Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
See, this is my problem … none of this surprises me, Alex … perhaps I'm just turning into an old fuddy duddy, or something but when you think about the abundance of life on Earth, what's the big deal about finding it in 'extreme' places on Earth ?
Sure its of interest, but how can its presence in these locations on Earth, in any way, imply anything about the chances of finding it extra-terrestrially ?
(Other than via human caused panspermia/contamination ?)
Cheers
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Basically, if it can survive and flourish in these sorts of conditions here, then the chances of finding it elsewhere go up dramatically. And what is life, anyway. We tend to think in such narrow terms that it's most likely the case we miss most of the stuff. In actuality, we really don't know what it is that makes things live. For all our probing of the biochemistry, biology and physics of living systems, we haven't a clue as to what life is or represents. We barely even understand how many of the physical systems we've studied, work.
You can argue till the cows come home about the chances and non chances of life's occurrence in the Universe and make the statistics for its occurrence say anything you want. But if you were to argue that we are it, then there are several things that can be said about this. The scientists are deluding themselves and the Church and other wackos have it right, humanity is seriously out of kilter so far as our mental stability is concerned and what would be the point in even bothering to study science, especially astronomy and such. If the rest of the Universe was that hostile to life, even thinking about the deliberate (or otherwise) panspermia of Earth organisms would be an utter waste of time.
Arguing against the possibility of extraterrestrial life just because we haven't found any and only know of one example of life in the Universe is so literal, myopic and narrowminded it's breathtaking in its hubris. We've hardly begun science and yet we think we know it all.