[quote]Stern wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Stern wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
I don’t have a huge problem with your premise but a couple of counterpoints to the above:
Concerning mass extinction events, are we talking climate and asteroid or comet collisions? As for collisions, our planet and solar system are unique in at least two respects that I’m aware of; Jupiter, which actually clean our solar system of many objects that would collide with us and the asteroid belt, which supplies much of that junk. If another solar system supporting life had a similar asteroid belt, it would need a Jupiter type planet to keep it relatively safe. So, two points here: Another planet in another solar system may not necessarily face danger from objects in space and, if it does, it needs a Jupiter.
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Can’t disagree with any of the above. However to your query - there are a few causes of extinctions entirely terrestrial, from the declination of sea-levels to volcanism. I was surprised to discover that it’s been proposed that asteroids have actually caused less mass extinction events than what I had believed. It’s proposed that the last couple of major mass extinctions were actually results of volcanic activity. Of course we’re talking MASSIVE volcanism here - absolutely dwarfing the eruption of 1783. So, asteroids or not - our planet is pretty effecient when it comes to cleansing its surface and mixing things up a bit. I would expect other terra planets to be much the same.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
Next, in terms of climate, there is no evidence that another planet would have to undergo the same climatic fluctuations Earth did. Also, given greater age and evolutionary time, a race could conceivably control or manipulate climate and, certainly protect it’s planet against objects from space (we’re working on that now).
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True. I could say that the older a planet is then the older it’s sun is and of course that brings it’s own peril. We’ve only got another 500-900 million years before we can say goodbye to life on earth and our sun is only 4 and a half billion years old? A race advanced enough could, I guess, conceivably protect itself from certain environmental factors. But, well, yea anything is conceivable. Taking a model similar to Earth we’re looking at multitudes of extinctions, every 30 million years or so (we’re apparently on a lucky streak at the moment) and a habitable planet, provided for by our Sun, for approximately 6 billion years or so. That’s alot of windows for a civilisation to grow, but to an extent where it can leave it’s planet and explore the great beyond?
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
You’re also making a few assumptions about our evolution. Perhaps our DNA was seeded from space, in which case, the blueprint for humanity lies elsewhere in the universe.
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Again true, but I’m coming from a cynical point of view. I would love to believe aliens have been harvesting our planet as some sort of extra-galactic experiment and fucking us up with things like corn or that our dna was carried from a dying Mars on solar winds, but that’s the part of me that enjoys sci-fi and fantasy.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
The above said, I do agree with you that it’s an enormous oversimplification of the odds of life to merely posit that due to the enormity of the universe, life HAS to exist somewhere else. This ignores the tremendous odds against life forming, and the conditions that had to line up just right for life to take hold here is probably billions to one.
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We’re on the same page really.[/quote]
LOL I wasn’t implying the whole harvesting deal, but I think it’s a very real possibility that the building blocks for life were seeded by the one or more of the comets the earth was bombarded with early on. That would make the origin of life “extra-terrestrial”. [/quote]
Hahah, yea I wasn’t implying that’s what you were suggesting ^^
Collisionary theories are certainly interesting though and not entirely implausible when you consider it.
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Collisionary theories are becoming more and more likely as it goes, there was a period when gravitational something or another, caused some of the planets to defer from their orbit by some ridiculously small distance each time they had orbited the sun… Eventually of course this caused a giant collision and the solar system went into a period when every planet was literally bombarded constantly by asteroids, in fact it is said most of the craters on the moon are from that period.
Also it has been put out there that it is very likely that the majority of the water on the earth came from some of these collisions… I’m sure if this is the case they will find out very soon because there are very tell tale signs of a sudden deluge of water.
Anyway I’ll try find out the exact terminology of what I was trying to explain, but it has been some time since I’ve even thought about this stuff! Let alone learned it.
Great thread by the way.
