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This seems silly. Phosphorous not being required for life seems obvious to me: ok, maybe it's believed to be used in all Earth-originated, carbon-based life, b
by frisco 16y ago
This seems silly. Phosphorous not being required for life seems obvious to me: ok, maybe it's believed to be used in all Earth-originated, carbon-based life, but why would we believe a priori that it's an absolutely necessary component of any biological life anywhere (which seems to be what's implied by NASA and the relation of this to exobiology)? If we develop silicon-based artificial intelligence (how do you define life, anyway? That matters when you're talking about astrobiology), would we run a headline, "Researchers prove carbon not required for life"?
I've always thought the scientific community stated that alien life may use a totally different biochemistry from us?
Edit: so, in some senses this is like P!=NP being proven, except less important, since it's only one component (phosphorus). It's scientifically a big deal but doesn't change the world because it's largely what we've always expected (the metaphor breaks down that this doesn't have the major secondary consequences like N=NP would).
- davidsiems 16y agohttp://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/
- frisco 16y agoI don't think this is hindsight bias though. As a scientist (not in biochemistry or astrobiology, though) I understand this had to be specifically shown, but this is one of those things that most people I talk to and I have always just casually treated as obvious. The confirmation is important scientifically, but shouldn't change our viewpoint, since it's what we've always expected. Am I wrong here? Any computational biologists or biochemists want to tell me this wasn't expected at all?
- varjag 16y agoYou can argue that possibility of alien life is also quite a common idea. Yet a confirmation of that would be considered a major scientific breakthrough.
- frisco 16y agoYes, I agree here. Slightly stronger because though the possibility of alien life is entertained, it's not necessarily the common viewpoint that its widespread and will eventually be found in droves (like I see non-carbon based life). On the other hand, I expect fully us to be looking back several hundred years from now wondering how we could have ever thought we were the along lifeform in the universe. But a major scientific accomplishment it will be when it's first discovered, for sure.
- flogic 16y agoSpeaking without any domain knowledge, I think it has to do with "what can support the complexity required for life?". I would think it requires molecules that can do interesting things while at the same time survive their environment long enough to do those things.
- frisco 16y agoIt has to do with electronegativity and number of free electrons. Both phosphorous and arsenic can make three bonds, and arsenic is only very slightly less electronegative than phosphorous.
- flogic 16y agoI thought free electrons might have something to do with it, but I'm making do with an only slightly better than high school education in chemistry here.
- bad_user 16y ago> Phosphorous not being required for life seems obvious to me It hasn't been noticed or proved, and conclusions drawn from actual science have a tendency to disprove common sense once in a while, which makes any actual discovery worthwhile.
- InclinedPlane 16y agoObvious, yes (which is why people have been looking for examples). Proven, no, not until now. That's why this is important.
- archgoon 16y agoSuppose Monopoles were discovered. Nothing really rules out their existence, Gauss's Law for magnetism is just an assertion that we've never seen a monopole, it's possible to patch up maxwell's equations to get monopoles. To some people, the existence of monopoles is 'obvious'. It would still be a very big deal if monopoles were to be discovered, even in trace amounts, and no feasible way to make more of them.