So one thing to keep in mind here is that according to NASA, the meteorite itself is generating these compounds:
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial," says Callahan.
(from the NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorit...)
This does not mean that there is developed life on another planet that then traveled to us. What it does mean is that the building blocks of life that were seeded on earth are probably pretty common and therefore were probably also seeded elsewhere.
It means that the components of life are a "naturally" occurring things, which appear all over the universe, and do not require life to produce them. This in turn implies that life, not just any life, but carbon based, DNA using life, could be more common in the universe then previously thought. And this implies that we here on Earth are even less of an unique snowflake then we thought.
And along those same lines, adds more weight to the implications of the Great Filter argument. That is, if the early steps in the path to intelligent life are really not that unlikely, then the later steps to advanced intelligent life are more unlikely.
Or, as Carl Sagan often suggested, intelligent life is likely to destroy itself, perhaps if a civilization's technological progress outpaces its ethical capacity.
The Fermi Paradox is like the "bumble bees can't fly" paradox, it merely means we don't understand the fundamentals of technological life in the Universe.
Edit: thanks downvoter, can you point me to your source of knowledge about all technological life in our Universe? I'd settle for just our galaxy if that's easier to come up with.
The problem with the Fermi paradox is that it doesn't tell us much. It could tell us that colonizing civilizations are unlikely or have a limited lifespan, or it could tell us merely that colonizing civilizations don't work at all the way we'd predict.
Another possible explanation against the fermi paradox could be that interstellar communication, let alone travel is much more unlikely to occur even among highly advanced civilizations. maybe just travelling beyond our solar system might remain uneconomical for a long time.
Its conjecture is that physical travel to other civilizations is so expensive, and light-speed communications are so slow and inefficient, that the only way highly advanced civilizations communicate is by digitizing their consciousnesses and transmitting those, to be run in simulations on the receiving end. However, since you wouldn't want to transmit a copy of your own consciousness to an alien only to have it tortured or worse (even in a simulation), there are very extensive negotiations around trust involved before full contact with other civilizations is established.
I'd be extremely surprised if there was very little life on other planets. I'd also be extremely surprised if we could recognize it as life at a glance -- my guess is that it's so likely to be so completely different from us that that even knowing what to look for is going to be hard.
Life is probably not that rare. Familiar life probably is.
I think maybe on a macro level, but microbial life seems likely to be pretty similar to ours.
Even on a macro scale though, I imagine you'd probably see some of the same themes (assuming an Earth-like planet): photosynthesis, bilateral symmetry, hemoglobin- or hemocyanin-based blood, etc.
Absolutely. Also, for those not necessarily familiar with the composition of outer space: hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water are all relatively common "out there", as in "in the spaces between planets and stars and everything else.
I agree about not getting too excited. But to be precise in this case they are talking about nucleobases [1] which are building blocks of DNA. Amino acids [2] are building blocks of proteins.
Yes, but what's interesting about this are the mechanisms of formation and delivery. We have evidence of how these things were formed in space and then delivered to Earth. It's not little green men, but a piece of the puzzle. I think it's pretty damn cool.
This is one thing that consistently annoys me about most scientific journalism online, and about the press releases by institutions. Is it really that hard to post a link to the abstract page of the actual journal?
Thanks for the link. Makes me wonder, if life did come from space then we will have to start exploring space more seriously. The possibility of a aliens existing somewhere else cannot be ignored any longer.
While NASA's discovery of nucleobases as opposed to amino acids is certainly interesting, there's a long way between "hey, nucleobases on an asteroid," and "wow, the entire genome of a living creature." There's a big jump in complexity, structure, and organization between organic chemistry and the multi-trillion cell organism we call homosapien.
The comparison in complexity is the rough equivalent of finding a few MOV/JMP/ADD instructions in a random text file as opposed to the source tree for the Linux kernel (I might be underestimating the human genome a little here).
Why on earth would you compare these to the human genome, instead of the smallest archeobacteria? Evolution adds complexity over time, we know this, we just need something to replicate first.
A better analogy than the Linux kernel might be a quine.
