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There's no reason to assume that we are currently working with a single independent abiogenesis point on this planet, that is one plausible hypothesis among man

by jboggan 13y ago

There's no reason to assume that we are currently working with a single independent abiogenesis point on this planet, that is one plausible hypothesis among many and not one I particularly favor. I am particularly interested in biology, enough to know that the chances of an Earth-adapted microbe or lichen running roughshod over any Mars-adapted life are roughly on the order of the LHC spawning a black hole when it was switched on. Analogies to organisms crossing between the continents and human populations of Earth (which you have not made but several posters have) are incredibly far off the mark. Whatever life has tenuously held to Mars, if it exists, will not be disturbed by our minuscule presence, and it will be sufficiently novel at the biochemical and sequence (will it even have sequences?) level to be readily recognizable, even if it is cultured from the 22nd equivalent of a Starbucks parking lot on Olympus Mons.

Crito 13y ago
The life that we have available to study on earth right now has a common ancestor. There may have been multiple abiogenesis events, but life on earth stemming from other abiogenesis events has either died out, merged so as to be functionally indistinguishable, or has not been discovered. I am unaware of anyone working in biology under other models. I suspect, as you do, that any Martian life will likely be recognizable as "life". The long term fear is of course that either things from earth will eat all of it, or it will eat everything from earth (that's less of a concern since quarantine in that direction is pretty easy). The short term is what we really need to be concerned about though. In the short term, the concern is that Martian life will be mistaken or written off as life from Earth. This problem is exacerbated when we consider that the life on Mars that we are looking for could be former Earth life that hitched a ride on some rocks millions or billions of years ago. If we scoop up some Martian soil and find a few rather prokaryote-ish looking things bopping around in it, then exactly what we have just found becomes very hard to determine if our spacecraft was not sterile. Did it just find an example of convergent abiogenesis and evolution? Evidence of panspermia? Or did somebody in the assembly building sneeze on the scoop?
- r0muald 13y ago
  "Quarantine in that direction is pretty easy" Until unrecognized Martian life jumps onto your happy home-bound spacecraft and starts colonising Earth. We can't even make sure recognised life from Earth is wiped from spacecraft...

by jboggan 13y ago

Crito 13y ago

The life that we have available to study on earth right now has a common ancestor. There may have been multiple abiogenesis events, but life on earth stemming from other abiogenesis events has either died out, merged so as to be functionally indistinguishable, or has not been discovered. I am unaware of anyone working in biology under other models. I suspect, as you do, that any Martian life will likely be recognizable as "life". The long term fear is of course that either things from earth will eat all of it, or it will eat everything from earth (that's less of a concern since quarantine in that direction is pretty easy). The short term is what we really need to be concerned about though. In the short term, the concern is that Martian life will be mistaken or written off as life from Earth. This problem is exacerbated when we consider that the life on Mars that we are looking for could be former Earth life that hitched a ride on some rocks millions or billions of years ago. If we scoop up some Martian soil and find a few rather prokaryote-ish looking things bopping around in it, then exactly what we have just found becomes very hard to determine if our spacecraft was not sterile. Did it just find an example of convergent abiogenesis and evolution? Evidence of panspermia? Or did somebody in the assembly building sneeze on the scoop?

r0muald 13y ago
"Quarantine in that direction is pretty easy" Until unrecognized Martian life jumps onto your happy home-bound spacecraft and starts colonising Earth. We can't even make sure recognised life from Earth is wiped from spacecraft...