From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Tue Jan 13 2004 - 11:31:30 MST
Michelle Anderson
> [Pat] NO EXCUSES IŽLL SEND I DO NOT WANT TO BE IN YOUR & ALL OF YOUR
> LIST
>
> [Michelle] Interesting that this actually pissed someone off that
> much...
>
> I hadn't thought about the Bush-related political backside of this, I
> thought he perhaps was just trying to be some glorious Kennedy-like
> inspirational leader and thought he should round it out in science.
> With biological sciences crippled by his outlawing of most stem cell
> research and his pitifully anti-modern social goals, perhaps space was
> the only place left for a clean and non-sinful scientific
breakthrough.
>
>
> The broader point of the article ("is mars ours?") made me think of
how
> difficult it is to protect natural processes. We can't even all agree
> to leave the lake under antarctica alone, even though there is
potential
> that merely sampling its waters could disrupt its alien (to us
mammals)
> life-balance. If there is bacteria in water somewhere on mars, some
> would say that means we should take it as a sign of viability and go
> ahead and transport earth life there to seed. But what about the
unique
> processes that might breed life totally unlike ours on that planet?
>
> So the question to me is not why are we seeing any support for this
from
> such a backward administration but what kind of steps are necessary
for
> truly acceptible evidence that we are not disturbing preexisting
> processes of evolution? What odds are good enough that we're not
> destroying a potential intelligence with a right to evolve? Or is
that
> ridiculous, do humans belong everywhere we can exist no matter what?
[Blunderov]
Hi Michelle. Happy New year.
If you are right, Bush may have misappraised the ramifications of any
discovery that life existed on a different planet than ours.
Then again, maybe not - theology has probably survived worse in it's
time.
With regard to "evidence that we are not disturbing preexisting
processes of evolution" I have to wonder whether human intervention
could not itself qualify as a preexisting process of evolution? And
whether this thought is not an instance of that age old tendency of
humans to see ourselves as somehow separate from the rest of the
universe?
As in so much else, it seems to be a bit arbitrary as to quite where the
line in the sand should be drawn.
Also, it seems to me that your concern with whether "we're not
destroying a potential intelligence with a right to evolve" is similar
to the central question of the abortion issue. Possibly you would take a
similar stance on both these issues?
Best Regards
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