There is still an enormous jump in complexity between a few nucleobases and the smallest archeobacteria. Maybe a full Linux kernel is not the best illustration, but the idea of a kernel in general is a remarkably apt one. At the least, we're talking stuxnet or something.
Even the simplest life is incredibly sophisticated.
Why wouldn't one make the comparison with the human genome? If the evolutionay mechanisms credited with responsibility for the jump from nucleobases to archeobacteria (which is still incredible, if true) can't be fully and comfortably accredited with the nucleobase to human genome jump then said evolutionary mechanisms are suspect. According to the notion of evolution inherently adding complexity over time, nucleobases to human genome just requires some very large time. If we do know this with such certainty, then my comparison is both apt and reasonable.
God became man in Jesus in order to save us. So if
there are also other intelligent beings, it’s not a
given that they need redemption. They might have
remained in full friendship with their creator.
The article also includes an interesting quote from C. S. Lewis on the subject:
I look forward with horror to contact with the other
inhabited planets, if there are such. We would only
transport to them all of our sin and our acquisitiveness,
and establish a new colonialism. I can’t bear to think of
it. But if we on Earth were to get right with God, of
course, all would be changed. Once we find ourselves
spiritually awakened, we can go to outer space and take
the good things with us. That is quite a different
matter.
> I have always been curious as to how religion will tackle proof of alien life.
They may not have to; I can't think of a religious faith that insists that humans are the only sentient beings in the universe. (John Polkinghorne [1] argues that even multi-verses are consistent with the notion of a Creator.)
> Do aliens get to go to heaven?
Same answer as above. And this assumes there is a heaven; not all religious people, indeed not even all 'Christians,' believe this. [2]
-----------------
[1] Polkinghorne is a retired Cambridge University professor of mathematical physics, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He's now 80 years old; when he was 49 he went to seminary to become an Anglican priest, and has written a number of books about science and religion. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Polkinghorne.
[2] Some of us have provisionally concluded that a sensible way to bet is this: Over the very long term, the apparent on-going 'construction' of a cosmos, in which we seem to be participating, is likely to work out unimaginably wonderfully, but we really can't even speculate as to much more than that. See http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/another_way_to_.... (Disclosure: I'm the author; the comments are worth reading as well.) EDIT: Polkinghorne has published what he describes as "naïve speculation" about how heaven might be explainable in terms of string theory. See http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/04/resurrection_ap.....
You may be surprised to learn there was debate on this topic from at least the high middle ages. A quick Google search found this write up, which seems to be a pretty good summary.
Religion doesn't need a literal interpretation to succeed, they'd just sweep it under the rug like everything else. Indeed, I think the majority of religious people do not believe much literally, and at least many of them are simply believers in belief.
I totally agree. Still, a discovery so profound as first contact must have some impact to their belief. But then again, my guess is that when this discovery is made, the larger part of the world are secularists.
>a discovery so profound as first contact must have some impact to their belief. But then again, my guess is that when this discovery is made, the larger part of the world are secularists.
Explored in the film "Contact" and the Carl Sagan book upon which it was based. Though apparently the ending differs significantly between the two. (I enjoyed the movie, but haven't gotten around to reading the book).
My religion has taught me there was alien life since I was a child. I was also taught that all humans and all animal life will be resurrected. It's not too hard to extrapolate that intelligent alien species, should they exist, would as well. So maybe the answer to your question is "It depends on the religion."
I'm Mormon (or more pedantically I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) so kbutler caught me.
He's quoting from the Doctrine & Covenants (like the Pauline epistles in that they're letters written by someone claiming to speak messages from God, but not like them in that they were written in the 1830s and 40s in America) and it's this more modern scripture that tends to talk about these kind of things. Basically any decent religion will start out with "Be nice to your neighbors" but when you start asking "Why?" it is inevitable going to end up in a discussion about the nature of the universe and its the modern scripture that tends to crystallize that a bit.
And for the record, "alien life" in Mormonism means other earths very similiar to the one we inhabit, populated by people like the people that live here on our earth. Not usually what most people think of when they hear of aliens.
