Saturn moon 'able to support life'

Post by SmellTheGlove » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #17

charles-salvia wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the developments in exo-planet research along with discoveries like this over the past couple of years, I would conjecture that life is ridiculously common. But by life, I mean microbial life. I would imagine that multi-cellular life is much rarer, and life capable of reaching human-level intelligence and beyond is probably absurdly rare, on the level of something like one species per galaxy. It's all worthl…

I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out intelligent life having existed on earth before. I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few t…

Post by SmellTheGlove » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 4:43 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #168

nostrademons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious if anyone's ever observed something similar to this? It'd be super easy to detect if you're looking for it, but most miners aren't thinking "Hmm, I wonder if a previous intelligent species existed on earth millions of years before us."

I started thinking that another species after us would find it odd that there are so few hydrocarbon deposits - but would they look for something that's not there? Similarly, maybe there's something missing from the Earth that we're just not thinking of because, well, you can't miss something if you never had it.

Post by alfonsodev » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 5:03 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #213

smdz wrote: post #178

I always had this question - Can life exist outside our perception of biological life? Intelligent life might be an anomaly, and rare in the universe - but is it possible that life exists outside our perception of biology? Afterall everything is just rules and actions that lead to predictable reactions (unless quantum physics says something else) I look at artificial life - that exists in virtual environments. It loo…

Define: life ;)

Post by Houshalter » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

bonzini wrote: post #207

winfred wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/scien... Mining wasn't banned until 1991. And as the article outlines, Antarctica is a really, really inhospitable place, to the point that it might be easier to colonize a different planet than to colonize Antarctica (I'd probably prefer equatorial Mars over Antarctica) and even mineral extraction would be very complicated.

At least if you get to Antartica you don't need a pressurized suit and an airlock to go outside. It's difficult to imagine a less hospitable world than one without an atmosphere and a magnetic field (well, not talking about Venus-level inhospitable).

Post by pmalynin » Fri, Apr 14, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

smdz wrote: post #210

nkrisc wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical thinking is the greatest threat to religious indoctrination as it relies on the acceptance of teachings as fact from authorities at face-value without question. If a child learns to be skeptical and questioning, they'll never learn to believe something that can't be supported given the currently available evidence, or may very well be contradicted by it.

Critical thinking is good - but kids can ask questions that are very difficult to answer (but we think of those as common knowledge) For example: This question > Why is 1+0 = 1 and not 10 Attempt to find an answer will generate more questions and it is a journey down the rabbit hole. Sometimes you don't want to do that. And upto high-school I learnt things that were based on assumptions that I kept questioning. Inter…