RIP Frank Drake

[Shadowy Man]

In decades long since past, atheists giggled that "the universe is so huge, with billions of stars that no intelligent creator would have bothered to waste all that matter and energy just for us."

Fast forward to today and the Anthropic Principle, a statistical study of physical constants fine-tuned to an impossible degree.

What is the atheist response? Why there are an INFINITE NUMBER of universes and WE just HAPPEN to be in the *right* one, wink, nudge, giggle.

That and the Quantum Vacuum made everything. This is *science* atheist style.
No basis, no common sense, just semantics and snarks.

Roughly 75% of Nobel Laureates believe in Nature's God. So much for the atheist snark of Christianity and science being mutually exclusive.

http://ProofThereIsNoGod.blogspot.com

Christian god is the same as “nature’s god”?

And you know that Nobel Prizes are given to non-scientists, too, right?

Also, I have known and worked with scientists who are Christian.

 

[bilby]

In decades long since past, atheists giggled that "the universe is so huge, with billions of stars that no intelligent creator would have bothered to waste all that matter and energy just for us."

Fast forward to today and the Anthropic Principle, a statistical study of physical constants fine-tuned to an impossible degree.

What is the atheist response? Why there are an INFINITE NUMBER of universes and WE just HAPPEN to be in the *right* one, wink, nudge, giggle.

That and the Quantum Vacuum made everything. This is *science* atheist style.
No basis, no common sense, just semantics and snarks.

Roughly 75% of Nobel Laureates believe in Nature's God. So much for the atheist snark of Christianity and science being mutually exclusive.

http://ProofThereIsNoGod.blogspot.com

Reality isn't a democracy. If everyone in the entire world believes something that's untrue, that thing remains untrue.

 

[steve_bank]

The hunt for habitable planets may have just gotten far more narrow, new study finds | CNN

In a new study of a world orbiting the most common type of star in universe — a type of system scientists have long theorized could support life — researchers found no indication such a planet could hold onto an atmosphere at all.

www.cnn.com

CNN —

The hunt for planets that could harbor life may have just narrowed dramatically.

Scientists had long hoped and theorized that the most common type of star in our universe — called an M dwarf — could host nearby planets with atmospheres, potentially rich with carbon and perfect for the creation of life. But in a new study of a world orbiting an M dwarf 66 light-years from Earth, researchers found no indication such a planet could hold onto an atmosphere at all.

Without a carbon-rich atmosphere, it’s unlikely a planet would be hospitable to living things. Carbon molecules are, after all, considered the building blocks of life. And the findings don’t bode well for other types of planets orbiting M dwarfs, said study coauthor Michelle Hill, a planetary scientist and a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Riverside.

“The pressure from the star’s radiation is immense, enough to blow a planet’s atmosphere away,” Hill said in a post on the university’s website.

M dwarf stars are known to be volatile, sputtering out solar flares and raining radiation on nearby celestial bodies.

 

[Swammerdami]

Casual writing is generally impossible to decode without a key. That doesn't mean communication is impossible with a scientific mind, though--there is a language in common. Math, physics, and chemistry are common to all species--while the names will obviously differ what they describe will not.
xt in terms of a semantic linkage.

Whales, gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and porpoises are species unfamiliar with physics, math and chemistry. What leads you to believe that IF something is out there, it can even see? Why would you make such a presumption? Why would it be more advanced than we are, and even if it is and can see and understand, you made no mention of turnaround time much less its unfamiliarity with us, our DNA and are particular habits, diseases and problems.
Hundreds of millions of dollars squandered and nobody in that realm has a problem with throwing good money after bad, after all, THIS is what they call *science* and it is super hallowed.

I've never seen the 2006 film of A for Andromeda. Is this it? Such a scenario MIGHT give pause to SETI enthusiasts. (ETA: VERY different iirc from the sci-fi novel I read long long ago.)

As for the billions "wasted" on space exploration and the search for massive bosons — I don't have a problem with that. Society wastes billions appeasing the lusts of NBA and NFL fans; why not let science nerds have some fun too?

 

[Swammerdami]

There are at least three threads here that touch on "Drake's equations" and the chance for life (advanced or otherwise) elsewhere in the universe. I'll pick this thread to bump in order to tout John Gribbin's book The Reason Why: The Miracle of Life on Earth.

I've reported on the book before but made very little reading progress since then. It's one of the books I keep in the car in the bag I take when going alone to coffee-houses. But various other telephone/Net duties always seem more pressing despite the excellence of this book. Initially I'd thought of compiling a List like 40 Reasons (Special Circumstances) that made Land Life on Earth Possible. But that would be impractical: Gribbin presents about a Hundred such reasons or more!

I'll set a much lower goal and just try to summarize the Moon and its relation to the Probability of Life.
What was the chance for a large Moon to develop? The collision that created the Moon was associated with high levels of dust in the solar system; astronomy confirms that high levels of such dust are rare.) He does discuss the elemental mix of the solar system, and the effects of Jupiter's formation near what he calls the "snow line." (The giant planets are separated from the rocky planets at the point where oceans of hydrogen, ammonia etc. boil away.