It may be relevant precisely because not every living thing on earth is believed to go to heaven. "But these guys don't get to go to heaven" is part of the rationale behind a lot of modern genocides, and before that many cases of slaughter and slavery. If we or the aliens are to think that of each other, hey, that's enough premise for a real-life Hollywood classic.
Right. Even if these hypothetical aliens have souls, what happens when we discover that there was no Christ crucified on their world? From that, we'll have to conclude that either
1) They can't be absolved of their sins, since Jesus didn't die for them.
2) The Earthly Jesus died for all sentient beings across the universe, but the fact that he did so on Earth demonstrates that Earthlings have a special place in God's creation (also, note that the Old Testament Jews were God's chosen people).
Extraterrestrials did not necessarily experience The Fall
I'm not aware of Lewis's argument, but I did think about this. It seems to me that we'd be able to determine this by simple inspection.
I assume that when we met these aliens, we'll be able to observe that they are sinful creatures: they will lie, steal, murder, etc., just like we do. This being the case, they'll need some mechanism for unloading those sins, won't they?
But: (1) maybe they won't be sinful; or (2) maybe there's some theological point that makes "The Fall" as such pivotal, so that other sins can be freely absolved, so long as one (or one's ancestors) haven't eaten from the tree of knowledge?
EDIT: As already referenced elsewhere in this thread, C.S. Lewis hypothesized -- a search through the thread for "Lewis" shows our interchange, and one other mention that doesn't reference aliens directly, but only the evil that humans could bring to them. And searching for "Fall" shows it nowhere else as a single word. So I think you're unfair in suggesting that my post was redundant.
Well, now you're reducing it to just Christianity. And within the context of Christianity, I don't see why people would jump to the conclusions that they have souls only to get stuck at the problem of "so what do we do with Jesus?"
I suppose people sooner call the aliens soulless demons or rethink their whole religion than go half way in one direction and then stop in the middle.
I do not agree that it is completely irrelevant when including the possibilities of life at a higher intellectual level. It would still put religion in a difficult position; if God created humans, he must have created aliens. At what intellectual level would you set the barrier? Must it demonstrate empathy? Love? And who would decide? What gives a human the right, as it clearly is the guy in the sky that is the gatekeeper.
Way OT but… you are making a categorical error: (putting aside what you may or may not think about Christianity… but) Christianity asserts that the only reason people (or beings) are not going to heaven is because of their sin (defined as, “any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God”). To presuppose that any theoretical aliens have sin is wholly unwarranted. There is no need for any Christian to assume any status as regards heaven in relation to an alien.
Also; the existence or lack of existence of any alien life form would have no theological bearing on the western church. (That’s not to say that it would in the east. I just am ignorant of the details -- though if I was a betting man I would say that it is the same in that case also.) Wouldn’t change a thing; and not because it would get “swept under the carpet” but because it really changes nothing core to the dogma deemed necessary for the western church (i.e. the Ecumenical creeds).
And, just as an even further aside, some prominent Christian theologians believe that aliens might exist.
The Bible for example is very clear about the one who is making the decisions: God, or guy in the sky as you call it.
So I don't think that would be a problem for religion.
And I think this news is still no proof for skeptical people (like myself).
They found molecules that are very rare on earth and are now suggesting they originated in space:
"...but were unsure whether these materials actually originate in space. The presence of these three molecules, however, suggest that they do, potentially raising new questions..."
So just new questions and suggestions. No proof of alien life for me. But interesting!
I don't think finding evidence of ETI would change much of anything.
Sure, an agnostic might be put into a further tailspin, but so what? Most of the world's faithful have already demonstrated the enviable ability to suspend any desire to investigate the mechanics of their belief system. What difference will it matter that aliens were thrown into the equation?
Since you seem like a science-minded man, I'll point out that every Christian in this thread has said nothing like what you said. Perhaps you should revise your model.
Although I am deeply unreligious and disagree with much of what the Vatican says regarding birth control etc, I've been impressed with the Vatican's statements in past years re: the Big Bang, evolution, aliens, etc.
