Clowning around with Paul Gans on interstellar travel

[pnyikos]

I think every regular here knows that Paul Gans loves to clown
around. This reply to him is one of the rare places where I join in
the fun.

The subject is a serious one, unmanned interstellar probes. I have
explained elsewhere how it is on-topic, by being relevant to the
question of how life *on earth* got started.

And, truth to tell, I thought Gans (whom I am addressing below) was
being serious in the exchange you see below, until something he posted
tipped his hand.

Subject: Re: FAQ on Directed Panspermia, Sections ABCD

On Feb 14, 9:55 pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >On Feb 12, 12:36?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> >> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

We had been talking about Project Daedalus, one solution to the
problem of getting probes going at a sizable fraction of light
velocity. It involves controlled fusion of a kind that has not been
mastered yet. It is this that we were referring when you wrote:

> >> >> ?Why not admit that this
> >> >> part of your panspermy dream has not yet found a satisfactory
> >> >> solution.
> >> >Not yet, granted. But there's always Project Orion.
>
> >> No, there isn't. That was a hypothetical from many many years
> >> back. The glaring problems are obvious.
> >Nuclear test ban treaty is all I know of.
>
> Which is exactly why you should tread very carefully in
> areas such as this.

Gosh, Paul, do you really think the test ban treaty is so sacrosanct
that it cannot be suspended for peaceful uses as noble as a probe to
other planetary systems? or deflecting asteroids like the one that
gave us a near miss just the other day?

[snip]

> >I'm calling your bluff. Give me some *intrinsic* problems.
>
> I did. I'll repeat another: controlled fusion does not work.
> It may never work at small scales.

I see you think that successively exploding numerous hydrogen bombs a
safe distance behind a spacecraft, in order to bring it to 1/30th of
the speed of light (which is what Project Orion was all about) is an
example of controlled fusion.

Well, I suppose you might say it is, in a way. After all, the timing
of the very first tested H-bomb was carefully controlled to a mere
fraction of a second.

Then too, the casing of the bomb was carefully controlled. Had it
been made of cobalt instead of steel, millions of people might have
been killed by the fallout.

Also, the amount of deuterium and tritium used had to be carefully
controlled, otherwise the _Life_ photographer whose pictures were
extensively used in one issue might have been blasted to smithereens.

Anyway, we now know just why YOU think the saying "Controlled fusion
is fifty years away and always will be" is a joke.

It is because you think it is *more* than fifty years in the *past*.

:-)

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

I'm sorry once more. If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs
out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
time, you really ought to think again.

A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
"seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
of carefully focussed lasers.

Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
within 40 years of any date you pick.

And there are enormous problems with that, not including the fact
that we can't make it work. What happens when one of the lasers
stops functioning?

>Well, I suppose you might say it is, in a way. After all, the timing
>of the very first tested H-bomb was carefully controlled to a mere
>fraction of a second.

That's not good enough. You likely can't build a ship that can
carry 100,000 good sized fully fused hydrogen bombs. And nobody
has ever SERIOUSLY suggested that.

>Then too, the casing of the bomb was carefully controlled. Had it
>been made of cobalt instead of steel, millions of people might have
>been killed by the fallout.

Yes sir! Bad thing that.

>Also, the amount of deuterium and tritium used had to be carefully
>controlled, otherwise the _Life_ photographer whose pictures were
>extensively used in one issue might have been blasted to smithereens.

One last thing: controlled fusion does NOT mean the explosion
of full hydrogen bombs that would vaporize any containment
chamber. It means the ignition of carefully crafted fuel pellets
by some means, likely laser implosion, inside a magnetic field
carefully crafted to contain the resultant energy in such a way
that useful work could be extracted from it.

>Anyway, we now know just why YOU think the saying "Controlled fusion
>is fifty years away and always will be" is a joke.

>It is because you think it is *more* than fifty years in the *past*.

Oh Peter, that's a thigh-slapper. A really funny one!

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[pnyikos]

I do believe everything people see here so far consisted of clowning
by you, Paul, and serious talk by me. [I know I was serious.] Below,
I switched to clowning myself, but the bit you see below about what
Project Orion was about, is completely factual.

Also, some of my clowning around below will still be getting serious
points across, if you look at it in the right way..

> >I see you think that successively exploding numerous hydrogen bombs a
> >safe distance behind a spacecraft, in order to bring it to 1/30th of
> >the speed of light (which is what Project Orion was all about) is an
> >example of controlled fusion.

Freeman Dyson wrote a bit about the original Project Orion, but he
mostly talked about using the spacecraft for interstellar voyages
instead of voyages to the outer solar system, as Orion was originally
intended, in:

"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.

OK, now back to clowning around.

> I'm sorry once more.

You're clowning, aren't you, Paul? Why would you ever be sorry for
anything you do in talk.origins?

> �If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs

> out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
> position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
> time, you really ought to think again.

Do you often confuse me with people like Freeman Dyson? What accounts
for this fixation of yours?

> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
> of carefully focussed lasers.

You're getting the hang of Project Daedalus, but you might want to
read up some more on it to get a few bugs out. But then, I suppose it
is more fun for you to just play things by ear.

> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
> within 40 years of any date you pick.

Before or after?

> And there are enormous problems with that, not including the fact
> that we can't make it work. �What happens when one of the lasers
> stops functioning?

You pray, if you aren't an atheist of the non-foxhole variety.

> >Well, I suppose you might say it is, in a way. �After all, the timing
> >of the very first tested H-bomb was carefully controlled to a mere
> >fraction of a second.
>
> That's not good enough. �You likely can't build a ship that can
> carry 100,000 good sized fully fused hydrogen bombs. � And nobody
> has ever SERIOUSLY suggested that.

I'll let Freeman Dyson do the talking for a little while.

"The numerical details of the abandoned Orion project are still
secret, but the general principles of nuclear propulsion can show us
what can be achieved in the long run.
...
"I do not know exactly how efficient hydrogen bombs are, and if I did
know I would not tell you. So I will put upper and lower limits on the
numbers we are not supposed to know exactly." [*ibid*]

Dyson then gives upper and lower limits for debris velocity and
exhaust velocity, but...hey, as innumerable smart alecs say at this
point:

Why should I do your research for you?

Here, I'll save you the trouble of getting the Dyson article by
interlibrary loan. He figures 3*10^5 bombs for an interstellar
manned mission. Now get someone else to put that in notation in a
form that is intelligible to you and tell our readers how that
compares with the figure of 100,000 you gave above. I'm tired of
spoon-feeding you.

Once you've done that, we can talk about how that can be scaled down
for a panspermia mission delivering one ton of prokaryotes.

[small snip]

> >Also, the amount of deuterium and tritium used had to be carefully
> >controlled, otherwise the _Life_ photographer whose pictures were
> >extensively used in one issue might have been blasted to smithereens.
>
> One last thing: �controlled fusion does NOT mean the explosion
> of full hydrogen bombs that would vaporize any containment
> chamber.

Then why did you bring it up in connection with Orion? You were
trying to set me up for stages 2 and 3 of another one of your famous
three-stage jokes, weren't you? You know, like the one where stage 1
consisted of connecting microbes in a funny way to building and
"manning" starships?

If so, I apologize for aborting your mission right at the end of the
first stage.

[snip reprise of controlling fusion to meet the energy needs of *Homo
sapiens sapiens.*]

> >Anyway, we now know just why YOU think the saying "Controlled fusion
> >is fifty years away and always will be" is a joke.
> >It is because you think it is *more* than fifty years in the *past*.
>
> Oh Peter, that's a thigh-slapper. �A really funny one!

Did I get you to slap your other thigh this time?

Or your forehead?

Peter Nyikos

[John Bode]

On Monday, February 18, 2013 7:05:54 PM UTC-6, Paul J Gans wrote:
> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>

[snip]

> I'm sorry once more. If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs
> out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
> position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
> time, you really ought to think again.

It is a lot of moving parts, and they'd be moving over a long
period of time in a thermally hostile environment. I've seen some
discussion of what would happen with the pusher plate in the event
of a dud and how to mitigate the damage from that. Having said that,
I don't think the engineering is insurmountable, just bloody difficult
compared to building something like a VASIMR.

And that's just the propulsion end; nobody talks about the habitat
end, which has non-trivial engineering challenges of its own.

The issues *I* worry about are gathering and securing all that
fissionable material in one place, and actually launching the bastard.
I've seen proposals to use SRBs or other types of boosters to lift a
fully-assembled spacecraft out of the atmosphere, at which point it
would go nuclear, which is silly. That's like using a bunch of
go-karts to push a monster truck.

The other alternative is to launch it in pieces (including the pulse
units, aka boom-booms) using a heavy lifter like the SLS and assemble in
orbit. Which is less silly than launching the whole thing with a bunch
of SRBs, but still somewhat silly. The whole *point* of the Orion concept
is that it has massive thrust *plus* ridiculously high specific impulse,
so ideally it should launch under its own power.

But, you know, nukes. Low-yield, not-horrible-fallout, but still...nukes.

>
> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
> of carefully focussed lasers.
>
> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
> within 40 years of any date you pick.
>

Yup. We've been working this problem since the Fifties. In that time
we've built dozens of nuclear plants, yet no working fusion plants.
We can do it on small scales for short periods, but not for practical
power generation, and it's not for lack of trying.

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

If the body of this is too tedious to read (it is insult free),
just skip to the bottom of the posting for the key point.

[much deleted as this post is way too long.]

>> >> I did. ?I'll repeat another: ?controlled fusion does not work.

>> >> It may never work at small scales.

>I do believe everything people see here so far consisted of clowning
>by you, Paul, and serious talk by me. [I know I was serious.] Below,
>I switched to clowning myself, but the bit you see below about what
>Project Orion was about, is completely factual.

I note, almost for the last time, that you refuse to discuss
my objections. Controlled fusion means fusion generated in
a confinement chamber of some sort and ignited by laser beams
or some such. It doesn't work now. It has not worked in the
past, and the best estimates are that it will be at least 40
years before it does work, if it ever does, which is not certain.

And that's the definition I'm using.

Note that this does NOT include hydrogen bombs that consist
of fuel and their own ignition apparatus. The resulting
explosion is in no sense controlled.

>Also, some of my clowning around below will still be getting serious
>points across, if you look at it in the right way..

I'm sorry, but accusing me of clowning to avoid answering
questions won't work.

And you don't even have to answer them. I bring them up
because you (incorrectly) claimed that I'd never proposed
any real objections.

>> >I see you think that successively exploding numerous hydrogen bombs a
>> >safe distance behind a spacecraft, in order to bring it to 1/30th of
>> >the speed of light (which is what Project Orion was all about) is an
>> >example of controlled fusion.

No, it isn't. In what sense is it controlled? That's a bomb.
It is called a bomb for good and sufficient reasons.

>Freeman Dyson wrote a bit about the original Project Orion, but he
>mostly talked about using the spacecraft for interstellar voyages
>instead of voyages to the outer solar system, as Orion was originally
>intended, in:

>"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.

I read the article back in 1968. I noted the spirit in which it
was offered. In it he hoped to start some serious investigation
of the possibility of using nuclear propulsion. In that regard
it worked and a number of studies were done. Then the subject
was dropped. Do you have any guess as to why?

>OK, now back to clowning around.

>> I'm sorry once more.

>You're clowning, aren't you, Paul? Why would you ever be sorry for
>anything you do in talk.origins?

The fact that you think I'm clowning is worrisome. I'm not
a psychologist and won't diagnose anything, but you seem to
be unable to take my criticism seriously. Is that because
you are too emotionally involved in your panspermia notion.

>> ?If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs

>> out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
>> position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
>> time, you really ought to think again.

>Do you often confuse me with people like Freeman Dyson? What accounts
>for this fixation of yours?

Well, do you?

>> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
>> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
>> of carefully focussed lasers.

>You're getting the hang of Project Daedalus, but you might want to
>read up some more on it to get a few bugs out. But then, I suppose it
>is more fun for you to just play things by ear.

I don't need to. Remember back a few posts I raised the question
of what happens when one of the lasers burns out. Do you send
an intelligent microbe out to fix it? Or are you carrying robots
with jetpacks.

By the way, in such a scheme the structures supporting the lasers
quickly become rather radioactive -- a little appreciated point
in controlled fusion.

>> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
>> within 40 years of any date you pick.

>Before or after?

Your choice.

>> And there are enormous problems with that, not including the fact

>> that we can't make it work. ?What happens when one of the lasers

>> stops functioning?

>You pray, if you aren't an atheist of the non-foxhole variety.

So you expect this device to function without failure for hundreds
of years on an interstellar seed ship?

>> >Well, I suppose you might say it is, in a way. ?After all, the timing

>> >of the very first tested H-bomb was carefully controlled to a mere
>> >fraction of a second.
>>

>> That's not good enough. ?You likely can't build a ship that can
>> carry 100,000 good sized fully fused hydrogen bombs. ? And nobody

>> has ever SERIOUSLY suggested that.

