Please don't tell me they've been this limited....

[j d worthington]

Look for life not as we know it, U.S. report urges - Yahoo! News

Title: "Look for life not as we know it, U.S. report urges", from Reuters, by Maggie Fox, datelined Fri., Jul. 6, 2007. (And yes, it's the headline I was referring to....)

 

[dustinzgirl]

Well, I think it stems from the idea of seeking like life out there, basically in early space they needed a way to categorize and make it understandable to politicians.......the only way to do that is to make life like life, so to speak. Now JD, isn't there a book about life forms that were amonia rather than water based, or am I confused?

 

[j d worthington]

Now JD, isn't there a book about life forms that were amonia rather than water based, or am I confused?

I've seen speculations on such now and again -- gaseous in general, rather than ammonia in particular (not sure about ammonia's conductivity, which would be necessary for impulses from one part of the entity to another for movement, etc., let alone thought. However, the problem with that is something that was raised nearly a century ago... we'd be talking about "gaseous vertebrates", in a sense; complex organisms would almost certainly need to have some form of skeletal or exoskeletal system to protect any ganglia, which in turn would likely be necessary for it to function as an organism, the way I understand it.....

However, I'd like to see more of their thoughts on this, and see if there's a genuine indication that more complex forms of life might be able to exist and function without such....

 

[HoopyFrood]

I could've told them this ages ago, I've always held the idea that water doesn't need to be the basis for every type of life that might be sprouting up in the universe. I know that it's probably easier for scientists, with a whole universe to search, to look for planets with water, as it's been a somewhat success venture here on earth! But like the article says, they could be missing out on some very interesting lifeforms.

I can remember I had a long argument with a friend about this, who said life wasn't possible without water. I told him to start thinking outside the box, heh. Mind you, he's a science-y, methodical-thinking type whereas I tend to think in loops and swirls

 

[Birol]

I don't think it's a matter of them not thinking outside the box, but a matter of seeking what they are able to identify and classify. Scientists can make all the hypothesis they want about life being able to exist on gas giants, but without some way to test the hypothesis -- the ability to travel to the planet and collect samples for further evaluation -- the hypothesis does not have much scientific value. In order to fund their research, they must be able to validate it, and that means they have to be able to test it. You can't test something you can't identify.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Heh, I was only telling my friend he needed to do so; he was adamant that life could not exist without water anywhere and wouldn't accept the slightest possibility that life could be created from other elements. But just because that's how it's happened here on Earth doesn't mean that that is the rule for the entire universe. But I appreciate, as I said above, that it's much easier to start out looking for the things that we know are likely to produce life. Still, it would be very interesting to see what type of lifeforms are could exist on gaseous planets and etc...although really it would be interesting just to come across any kind of life out there!