There’s been a big claim of a marker of life, known as a biosignature, found using JWST in the atmosphere of an exoplanet known as K2-18b. The data also confirmed this planet was a “Hycean” world, a planet with a liquid water ocean surrounded by a hydrogen dominated atmosphere. The biosignature that’s claimed to have been found is dimethyl sulphide, a molecule that on Earth is mostly produced by phytoplankton.
Dr. Becky
@corlin I love her but all astrophysics folks will always deny signs of life. Let's talk to an astrobiologist... AND IMO a confluence of data is better than requiring that each item ONLY be created by life on Earth.
@TrueBloodNet @corlin I'm not an astrobiologist but the fact this planet orbits a red dwarf is immediately disqualifying for life.
Also, there are 13 habitable zones. Liquid water is only one of them. Liquid water is necessary but insufficient on its own to support life. BTW, water might be the most common compound in the entire universe. Comets are basically dirty snowballs.
@danielbsmith @corlin You might have stopped with, "I'm not an astrobiologist'.
Orbiting a red dwarf is NOT disqualifying. It does present some issue but your absolutism is unsupportable.
As I understand it Red Dwarf stars could only host life bearing planets if they are very old, and have settled down. Young Red Dwarf stars produce huge amounts of UV radiation. That can fluctuate wildly over a matter of days or weeks.By 4 or 5 orders of magnitude.
So old RD, maybe, Young one, no chance.
@corlin @TrueBloodNet Old is out too since life takes time. At some point that life would have been on the planet when the star was young. Changes in the luminosity of the star over time are also problematic. Space travel poses it's own challenges. At best we're talking bacterial life. They don't build spaceships.
@danielbsmith @corlin LOL No one was talking about space traveling life forms. Are you an AI bot and/or is English not your primary language? If the latter, I don't want to judge you on your unproven statements.
@TrueBloodNet @corlin LOL yourself. No, I just know what the odds actually are for life to exist anywhere in the entire universe and they're not good. I have a pinned thread on this.
@TrueBloodNet @corlin For the record I'm an Old Earth Creationist (OEC) not a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) which is pseudoscience. Yes, there are different flavors of it, at least these 4:
* Young Earth Creationism (YEC)
* Old Earth Creationism (OEC)
* Theistic Evolution
* Intellectual Design (ID)
Only YEC pushes pseudoscience. I believe in real science such as the universe being about 14 billion years old but I'm skeptical that evolution has any creative power.
@danielbsmith @TrueBloodNet @corlin Does that mean you do not believe in epigenetics?
@MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin Gene expression is real. Are there people that have a problem with it?
@danielbsmith @TrueBloodNet @corlin No I was wondering because in my mind it tends to be compelling evidence for evolution in an offhand way. Generations after severe trauma experience impacts from those before them. I believe it has to do with changes in the telomeres but it's out of my wheelhouse. Additionally, I don't think evolution negates a higher power either.
@MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin I split evolution and into two camps: those affecting existing life which all function in a regulatory capacity and those that create new life. All of our evidence for evolution comes from the former.
The attached video explains this better than I can. It's 9 minutes long. Start at 7:38 for the Cliff's Notes version. The speaker is Dr. Fuz Rana who is a Christian and also a PhD biochemist.
@MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin As an Old Earth Creationist (OEC) I think God created life directly. Proponents of Theistic Evolution believe God used evolution to create life so I think you would be happy among their ranks. If this is what happened I would be OK with it but I doubt this could be proven. These two views are very close and highly compatible. I think the evidence for direct action is stronger though and more in keeping with the personality of the God of the Bible.
@danielbsmith @MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin Evolution doesn't create new life per se - as in it can't cause abiogenesis - but it can result in a new species via a long series of incremental changes, just like a long series of incremental changes to a machine can change it into something completely different (a la Ship of Theseus).
The best compatibilist perspective would be that your deity was directly responsible for the initial abiogenesis, then evolution took over from there.
@danielbsmith @MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin Spontaneous abiogenesis is still a controversial topic in the scientific community, so that perspective doesn't trod over any accepted science (provided things haven't changed since I last looked into it in depth), and it would make the "created life" bit true.
It's just that the life so created would be an extremely simple single-cellular organism - likely even simpler than archaea - then it all spirals from there.
@IrelandTorin @MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin Don't play the semantics game. If you really believe that evolution can't create new life then you would be a creationist because we're here and it's the only other game in town.
@IrelandTorin @MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin That said, I'm ok with this part:
"The best compatibilist perspective would be that your deity was directly responsible for the initial abiogenesis, then evolution took over from there."
I don't think that's how it happened but I would be ok with it. That view is the Theistic Evolution position.
@danielbsmith @MidnightRider @TrueBloodNet @corlin Well, from my perspective, a new species isn't new life - it's just a variation on something that already existed 😁
Abiogenesis, on the other hand, creates new life by definition; there is no perspective from which it does not.
The circularity was the fun part - suffice to say I put it there on purpose :P
@danielbsmith @TrueBloodNet @corlin I see the subject this way: evolution or any other line item is not a go/ no go on whether a spiritual collective of souls and a god force of many names exists.