Board index › Topical Discussion › Politics, Philosophy, and Religion

life on Mars?

Page 3 of 4 [ 55 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next

Previous topic | Next topic

Sedaka
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 16 Jul 2006
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 4,597
Location: In the recesses of my mind

24 Aug 2007, 2:31 pm

JonnyBGoode wrote:
Chuchulainn wrote:
Jonny,
No offense but your avatar really disturbs me... it's creepy.

It's Michael Keaton, taken off the "Johnny Dangerously" movie poster. With a flag thrown behind him.

Image

Maybe Michael Keaton scares you?


it thought so! thanks for confirming any minute sense of sanity i might have :)


_________________
Neuroscience PhD student

got free science papers?

www.pubmed.gov
www.sciencedirect.com
http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/freeart.dtl


snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

25 Aug 2007, 10:23 pm

I highly doubt Martians created the grand canyon, that's just absurd. Chances are it was created by natural phenomenon. Perhaps and asteroid. I'm assuming you were being sarcastic by that statement, but correct me if I am wrong, eatingpoetry.



skafather84
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,848
Location: New Orleans, LA

25 Aug 2007, 10:49 pm

snake321 wrote:
1. a system of canals that are way too detailed to have been made by nature



care to explain this one? do the cannals lead to major cities? are there wrecked ships?


the easiest answer is that it is nature that formed the canals.


snake321 wrote:
2. Pyramids on the Martian surface very similar to the pyramids of Egypt.


if you're talking the face, that was shown just to be a hill once we got a hi-res photo of it. there's no evidence of any structures on mars that were created by anything other than a natural path right now.

snake321 wrote:
3. Similarities between the Sphinx and the face on Mars, though there is also speculation by some people that the face was a trick of photography and more of a product of the angle of the photo, but this is not a proven fact either.... So the face/sphinx similarity is one that could be debated but it is something to take into account.



see above. if it were to look more like it, sure...but...check it out.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mars_face.png


^that is the same thing as...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Viki ... ce_20m.gif


^ that and as

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mart ... ropped.jpg



so....that's debunked.



we don't really have any significant sign of any kind of civilization on mars...because if we did, it'd be big news.



The_Chosen_One
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,357
Location: Looking down on humanity

25 Aug 2007, 11:34 pm

Remember the flat-earth people, mostly Middle Age religious people when Columbus discovered that the world was round, and Magellan confirmed it. They weren't happy, and tried to hush it up. If life were discovered on Mars, wouldn't the same thing happen, because it would go against beliefs and teachings that we are the only life in the universe? Besides, those early people thought that the sun revolved around the earth, and when Galileo proved them wrong, they even tried to persecute him.


_________________
Pagans are people too, not just victims of a religious cleansing program. Universal harmony for all!!

Karma decides what must happen, and that includes everyone.


skafather84
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Mar 2006
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,848
Location: New Orleans, LA

25 Aug 2007, 11:39 pm

The_Chosen_One wrote:
Remember the flat-earth people, mostly Middle Age religious people when Columbus discovered that the world was round, and Magellan confirmed it. They weren't happy, and tried to hush it up. If life were discovered on Mars, wouldn't the same thing happen, because it would go against beliefs and teachings that we are the only life in the universe? Besides, those early people thought that the sun revolved around the earth, and when Galileo proved them wrong, they even tried to persecute him.



interesting theory.


but they'd shut up that fossils of bacterial life and what not had been found. :P


alien life had existed on mars...but it wasn't very complicated...at least not that we've found yet.



Macbeth
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 May 2007
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,984
Location: UK Doncaster

26 Aug 2007, 10:20 am

If memory serves the canal idea is a duofold mistake. They are foremost an optical illusion caused by the optics of the time, and secondly, if memory serves, the man who saw them was italian, and named them canali, which is more directly translated as channels.

However, the topography of the planet does suggest that running water has existed on the surface at some time in the past, and where running water is, the elements of life cant have been far behind.