>I'll let Freeman Dyson do the talking for a little while.

>"The numerical details of the abandoned Orion project are still
>secret, but the general principles of nuclear propulsion can show us
>what can be achieved in the long run.
>...
>"I do not know exactly how efficient hydrogen bombs are, and if I did
>know I would not tell you. So I will put upper and lower limits on the
>numbers we are not supposed to know exactly." [*ibid*]

>Dyson then gives upper and lower limits for debris velocity and
>exhaust velocity, but...hey, as innumerable smart alecs say at this
>point:

> Why should I do your research for you?

>Here, I'll save you the trouble of getting the Dyson article by
>interlibrary loan. He figures 3*10^5 bombs for an interstellar
>manned mission. Now get someone else to put that in notation in a
>form that is intelligible to you and tell our readers how that
>compares with the figure of 100,000 you gave above. I'm tired of
>spoon-feeding you.

I'm gobsmacked. I thought Dyson was smarter than that. Do you
understand the problem of storing that magnitude of material
on an interstellar ship. Do you know how big it would be.

>Once you've done that, we can talk about how that can be scaled down
>for a panspermia mission delivering one ton of prokaryotes.

Ok. No repair crew, no replacement parts. Everything will just
work for how long? What is your burn time estimate -- and don't
forget needed corrections to the course en route and more delta V
when arriving at the destination.

>[small snip]

>> >Also, the amount of deuterium and tritium used had to be carefully
>> >controlled, otherwise the _Life_ photographer whose pictures were
>> >extensively used in one issue might have been blasted to smithereens.
>>

>> One last thing: ?controlled fusion does NOT mean the explosion

>> of full hydrogen bombs that would vaporize any containment
>> chamber.

>Then why did you bring it up in connection with Orion? You were
>trying to set me up for stages 2 and 3 of another one of your famous
>three-stage jokes, weren't you? You know, like the one where stage 1
>consisted of connecting microbes in a funny way to building and
>"manning" starships?

>If so, I apologize for aborting your mission right at the end of the
>first stage.

Sorry. I wasn't trying to set you up. I was trying very hard to
point out a FEW of the many physical problems your scheme would
entail. And I was trying to pick out a few that a non-physicist
could appreciate.

>[snip reprise of controlling fusion to meet the energy needs of *Homo
>sapiens sapiens.*]

>> >Anyway, we now know just why YOU think the saying "Controlled fusion
>> >is fifty years away and always will be" is a joke.
>> >It is because you think it is *more* than fifty years in the *past*.
>>

>> Oh Peter, that's a thigh-slapper. ?A really funny one!

>Did I get you to slap your other thigh this time?

>Or your forehead?

Oh boy.

Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.
I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
start of all of this. An agreement.

You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO
evidence for it, but it remains interesting. It also has many
difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.

We could agree on this. Indeed, I think that everyone would
agree with it.

[Paul J Gans]

Thanks. I've not tried to do a deep analysis of the entire
venture. I'm still not quite sure as to what the author
intends to be the entire venture.

I was only trying to point out that this panspermic hypotheis
isn't even really that. It is an idea perhaps worthy of
discussion over a few beers, but it is not worth the amount
of verbiage spent on it.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg16g9$spf$2...@reader1.panix.com...

It made for a good movie, IMO. Prometheus.

[jillery]

And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
abiogenesis.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 8:50�pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
> abiogenesis.

It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
of what we know to be possible. As to its validity, there is no
direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
directed panspermia.

What we have is a stalemate that I am trying to move beyond. But most
people are so hidebound in their thinking, they can't even see that
there is a stalemate here.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 7:55�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg16g9$spf$2...@reader1.panix.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > John Bode <jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >On Monday, February 18, 2013 7:05:54 PM UTC-6, Paul J Gans wrote:

Is that the one where some explorers of Mars came upon some strange
phenomena, finally discovering evidence that Martians had seeded
earth?

The flaw is that the amount of time for intelligent Martians to evolve
was awfully short. I give my hypothesized panspermists at least 2
billion years from the first prebiotic soup on their planet.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 4:46�pm, John Bode <jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Monday, February 18, 2013 7:05:54 PM UTC-6, Paul J Gans wrote:

> > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> [snip]

Thanks for posting on this theme, John. It's good to have a
participant who has discussed Project Orion at length.

> > I'm sorry once more. �If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs
> > out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
> > position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
> > time, you really ought to think again.
>
> It is a lot of moving parts, and they'd be moving over a long
> period of time in a thermally hostile environment.

Why thermally hostile? The bombs would not have to be positioned in
rapid fire, like the pellets in Project Daedalus. If there are
100,000 of them, there could be plenty of time for the heat from one
to dissipate before the next one is positioned. The whole firing
process could take place over several years, with only a hundred or
fewer per day.

> I've seen some
> discussion of what would happen with the pusher plate in the event
> of a dud and how to mitigate the damage from that.

The only kind of dud that could cause damage is a "dud" that exploded
prematurely, and I think that problem has already been solved by
available technology. Certainly we aren't going to send bombers with
bombs that explode so soon that they damage the plane that dropped
them.


> �Having said that,

> I don't think the engineering is insurmountable, just bloody difficult
> compared to building something like a VASIMR.

What's that?

> And that's just the propulsion end; nobody talks about the habitat
> end, which has non-trivial engineering challenges of its own.

My DP hypothesis has the panspermists sending prokayotes to all but
the nearest systems. They would be in the form of spores, so the
habitat problem is minimal.

> The issues *I* worry about are gathering and securing all that
> fissionable material in one place, and actually launching the bastard.
> I've seen proposals to use SRBs or other types of boosters to lift a
> fully-assembled spacecraft out of the atmosphere,

Panspermia is many centuries away for us. By the time we have
gathered enough information to undertake such a project, we will have
long-established colonies on the moon and on various asteroids, where
the spaceships can be built, and then launched conventionally from
these low-gravity bases.

And "conventionally" could even include using a giant railroad to move
the spaceship at ever increasing speeds, catapulting it into space
when it had gathered sufficient speed. In low gravity, that's quite
feasible.

I don't envision it happening any differently in the society of the
hypothesized panspermists that sent microorganisms to earth.

>at which point it
> would go nuclear, which is silly. �That's like using a bunch of
> go-karts to push a monster truck.
>
> The other alternative is to launch it in pieces (including the pulse
> units, aka boom-booms) using a heavy lifter like the SLS and assemble in
> orbit. �Which is less silly than launching the whole thing with a bunch
> of SRBs, but still somewhat silly. �The whole *point* of the Orion concept
> is that it has massive thrust *plus* ridiculously high specific impulse,
> so ideally it should launch under its own power.

This is not true of the modification Freeman Dyson published in the
article I referenced,

"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.
>

> But, you know, nukes.

That didn't faze Dyson. Have you read his article?

> Low-yield, not-horrible-fallout, but still...nukes.

The hydrogen bombs would only start to explode when the ship is
millions of miles from any place where the fallout could cause a
problem.


[snip irrelevant stuff about highly controlled fusion]

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 7:35�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> If the body of this is too tedious to read (it is insult free),
> just skip to the bottom of the posting for the key point.

The key pontification, you mean.

> [much deleted as this post is way too long.]
>
> >> >> I did. ?I'll repeat another: ?controlled fusion does not work.
> >> >> It may never work at small scales.
> >I do believe everything people see here so far consisted of clowning
> >by you, Paul, and serious talk by me. [I know I was serious.] �Below,
> >I switched to clowning myself, but the bit you see below about what
> >Project Orion was about, is completely factual.
>
> I note, almost for the last time, that you refuse to discuss
> my objections.

That's a relief. These mock-serious "notes" are getting to be a bit
tedious.

> Controlled fusion means fusion generated in
> a confinement chamber of some sort and ignited by laser beams
> or some such.

We all know that, Paul. It really tickled my funny bone to see you
bringing it up as though it had something to do with Project Orion.

[snip]

> >> >I see you think that successively exploding numerous hydrogen bombs a
> >> >safe distance behind a spacecraft, in order to bring it to 1/30th of
> >> >the speed of light (which is what Project Orion was all about) is an
> >> >example of controlled fusion.

[snip]

> >Freeman Dyson wrote a bit about the original Project Orion, but he
> >mostly talked about using the spacecraft for interstellar voyages
> >instead of voyages to the outer solar system, as Orion was originally
> >intended, in:
> >"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.
>
> I read the article back in 1968.

See, you are making it obvious that you were clowning around when you
brought up controlled fusion the way you did.
[snip something to be dealt with in a scientifically and historically
based reply]

> >OK, now back to clowning around.
>
> >> I'm sorry once more.
> >You're clowning, aren't you, Paul? �Why would you ever be sorry for
> >anything you do in talk.origins?
>
> The fact that you think I'm clowning is worrisome.

But not worrisome enough to get you to answer my second question, so I
snipped the rest of your answer to the first one.

[snip]

> >> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
> >> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
> >> of carefully focussed lasers.
> >You're getting the hang of Project Daedalus, but you might want to
> >read up some more on it to get a few bugs out. But then, I suppose it
> >is more fun for you to just play things by ear.
>
> I don't need to. �Remember back a few posts I raised the question
> of what happens when one of the lasers burns out. �Do you send
> an intelligent microbe out to fix it?

I think it's obvious to anyone that you are clowning around by asking
this question. The obviousness is enhanced by something I wrote later
on.

[snip to get to the point]

> >> One last thing: ?controlled fusion does NOT mean the explosion
> >> of full hydrogen bombs that would vaporize any containment
> >> chamber.
> >Then why did you bring it up in connection with Orion? �You were
> >trying to set me up for stages 2 and 3 of another one of your famous
> >three-stage jokes, weren't you? �You know, like the one where stage 1
> >consisted of connecting microbes in a funny way to building and
> >"manning" starships?

Note the similarity of this theme to your joke question above.

And below, I reveal what Stage 2 and Stage 3 of that earlier 3-stage
joke were, by my general description.

> >If so, I apologize for aborting your mission right at the end of the
> >first stage.
>
> Sorry. �I wasn't trying to set you up.

You're just sore because I spoiled your joke, aren't you? Stage 2
would have been triggered by my trying to set you straight like a
typical "straight man," and would have consisted of claiming that I
post so little about things like Project Orion, you just had to guess
what it was about.

Then, when I told you about all the posts I had missed which would
have explained it to you, Stage 3 would kick in with you mock-
seriously alleging that I expect everyone to read everything I post.

What gave the game away this time was that you were so impatient about
getting to Stage 3 that you "telegraphed your punches" [as they say in
boxing] in the very same post where you came in from left field with
talk about controlled fusion in a discussion about Project Orion:

____________ begin excerpt, names added___________

>> [Paul:] I'd not regard the National Geographic as
>> a valid source of technical information.

>[Peter:] I don't use it that way, bozo.
> I use it to see whether anything new
>is on the interstellar travel front. It was gratifying to read about
>the interview with Freeman Dyson, whom I *do* use for technical
>information.
>In case you are interested, look at my first draft of section D, where
>I talk about what he wrote.

And there you go again.

>Specifically, read the reply to D1, where I reference his technical
>article, and the reply to D3, where I quote from it and give some more
>details about it.
And there you go again.

>Specifically, read the reply to D1, where I reference his technical
>article, and the reply to D3, where I quote from it and give some more
>details about it.

You don't get it, do you?

>[snip condescending spiel, sans any insight into the issues raised in
>Section D]

And there you go again, assuming that everyone, especially me,
has read your previous drivel.
=========== end of excerpt
from http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b5b621b8e99d88be

Is there anyone reading this who does not think that Paul was
obviously clowning about what I was assuming?

> I was trying very hard to
> point out a FEW of the many physical problems your scheme would
> entail. �And I was trying to pick out a few that a non-physicist
> could appreciate.

See, you keep acting as though Project Orion had those difficulties.
Are you still hoping to get to Stage 3 by a jury-rigged way?

[snip]

> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. �You are clearly
> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

You really ARE desperate to get to Stage 3, aren't you? Sorry, I'm
not obliging you by documenting all the places where I responded to
oodles of your questions.

[snip to get to pontification at end]

> You have a suggestion for how things might have been. �It has NO
> evidence for it, but it remains interesting.

[small snip here]

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:8919bc38-6d80-45c1...@j2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...

Someone here may have watched one too many episodes of "Ancient Astronauts".

But no, Prometheus is said to be the prequel to the "Alien" series, but where
the girl who believes in God and always wears her crucifix is the only crewmember
left alive (except for an android of course) who in the end shoots off into space
still looking for Him or Them.
I didn't like it at first, but then stuff began to sink in and later I bought the DVD
and watched it again. You'd like it.

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/13 11:36 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>> [snip wordiness, much of it in Peter's private language]

>
> Is there anyone reading this who does not think that Paul was
> obviously clowning about what I was assuming?