Gibbin speaks of the three T's (Tilt, Tides, Tectonics) -- reasons why the Moon's creation was essential for advanced life.

The Moon's formation explains why the Earth orbits once every twenty-four hours, while Venus' spin is 243 times slower. The collision which created the Moon imparted spin, initially with 5-hour period. The off-center collision gave a Tilt to the axis of rotation: a perfect tilt to have seasons. And the continued presence of the Moon provides stability to that tilt, according to Gribbin, useful since extreme tilts would cause extreme temperatures at the poles. The moon also gave us our strong magnetic field.

Earth's rotation and the Moon's gravity also lead to Tides (plate tectonics are also needed for this) which helped ocean life to move to land. (Tides may also help cleanse and oxygenate the oceans.)

The young Moon also worked, via tides, to heat the Earth's core. This extra heat had various benefits.

This discussion raises questions: Why does Mars spin as fast as Earth? Mars also has a thin crust. Mars had a strong magnetic fields once; why did it lose it? (Gribbin does address these questions -- a main part of the answer is simply that Mars is smaller and colder.) And, although usually quite strong, from time-to-time Earth's magnetic field diminishes and even reverses. Without the field, cosmic radiation becomes a killer. Do threats like that speed up evolution?)

The collision which created the Moon also provided the Earth with a thin crust and a dense iron-rich core. The thin crust (and water ocean) lead to plate Tectonics and on-going volcanic action as plates move. This is in contrast with Venus: without a strong moon-forming collision it retained a thick crust. Instead of on-going volcanism through a thin crust, Venus undergoes huge magma extrusions once every several hundred million years or so -- extrusions deadly for fragile life.

Gribbin quotes two scientists who say "plate tectonics are the central requirement for life on a planet." Tectonics were necessary both to create surface land and, due to feedbacks of greenhouse gases, for liquid water oceans. The constant roil at plate boundaries drives feedback loops. But there's more! Gribbin points out that plate tectonics -- creating and destroying mountains -- changes habitats, thereby serving as stimulus for Darwinian evolution.

Gribbin goes into more detail that I do. And this summary is limited to the Moon. Gribbin details many other special circumstances.

 

[bilby]

the Earth orbits once every twenty-four hours

Citation needed.

 

[Swammerdami]

the Earth orbits once every twenty-four hours

Citation needed.

No problem. I am pleased to see that you require only a singular citation; it would be a bother to hunt down every scientist and ChatBot to define a consensus.

I will cite Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria, sometimes considered one of the 200 greatest or most important mathematicians who ever lived. His description of the orbits was almost universally accepted for at least 13 centuries until the time of Nikolaus Krebs Cusanus, or rather longer since post-Ptolemy system wasn't widely accepted until the times of Kepler and Galileo. With the Keplerian system less than 4 centuries old, we should award precedence to Ptolemy of Alexandria.

Please also note that the revolutionaries Krebs, Kepler and Galileo were all baptised into the Roman Catholic Church. This is an atheist board and what we know of Ptolemy's religion is summarized at Wikipedia by

Ptolemy affirms the supremacy of mathematical knowledge over other forms of knowledge. Like Aristotle before him, Ptolemy classifies mathematics as a type of theoretical philosophy; however, Ptolemy believes mathematics to be superior to theology or metaphysics because the latter are conjectural while only the former can secure certain knowledge. This view is contrary to the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions, where theology or metaphysics occupied the highest honour.[86] Despite being a minority position among ancient philosophers, Ptolemy's views were shared by other mathematicians such as Hero of Alexandria.

Without bothering with the epicycles and deferents, Ptolemy's description of planetary orbits is simple. Each planet orbits the center-point located at the very center of the entire solar system. The Sun, for example orbits every 365 days at a distance of about 740 million stade; and so on. The Earth orbits the center with a period of 24 hours, with a distance of zero.

I don't think I need a cite that many of the top natural philosophers and physicists regard frames of reference to be relative and I have no problem, especially on this atheist board, treating Ptolemy's system as a substitute for the techno-nerds' insistence on the system proposed by those three Roman Catholics.

I think I'll rest the case here.

 

[lpetrich]

There are at least three threads here that touch on "Drake's equations" and the chance for life (advanced or otherwise) elsewhere in the universe. I'll pick this thread to bump in order to tout John Gribbin's book The Reason Why: The Miracle of Life on Earth.

If I seem uninterested in works like that, that is because of Google Scholar and PubMed and arXiv.org e-Print archive and similar sources.

I'll set a much lower goal and just try to summarize the Moon and its relation to the Probability of Life.
What was the chance for a large Moon to develop? The collision that created the Moon was associated with high levels of dust in the solar system; astronomy confirms that high levels of such dust are rare.)

What sources does he have on that claim? Do such sources discuss the longevity of such dost?