The Vatican's chief astronomer said that aliens likely have souls and he would "gladly baptize one if it asked".
The idea of non-terrestrial intelligences has been part of Judeo-Christian belief for thousands of years. Angels are generally considered both non-physical and non-terrestrial. But theologians as orthodox as Thomas Aquinas have also considered belief in non-terrestrial yet physical intelligences to be theologically acceptable[1].
This is really your biggest fear? Or is that just a figure of speech. I'm genuinely curious, as while I think this "answer" might be intellectually satisfying to some degree, I see it as making little difference in practical matters.
I also think it's an answer that will never come. I don't see any inconsistency between a universe created by God and any scientific observations we make within that creation.
> I don't see any inconsistency between a universe created by God and any scientific observations we make within that creation.
I don't know if there's a name for this argument, but it would seem to imply that a god or gods are not necessary (whether or not it or they exist). When you combine that with Occam's Razor (the hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions is likely the correct one), my interpretation is that there is likely not a god or gods.
To be strict, a completely successful theory of the origin of life would mean that God was not necessary to explain that. He could still be necessary to explain other things.
what will it mean to the world if religion was "proven" to be man-made
A successful and complete theory of the origin of life wouldn't do that. Not every religion claims seriously that God directly created life. To my knowledge, it's really only a serious problem for people who live in the Religion:Christian/Protestant/Evangelical/Fundamentalist folder, which is really not a big fraction of the people on the drive.
For example, I am Evangelical, and I wouldn't be bothered by either the success or failure of a scientific theory of the origin of life. Miracles are a part of my worldview, as are machines. I know that God created life, but whether he used a miracle or a machine, I don't know. I have seen him use one or the other at different times, so I would consider either an acceptable explanation. Now, I'm kind of interested as to what happened, but it doesn't affect my doctrine much either way.
We seem to be reaching good enough models (arguably some of them will be thoroughly reproducible in laboratories soon enough). But I don't think we'll arrive at a definite answer here. My guess is that we'll come up with multiple ways it could've happened, along with their respective degrees of likelihood.
I think this is probably directly or indirectly responsible for the recent health and longevity kick people have been on in the Bay area. Many people in their 20s-40s are right at the age where we can see some of the amazing things on the horizon, but it's uncertain whether we'll live long enough to see them. If I could live to 120 instead of 80-90, it greatly increases the odds that I'll live to see things like neural interfaces and things like that.
We are. The genetic advances that we'll make will probably allow us to extend our life considerably in the not very far future. Like next century if not earlier. Damn!
I vaguely recall from highschool bio that the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that it's surprisingly easy to produce a lot of organic stuff by abiotic means. Does anyone with some real knowledge about this area care to explain how surprising this actually is?
The organic compounds produced by the Miller Urey experiments were mostly amino acids and some sugars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment). These are the building blocks for most of the things that constitute a cell. This discovery may better our understanding of the origins of DNA and RNA - which are the blueprints for putting together the building blocks to make a cell.
Universe is only 13 billion years old, life on Earth started ~4.5 billion years ago, and the travel times are pretty long. Even if DNA came from outer space, it would have had to start somewhere. At some point it must have developed from inorganic components.
NASA is confident that these, at least, did. (Of course, they could also have simultaneously been created terrestrially - but that doesn't change the fact that they were also created in space.)
This item - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2863503 - is intended to be the same thing, but incorrectly points to a generic front page. A pointer has been put there to direct people here.
Amino acids have also been made by slamming meteorite like material into earth like material at impact speeds (impact chemistry creates them due to the greate pressures and energy involved).
This could just be the most significant news in all of human history. Mind blowing that there's now evidence that the building blocks of life exist off-Earth.
It's gotten better, and the story is not that bad, but most of the actors are just completely terrible. There is just nothing in their characters to care about.
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases -- both the biological and non-biological ones -- were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. "In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial," says Callahan. (from the NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/dna-meteorit...)
This does not mean that there is developed life on another planet that then traveled to us. What it does mean is that the building blocks of life that were seeded on earth are probably pretty common and therefore were probably also seeded elsewhere.