Paul was, very obviously, not clowning. Nuclear fusion propulsion, both
of the Project Orion type and of contained fusion type, both have
difficulties which are, at the present, insuperable.

I want you now to repeat back the previous sentence in your own words,
to verify that you have understood it. My impression on this thread is
that anything you disagree with does not even make it as far as your
consciousness.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/13 10:23 AM, pnyikos wrote:
> On Feb 19, 8:50 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
>> abiogenesis.
>
> It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
> of what we know to be possible.

"Scientific" is not a synonym of "possible". Not even close. Your
panspermia ideas fall in the category of speculative fiction.

A scientist approaches his hypothesis by doing everything he can to
demolish it; then he keeps it only if it is left intact. Your approach
is to coddle your hypothesis, protecting it from the threatening, nasty
outside world.

> As to its validity, there is no
> direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
> directed panspermia.

Indirect evidence is better than direct evidence anyway, because there
is so much more of it. And the indirect evidence supports homegrown
abiogenesis.

> What we have is a stalemate that I am trying to move beyond. But most
> people are so hidebound in their thinking, they can't even see that
> there is a stalemate here.

Your "most people" refers primarily to Peter Nyikos, for whom panspermia
is such a dogma that his own speculations graduate to likelihoods
notwithstanding complete absence of evidence.

[Paul J Gans]

I agree for the moment. A hundred years from now things might
be different. But for now the lack of evidence is serious. And
there is seemingly no way to obtain any right now. So scientific
investigation would be difficult if not impossible.

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Feb 19, 8:50?pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
>> abiogenesis.

>It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
>of what we know to be possible. As to its validity, there is no
>direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
>directed panspermia.

This is incorrect. One MUST take into account that there
is life on earth. There is no evidence that abiogenesis
could NOT have taken place on earth and life on earth is
much more indicative of local abiogenesis than it is for
panspermy.

>What we have is a stalemate that I am trying to move beyond. But most
>people are so hidebound in their thinking, they can't even see that
>there is a stalemate here.

[Paul J Gans]

Skip to end.

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> If the body of this is too tedious to read (it is insult free),
>> just skip to the bottom of the posting for the key point.

>The key pontification, you mean.

>> [much deleted as this post is way too long.]
>>
>> >> >> I did. ?I'll repeat another: ?controlled fusion does not work.
>> >> >> It may never work at small scales.
>> >I do believe everything people see here so far consisted of clowning

>> >by you, Paul, and serious talk by me. [I know I was serious.] ?Below,

>> >You're clowning, aren't you, Paul? ?Why would you ever be sorry for

>> >anything you do in talk.origins?
>>
>> The fact that you think I'm clowning is worrisome.

>But not worrisome enough to get you to answer my second question, so I
>snipped the rest of your answer to the first one.

>[snip]

>> >> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
>> >> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
>> >> of carefully focussed lasers.
>> >You're getting the hang of Project Daedalus, but you might want to
>> >read up some more on it to get a few bugs out. But then, I suppose it
>> >is more fun for you to just play things by ear.
>>

>> I don't need to. ?Remember back a few posts I raised the question
>> of what happens when one of the lasers burns out. ?Do you send

>> an intelligent microbe out to fix it?

>I think it's obvious to anyone that you are clowning around by asking
>this question. The obviousness is enhanced by something I wrote later
>on.

>[snip to get to the point]

>> >> One last thing: ?controlled fusion does NOT mean the explosion
>> >> of full hydrogen bombs that would vaporize any containment
>> >> chamber.

>> >Then why did you bring it up in connection with Orion? ?You were

>> >trying to set me up for stages 2 and 3 of another one of your famous

>> >three-stage jokes, weren't you? ?You know, like the one where stage 1

>> >consisted of connecting microbes in a funny way to building and
>> >"manning" starships?

>Note the similarity of this theme to your joke question above.

>And below, I reveal what Stage 2 and Stage 3 of that earlier 3-stage
>joke were, by my general description.

>> >If so, I apologize for aborting your mission right at the end of the
>> >first stage.
>>

>> Sorry. ?I wasn't trying to set you up.

>> entail. ?And I was trying to pick out a few that a non-physicist

>> could appreciate.

>See, you keep acting as though Project Orion had those difficulties.
>Are you still hoping to get to Stage 3 by a jury-rigged way?

>[snip]

>> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. ?You are clearly

>> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

>You really ARE desperate to get to Stage 3, aren't you? Sorry, I'm
>not obliging you by documenting all the places where I responded to
>oodles of your questions.

>[snip to get to pontification at end]

>> You have a suggestion for how things might have been. ?It has NO

>> evidence for it, but it remains interesting.

>[small snip here]

Here is the "small snip":

Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
start of all of this. An agreement.

You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO

[jillery]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:39:36 -0800, Mark Isaak
<eci...@curioustax.onomy.net> wrote:

>On 2/20/13 10:23 AM, pnyikos wrote:
>> On Feb 19, 8:50 pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
>>> abiogenesis.
>>
>> It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
>> of what we know to be possible.
>
>"Scientific" is not a synonym of "possible". Not even close. Your
>panspermia ideas fall in the category of speculative fiction.
>
>A scientist approaches his hypothesis by doing everything he can to
>demolish it; then he keeps it only if it is left intact. Your approach
>is to coddle your hypothesis, protecting it from the threatening, nasty
>outside world.
>
>> As to its validity, there is no
>> direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
>> directed panspermia.
>
>Indirect evidence is better than direct evidence anyway, because there
>is so much more of it. And the indirect evidence supports homegrown
>abiogenesis.

And even if there were no evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, DP would
remain unscientific. There is no practical way to falsify assumptions
about presumptive panspermists. Not coincidentally, this is a fatal
flaw shared by Intelligent Design.

>> What we have is a stalemate that I am trying to move beyond. But most
>> people are so hidebound in their thinking, they can't even see that
>> there is a stalemate here.
>
>Your "most people" refers primarily to Peter Nyikos, for whom panspermia
>is such a dogma that his own speculations graduate to likelihoods
>notwithstanding complete absence of evidence.

Yeppers.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg3qo5$khh$8...@reader1.panix.com...

> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >On Feb 19, 8:50?pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
> >> abiogenesis.
>
> >It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
> >of what we know to be possible. As to its validity, there is no
> >direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
> >directed panspermia.
>
> This is incorrect. One MUST take into account that there
> is life on earth. There is no evidence that abiogenesis
> could NOT have taken place on earth and life on earth is
> much more indicative of local abiogenesis than it is for
> panspermy.
>

Shiny lure, but I wonder if you put too much weight on the line.
What part of all that is direct evidence?

[Paul J Gans]

We is here, as someone must have said. There is a fair amount
of other evidence as well, such as the very early appearance
of traces of life.

You see, if you ignore that we are here, you may reduce the
chance of life forming here arbitrarily by just noting that
there a a gigillion planets out there, and all we know is
that life began on one of them. Thus by the "law" of
democratic ignorance, we assert that the chance of life
on earth arose here is precisely 1 in a gigillion.

So that is not really a feasible line of reasoning.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg3ua2$66h$1...@dont-email.me>,

It's not a matter of "direct evidence". It is inference in the
light of known fact (viz. that there _is_ life on Earth). Peter
effectively asserts that this has infinitesimal probability
as against _his_ fantasy of panspermia by procaryotes. But
Peter refuses to deal with the improbabilities of his own
preferred fantasy.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg43dd$clp$2...@reader1.panix.com...

> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> >"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg3qo5$khh$8...@reader1.panix.com...
> >> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >> >On Feb 19, 8:50?pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to homegrown
> >> >> abiogenesis.
> >>
> >> >It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the bounds
> >> >of what we know to be possible. As to its validity, there is no
> >> >direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more than there is for
> >> >directed panspermia.
> >>
> >> This is incorrect. One MUST take into account that there
> >> is life on earth. There is no evidence that abiogenesis
> >> could NOT have taken place on earth and life on earth is
> >> much more indicative of local abiogenesis than it is for
> >> panspermy.
> >>
> >Shiny lure, but I wonder if you put too much weight on the line.
> >What part of all that is direct evidence?
>
> We is here, as someone must have said. There is a fair amount
> of other evidence as well, such as the very early appearance
> of traces of life.

To be perfectly clear, are you saying that because life exists
and has existed on Earth for a long time is direct evidence
of life originating on Earth?

>
> You see, if you ignore that we are here, you may reduce the
> chance of life forming here arbitrarily by just noting that
> there a a gigillion planets out there, and all we know is
> that life began on one of them. Thus by the "law" of
> democratic ignorance, we assert that the chance of life
> on earth arose here is precisely 1 in a gigillion.
>
> So that is not really a feasible line of reasoning.
>

Perhaps so. Do we know that life began on a planet?

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-5C92C8...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

You've gone beyond the bounds of what Paul actually
responded to. I see nothing incorrect about what Peter said
above. What is "scientific" might be debatable, but Paul
didn't object to that.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg44q0$1ec$1...@dont-email.me>,

That last is not relevant unless life that happened to begin
_not_ on a planet is related to the life we have on _this_
planet. That life _does_ exist on earth is not any kind of
proof that life _developed_ on earth. However, that fact does
influence consideration of the origins of earth life. The
probability of life _originating_ on earth, _given_ that life
exists on earth, is much higher than would be the case if life
did _not_ exist on earth. :-) Peter appears to be totally
incapable of dealing with these conditional probabilities...

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg453c$2n8$1...@dont-email.me>,

It depends on what you include as "direct evidence". Peter is
attempting to make an equivalence between "evidence for homegrown
abiogenesis" versus "evidence for directed panspermia". But that is a
false equivalence. There is exactly ZERO evidence for directed
panspermia. It is pure speculation (and I'll get back to that in a
bit). As to "homegrown abiogenesis" there is, in fact, considerable
grounded speculation with regard to prior and posterior chemical
contexts that make this hypothesis at least modestly plausible.

I am not claiming it is "proven" nor even that we have any highly
probable pathways to that. But that hypothesis is _infinitely_
more grounded in actual science than the purely speculative notion
of seeding from elsewhere (particularly in Peter's hopelessly stupid
version). Peter adamantly _refuses_ to consider all the technical
barriers to such seeding -- quite aside from the totally moronic
notion that there could be a procaryotic "technology" to do this.

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-7863CC...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

He may be, but there is no evidence of that in the exchange above.
Probabilities can not be assigned when unknown factors are involved.
The facts are that we are discovering more in space than we
knew existed. The possibility that life could exist or even have
originated in spacce is not known, but is also not known to be
not possible. Probabilities on that can't be made either.
I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
I don't believe that the probability can me measured.

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-EBF873...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

You're arguing a strawman. Peter didn't claim there was any evidence
of panspermia, he only claimed that speculation was scientific, with
qualification. He didn't say that abiogenesis was not grounded in
plausible speculation. Whether abiogenesis is "infinitely more" grounded
in science is a matter of interpretation, but still, does not make what
he said above incorrect.
There are always barriers in science, but it appears to me that
you haven't come close to showing anything Peter said above
is incorrect.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg4bae$qbm$1...@dont-email.me>,

Peter refuses to address the objections presented to his notions.
That is _not_ in any acceptable sense "plausible speculation." He
also gives no real support for his ideas -- it is pure assertion
with no supporting argument. (And he goes ballistic if anyone dares
to point this out.)

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg4aqv$osq$1...@dont-email.me>,

"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
..
> He may be, but there is no evidence of that in the exchange above.
> Probabilities can not be assigned when unknown factors are involved.
> The facts are that we are discovering more in space than we
> knew existed. The possibility that life could exist or even have
> originated in spacce is not known, but is also not known to be
> not possible. Probabilities on that can't be made either.
> I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
> that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
> coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
> I don't believe that the probability can me measured.

We can't give (serious) numbers to the probabilities involved.
However, _given_ that life exists on earth, the probability that
it developed here is greater than in the contrary scenario. :-)

I repeat that there is in fact a rather serious and grounded
body of study that supports abiogenesis on earth. There is ZERO
evidence for life being seeded here from elsewhere. And serious
objections to the kind of nonsensical panspermia Peter advocates.

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-2A09D8...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

That doesn't make what he said above incorrect either.

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-6DD939...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

If numbers can't be given to the probabilities, then it is not possible
to say one is greater than another. I did see your emoticon there,
but again nothing has shown what Peter said above is incorrect.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg4e2t$43p$1...@dont-email.me>,

One doesn't need numbers to evaluate "probabilities" that are
grounded in nonsense. I will reiterate, as Paul Gans does, that
we KNOW life exists on earth. It is insane to pretend to explain
that by a bizarre and totally unfounded speculation while ignoring
the simple fact, and pretending that -- somehow, in some bizarre
manner -- that fact is not suggestive of local origin.

[Michael Siemon]

In article <kg4doi$2vt$1...@dont-email.me>,
"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
...

