Monday, July 09, 2007
It's Not All About Us
Interesting developments reported on here suggest that scientists are finally expanding the parameters of their "what would life look like elsewhere" puzzle-solving. The tendency to expect life out there to resemble somewhat the forms we're used to here on Planet Earth are understandable, I guess, considering that's all we know outside of our fertile imaginations. But maybe that gang ought to read more science fiction or comics, because at least there you'll run into more variety than simply "follow the water!"
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2 comments:
I've always thought that those eggheads were moronic to simply, as you put it, "follow the water". But I suppose the flip side to that is it's something that conventional technology can actually trace. They couldn't look for anything that fed of clickety-chonicial-thyferiogus particles if there ain't no instrument to detect it!
I'm sure I've been skewed by my Sci-fi reading/watching, but I have also found this focus on carbon-based, water and oxygen requiring life to be a little narrow. Particularly the oxygen requirements, as oxygen is toxic to many forms of life on this planet - why would it be a requirement for life on other planets. But, like boneman noted, if you don't build a detector for a different life form, you won't find it. Building the right detector requires knowing the form of the new life and we have completed the wonderful circle of paradox.
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