Evidence of Alien Life? For Real???

[filkertom]

Probably not. Opinions vary as to how much actual scientific cred the whole thing has. But it's always cool to think about. I, myself, am rooting for Cat Women On The Moon.

Comments

[his-spiffyness.livejournal.com]

Umm.... No (http://io9.com/#!5777919/no-alien-life-was-not-discovered-this-weekend)

It's some bad reporting from Fox News.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I did see that, cited as an update to the story that I linked to. Which is why I said, "Maybe."

[sdelmonte]

If IO9 is doing the debunking, I have to listen. It's a surprisingly solid science site (despite being owned by Gawker).

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Saying "I heard it on Fox News" is like saying "I heard it from a paranoid schizophrenic with Alzheimer's disease."

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I'm ALWAYS rooting for cat women on the moon....

[saganth.livejournal.com]

Space pirate amazon ninja cat women, hopefully!

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I think I'll paste what I posted on a friend's facebook when the news first broke, and the only source anywhere was the Fox News exclusive. Because, well, I think I can stand by my first impressions:

Pardon me if I wait to read it from a more credible source.

First, I'm going to say that with all the new planets being discovered, it seems pretty likely that there is life out there somewhere. And I'm rooting for someone finding something like this, but I'll give you my red flags:

Carbonaceous chondrites are of special interest because they are "undifferentiated," meaning they have never been part of a larger planet that melted and had iron sink to the core, and lighter, common rocks float to the top. Floating about in deep space (where liquid water can't exist without immediately evaporating) seems an unlikely place for Earth-like life (and they seem to be suggesting rather Earth-like life).
There's a possibility of contamination. Unless this is one of those antarctic meteortes (and there is no mention of the history of this meteorite), [OK, since posting this, it turns out it was found as a fresh fall in France in the 1800's] who knows what got inside it--yes there are terrestrial organisms that can live in fractures within rock.
Not to say that this story is bogus, but that I'm not sold on what's on that link, and that seems to be the only source.

Somehow your link doesn't surprise me.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That "Fox News exclusive" wasn't as exclusive as all that.

Here, have a link to the original paper they ripped off.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

A fair bit of cred actually, if you read the original paper in The journal of cosmology instead of the rather duff reporting at Faux news.

Of course, people still won't believe it. It's one of those things where any other topic would be considered with only 10% of the proof, but because it's this subject, it won't be believed even if they had ten times as much evidence.

[skemono.livejournal.com]

A fair bit of cred actually, if you read the original paper in The journal of cosmology

Or not.

[tcgtrf.livejournal.com]

Hell, if PZ don't like it, it's three votes in the theory's favor, as far as I'm concerned. Last I checked he was a somewhat questionable atheist biologist with a loud mouth--not particularly schooled in astrophysics, infrared astronomy, or organic chemistry.

I've always leaned toward Hoyle, the fact that the Universe is twice as old as he thought it was when he first theorized panspermia in the 50s makes it even more likely now.

There's carbon everywhere, it's shot off by dying red giants. Hydrogen is the most common element and oxygen, sulfur, and silicon are made during late-stage fusion in sun-like stars. Add a little bit of phosphorus and nitrogen, stir in habitable zone atmospheres for eight billion years and ten percent of the mass of the galaxy is probably in the form of bacteria. (That would explain some of the missing baryonic dark matter at the same time, as a matter of fact.)

Intelligent life is either extremely rare (one per galaxy average per billion years), hiding, or not present at all (because this is a simulation meant for us). The infra-red and radio data point to a lot of complex chemistry out in the molecular clouds--simple life is very, very likely.

I'd be willing the paper's author is on to something. By the way, don't fall into the scientific fallacy of equating modern peer review with automatic veracity. In any case involving grants, new research is highly discouraged and well-known authors have gotten away with scientific fraud (e.g. the South Koran cloning case).

Tom Trumpinski

[skemono.livejournal.com]

Hell, if PZ don't like it, it's three votes in the theory's favor, as far as I'm concerned.

And as far as I'm concerned, the fact that you are in favor of it is three strikes against the paper.

By the way, don't fall into the scientific fallacy of equating modern peer review with automatic veracity.

I know of no-one believes that. For instance, this "journal" seems to be peer-reviewed, but that doesn't make it credible.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Gentlemen, gentlemen. Evidence. Always evidence. Remember Drummond in Inherit the Wind:

"I must say that ‘Right’ has no meaning to me whatsoever!…Truth has meaning--as a direction. But one of the peculiar imbecilities of our time is the grid of morality we have placed on human behavior; so that every act of man must be measured against an arbitrary latitude of right and longitude of wrong-in exact minutes, seconds, and degrees!"

Don't let personal feelings, engendered (I believe) mostly from fragments of conversations in this here little corner of cyberspace, to get in the way of separating the factual from the non-factual.

If there's nothing to it, there will be nothing to it. If there's something to it... then that's another day.

[pyffe.livejournal.com]

I laughed at this quote. "...that life originated in outer space and simply rained down on Earth.”

Um. Yeah. Because that invisible being reaching down and making man out of a handful of mud sounds so much more credible! Oh... and don't forget him using that rib to make woman...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That's why men lust after women so much! They remind us of barbecue. Or vice versa.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Just remember the cat women bite back.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Not _Amazon_Women_on_the_Moon_?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Amazons or cats, the real trick is to transport some to Mars, which needs them.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Lars, not Mars.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. Mars Needs Women. Lars can fend for himself :-)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Lars doing okay. [thumbs up]

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

How about Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

Wait, your LJ user icon is purple. How do you do that?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[msgeek.livejournal.com]

The little sausage-shaped critters reminds me of "Repo Man" and the radioactive aliens in the trunk.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

I dunno about the validity of this, but I hope it's real. Given a lot of what else is going on lately, I'm increasingly reminded of the Monty Python line "Let's hope there's intelligent life out there in space, 'cause there's bugger-all here on earth."

The idea that we're alone is kinda depressing when you think about it that way.