> > Peter refuses to address the objections presented to his notions.
> > That is _not_ in any acceptable sense "plausible speculation." He
> > also gives no real support for his ideas -- it is pure assertion
> > with no supporting argument. (And he goes ballistic if anyone dares
> > to point this out.)
> >
> That doesn't make what he said above incorrect either.

No; not in isolation. But given Peter, and his total inability to
provide anything resembling rational argumentation in _favor_ of his
pet notion, I wouldn't put any money on his position...

[Mitchell Coffey]

Why, I do declare: that looks like Peter's engaged in, in, in *sneaky
dishonest deletia*! Why I do declare.

Mitchell

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-F977EA...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

Bizarre or not, that life exists on Earth is not evidence that it originated
on Earth, and is not grounds to evaluate the probability that it did.

Panspermia is not a totally unfounded speculation or insane proposal.
That intelligent and perhaps far advanced extraterrestrial life exists may
be unfounded, but it is arguable that speculation and search is insane,
and is not commonly regarded as unscientific. Adding these together,
I do not see as inherently insane. The relevant unfounded speculation
subject to criticism would be certain aspects of a particular element
that are known or thought to be impractical or impossible.
But the short of it is that nothing Peter has proposed is direct evidence
that life began on Earth.

[Glenn]

"Michael Siemon" <mlsi...@sonic.net> wrote in message news:mlsiemon-27A3FA...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

You repeatedly bring up your recollection of Peter's history.
Unless there is a relevant context that is missing from what I
responded to, I will dismiss it as irrelevant. And I did consider
that before I posted.

[jillery]

Yet another petard goes to hoist.

[Mitchell Coffey]

OK, but as you know, it is possible to make a factually correct
statement that is nonetheless misleading. Such is the case when Peter
writes "As to its validity, there is no direct evidence for homegrown

abiogenesis, any more than there is for directed panspermia." This

implies that direct evidence is the primary consideration in judging
validity. That is not true, and as there is indirect evidence for
earthly abiogenesis, reproducible experiments, and falsifiable theories
as to how earthly abiogenesis or its sub-components may have operated.
To my knowledge no such things exist for DP.


Furthermore, when Peter writes "[DP] is certainly scientific, in that it
does not go outside the bounds of what we know to be possible," Peter is
incorrect that being within the bound of the possible makes a
speculation "certainly scientific."

Mitchell

[Steven L.]

The only argument is a simplicity ("Occam's Razor") one:

If we already have a plausible theory as to how life could have arisen
spontaneously on the primordial Earth, then why introduce additional
complexity by insisting that it could have been deliberately introduced
here by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization? Especially when
there is zero evidence for such panspermia?

The simplest explanation is: Life is here, life started here.

The simplest explanation isn't always right. But it's the best place to
start.


--
Steven L.

[Steven L.]

No. Just like the Theory of Evolution does not invalidate the existence
of God.

It simply provides a plausible theory as to how life on Earth came to be
without having to invoke God to explain it.

Similarly, abiogenesis provides a plausible explanation as to how life
on Earth began, without having to invoke ultra-advanced extraterrestrial
civilizations to explain it.

In fact, the Raelians have turned something very much like Peter's
directed panspermia into a religion, with "Elohim" their name for the
extraterrestrial alien race:

"Earth was originally void of life, with thick clouds and shallow seas.
But the Elohim came, broke apart the clouds, exposed the seas to
sunlight, built a continent, and synthesized a global ecosystem. Solar
astronomy, terraformation, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering
allowed Elohim to adapt life to Earth's thermal and chemical makeup."


The fact that Peter's theory so closely resembles what others regard as
a religion (or a religious cult), tells you something about his theory.

This isn't the first time that a thinly disguised religious concept was
being offered as scientific. Von Daniken's Ancient Astronaut theory is
another such.



--
Steven L.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 20, 3:26�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "pnyikos" <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote in messagenews:8919bc38-6d80-45c1...@j2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
> > On Feb 19, 7:55 pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > > "Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg16g9$spf$2...@reader1.panix.com...
>
> > > > John Bode <jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >On Monday, February 18, 2013 7:05:54 PM UTC-6, Paul J Gans wrote:
> > > > >> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> > > > >[snip]
>
> > > > >> I'm sorry once more. If you think that one can toss hyrogen bombs
> > > > >> out the back hatch of a spaceship and have them fire at the exact
> > > > >> position and instant needed, over and over again for a long long
> > > > >> time, you really ought to think again.
>
> > > > >It is a lot of moving parts, and they'd be moving over a long
> > > > >period of time in a thermally hostile environment. I've seen some
> > > > >discussion of what would happen with the pusher plate in the event
> > > > >of a dud and how to mitigate the damage from that. Having said that,
> > > > >I don't think the engineering is insurmountable, just bloody difficult
> > > > >compared to building something like a VASIMR.
>
> > > > >And that's just the propulsion end; nobody talks about the habitat
> > > > >end, which has non-trivial engineering challenges of its own.
>
> > > > >The issues *I* worry about are gathering and securing all that
> > > > >fissionable material in one place, and actually launching the bastard.
> > > > >I've seen proposals to use SRBs or other types of boosters to lift a
> > > > >fully-assembled spacecraft out of the atmosphere, at which point it
> > > > >would go nuclear, which is silly. That's like using a bunch of
> > > > >go-karts to push a monster truck.
>
> > > > >The other alternative is to launch it in pieces (including the pulse
> > > > >units, aka boom-booms) using a heavy lifter like the SLS and assemble in
> > > > >orbit. Which is less silly than launching the whole thing with a bunch
> > > > >of SRBs, but still somewhat silly. The whole *point* of the Orion concept
> > > > >is that it has massive thrust *plus* ridiculously high specific impulse,
> > > > >so ideally it should launch under its own power.
>
> > > > >But, you know, nukes. Low-yield, not-horrible-fallout, but still...nukes.

>
> > > > >> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
> > > > >> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
> > > > >> of carefully focussed lasers.
>

> > > > >> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
> > > > >> within 40 years of any date you pick.
>
> > > > >Yup. We've been working this problem since the Fifties. In that time
> > > > >we've built dozens of nuclear plants, yet no working fusion plants.
> > > > >We can do it on small scales for short periods, but not for practical
> > > > >power generation, and it's not for lack of trying.
>
> > > > Thanks. I've not tried to do a deep analysis of the entire
> > > > venture. I'm still not quite sure as to what the author
> > > > intends to be the entire venture.
>
> > > > I was only trying to point out that this panspermic hypotheis
> > > > isn't even really that. It is an idea perhaps worthy of
> > > > discussion over a few beers, but it is not worth the amount
> > > > of verbiage spent on it.
>
> > > It made for a good movie, IMO. Prometheus.
>
> > Is that the one where some explorers of Mars came upon some strange
> > phenomena, finally discovering evidence that Martians had seeded
> > earth?
>
> > The flaw is that the amount of time for intelligent Martians to evolve
> > was awfully short. �I give my hypothesized panspermists at least 2
> > billion years from the first prebiotic soup on their planet.
>
> Someone here may have watched one too many episodes of "Ancient Astronauts".

No, not somebody here. Somebody who wrote that script for a movie,
which went for a lot longer than an hour. I saw the movie while on a
plane.

[I can't recall from where to where, but it might have been from Los
Angeles to Auckland, New Zealand. I give research seminars at the
University of Auckland at an almost biennial rate.]

> But no, Prometheus is said to be the prequel to the "Alien" series, but where
> the girl who believes in God and always wears her crucifix is the only crewmember
> left alive (except for an android of course) who in the end shoots off into space
> still looking for Him or Them.
> I didn't like it at first, but then stuff began to sink in and later I bought the DVD
> and watched it again. You'd like it.

Perhaps. Is it anything like the second in the "Alien" series?

I only saw the second in that series, with Sigourney Weaver doing a
fine acting job.

Her acting on "Gorillas in the Mist" , OTOH, left something to be
desired. It was a great imitation of Jane Fonda (especially when
Sigourney said "Wait a goddamn minute"), but a mediocre imitation of
Dianne Fossey herself.

BTW, the android was killed off in that episode, IIRC. He was cut in
half, that much I remember clearly.

Peter Nyikos

[John Bode]

On Wednesday, February 20, 2013 12:50:44 PM UTC-6, pnyikos wrote:

> On Feb 19, 4:46�pm, John Bode <jfbode1...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Monday, February 18, 2013 7:05:54 PM UTC-6, Paul J Gans wrote:
>
> > > pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
>

> Thanks for posting on this theme, John. It's good to have a
> participant who has discussed Project Orion at length.
>
[snip]

>
> > It is a lot of moving parts, and they'd be moving over a long
> > period of time in a thermally hostile environment.
>

> Why thermally hostile? The bombs would not have to be positioned in
> rapid fire, like the pellets in Project Daedalus. If there are
> 100,000 of them, there could be plenty of time for the heat from one
> to dissipate before the next one is positioned. The whole firing
> process could take place over several years, with only a hundred or
> fewer per day.

"Thermally hostile" in terms of dealing with heat from the Sun and shedding
waste heat from your internal power sources. The main way to dissipate
heat in a vacuum is via radiation, and if you look at most advanced spacecraft
designs you'll see huge radiators or heat sinks. The Shuttle had radiators
inside the bay doors, which is why the were kept open while in orbit.

(You could also quickly shed heat by venting steam, but that's not viable
for a long-term mission except in a dire emergency situation).

For an Orion spacecraft, you have a bunch of pulse units (boom-booms) stored
in one or more magazines, and there's a mechanical system that removes them
one at a time and ejects them out the back, like a big juke box or vending
machine. Depending on the pulse unit's mass, that's going to require a
non-trivial amount of wattage. Over time, enough waste heat would build
up to damage those systems, so you need away to dump it.

Then you have heat beating on you from the Sun, at least early on in the
mission; that needs to be dealt with as well. The Apollo spacecraft did a
"barbeque roll", basically rotating on the long axis so that heat didn't
build up on one side.

Also, from what I remember of the Orion project, the pulse units were
to be ejected and detonated on the order of every few seconds.

>
> > I've seen some
> > discussion of what would happen with the pusher plate in the event
> > of a dud and how to mitigate the damage from that.
>

> The only kind of dud that could cause damage is a "dud" that exploded
> prematurely, and I think that problem has already been solved by
> available technology. Certainly we aren't going to send bombers with
> bombs that explode so soon that they damage the plane that dropped
> them.
>

In this case, a dud is a dud; a bomb that *doesn't* explode, or explodes later
than expected. The pusher plate has a series of shock absorbers to even out
the pulse, and with the expected firing rate those shock absorbers would always
be in some compressed state. In the event of a dud the absorbers would extend
fully, and the force of that could conceivably damage the spacecraft.

That's an engineering issue, and can be surmounted, but it's one of the things
that came up during the initial project.

>
> > �Having said that,

> > I don't think the engineering is insurmountable, just bloody difficult
> > compared to building something like a VASIMR.
>

> What's that?
>

Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket; basically an electronic
propulsion system, sort of (but not quite) like the ion drives on the
Deep Space 1 and Dawn spacecraft. Ion drives have very high specific
impulse (they're very efficient), but have very low thrust; you could
not launch a spacecraft from the ground using ion propulsion. The VASIMR
concept allows you to switch between high-thrust, low Isp and low-thrust,
high Isp modes, although I don't think it offers sufficient thrust for
ground launch, at least not from Earth.

>
> > And that's just the propulsion end; nobody talks about the habitat
> > end, which has non-trivial engineering challenges of its own.
>

> My DP hypothesis has the panspermists sending prokayotes to all but
> the nearest systems. They would be in the form of spores, so the
> habitat problem is minimal.

They still have to be protected from radiation, and they probably need to be
kept at some minimum temperature. However, I'll admit I was thinking in
terms of crew, not seeding.

The thing about seeding, though, is that you have to get from here to there
before your spacecraft simply falls apart from age, meaning you need to
accelerate to some appreciable fraction of the speed of light, meaning you'll
need to *slow back down* when you reach your destination (otherwise your seeds
are going to slam into their target at some appreciable fraction of c, which I
don't think would be survivable).

>
> > The issues *I* worry about are gathering and securing all that
> > fissionable material in one place, and actually launching the bastard.
> > I've seen proposals to use SRBs or other types of boosters to lift a
> > fully-assembled spacecraft out of the atmosphere,
>

> Panspermia is many centuries away for us. By the time we have
> gathered enough information to undertake such a project, we will have
> long-established colonies on the moon and on various asteroids, where
> the spaceships can be built, and then launched conventionally from
> these low-gravity bases.
>

I don't take that as a given. Setting up self-sustaining colonies on the
Moon or Mars is going to be a lot more difficult than most people realize,
I think. And colonization is about a) getting rich, or b) extending political
influence. So far, there aren't any resources on either the Moon or Mars
that are worth the effort and expense of setting up permanent colonies to
extract. Yeah yeah yeah, 3He, aneutronic fusion, blah blah blah radioactive
fishcakes. As has been pointed out in this thread, we've yet to create a
working fusion power plant; until then, there's really not point in getting
excited about 3He.