_________________
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part" [Mario Savo, 1964]


snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

26 Aug 2007, 12:21 pm

Who'se to say life on another world would necessarily need water? Life elsewhere COULD have totally different needs than us, could they not?



snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

26 Aug 2007, 12:22 pm

I mean all life on earth (or damn close to it) are carbon based life forms, what if silicon based life or something exists somewhere else?



snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

26 Aug 2007, 12:25 pm

For all we know there could be intelligent life somewhere on another world that breathes methane, or possibly don't need to even breath at all. Point is, we can't judge the potential of life everywhere by --OUR-- standards for life. Because honestly we have no clue what might be out there.



snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

26 Aug 2007, 12:33 pm

JonnyBGoode wrote:
Chuchulainn has a point. Whenever a Christian in this forum posts anything in any thread, the thread almost immediately derails into a "lets bash the Christians" thread.

On topic: The "canals on Mars" theory was debunked in the early 1900s. And none of the Martian probes sent to map the surface have shown any canals or any other sort of regular features.

Personally, I think there's a good chance that there is life on Mars. And I think that there's a good chance that that life originated on Earth. There is a lot of material that gets blown back and forth between our two planets, and it's likely Earth microorganisms landed on Mars, perhaps millions of years past. And mutated into who-knows-what forms by now.

Higher life, however? Seriously doubtful. Mars' climate, lack of breathable atmosphere and lack of a magnetic field makes that highly unlikely.


See this is my point exactly, "Lack of breathable atmosphere" BY OUR STANDARDS.... I'm not saying that intelligent life existed on Mars specifically, this was initially just a guess. But We have no conclusive evidence that intelligent life MUST exist by OUR standards. That lack of atmosphere would not be survivable to HUMAN BEINGS. It took us thousands of years to adopt and evolve to our atmosphere. Fish and sea creatures here on earth adopted to a totally different atmosphere than we did, dolphins in particular are very intelligent with a wide potential to evolve into a civilized species some day.
What might be survivable for us might not be survivable to someone from another world, and vise versa.



snake321
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Mar 2006
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,135

26 Aug 2007, 12:36 pm

Evolution will adopt a species with whatever components it needs to in order to the species to survive in it's surroundings, it gave fish gills, it gave whales and dolphins blow holes, because they lived in the water. It gave us lungs and noses because we live on land.



Macbeth
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 May 2007
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,984
Location: UK Doncaster

27 Aug 2007, 5:50 am

snake321 wrote:
Who'se to say life on another world would necessarily need water? Life elsewhere COULD have totally different needs than us, could they not?


It wouldnt neccesarily require water per se, but Occam's razor applies here. Water and life tend to be bedfellows, so if there was water, there was probably life. Theres no need to go mad theorizing about Methane-breathing space dolphins or something if the evidence is there to suggest forms of life similar to earth.

From the evidence available, it would certainly be the case that Mars lacks any higher life forms, as simple observation from space would show up signs of current civilisation. Thats not to say there havent been higher life forms there before, just not now.

I believe that signs of micro-organisms were found in martian rock a while back? Anyone care to confirm?


_________________
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part" [Mario Savo, 1964]


The_Chosen_One
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Age: 62
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,357
Location: Looking down on humanity

27 Aug 2007, 6:05 am

I've heard that too, they found some Martian rock meteorites around Antarctica about 20 or 30 years ago that contained some bacterial or fungal type deposits. They weren't recognised as anything from Earth, so they seemed to think it was either Martian or from space.


_________________
Pagans are people too, not just victims of a religious cleansing program. Universal harmony for all!!

Karma decides what must happen, and that includes everyone.


philosopher
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Age: 57
Gender: Male
Posts: 103

27 Aug 2007, 3:07 pm

Is this a wind up? mind you anything is possible maybe that is where we came from but surley our aim should be self realisation.



ascan
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,194
Location: Taunton/Aberdeen

27 Aug 2007, 4:15 pm

The_Chosen_One wrote:
...I've heard that too, they found some Martian rock meteorites around Antarctica about 20 or 30 years ago that contained some bacterial or fungal type deposits. They weren't recognised as anything from Earth, so they seemed to think it was either Martian or from space.

I recall reading that some considerable doubt has now been cast on those findings. However, I did post a link to something relevant to the discussion further back in the thread, that everyone appears to have ignored. Not that that's any great surprise...



ascan
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Age: 53
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,194
Location: Taunton/Aberdeen

27 Aug 2007, 4:17 pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/08/23/scimars123.xml