think the point of getting Cox is that he is extremely popular everywhere he goes.Voted one of the sexiest men alive even. Chat shows, music presenter etcAnd I think hes kind of cool and alot of kids seem to like to listen to him.So there it is. Sell science to the public with a role model like Brian Cox.Ps: Yes very intelligent life has more than likely evolved elsewhere and perished even,but Id guess imho, with all the chances, permutations,replicating molecules meteorite bombardments involved etc to get to our stage, they must be a long, long, long, way away.

[rogerco]

Which is what the Drake equation attempted to do (at least in terms of being able to detect them by their transmissions:- (again from Wikipedia)

Edit: paste didn't work, here is the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

This was in 1961, I assume the figures you might plug into it today would be different from then and there might be other factors that might be included. Back then it was the middle of the cold war and the figure for "blowing ourselves up" seemed higher (does anyone still have their ban the bomb placard?) than it might be now.

[madbadgalaxyman]

Hi Ron,

"Bio stuff" is really cool! I particularly enjoy observing the behaviour of single-celled animals in the microscope;
I recall a view of various microscopic "wrigglies" which had been extracted from a termite gut;
the vista was like a secret and hidden and very complex world; the observed level of complexity was in fact reminiscent of what I might see in a cluster of galaxies.
Incidentally, the "wrigglies" (tragically!!) died within a few minutes, as the environment in which they normally live has no oxygen, and these little creatures were actually poisoned and killed by the oxygen in the air of the lab!

Actually, what did annoy me about Cox's presentation in respect of the question of the existence of life elsewhere in the universe is; that he gives the impression that it is necessarily very likely, or even nearly certain, that there are other biospheres out there somewhere in space.

It is not intellectually reputable to give the impression of certainty about an issue about which the smartest and most knowledgable people are still in strong disagreement.

Given the uncertainties, it is still within the realm of scientific possibility that life is relatively common in the universe. However it is still within the realm of scientific possibility that life is extremely rare in the universe.

The point of asking the question "is there life out there?" is to make people think and to make people learn. It does the enormous complexities of this issue a disservice to come down on the side of "life is everywhere in the universe" without giving the opposite point of view; that a lot of reputable scientists believe that life in the universe will be exceedingly uncommon.

Leading a "biologically uninitiated audience" to the view that it is very certain that the universe is teeming with life is not presenting science. It is expressing a personal opinion (whether well informed or otherwise) which is masquerading as "science knows this for sure"

cheers,
Robert

P.S.
Given that there is no hard evidence that life exists outside of the
Earth, one has to ask "why the big push by various scientists to give the impression that it is going to be relatively easy to find it?"

[bigjoe]

The agenda is to get as much fundng for science as possible, hoodwinking the public governments etc that life is teeming everywhere and all we need is billion dollar space programs scopes etc to find it.Bluff a gullible lot like this and they will believe it So far eerie silence from space no matter how hard we try.cheers.

[madbadgalaxyman]

NASA spent billions of dollars on the recent mars rover.

A few more experiments included in this rover , in addition to the ones which were done on the Viking landers, and we would have known for sure whether or not there is life on Mars.

Instead, they deliberately left out the necessary experiments from this rover, so that they can continue to tantalize us with the prospect of life in an uncommonly hostile environment of high radiation, no liquid water (or virtually none), and (I suspect) hypersalinity.

[sjastro]

Nice conspiracy theory.

Attached is the Viking mission statement that was used by NASA as part of its negotiations for funding. Note the emphasis on real Science, testing through experimentation, rather than verification of a preconceived idea.

Regards

Steven

[colinmlegg]

Mars is our best bet (short term) for finding pre-biotic processes and molecular signatures. Much better prospects than Earth. I would guess that is the prime motivation of the program. Life could well have started and died off as Mars died and froze geologically.

[rustigsmed]

BCox, stated at his melbourne lecture '... the free one' that his intentions with his tv shows are to bring across people who would usually be watching something something more 'main stream' like Big Brother etc .. and in so doing try to bring science back to a wider tv wider audience thereby promoting science to more people (extra ratings would also be a bonus ;) he acknowledged the more serious science enthusiast probably wouldn't get so much out of the programs but hoped they'd still enjoy them.

as for life in the universe? better get exploring i say, otherwise I doubt we'll know any more in my lifetime.

[bigjoe]

Hi sj, col, all. IMHO.Yes, just a pretence to get us all motivated and enthusiastic again and again.Id imagine a lot of research would come to a screeching holt,jobs especially would go.So its up to people like Cox to popularize science and constantly inspire and give us hope that alien life is maybe a few rocket trips away,even though a lot of it is speculation,spin and agenda seeking, to maintain those very same jobs and research.Yes it may be that its ironic that, the only evidence for or for a past alien life or beginning in our lifetimes, is right next door on Mars.And I personally support trips be it manned or otherwise there,IF there ACTUALLY going to LOOK forand tell us about it.Cheers all

[Camelopardalis]

It's only really in the last 10-15 years that we've been able to start identifying exoplanets and more recently start analysing them to detect signs of oxygen and other molecules that are indicate some of the conditions for the potential of what we call life. In the scale of the Universe, that's neither a very long time to be looking nor have we looked very far away from us...