[snip]

>
> > Low-yield, not-horrible-fallout, but still...nukes.
>
> The hydrogen bombs would only start to explode when the ship is
> millions of miles from any place where the fallout could cause a
> problem.

Which goes back to something I said in the part I snipped; ideally,
the Orion should launch under its own power because it has an insane
lifting capacity. Using conventional rockets to lift it out of the
magnetosphere before having it go nuclear is like using a bunch of go-carts
to push a semi up an on-ramp, at which point the semi starts its engine.
That's a silly conops. Yes, driving a semi up an on-ramp won't increase
anyone's chances of dying of cancer (at least, not appreciably), but I
think it's a reasonable illustration.

*If* we could develop "clean enough" nukes and *if* we could find a way to
launch it safely, then that would be the right course of action (provided
there's a customer willing to fund the development and acquisition of several
thousand nuclear bombs). I just don't know enough about nuclear physics to
make a judgement on how possible that is.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 12:46�am, Michael Siemon <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote:
> In article <kg4bae$qb...@dont-email.me>,
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> �"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> > "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >news:mlsiemon-EBF873...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> > > In article <kg453c$2n...@dont-email.me>,
> > > �"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > > "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> > > >news:mlsiemon-5C92C8...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> > > > > In article <kg3ua2$66...@dont-email.me>,

> > > > > �"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > > > > "Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message
> > > > > >news:kg3qo5$khh$8...@reader1.panix.com...

You are relying on Paul Gans's incessant jokes to that effect, only
you are "sweetening the pot" by saying "the objections" instead of
"Paul's objections."

IOW, unless you are just embellishing Paul's mock-serious jokes, you
are seriously underestimating Gans's propensity for clowning around.

Perhaps you are misled by the way you did some really heavy-handed
clowning around in the wake of your (intentional?) confusion about
what I was attributing to George Orwell, viz. "memory hole".

After I set the record straight (as in "straight man") about that, you
got to be like Gans at his absolute zaniest, pretending that I had
snipped the context whereas YOU had snipped the context, and then
going into a mock-serious tirade about how I am so dishonest, it's a
wonder anyone bothers to reply to me.

And so, since you are so heavy-handed with YOUR humor, you may find it
difficult to see where to draw the line between Gans's jokes and his
serious stuff.

I have the same problem, btw., and I'm beginning to wonder whether
everyone has that problem. You've been a t.o. regular for over 20
years now, so if you can't figure out where to draw the line, maybe
nobody (including Paul himself) can.

> That is _not_ in any acceptable sense "plausible speculation." He
> also gives no real support for his ideas -- it is pure assertion
> with no supporting argument. (And he goes ballistic if anyone dares
> to point this out.)

There you go again, apparently relying on Gans's jokes instead of
checking things out for yourself.

If you really are interested in the truth (as opposed to already
knowing about it and clowning around above) you might start by reading
the latest thread where I do drafts of my FAQ on directed pansplermia,
beginning with the following post:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b7ca17ee6d7adf6c
Message-ID: <3075b372-1980-4fc6-
a0be-240...@x10g2000yqx.googlegroups.com>

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d3467b7189a9336a
Message-ID:
<f47d4ebc-27fa-46ac...@r14g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 1:37�am, Mitchell Coffey <mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:

> > Skip to end.
>

> >>fromhttp://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b5b621b8e99d88be

Coffey, having (mock-seriously?) missed the point on another thread
about Casanova's sneaky dishonest deletia, now shows he's got a vague
idea of what that topic is all about.

Whether the idea is more than vague depends on whether Coffey ever
shows he was joking with what he says next, or was serious:

> Why, I do declare: that looks like Peter's engaged in, in, in *sneaky
> dishonest deletia*! Why I do declare.
>
> Mitchell

Sneakiness has nothing to do with them. Check it out--I did say what
the point of my main snips was, with the first main snip:

[repeated from above:]

> >> [snip something to be dealt with in a scientifically and historically
> >> based reply]

And I haven't gotten around to doing that reply yet. It'll be worth
the wait, I can assure you of that already.

By the way, you might *actually* want to check out whether Gans was
joking when he gave only *one* reason for his deletia:

[repeated from above:]

> >>> [much deleted as this post is way too long.]

The answer may surprise you.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"Mitchell Coffey" <mitchell...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:kg5a6u$696$1...@dont-email.me...

I didn't get that impression. What I got is that "we don't know for sure"
about abiogenesis, and that it is wrong to make comparisons with competing
hypotheses, to say one is not scientifically valid alternative compared to another.

>
> Furthermore, when Peter writes "[DP] is certainly scientific, in that it
> does not go outside the bounds of what we know to be possible," Peter is
> incorrect that being within the bound of the possible makes a
> speculation "certainly scientific."
>

Really?

[Paul J Gans]

No. But there is no evidence for that either.

--
--- Paul J. Gans

[Walter Bushell]

In article <kfuj5i$di6$4...@reader1.panix.com>,

Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
> of carefully focussed lasers.
>

> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
> within 40 years of any date you pick.

It was 20 years when I was in high school.

--
This space unintentionally left blank.

[alias Ernest Major]

Yes. Omphalism, for example, is possible, but it is not scientific.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Paul J Gans]

As far as direct numeric probabilities are concerned, you are
quite right.

>The facts are that we are discovering more in space than we
>knew existed. The possibility that life could exist or even have
>originated in spacce is not known, but is also not known to be
>not possible.

Not quite. Space is a very rough environment. While it is
*possible* that life started there, one has to explain how
it survived in such an environment. It is very cold and it
is very radiation filled. That makes it less likely.

Again, I'm not assigning an exact probability, but adding the
two factors I mentioned does reduce the a priori probability.

And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.

>Probabilities on that can't be made either.
>I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
>that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
>coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
>I don't believe that the probability can me measured.

That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
change as we learn new things.

For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
there are others that increase the chance that our life began
here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
found.

So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
would seem to have the largest chance.

[Paul J Gans]

In my opinion, and I stress that, you are mainly repeating statements
I've already made to Peter. The sticking point is that Peter defends
his panspermic hypothesis with great ferver, citing technical literature
to indicate that his viewpoint is the most logical.

I think that you will agree that this is pushing it a bit too far. My
last substantive thing I posted in response to Peter was this:

"Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.
I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
start of all of this. An agreement.

"You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO
evidence for it, but it remains interesting. It also has many
difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.

"We could agree on this. Indeed, I think that everyone would
agree with it."

[Paul J Gans]

What specifically is the "what he said above". He said many
things above. Please be specific.

[Glenn]

"alias Ernest Major" <{$to$}@meden.demon.co.ukl> wrote in message news:dHuVs.336450$342....@fx12.fr7...

Is God within the bounds of what we know to be possible?
And is that the "it" Peter referred to?

[Paul J Gans]

That's not correct. You can rank probabilities without giving
them definite numbers.

Not knowing a numeric probability doesn't mean that all values
from 0 to 1 inclusive are equally likely. One can often give
a distribution of probabilities with fairly great certainty
even though the exact chance is not known.

For example, it is much more likely that life began on a
planetary surface (which includes inside oceans) than it
did in outer space. This evaluation is based on what we
know of chemistry and physics.

It is more likely that life began in water than it did in
a lava flow.

It is more likely that life began as a simple organism than
it did as a multicellular entity.

And on and on and on.

[Paul J Gans]

He's stated that what I post is mostly "clowning around", so
in that light, he likely refused to take it seriously.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg5th7$omo$1...@reader1.panix.com...

That's speculation, unscientific IMO. Life in space is the
subject of ongoing investigation, not only in space but on
the Earth. Life in space is not known to be impossible,
and that is quite correct, not "not quite" as you claim.
The discovery of life in space would not require an explanation
of how it survived there.

>
> Again, I'm not assigning an exact probability, but adding the
> two factors I mentioned does reduce the a priori probability.

What you are doing is speculating.

>
> And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
> to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
> idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
> seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.

Problems and science seem to go hand in hand.

>
> >Probabilities on that can't be made either.
> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
>
> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
> that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
> change as we learn new things.

Are you shitting me?

>
> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
> here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
> found.
>
> So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
> would seem to have the largest chance.
>

Seem?

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg5umd$q46$1...@reader1.panix.com...

It is possible that I would, except not because of what you
use below to support the claim.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg5ur0$q46$2...@reader1.panix.com...

No, Peter did not say many things above.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 1:23�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Mitchell Coffey" <mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:kg5a6u$696$1...@dont-email.me...

> > there is indirect evidence for
> > earthly abiogenesis, reproducible experiments, and falsifiable theories
> > as to how earthly abiogenesis or its sub-components may have operated.

Note, Glenn, how you can remove the word "earthly" in what Coffey
said, both places, and get something that is actually stronger than if
you put "earthly" in.

The reason is that some planets may be even MORE suitable for
abiogenesis than the early earth was. In fact, the most successful
experiments at producing amino acids, etc. started with a reducing
atmosphere of hydrogen, ammonia, and methane, along with some amounts
of things known to have existed on the early earth in abundance: H2O,
CO2, and nitrogen.

> I didn't get that impression. What I got is that "we don't know for sure"
> about abiogenesis, and that it is wrong to make comparisons with competing
> hypotheses, to say one is not scientifically valid alternative compared to another.

You are good at not being diverted from some major points, Glenn.

> > Furthermore, when Peter writes "[DP] is certainly scientific, in that it
> > does not go outside the bounds of what we know to be possible," Peter is
> > incorrect that being within the bound of the possible makes a
> > speculation "certainly scientific."
>
> Really?

I was short on time and couldn't give all the reasons. If you
actually look at my FAQ so far, you will see just how scientific the
whole idea of DP is. Whether it is correct is a different issue.

Here are the two urls I gave Siemon for the FAQ: the first is for
Section A, which focuses exclusively on what Crick and Orgel wrote:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/b7ca17ee6d7adf6c

And the second has almost everything relevant from Section D, which is
about space travel, the thing that was the focus of this thread until
the theme was broadened by Gans, Coffey, Siemon and Isaak to include
abiogenesis. See my first Section C post whose url is below for lots
of scientifically base reasoning on that theme.

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/d3467b7189a9336a

Section B deals with some of the sharper criticism to which my DP
hypothesis has been subjected; most of it is here:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/748c85b5c5269829?

Section C is about connections of DP with abiogenesis and ID. I did
it in two installments, the first for abiogenesis connections, the
second for ID:

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/307301249c231307

and

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/6fbd247e3493bd81

You probably won't have the time to study all this carefully today,
but it should reassure you that you are doing very well indeed with
what you do know.

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

Of course it is evidence. It is a conditional probability which is
not at all the same as the absolute probability. We do know some
things about the origin of life. For example we know a fair amount
about the chemistry involved. We have some idea of the energy
inputs required, and so on.

As a result some sources seem far more likely than others, and we
can and do base probabilities on that.

Trivial example: I misplaced by car keys. I know I had them when
I came home last night. I therefore look for them in my house.
I do NOT go look for them in my neighbor's garbage or in the
school lost and found.

Why not? I don't know where the keys are. I can't assign an
exact probability to their being in the house or in my neighbor's
garbage. But I do know that it is far more likely that the keys
are in the house rather than anywhere else.

Assigning relative probabilities for the origin of life is very
similar.

>Panspermia is not a totally unfounded speculation or insane proposal.

It is unfounded, but it is not insane. Why unfounded? Because there
are known difficulties with it that today can only be met with
handwaving, there being no evidence that those difficulties can
be overcome.

But as you say, it is not insane. It *could* happen. But that
is speculative and not testable.

>That intelligent and perhaps far advanced extraterrestrial life exists may
>be unfounded, but it is arguable that speculation and search is insane,
>and is not commonly regarded as unscientific. Adding these together,
>I do not see as inherently insane. The relevant unfounded speculation
>subject to criticism would be certain aspects of a particular element
>that are known or thought to be impractical or impossible.

I'm not sure what you are saying. I have never said that panspermia
was impossible. Indeed, I have said as you say that it is an
interesting speculation. Peter will not leave it at that. He
wants panspermia considered as THE MOST VIABLE theory of the
origin of life on earth. I think that is unreasonable. Do you
not agree?

>But the short of it is that nothing Peter has proposed is direct evidence
>that life began on Earth.

I think there is a typo there. Do you mean Paul?

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg5v5c$q46$3...@reader1.panix.com...

I think you are biased and confused.

[Paul J Gans]

You can't consider it irrelevent. It is the background against
which Peter makes his arguments and to which I and others respond.
You forget that this argument has gone on here since the mid
1990's, which is when the notions of Throom, Xordax, and similar
were first introduced.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg5vvk$45r$1...@reader1.panix.com...

Conditional probability is evidence?

