One of the main goals of this expensive venture is to search the dry surface for areas that once contained water for evidence of extinct Martian life forms. You probably are not aware of this but our scientist really have no idea how life actually started on Earth. It must have required water since water is the universal solvent but all theories on how something as complex as the most basic DNA chain could have formed by chance hold about as much water as is visible on the surface of Mars.
If you don't see life spontaneously form around you, if you can't combine the right materials to do so in the lab, if you don't have a reason that long DNA chains would form in the first place, then perhaps a stray Martian meteor infused with life might hold the answer. Ray Bradbury would be proud. This may be - Instant Recall 1, 2 and 3 - My Favorite Martian, rated R - "ACK! ACK! We come in peace. ZAP!"
In honor of man's latest, greatest achievement I have re-posted below an article I wrote some years ago.
I love big numbers although I can barely comprehend them. For example,
light from the Sun can get to the Earth in less than 10 minutes. But if
you had a spaceship that only traveled as fast as the car in your
garage and started heading for the Sun today, neither you nor the kids
that you brought along for the ride would live long enough to get there.
The Sun is 93 million miles away so you do the math.
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Yet if you wanted to travel to the next nearest star with a possibility of a planet suitable for life, and could travel at the speed of light, it would take you something like 20 years to get there. Well, except for one little problem. A few nuclear fuel rods allow a large submarine to go for a year without refueling. But if all the atoms present in the entire Earth were split there still would not be enough energy produced to enable that same little spaceship to obtain light speed. Or let me put it this way. UFO's do not come from beyond our solar system.
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Yet if you wanted to travel to the next nearest star with a possibility of a planet suitable for life, and could travel at the speed of light, it would take you something like 20 years to get there. Well, except for one little problem. A few nuclear fuel rods allow a large submarine to go for a year without refueling. But if all the atoms present in the entire Earth were split there still would not be enough energy produced to enable that same little spaceship to obtain light speed. Or let me put it this way. UFO's do not come from beyond our solar system.
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So I checked out
star formation on Google. Seems that
Hubble has identified a lot of "star birthing areas", visible only with
infrared scanners, and these have great "potential" to form lots of new
stars, although the last new star identified for sure was birthed 1000
years ago. But not to worry, it's a little telescope and a very big
universe. So what's 20 million per second among friends?
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We
are told that the Earth began forming about 4 billion years ago, and
that conditions for life were not present until about 400 million years
ago. Now 400 million years is a lot of time, but not enough to program
by trial and error the 3 million links of genetic code needed for the
most basic initial life form. Even if chance could provide the first 100
links, why would links be added year after year after
year, when those links would not benefit the potential life form until a
million years later?
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The same argument applies to the latest idea that
there might have been millions of shorter RNA links floating around.
Where is the evidence? What is the purpose of their existence? What would cause more than a few
links to combine over any amount of time?
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I think the DNA of
all life is already programmed to allow for variation up to certain
limits. But check out sources such as the National Geographic edition on
evolution, or evolution web sites and still you will not
find any evidence presented that shows gradual development of new features over
time.
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Anthropologist can chart extinct species and suggest that one led
to the next. But the fossil record is absent of uniqueness in
development. You might find a small dinosaur fossil with wings, and if
that is an actual fossil then it's an already done deal. We simply do not
have evidence of wings in the process of being developed over time. Nor do we find
in any species of animal, plant or insect existing today new features
in the process of development. Maybe we should actually call modern evolutionary science, "faith based
science".
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So is the
universe really 14 billion years old, beginning with a big bang? Did
life begin 400 million years ago? Have the ancestors of modern man been
walking around this planet for 100,000 years? The search to understand
the ever increasing flood of knowledge is both exciting and important.
But Christians need to learn how to properly balance what science tells us and
what scripture teaches.
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Science looks at material evidence and
interprets everything mechanically and mathematically. It looks at only
the material world and cannot measure or comprehend the spiritual
world. And science is limited by two biases.
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The first is that because it
cannot measure the spiritual, it then denies it. I personally believe there
are physics that govern both, perhaps the same physics. If so then
the non spiritual man's glass will always be half empty in understanding the universe. Finding one "God particle" will only lead to the next unknown. Would the search to understand more still have happened if science did not exclude the spiritual? Men like Isaac Newton stand as a testament that states otherwise.
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And the second is that because
everything is regarded mechanically science is most comfortable with a
uniformest view of time. This measures the pace that things happen at
today and the conditions that are known today and then applies that
pace and condition when looking backward. So an earth-shaking event like a universal flood is ignored, not because of the lack of a tremendous amount of
evidence, but because that very idea comes from non scientific books and thus would be "introducing religion into science".
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There is going to be bias in play as well when using scripture as a guide to interpret science. Christians need to seek the leading of
the Holy Spirit to help understand and discern what is written and
what is taught. If there is a conflict between what God says in
scripture and what science says, then God is always right.
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But if a verse talks about the "four corners of
the earth" we can understand the truth in that statement without
having to believe that the earth is flat. Scripture talks about the sin
of Adam and Eve, and believing that Adam and Eve were real people is
critical to understanding God's plan of redemption for man. Putting a
time frame on when Adam lived, and when "God created the heavens and the earth",
is a matter of interpretation.
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Science may lead us to better examine certain sections of scripture, and it could be very wrong in its interpretation of evidence. However, the tools we use to help us understand scripture, such as teachings, and commentaries, and books, may or may not be inspired. Honest people can look at scripture literally, and consider scriptural evidence as a whole, and still have areas of disagreement.
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Science may lead us to better examine certain sections of scripture, and it could be very wrong in its interpretation of evidence. However, the tools we use to help us understand scripture, such as teachings, and commentaries, and books, may or may not be inspired. Honest people can look at scripture literally, and consider scriptural evidence as a whole, and still have areas of disagreement.
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Unfortunately
the overall tendency in the church today is to try to conform scripture
to current scientific and cultural information and standards. There is
an evolutionary flavor being injected into the teaching of redemption and
morals. It denies the authenticity of people and events in the Old
Testament and transforms a Spirit-breathed, Spirit-reborn relationship
with the Creator of the universe into a values-changing,
society-conforming philosophy left by an evolved grand master. But this
has been true even from the time of the apostle Peter.
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"Mockers say, all
continues just as it was from the beginning of creation . . . When they
maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the
heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by
water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, flooded with
water. But the present heavens and earth by His word are being reserved
for fire, kept for the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men .
. . Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort
of people should you be in holy conduct and godliness . . . But
according to His promise we are looking for a new heavens and a new
earth, in which righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3)
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