Posted on 07/30/2004 11:57:38 AM PDT by Heartlander
Steaming pile.
This is the Yuppie 'ME, ME, ME' interpretation of the Anthropic Principle
So9
Actually, I thought it was unique because John F Kerry lives here, all other reasons trivial. Did you know the junior senator from massataxes was a Vietnam war hero?
Seriously, this is a good summary of the book, which is a good read.
I wonder where all that methane in the Martian atmosphere is coming from. The Martian atmosphere can't sustain it, so it has to be coming from somewhere. Some kind of life maybe?
The part about the need for "perfect solar eclipses" is your Creationist Bunk Alert.
The article begins by talking about Mars and trickily changes the subject to the moon and the galaxy.
But let's stick with Mars for a moment: no one ever supposed that the chances of two planets with life --- in the same solar system --- would be very high. Mars is outside the comfort zone.
As for the rest of the "arguments"... they'll all be blown away when we find our first green planet out there.
We already can see planets circling nearby stars. Which suggest planets are abundant.
One thing I'd like to bet on: the necessity of a big fat moon for life to form. That's pure wishful thinking on the part of the authors. (Although why they are wishing for a dead and sterile universe is beyond me.)
Good article. I now have the Discovery Institute webpage bookmarked. Thank you.
Because, as creationists, the existence of life anywhere else in the universe obviates Earth's (and, by extension, their) position as God's unique creation.
There are folks who live in deadly fear that we'll discover Earth-like life elsewhere -- and by Earthlike, I mean growing, living, replicating and dying -- because death was supposed to only come to life on Earth because the first guy mucked it all up for the rest of us.
Exactly which planets can we see outside our own galaxy and what are their names?
I love it. The odds that we are here are less than zero yet to the materialists that means the universe is full of life. "Impossibility is abundance" ranks right up there with "war is peace."
The authors aren't suggesting planets aren't abundant. Rather, it is planets capable of supporting life as we know it. To my knowledge, all of the extra-solar planets found or inferred to date (hundreds) are large gas giants. Many with the highly elliptical orbits that preclude life.
One thing I'd like to bet on: the necessity of a big fat moon for life to form. That's pure wishful thinking on the part of the authors.
Not necessarily. The hypothesis is that the moon's gravity helps sustain the earth's magnetic field. If the earth's core solidified, the field would disappear and the earth would soon look like Mars - dry & dead. Regardless of whether you accept this or not, the authors contend that earth's perfect solar eclipses have greatly helped advance the sciences - not only astronomy, but chemistry, physics, archeology (by dating events), among others. Further, the earth-moon distance is changing. We live in a small time window (on a geological scale) when such eclipses actually do occur.
What I forgot to add is that the moon's gravity helps prevent the earth's core from solidifying, thus maintaining the mangetic field and therefore life.
LOL !
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