>
> As a result some sources seem far more likely than others, and we
> can and do base probabilities on that.
>
> Trivial example: I misplaced by car keys. I know I had them when
> I came home last night. I therefore look for them in my house.
> I do NOT go look for them in my neighbor's garbage or in the
> school lost and found.
>
> Why not? I don't know where the keys are. I can't assign an
> exact probability to their being in the house or in my neighbor's
> garbage. But I do know that it is far more likely that the keys
> are in the house rather than anywhere else.
>
> Assigning relative probabilities for the origin of life is very
> similar.

Good that you say that, since an hypothesis is not evidence.

>
> >Panspermia is not a totally unfounded speculation or insane proposal.
>
> It is unfounded, but it is not insane. Why unfounded? Because there
> are known difficulties with it that today can only be met with
> handwaving, there being no evidence that those difficulties can
> be overcome.
>
> But as you say, it is not insane. It *could* happen. But that
> is speculative and not testable.

You just go one an infinitum with this loose talk.

>
> >That intelligent and perhaps far advanced extraterrestrial life exists may
> >be unfounded, but it is arguable that speculation and search is insane,
> >and is not commonly regarded as unscientific. Adding these together,
> >I do not see as inherently insane. The relevant unfounded speculation
> >subject to criticism would be certain aspects of a particular element
> >that are known or thought to be impractical or impossible.
>
> I'm not sure what you are saying. I have never said that panspermia
> was impossible. Indeed, I have said as you say that it is an
> interesting speculation. Peter will not leave it at that. He
> wants panspermia considered as THE MOST VIABLE theory of the
> origin of life on earth. I think that is unreasonable. Do you
> not agree?
>
> >But the short of it is that nothing Peter has proposed is direct evidence
> >that life began on Earth.
>
> I think there is a typo there. Do you mean Paul?
>

No. Your confusion is likely the result of slicing up posts into single sentences.

[Paul J Gans]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:37:21 -0500, Mitchell Coffey

><mitchell...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>> Skip to end.
>>>

>>> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>> On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

[big snip here -- PJG]

>>>> [small snip here]
>>>
>>> Here is the "small snip":
>>>

>>> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
>>> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.
>>> I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
>>> engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
>>> start of all of this. An agreement.
>>>
>>> You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO
>>> evidence for it, but it remains interesting. It also has many
>>> difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.
>>>
>>> We could agree on this. Indeed, I think that everyone would
>>> agree with it.
>>

>>Why, I do declare: that looks like Peter's engaged in, in, in *sneaky
>>dishonest deletia*! Why I do declare.

>Yet another petard goes to hoist.

I have to defend Peter here. He considers what I wrote as
"fooling around". Indeed he constructed a three phase joke
that he thinks I was pulling on him, but luckily he detected
it early enough to thwart it. What he deleted was just more
of my "fooling around", as he puts it.

Of course I was not fooling around, as and fool can plainly see.

But I take Peter seriously. As Mitch sugggested earlier, Peter
seems not to recognize statements that go against his world
view. Some part of him reclassifies them as "nonsense" or
"foolishness" or whatever. He actually uses these terms to
describe them.

This is very very sad. I was looking for a way to disengage
from this endless slogfest without leaving myself open to
ten years of continual hectoring that I "cut and ran" when
the going got tough.

It isn't too tough. It is too damn sad to see a naked ego
lying out in the open for all to view. I don't want to do
this any more. I though that offering an agreement on the
most basic point under discussion might meet with his
approval and we could then go our various ways.

It was not to be. He can't read it for what it says. He
only sees it for what he thinks it says.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 10:08�am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 2/21/2013 2:36 AM, Glenn wrote:

> > Panspermia is not a totally unfounded speculation or insane proposal.
> > That intelligent and perhaps far advanced extraterrestrial life exists may
> > be unfounded, but it is arguable that speculation and search is insane,
> > and is not commonly regarded as unscientific. Adding these together,
> > I do not see as inherently insane. The relevant unfounded speculation
> > subject to criticism would be certain aspects of a particular element
> > that are known or thought to be impractical or impossible.
> > But the short of it is that nothing Peter has proposed is direct evidence
> > that life began on Earth.

Glenn is right on target above, except that he might have added "or
anyone else" after "Peter."

> The only argument is a simplicity ("Occam's Razor") one:

I've already dealt with that in Sections A and B of my FAQ draft:

B3. But doesn't Ockham's Razor strongly favor life abiotically
produced on earth rather than by seeding by space aliens?

REPLY: Ockham's Razor decrees only that the most parsimonious
explanation be
given after ALL evidence has been scrutinized, and what little
evidence there is [see the answer to A7], is on the side of directed
panspermia.
--------------------------------------
Here A7, along with the most relevant part of my answer:

A7. What evidence did Crick and Orgel give for the theory of directed
panspermia?

REPLY: The scientific evidence was indirect, and admittedly weak. It
took
two forms. One was the near-universality of the genetic code. [There
is one variation in ciliates and a few others in various mitochondria,
but the differences are very minor and point to a common ancestral
source.]

It is a little surprising that organisms
with somewhat different codes do not coexist.
The universality of the code follows
naturally from infective theory
of the origins of life. Life on earth
would represent a clone derived
from a single extraterrestrial organism.
Even if many codes were represented at
the primary site where life began, only a
single one might have operated in
the organisms used to infect the Earth.

Of course, they acknowledged that there were various theories for the
near-universality of the code, "but none is generally accepted to be
completely convincing." [ibid.]
________________________

The reference is to:

Icarus 19 (1973) 341-346
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/access/SCBCCP.pdf

> If we already have a plausible theory as to how life could have arisen
> spontaneously on the primordial Earth, then why introduce additional
> complexity by insisting that it could have been deliberately introduced
> here by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization?

That's a very crude application of Ockham's Razor. It is like someone
a hundred years ago saying, "If we already have a plausible theory of
land bridges as to how animals got from one continent to another, then
why introduce additional complexity by insisting that the continents
could have drifted towards and away from each other?"


>�Especially when

> there is zero evidence for such panspermia?

It is just as there was "zero evidence" for continental drift back
then, and also zero evidence for abiogenesis having taken place *on
earth*, as opposed to the evidence for it simply taking place.

> The simplest explanation is: �Life is here, life started here.
>
> The simplest explanation isn't always right. �But it's the best place to
> start.

But all too many t.o. participants also want to stop there, and not
even go so far as "could have" the way you did.

Peter Nyikos

[Paul J Gans]

Steven L. <sdli...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On 2/21/2013 2:36 AM, Glenn wrote:
>>

>> Panspermia is not a totally unfounded speculation or insane proposal.
>> That intelligent and perhaps far advanced extraterrestrial life exists may
>> be unfounded, but it is arguable that speculation and search is insane,
>> and is not commonly regarded as unscientific. Adding these together,
>> I do not see as inherently insane. The relevant unfounded speculation
>> subject to criticism would be certain aspects of a particular element
>> that are known or thought to be impractical or impossible.
>> But the short of it is that nothing Peter has proposed is direct evidence
>> that life began on Earth.

>The only argument is a simplicity ("Occam's Razor") one:

>If we already have a plausible theory as to how life could have arisen
>spontaneously on the primordial Earth, then why introduce additional
>complexity by insisting that it could have been deliberately introduced

>here by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization? Especially when

>there is zero evidence for such panspermia?

>The simplest explanation is: Life is here, life started here.

>The simplest explanation isn't always right. But it's the best place to
>start.

BINGO!

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6045$45r$2...@reader1.panix.com...

Your response was taken into account when I determined what
might have been relevant. That the subject has been bandied about
for some time is not necessarily a reason that past context is
relevant.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 10:14�am, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 2/21/2013 1:10 AM, Glenn wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in messagenews:mlsiemon-2A09D8...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> >> In article <kg4bae$qb...@dont-email.me>,
> >> � "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> >>> "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >>>news:mlsiemon-EBF873...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> >>>> In article <kg453c$2n...@dont-email.me>,
> >>>> � "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >>>>>news:mlsiemon-5C92C8...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...

> >>>>>> In article <kg3ua2$66...@dont-email.me>,
> >>>>>> � "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>

> >>>>>>> "Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message

> >>>>>>>news:kg3qo5$khh$8...@reader1.panix.com...

> >>>>>>>> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On Feb 19, 8:50?pm, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>>>>>>> And it definitely isn't a valid scientific alternative to
> >>>>>>>>>> homegrown
> >>>>>>>>>> abiogenesis.
>

> >>>>>>>>> It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the
> >>>>>>>>> bounds

> >>> you haven't come close to showing anything Peter said above
> >>> is incorrect.
>

> >> Peter refuses to address the objections presented to his notions.
> >> That is _not_ in any acceptable sense "plausible speculation." He
> >> also gives no real support for his ideas -- it is pure assertion
> >> with no supporting argument. (And he goes ballistic if anyone dares
> >> to point this out.)
>
> > That doesn't make what he said above incorrect either.
>

> No. �Just like the Theory of Evolution does not invalidate the existence
> of God.
>
> It simply provides a plausible theory as to how life on Earth came to be
> without having to invoke God to explain it.
>
> Similarly, abiogenesis provides a plausible explanation as to how life
> on Earth began, without having to invoke ultra-advanced extraterrestrial
> civilizations to explain it.
>
> In fact, the Raelians have turned something very much like Peter's
> directed panspermia into a religion, with "Elohim" their name for the
> extraterrestrial alien race:
>
> "Earth was originally void of life, with thick clouds and shallow seas.
> But the Elohim came, broke apart the clouds, exposed the seas to
> sunlight, built a continent, and synthesized a global ecosystem. Solar
> astronomy, terraformation, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering
> allowed Elohim to adapt life to Earth's thermal and chemical makeup."
>
> The fact that Peter's theory so closely resembles what others regard as
> a religion (or a religious cult), tells you something about his theory.

My theory bears NO resemblance to the first sentence. And DP need not
involve any nanotechnology, nor terraforming, nor even genetic
engineering.

My theory FAR more closely resembles the very scientific theory of
Nobel Laureate Biochemist Francis Crick and the world-class biochemist
Leslie Orgel. See the reply I did to you a few minutes ago.

And Crick was an atheist. I don't know what Orgel's beliefs were, but
it's a sure bet they had nothing to do with Raelians.

> This isn't the first time that a thinly disguised religious concept was
> being offered as scientific. �Von Daniken's Ancient Astronaut theory is
> another such.
>
> --
> Steven L.

Isn't it funny how Ray Martinez laughs at DP for the opposite reason
than you do? I mean, he insists that the answer to B9 in the FAQ is
affirmative because the theory was first proposed by atheists.

B9: Is directed panspermia incompatible with Christian faith?

REPLY: No, why should it be, when the Bible makes no mention of
microorganisms? Even if one takes an absolutely literalist view of
Genesis, the arrival of unicellular life on earth could be fit into
either the second day or the beginning of the third day of creation.

The plants that are mentioned on the third day are eukaryotes, which
function better if there is plenty of oxygen in the air. And, of
course, animals could not live without large amounts of oxygen. There
were only trace amounts of oxygen on earth when it was first formed,
and the oxygen that subsequently became an important component of the
atmosphere is due to photosynthesis, especially by cyanobacteria,
during the billions of years before the plant kingdom arose.

The theory of directed panspermia dovetails scientifically with the
theory of naturalistic evolution, but it is also compatible with God
creating every earth species after the first infusion. As for the
microorganisms sent by the panspermists, they in turn could have been
the product of divine creation, if one insists on going the whole nine
yards with species immutability.

Directed panspermia is even quite in the spirit of Genesis 6 through
8, where Noah is depicted as saving the animals from the great flood
and then (8: 17-19) sends them out from the ark to swarm and multiply
all over the earth. Substitute the spacecraft delivering the microbes
for the ark, and the analogy is very good.
_______________________end of reply

Martinez has his head stuck in the sand about B9 to such an extent
that he deletes it from my replies to him.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg60vv$45r$5...@reader1.panix.com...

Seems you two share a lack of understanding of words and concepts
such as "theory" and "start". "Explanation" appears too complicated
as well.

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 7:35�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> >On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> If the body of this is too tedious to read (it is insult free),
> just skip to the bottom of the posting for the key point.
>

> [much deleted as this post is way too long.]

In this second reply to this long post of Gans, there is no need for
me to do any clowning. Gans is funny enough as he bumbles around.
The bumbling around may all be an act, but I certainly don't mind
playing "straight man" in this post.

[snip things mostly dealt with in first reply]

> I'm sorry, but accusing me of clowning to avoid answering
> questions won't work.
>
> And you don't even have to answer them. �I bring them up
> because you (incorrectly) claimed that I'd never proposed
> any real objections.

I only said that MANY of your objections were frivolous, not that all
of them are. And I have answered many if not most of the non-
frivolous ones and also many of the frivolous ones.