He does discuss the elemental mix of the solar system, and the effects of Jupiter's formation near what he calls the "snow line." (The giant planets are separated from the rocky planets at the point where oceans of hydrogen, ammonia etc. boil away.

That is correct and well-established. A complication is that Jovian planets can move away from where they formed.

Gibbin speaks of the three T's (Tilt, Tides, Tectonics) -- reasons why the Moon's creation was essential for advanced life.

The Moon's formation explains why the Earth orbits once every twenty-four hours, while Venus' spin is 243 times slower. The collision which created the Moon imparted spin, initially with 5-hour period. The off-center collision gave a Tilt to the axis of rotation: a perfect tilt to have seasons. And the continued presence of the Moon provides stability to that tilt, according to Gribbin, useful since extreme tilts would cause extreme temperatures at the poles. The moon also gave us our strong magnetic field.

Only partially correct. Axial tilt does not affect marine life very much, though it does affect freshwater life and land life. Low axial tilt would make very seasonal variation, while high axial tilt would make seasonal variation that is too great at high latitudes.

It is, however, correct that the Moon stabilizes our planet's spin precession, because without it, it would precess at about 1/3 of its current rate, and that would make its precession period close to typical periods in the Earth's orbit precession from perturbations by other planets. That leads to a risk of precession resonances, and a consequence of such resonances is greater amplitude of obliquity variations, like what Mars has. In fact, Mars's obliquity is chaotic over times more than a few tens of millions of years, making it essentially impossible to predict in detail. But if one was to go back in time, one could still predict Mars's obliquity over a few tens of millions of years.

Earth's rotation and the Moon's gravity also lead to Tides (plate tectonics are also needed for this) which helped ocean life to move to land. (Tides may also help cleanse and oxygenate the oceans.)

Needing tides to go onto the land? I believe that to be a big load of bull doo-doo.

Frogs and salamanders are mostly freshwater animals, though Occurrence of Amphibians in Saline Habitats: A Review and Evolutionary Perspective | Herpetological Monographs

Streptophyta - Wikipedia - the algae closest to land plants are all freshwater algae.

Osmoconformer - Wikipedia and Osmoregulation by Vertebrates in Aquatic Environments - Lillywhite - Major Reference Works - Wiley Online Library

Most marine invertebrates have the same salt content inside and out. Among vertebrates, hagfish are the same, but lampreys and jawed vertebrates have about 1/3 the salt content of the oceans. This seems like an adaptation to living in freshwater, to avoid having to excrete excess water. Marine fish have the opposite problem: losing water to the more-salty surrounds. They have two solutions: drinking seawater and excreting salt, and letting their body fluids have lots of urea, acting as a fake salt.

So early fish likely lived in freshwater, and that likely includes the fish that colonized the surrounding land, becoming amphibians.

The young Moon also worked, via tides, to heat the Earth's core. This extra heat had various benefits.

I'd like to see some numbers on t hat.

The collision which created the Moon also provided the Earth with a thin crust and a dense iron-rich core.

???

Gribbin quotes two scientists who say "plate tectonics are the central requirement for life on a planet." Tectonics were necessary both to create surface land and, due to feedbacks of greenhouse gases, for liquid water oceans. The constant roil at plate boundaries drives feedback loops. But there's more! Gribbin points out that plate tectonics -- creating and destroying mountains -- changes habitats, thereby serving as stimulus for Darwinian evolution.

Gribbin goes into more detail that I do. And this summary is limited to the Moon. Gribbin details many other special circumstances.

I don't think that the Earth is as aberrant as that. A good part of its surface geology is from its size. By the square-cube law, being larger means more heat flux from the interior, and thus more geological activity. Venus fits very well, by having lots of volcanic activity, even if it never got plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics isn't necessary for marine life, though it may be convenient for freshwater and land life.

 

[steve_bank]

The Drake equation is speculate not predicative. Based on choice of p;parameters one do a what if analysis.

Lacking a lot of hard data what if analysis is common.

If you go back to the formation of Earth and all the geological and astronomical processed that led to the first organisms and eventual us a lot of things in the causal chain had to happen.

If the asteroid strike that led to the end of dinosaurs humans may never have evolved.

Jupiter gravity has an influence on large objects.

Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet, has a significant influence on the orbital paths of other planets and smaller bodies, including Earth. It acts as a gravitational "bouncer", deflecting comets and asteroids, sometimes towards itself and sometimes away from the inner solar system. While this can be protective, it can also lead to increased impact events on Jupiter itself

Yes, the Moon significantly affects Earth's rotational stability. Without the Moon, Earth's axial tilt would likely fluctuate wildly, causing extreme and unpredictable climate changes. The Moon's gravity acts like a "stabilizer," keeping Earth's tilt within a narrow range, which is crucial for maintaining a relatively stable climate and seasons.

A lot of details leading up to the ecosystem as it is.

Microbial life may be abundant, but walking humanoids with technology is somkething else.