Keeping Mars Earth-free
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
There is actually a good case to be made that life originated on Mars given that it had liquid water on the surface earlier than the Earth.
That seems to be a stretch you might say, but, similarly, Genesis tells a story of the creation of life which isn't wholly incompatible with our scientific understanding. There were stars, planets, life originating in plants while the earth was covered with clouds, finally the stars, sun and moon appeared through the clouds, then animals in the sea evolved, then birds/dinosaurs, then mammals, and finally a mammal called a human.
Even the rib of Adam could be a simple way of telling about the X chromosome, doubled to make the female (double X chromosomes).
Sure, you could say people made up these Bible stories if you want. However, in my mind it closely aligns with current knowledge of science and evolution that it would seem to indicate that humans in the past had some way of knowing past history they'd never experienced.
Perhaps something, likely an intelligent entity, spread life to Mars as a seed, it thrived, but then Mars became an inhospitable place so it was moved to Earth. Then later it came back to tell the story to a human or perhaps even all humans, and that story was relayed from generation to generation.
Occam's razor would suggest this is the best approach
Besides that, it is debatable how to apply it to the question of origins. To some, it is a simpler explanation that an intelligent entity created the universe and life, rather than to think that it happened randomly.
The heavy downvoting of the GP, which was a well-written, thoughtful comment, demonstrates a close-mindedness and refusal to engage with (or even consider) ideas which one disagrees with--a mindset which religious people are typically accused of having. The irony is not lost on all of us.
You could also have a well-written, thoughtful comment about how vaccination is a Government mind-control device - I suspect it would be no more welcome than one suggesting the biblical genesis story contains the truth about chromosomes.
Many of us have engaged with these ideas, found them wanting, found their advocates to be essentially unmoved by reason, and now are happy enough filtering them out.
(I am also happy enough being filtered out, as it happens)
You are also generalizing about advocates of religion. Study history and you will find that there are many, many people throughout history who were very reasonable and also believed in God. In fact, such people are found extensively in the history of all kinds of sciences, including the formation of science itself.
And besides that, whether people who believe a certain thing are reasonable is immaterial to the question of whether what they believe is true. There are both sane and insane people who believe things which are true, as well as reasonable and unreasonable people, friendly and unfriendly, etc.
You are not being reasonable by being so heavily prejudiced against religion. On the contrary, you are actually being unreasonable.
This hypothesis also fits with the C12/C13 enrichment in ancient sedimentary rocks (enrichment in C12/C13 enrichment is a sign of living metabolic systems) almost as soon as water existed on the Earth’s surface - basically life appeared on Earth as soon as it was possible. It could also explain why the last common ancestor of all living cells was so complex - if life originated on Mars and came to Earth later then all the ancestral life would have been left on Mars.
Against the hypothesis that life originated on Mars is the fact that Mars is much smaller than the Earth (the surface area of Mars is about the same as Africa). All things being equal if the conditions for life originating were the same on both planets (at the same time) then we might expect life to be more likely to have originated on Earth.
I hope that, if we do find life on Mars, we are able to discern whether it came from Earth at some point or originated on Mars.
It would be more tricky to determine if life originates from Earth or Mars if we make an assumption that early life went through many iterations.
My best guess is we will find organisms related to microbes on Earth. The really interesting thing is we might find organisms that are more distantly related than the our current last common ancestor. This would be amazing as we would then know that life originated on Mars and came to Earth later.
I bet when we start populating other worlds, they will become Terran for the simple reason that the ecosystem around us is great for supporting us.
Except we suck at supporting it. The idea of humanity terraforming another planet are hilarious, we can't run one that was handed to us running and self-sufficient.
There would certainly be more life on Mars after it was colonized, not less - even if that at first only consists of a few dozen species used to support humans.
Why diverse? Diverse ecosystems are more resilient against shocks, changes and diseases.
The same is true for New Zealand.
I'm not sure what it is about Europeans and Americans where we want to preserve things. If we're going to colonize Mars, contamination will happen, no question. Maybe we'll eradicate everything unique to the planet, but it's inevitable.
If we are going to survive as a species, we'll need peoples who are willing to push forth without pussyfooting.
Sure, it's nice of you want to study pristine environments but I don't think you can maintain the environment pristine once you have humans there in any way.
http://io9.com/kim-stanley-robinson-says-colonizing-mars-won...
The State that launches the spacecraft/crew gets jurisdiction in cases of crime, but Earth governments can't claim celestial bodies (like a patch of Mars) as their sovereign land or setup military bases, etc.
I would say that this goes right out of the window when somebody gains a real military power to actually be able to enforce their ownership on Mars.