Many of the non-frivolous ones were already asked by others and
answered by me before you even stopped boycotting my posts, but you
keep clamoring for special treatment.

[snip for same reason as earlier]

> >Freeman Dyson wrote a bit about the original Project Orion, but he
> >mostly talked about using the spacecraft for interstellar voyages
> >instead of voyages to the outer solar system, as Orion was originally
> >intended, in:
> >"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.
>
> I read the article back in 1968.

I don't think I would have garbled the history of Project Orion one-
tenth as badly as you did below, had I read it back then and posted
from memory.

How old were you back then? I was 22, and I know you are a number of
years older than I am, so you were probably at the peak of your mental
powers.


>�I noted the spirit in which it
> was offered. �In it he hoped to start some serious investigation
> of the possibility of using nuclear propulsion. �In that regard
> it worked and a number of studies were done. �Then the subject
> was dropped. �Do you have any guess as to why?

First of all: the concept of propelling a spaceship by exploding
nuclear bombs behind it was first conceived back in 1955 by Stanislaw
Ulam, a real heavyweight with the Manhattan Project. According to the
Adelmans in _Bound for the Stars_ [Prentice-Hall, 1981],

"[I]t received little attention until 1958, after
the Soviet Union had beaten the United States
to opening the Space Age by launching
its first Sputnik.

"Theodore T. Taylor, the design team leader
of Project Orion, was a physicist who had invented
several new types of atomic bombs. ... Orion was
to be bullet-shaped, 41 meters (135 feet) in diameter
and over three times as long....

"The next year, 1958, the Advanced Research
Project Agency funded a preliminary study of this
startling idea....

"Then, in 1963, the United States signed a treaty
with the Soviet Union that bound the two nations
to stop conducting tests of [nuclear] bombs in the
atmosphere and in space. That put an end to
Project Orion" [pp. 188 - 189]

This last paragraph answers your question--and note the last date:
five years before Freeman Dyson published the 1968 paper whose history
you are garbling so hilariously.

Immediately after the above, one reads:

"The story of its demise is not that simple, however,
and it is instructive -- for it sheds light on how a
scientific project can be ended for nonscientific
reasons."

We have seen plenty of that kind of thing in the intervening three
decades, so I will only tell the story that Adelman and Adelman (one
an astrophysicist, the other a science writer) told if readers are
interested.


[snip stuff about controlled fusion, having nothing to do with Project
Orion, except for:]

> >> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
> >> within 40 years of any date you pick.

> >Before or after?
>
> Your choice.

That's the kind of clowning I can really relate to, Paul.

Continued in next reply, where we get back to Project Orion]

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 19, 7:35�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

Picking up where I left off in my first reply, still with me playing
"straight man" to Paul, who may be clowning in some places, maybe all
places, but I won't try to figure out where.


[snip to get back to Project Orion:]

> >> That's not good enough. ?You likely can't build a ship that can
> >> carry 100,000 good sized fully fused hydrogen bombs. ? And nobody
> >> has ever SERIOUSLY suggested that.

[snip for focus]

> >Here, I'll save you the trouble of getting the Dyson article by
> >interlibrary loan. He figures 3*10^5 bombs for an interstellar
> >manned mission. Now get someone else to put that in notation in a
> >form that is intelligible to you and tell our readers how that
> >compares with the figure of 100,000 you gave above. I'm tired of
> >spoon-feeding you.
>
> I'm gobsmacked. I thought Dyson was smarter than that.

Back in 1968, when you read his article, you didn't think this way.
Or were you just joking when you said you'd read it? If not, what
made you change your mind?

Note to readers: the article in question is:

"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.

> Do you
> understand the problem of storing that magnitude of material
> on an interstellar ship. Do you know how big it would be.

Didn't these questions occur to you back in 1968? Oh, wait, Dyson
answered them:

Weight of 3*10^5 bombs : 3*10^5 tons
Weight of empty ship: 10^5 tons
Weight of structure and payload: 5*10^4 tons
--- Table 2. Ablation Space Ship [p. 45]

> >Once you've done that, we can talk about how that can be scaled down
> >for a panspermia mission delivering one ton of prokaryotes.

...as opposed to the gigantic weight of the payload alone for a manned
mission, which is what Dyson was proposing.

[snip of a few things to be dealt with later, and lots of things dealt
with earlier, including the dealings]

> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop.

I'm having a blast. No way is any of this boring me.

> You are clearly
> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

"any of the questions" is an obvious joke; see above. And below.

> I don't need detailed answers,

Then you have no excuse for saying "any of the questions I bring up,"
except for laughs. Your bit about "actually respond" only makes sense
if you mean "give replies that answer ALL related questions in my
mind, including the ones I asked only after your first reply, and
after your second reply, and ..."

But you are the one who keeps complaining about long posts. So I
refuse to try to anticipate your replies to my replies, which would be
like avoiding Scylla and running right into Charybdis.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 3:41�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:37:21 -0500, Mitchell Coffey
> ><mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
> >>> Skip to end.
>

> >>> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> >>>> On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> [big snip here -- PJG]

> >>>> [small snip here]
>
> >>> Here is the "small snip":
>
> >>> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop.
> >>> You are clearly
> >>> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

I dealt with this joke in my latest reply to the post where you wrote
this, but I expect you to go on telling this joke, because it is
highly entertaining to jillery, who has me killfiled.

For the same reason, I expect you to delete what I wrote in that
reply.

[snip rest of entertainment, along with something else]

[that something else was the subject of a cross between a sob story
and a song and dance by you at the end of this post]

> >>Why, I do declare: that looks like Peter's engaged in, in, in *sneaky
> >>dishonest deletia*! Why I do declare.
> >Yet another petard goes to hoist.
>
> I have to defend Peter here. �He considers what I wrote as
> "fooling around". �Indeed he constructed a three phase joke
> that he thinks I was pulling on him,

Don't forget, I alluded to a three phase joke YOU constructed starting
back in August:

Phase 1. "More importantly, Peter seems to assume that
the panspermists were unicellular. That raises so many
questions of its own that I won't even go there except to
say that I can't imagine how an amoeboid creature
can weild a monkey wrench."

After I said that the hypothesized panspermists SENT microbes, you had
all you needed for:

Phase 2: "you kept going on about microbes on some
other planet so I assumed that you had microbes
as the builders."
You said something even stronger before you said that, about how you
were forced to guess because I give so little information about the
panspermists.

Phase 3 came after I told you how I had written a great deal about
them, and consisted of you accusing me of demanding that everyone read
everything I post.

I documented you making that OBVIOUS joke more recently too. I
documented it right on this thread, in my reply to your first post on
this thread.

And the joke I "constructed" was a straightforward analogue of the
above, with Phase 1 already in place with your joke that a problem
with Project Daedalus was also a problem with Project Orion.

> but luckily he detected
> it early enough to thwart it. �What he deleted was just more
> of my "fooling around", as he puts it.

You are entertaining jillery by acting as though you didn't know the
reasons for why I suspected you of this.

And, since jillery has me killfiled, I expect you to go on
entertaining her in this fashion.

> Of course I was not fooling around, as and fool can plainly see.

Only a fool would believe you were NOT fooling around, just on your
say-so. Only a colossal fool would believe that after reading
everything I've written in reply to you.

Jillery, of course, may never learn the truth about why it is obvious
that you are really laying on the joking thickly in that last line of
yours. It would SO spoil its entertainment value.

> But I take Peter seriously. � As Mitch sugggested earlier, Peter
> seems not to recognize statements that go against his world
> view.

Nor will jillery ever learn just what a big joke this last statement
is, if you or Mitch has anything to do with that.


>�Some part of him reclassifies them as "nonsense" or

> "foolishness" or whatever. �He actually uses these terms to
> describe them.

Some part of you knows that this is a half-truth at best where YOUR
statements are concerned, and may even know that it is close to a
complete lie where normal people like Glenn are concerned.

But the clown in you just can't let unequivocal drivel like this go.
And so, you continue living up to the subject line of this thread.

And now comes the cross between a sob story and a song and dance
mentioned at the beginning:

> This is very very sad. �I was looking for a way to disengage
> from this endless slogfest without leaving myself open to
> ten years of continual hectoring that I "cut and ran" when
> the going got tough.

Instead, you are leaving yourself open to hectoring about pushing
tired old jokes way beyond their natural life.

> It isn't too tough. �It is too damn sad to see a naked ego
> lying out in the open for all to view. �I don't want to do
> this any more. �I though that offering an agreement on the
> most basic point under discussion might meet with his
> approval and we could then go our various ways.
>
> It was not to be. �He can't read it for what it says. �He
> only sees it for what he thinks it says.

I never replied to it one way or the other, joker. Care to guess what
my reply will be?

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 3:06�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "alias Ernest Major" <{$t...@meden.demon.co.ukl> wrote in messagenews:dHuVs.336450$342....@fx12.fr7...

> > On 21/02/2013 18:23, Glenn wrote:
>

> > > "Mitchell Coffey" <mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:kg5a6u$696$1...@dont-email.me...

> > >> OK, but as you know, it is possible to make a factually correct
> > >> statement that is nonetheless misleading. Such is the case when Peter
> > >> writes "As to its validity, there is no direct evidence for homegrown
> > >> abiogenesis, any more than there is for directed panspermia." This
> > >> implies that direct evidence is the primary consideration in judging
> > >> validity. That is not true, and as there is indirect evidence for
> > >> earthly abiogenesis, reproducible experiments, and falsifiable theories
> > >> as to how earthly abiogenesis or its sub-components may have operated.
> > >> To my knowledge no such things exist for DP.

> > > I didn't get that impression. What I got is that "we don't know for sure"
> > > about abiogenesis, and that it is wrong to make comparisons with competing
> > > hypotheses, to say one is not scientifically valid alternative compared to another.
>
> > >> Furthermore, when Peter writes "[DP] is certainly scientific, in that it
> > >> does not go outside the bounds of what we know to be possible," Peter is
> > >> incorrect that being within the bound of the possible makes a
> > >> speculation "certainly scientific."
>
> > > Really?
>
> > Yes. Omphalism, for example, is possible, but it is not scientific.
>
> Is God within the bounds of what we know to be possible?
> And is that the "it" Peter referred to?

Of course not. My DP hypothesis is done strictly according to
scientific methodology. B9 is the only place in the FAQ where I even
touch on the supernatural, and that has only to do with
*compatibility* with traditional Christianity and Judaism.

DP is even falsifiable, as noted elsewhere in the FAQ:

B8: Isn't directed panspermia essentially untestable, thereby removing
it from the category of science?

REPLY: It is eminently testable *in principle*, and may also
become testable in practice if human beings make serious attempts
to find out whether there is life on other worlds. The following
is mostly taken from

http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/90027d90c58f7b4c

If we send enough probes, whether manned or unmanned, to
investigate the occurrence of life in many likely planets
in our galaxy, a lot of possibilities will be tested and
of the following four, only one will emerge the winner:

(1) We may find life in many stages of "protein takeover", all with
closely similar genetic codes.

That would be a big argument in favor of what I have called "the
Throomian sub-hypothesis." This has it that the panspermia project was
carried out by intelligent creatures that had ribozymes in place of
protein enzymes, and who carried out experiments in which they
replaced ribozymes incrementally with protein enzymes in organisms
over the course of thousands of years. They might have sent "the
latest models" to the planets they were seeding at that time.

On the other hand, if the takeover is in essentially the same stage as
that of earth, and the genetic code is very similar, that would
strongly support the overall hypothesis of directed panspermia while
all but falsifying the Throomian sub-hypothesis.

A third possible outcome is that we encounter lots of life with
genetic codes all very different from ours. That would all but
falsify all three main sub-hypotheses of directed panspermia,.

And finally, if we find no life after searching a million likely
planets, that would falsify the hypothesis that WE are the result of
evolution from unicellular organisms sent here by directed
panspermists, but would still leave my general hypothesis
about the frequency of directed panspermia largely unscathed.
=========== end of FAQ reply

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://www.math.sc.edu/~nyikos/
nyikos @ math.sc.edu

[Paul J Gans]

Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote:
>In article <kfuj5i$di6$4...@reader1.panix.com>,

> Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>> A hypothetical plan would be to use controlled fusion, where little
>> "seeds" are set off by the compressive forces from a large number
>> of carefully focussed lasers.
>>

>> Of course, we've not made this work, though a solution is expected
>> within 40 years of any date you pick.

>It was 20 years when I was in high school.

Well, in the intervening time we've discovered more
difficulties.

:-)

[Paul J Gans]

Glenn, what I am doing is trying to explain why we can say
that one event is more probable than another even if we can't
assign exact values to the probabilities.

I gather that you can't see that, but you've drifted off onto
another topic.

>>
>> And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
>> to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
>> idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
>> seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.

>Problems and science seem to go hand in hand.

Not my point.

>>
>> >Probabilities on that can't be made either.
>> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
>> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
>> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
>> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
>>
>> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
>> that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
>> change as we learn new things.

