Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
Can you name one place on a planet where we know life emerged, where life cannot be found ?
What then, is the scientific basis for your above statement ?
Cheers
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Yep....the core of our planet
Unless, of course, you subscribe to the Hollow Earth Theory
Saying that a planet has never had life, based on evidence from only one or two spots which may or may not have been conducive to having life there in the first place isn't very scientific at all. You haven't exhausted all the possibilities for both the number of sites and degrees of habitation, for a start. And, you're basing your deliberations and prognosis on a statistically insignificant number of sampling sites. However, if they covered a good deal of the surface of the planet and also undertook a reasonable number of borehole surveys and never found any evidence for life on the planet, then I would be inclined to say that Mars never had any life on it. It also goes without saying that this would be in addition to other surveys done of the hydrological and other geological processes which may either support life or possibly mimic it (e.g. inorganic methane production etc).
That's why I take most of these surveys by probes, whilst interesting and rewarding in a limited, specific scientific sense, with a grain of salt. They're not definitive and never will be. Relying on their finding as somehow being able to provide definitive answers to any question is not the way to go about conducting a survey for something as complicated as looking for life. You can only use what they find as possible indicators, but of a rather limited nature. Nothing more or less.