[astroron]

Joe, I think your use of the word "pretense" is wrong in this case.
There is a genuine belief in what these people are trying to get across to the people.
Carl Sagen was a firm believer in extra terrestrial life.
Why are they spending Billions of dollars to try and prove one way or the other about life in the universe.
"Pretense" NO 'Belief" and research "YES"
Cheers:thumbsup:

[bigjoe]

Hi Ron. Just using pretense in the sense that they imply that life is relatively close by.When given how exceedingly small are the chances for life, let alone highly intelligent life to form around any given star and yes there are trillions and more, but how far away is intelligent life? or even replicating molecule stage?A planet first would have to be perfectly placed and ALL the rest necessary to happen. Nearly all the exo planets dont seem even likely candidates, and there many lyrs away..So far EERIE silence So just needed to clarify that.cheers
Ps:Mars right next door is ironically the most likely candidate for life or even a pre existing one as it could have once been placed just right etc

[sjastro]

Interesting given the "demarcation dispute" theme behind some of the posts.

Nobel prize winner Francis Crick's remark might be considered heresy by some in the Life Sciences.:)

Regards

Steven

[Steffen]

I think Crick is exactly right. After we've taken all the various layers of blinkers off all that's left is bare physics.

Cheers
Steffen.

[bigjoe]

Yes STEFFEN and hi.The physics and chemistry of that MIRACLE element CARBON.Organic compounds made of Carbon have an unusual polymer forming ABILITY necessary for life.
The EASE in which Carbon makes its 4 ELECTRONS AVAILABLE to form BONDS
Making long chains of self REPLICATING MOLECULES.Amino acids to proteins by RNA, DNA inside GENES inside CHROMOSOMES. ALL to make more proteins and thus LIVING THINGS
ALL JUST SETS OF INSTRUCTIONS.BONDING AND REPLICATING. BUT NOT LIVING THEMSELVES..CARBON FROM STARS.
WE ALL ARE AS CARL SAGAN SAID "STARSTUFF"

[colinmlegg]

For those still watching episodes: Tonights is devoted to Australia, so should be an interesting one on early life.

ps. and it contains my Hamelin Pool timelapse :)

[bigjoe]

Hi Col Ill be a watchin.Lets hope ithere is some controversy and some thought provocing
arguments.Cheers.

[JC]

LOL ...... Whats with the starwars stormtrooper pushing a trolley on the outback road? Size matters episode @ 47.53

Edit apparently its;

http://news.discovery.com/adventure/activities/stormtrooper-walks-5000km-across-australia-for-charity.htm

It was a surreal moment....

[Ric]

Yep, how cool was the stormtrooper.

They could have devoted a minute or two to promote his cause though.

[iceman]

Great episode. Really enjoyed that.

[bigjoe]

It just goes to show startroopers need to shop, just like everyone else! And get charity!They could have stopped to ask him what brand spacebars he was consuming,to get his energy.Not very scientific. HAW HAW.
Ps: Thats assuming male gender from the overtly masculine walk.Though you never know with startroopers thesedays!

[mr bruess]

if we have learned something from the past, is that we cant be 100% sure on nothing. people used to say the earth was flat and the earth was the center of the universe. we used to say that the sun did orbit our planet. we used to say that we never could fly or investigate the depth of our oceans.
I think its time to open our minds and close our mouths and just learn about whats really going on. nothing is really like we believe, until its proven.


We can't be the only life form in this universe.

[bigjoe]

Mr Breuss. HI. I dont think most are sceptical as you suggest.I think its almost a given that there is some form of life out there.With all the Oxygen and Carbon etc in the Cosmos.
But it would appear that it is soo exceedingly difficult just to start up and keep a foothold,before some tragic event could occur,including being wiped out by a meteorite etc.
Highly intelligent life to evolve seems minutely small in comparison to just single celled organisms.Just my 2cents.Cheers.

[rat156]

Sorry, not much to contribute here, but WTF? Perhaps this post has been edited to remove any semblance of correct grammar.

Here's a couple of pointers:

After a fullstop to complete a sentence it is common practice to add two spaces.
It is also common practice to start new sentences with a capital letter, not a random capital in the middle of a sentence.
Abbreviations also usually have a fullstop after the last letter, except when the abbreviation includes the last letter, so Mr is correct, but etc is not.


Your posts in this thread, along with Flash's are very hard to read, so if you have something to contribute to the discussion it is lost in your poor presentation.

Cheers
Stuart

[bigjoe]

[QUOTE=rat156;999434]Sorry, not much to contribute here, but WTF? Perhaps this post has been edited to remove any semblance of correct grammar.

Here's a couple of pointers:

After a fullstop to complete a sentence it is common practice to add two spaces.
It is also common practice to start new sentences with a capital letter, not a random capital in the middle of a sentence.
Abbreviations also usually have a fullstop after the last letter, except when the abbreviation includes the last letter, so Mr is correct, but etc is not.


Your posts in this thread, along with Flash's are very hard to read, so if you have something to contribute to the discussion it is lost in your poor presentation.

CheersThanks buddy but Im always doing this on my small mobile as Ive said earlier.
with very little time for paragraphs or correct grammar.
Ps:I do.t even have the spell checker on.