>Are you shitting me?

Not at all.

>> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
>> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
>> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
>> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
>> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
>> here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
>> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
>> found.
>>
>> So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
>> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
>> would seem to have the largest chance.
>>
>Seem?

Yes, seem. I can't state with exactitude, but that's the way
I would bet.

[Paul J Gans]

What I have below is not intended as support for the claim.
It is as if you walked in in the middle of the movie and are
now somewhat confused about the plot.

What I have below, as it clearly says, is my last substantive
thing I posted. I think that it makes the very point that
you are pushing.

You can skip the first paragraph of it. That is there because
Peter strongly objects to pruned or limited quoting.

[Glenn]

"pnyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:dec93e04-943f-48aa...@7g2000yqy.googlegroups.com...

It was a rhetorical question designed to bring attention to
Mitchell's strawman of changing DP into "a" speculation.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6a2o$g6j$4...@reader1.panix.com...

You can try to say anything, but that doesn't mean it will
be scientific.

> >>
> >> And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
> >> to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
> >> idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
> >> seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.
>
> >Problems and science seem to go hand in hand.
>
> Not my point.

No, it was mine. Try to focus.

>
> >>
> >> >Probabilities on that can't be made either.
> >> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
> >> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
> >> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
> >> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
> >>
> >> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
> >> that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
> >> change as we learn new things.
>
> >Are you shitting me?
>
> Not at all.

Sure sounds like it.

>
> >> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
> >> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
> >> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
> >> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
> >> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
> >> here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
> >> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
> >> found.
> >>
> >> So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
> >> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
> >> would seem to have the largest chance.
> >>
> >Seem?
>
> Yes, seem. I can't state with exactitude, but that's the way
> I would bet.
>

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6aa1$g6j$5...@reader1.panix.com...

Do you seriously assume others should accept your version of
events as facts to be used to make determinations?

>
> What I have below, as it clearly says, is my last substantive
> thing I posted. I think that it makes the very point that
> you are pushing.

I'm not going to go check what has been said in the past
or after I responded to your claim that what Peter said was
incorrect. It was not.

[Paul J Gans]

Peter said:

"It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the
bounds of what we know to be possible. As to its validity,
there is no direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more
than there is for directed panspermia."

Is that what you mean? This statement is wrong. It is not
scientific. Things that stay within the bounds of what we
know to be possible are not automatically scientific. Asserting
that anti-gravity exists does not make it scientific.

As for evidence, what would direct evidence of abiogenesis of
life on earth look like? One would need to know this. Indeed,
there are many forms of evidence that would indicate that
abiogenesis did NOT start here. One would be that finding
the fossil record began with complex multicellular organisms.

But we don't find that. We expect that the earliest life forms
were not fossilizable. We also have a shortage of very early
rock formations to look at. But what we do find corresponds
very nicely to what we would expect. That counts as direct
evidence.

There is also the fact that we exist. There is today only
one way to explain this. Could this change in the future.
Of course. That's science. Things change as we know more
and more.

Peter's simple claim is that he believes that the probability
of local abiogenesis is very very small and therefore, since
there is life on earth, it had to come from somewhere else.

There you have the two viewpoints. There is evidence for
the standard view. There is no evidence for the panspermic
view.

What that does is make the standard view more probable, as
we understand the situation today, and the panspermic view
less probable as we understand the situation today.

Got it?

[Paul J Gans]

I gather that you still think that probabilities that can't
be very precisely quantified can't be compared as to which
is more likely.

If so, we shall have to agree to differ.

[Paul J Gans]

Thank you for your contributions.

[Paul J Gans]

I'm glad of that.

[Paul J Gans]

Why would anyone expect Peter to propose evidence for life
beginning on earth?

I would like to ask you directly what you would accept as
"direct evidence" for the origin of life on earth.

It may well be that there is nothing that you would accept, in
which case we are both wasting our time in discussing this.

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >On Feb 18, 8:05?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> If the body of this is too tedious to read (it is insult free),
>> just skip to the bottom of the posting for the key point.
>>
>> [much deleted as this post is way too long.]

>In this second reply to this long post of Gans, there is no need for
>me to do any clowning. Gans is funny enough as he bumbles around.
>The bumbling around may all be an act, but I certainly don't mind
>playing "straight man" in this post.

>[snip things mostly dealt with in first reply]

>> I'm sorry, but accusing me of clowning to avoid answering
>> questions won't work.
>>

>> And you don't even have to answer them. ?I bring them up

>> because you (incorrectly) claimed that I'd never proposed
>> any real objections.

>I only said that MANY of your objections were frivolous, not that all
>of them are. And I have answered many if not most of the non-
>frivolous ones and also many of the frivolous ones.

>Many of the non-frivolous ones were already asked by others and
>answered by me before you even stopped boycotting my posts, but you
>keep clamoring for special treatment.

>[snip for same reason as earlier]

>> >Freeman Dyson wrote a bit about the original Project Orion, but he
>> >mostly talked about using the spacecraft for interstellar voyages
>> >instead of voyages to the outer solar system, as Orion was originally
>> >intended, in:
>> >"Interstellar Transport," Physics Today, October 1968, pp. 41-45.
>>
>> I read the article back in 1968.

>I don't think I would have garbled the history of Project Orion one-
>tenth as badly as you did below, had I read it back then and posted
>from memory.

>How old were you back then? I was 22, and I know you are a number of
>years older than I am, so you were probably at the peak of your mental
>powers.

>>?I noted the spirit in which it
>> was offered. ?In it he hoped to start some serious investigation
>> of the possibility of using nuclear propulsion. ?In that regard
>> it worked and a number of studies were done. ?Then the subject
>> was dropped. ?Do you have any guess as to why?

Thank you for this concise reply to the statement of mine you
snipped from the first post.

[Paul J Gans]

pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Feb 21, 3:41?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>> jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:37:21 -0500, Mitchell Coffey
>> ><mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
>> >>> Skip to end.
>>
>> >>> pnyikos <nyik...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> >>>> On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> [big snip here -- PJG]

>> >>>> [small snip here]
>>
>> >>> Here is the "small snip":
>>
>> >>> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop.
>> >>> You are clearly
>> >>> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

>I dealt with this joke in my latest reply to the post where you wrote
>this, but I expect you to go on telling this joke, because it is
>highly entertaining to jillery, who has me killfiled.

>For the same reason, I expect you to delete what I wrote in that
>reply.

>[snip rest of entertainment, along with something else]

[rest of Nykosian evasion deleted]

Here it is again Peter, including my first sentence which
you DO have above:

"Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.

I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
start of all of this. An agreement.

"You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO
evidence for it, but it remains interesting. It also has many
difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.

"We could agree on this. Indeed, I think that everyone would
agree with it."

If you ever get around responding directly to my last two
paragraphs, let me know.

[Paul J Gans]

No. I am estimating probabilities according to what we know
today.

>> Glenn, what I am doing is trying to explain why we can say
>> that one event is more probable than another even if we can't
>> assign exact values to the probabilities.
>>
>> I gather that you can't see that, but you've drifted off onto
>> another topic.
>>
>You can try to say anything, but that doesn't mean it will
>be scientific.

So you don't see it or won't accept it. So I guess there is
little advantage in continuing this discussion. For you
all unknown probabilities cannot be ranked, even approximately.
That's certainly a point of view, but an uncommon one.

>> >>
>> >> And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
>> >> to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
>> >> idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
>> >> seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.
>>
>> >Problems and science seem to go hand in hand.
>>
>> Not my point.

>No, it was mine. Try to focus.

I am focussing on the ranking of probabilities whose exact
magnitude is unknown. That's the subject. That's what
I'm responding to.

>>
>> >>
>> >> >Probabilities on that can't be made either.
>> >> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
>> >> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
>> >> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
>> >> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
>> >>
>> >> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
>> >> that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
>> >> change as we learn new things.
>>
>> >Are you shitting me?

I love it when you get cute. Can you make a definite statement?
You agree with me or you don't?

>> Not at all.

>Sure sounds like it.

Nope. I'm sticking to the topic of ranking probabilities.

>> >> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
>> >> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
>> >> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
>> >> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
>> >> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
>> >> here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
>> >> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
>> >> found.
>> >>
>> >> So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
>> >> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
>> >> would seem to have the largest chance.
>> >>
>> >Seem?
>>
>> Yes, seem. I can't state with exactitude, but that's the way
>> I would bet.
>>
>What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

I gather that you have given up on substantive discussion.

[Paul J Gans]

What "version" of what facts.

>> What I have below, as it clearly says, is my last substantive
>> thing I posted. I think that it makes the very point that
>> you are pushing.

>I'm not going to go check what has been said in the past
>or after I responded to your claim that what Peter said was
>incorrect. It was not.

We'll have to differ on that.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6b3l$iu0$1...@reader1.panix.com...

Peter is not asserting that anti-gravity exists, and he isn't asserting
directed panspermia exists.

>
> As for evidence, what would direct evidence of abiogenesis of
> life on earth look like? One would need to know this. Indeed,
> there are many forms of evidence that would indicate that
> abiogenesis did NOT start here. One would be that finding
> the fossil record began with complex multicellular organisms.

In any event, what Peter said concerning that is not incorrect.

>
> But we don't find that. We expect that the earliest life forms
> were not fossilizable. We also have a shortage of very early
> rock formations to look at. But what we do find corresponds
> very nicely to what we would expect. That counts as direct
> evidence.

You should know better than that. The best that could count
as direct evidence of is when life first appeared, not that
life originated on Earth.

>
> There is also the fact that we exist. There is today only
> one way to explain this. Could this change in the future.
> Of course. That's science. Things change as we know more
> and more.

Does this come with a dance?

>
> Peter's simple claim is that he believes that the probability
> of local abiogenesis is very very small and therefore, since
> there is life on earth, it had to come from somewhere else.

Where in the above quote did you get that?

>
> There you have the two viewpoints. There is evidence for
> the standard view. There is no evidence for the panspermic
> view.

There is no direct evidence for either, which is what you claimed
was incorrect.

>
> What that does is make the standard view more probable, as
> we understand the situation today, and the panspermic view
> less probable as we understand the situation today.
>
> Got it?
>

Yes I believe I do. Peter did not refer to probabilities.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6b92$4ap$1...@reader1.panix.com...

Perhaps we disagree on what "can" represents in context.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6bdh$4ap$2...@reader1.panix.com...

What I accept is that panspermia is a valid scientific proposal,
and do not accept that life existing on Earth is direct evidence
life originated on Earth.
There are still unknowns in how life first started, assuming
it started on Earth. It still isn't a big stretch to say it is a mystery.
There are still different hypotheses and speculation abounds,
none tested.
When that is no longer the case, I would likely say that
direct evidence exists. It would be a little difficult to tell
you what that evidence is at the moment.

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6cgf$4ap$7...@reader1.panix.com...

You're trying to create the impression that probability need not be measured,
that subjectivity can be employed to compare likelihood.

>
> >> Glenn, what I am doing is trying to explain why we can say
> >> that one event is more probable than another even if we can't
> >> assign exact values to the probabilities.
> >>
> >> I gather that you can't see that, but you've drifted off onto
> >> another topic.
> >>
> >You can try to say anything, but that doesn't mean it will
> >be scientific.
>
> So you don't see it or won't accept it. So I guess there is
> little advantage in continuing this discussion. For you
> all unknown probabilities cannot be ranked, even approximately.
> That's certainly a point of view, but an uncommon one.
>

Perhaps, but it is the logical one. The relevant factors are not
present that would allow probabilites to be established.
You think they are. But it is unknown how life began and
where it began. That it exists on Earth and
when it first appeared is not sufficient.

>
> >> >>
> >> >> And there is the problem of transferring that interstellar life
> >> >> to earth, an entirely different environment. Peter's panspermia
> >> >> idea has the advantage here of having existing life engineer the
> >> >> seeds (or whatever) for the earthly environment.
> >>
> >> >Problems and science seem to go hand in hand.
> >>
> >> Not my point.
>
> >No, it was mine. Try to focus.
>
> I am focussing on the ranking of probabilities whose exact
> magnitude is unknown. That's the subject. That's what
> I'm responding to.
>

That's a problem for one that claims there is direct evidence.

> >> >>
> >> >> >Probabilities on that can't be made either.
> >> >> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
> >> >> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
> >> >> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
> >> >> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
> >> >>
> >> >> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
> >> >> that one cannot assign relative values. Of course these can
> >> >> change as we learn new things.
> >>
> >> >Are you shitting me?
>
> I love it when you get cute. Can you make a definite statement?
> You agree with me or you don't?
>

Relative values are like assholes, everyone has a different one.

> >> Not at all.
>
> >Sure sounds like it.
>
> Nope. I'm sticking to the topic of ranking probabilities.

Sound rank.

>
> >> >> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
> >> >> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
> >> >> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
> >> >> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
> >> >> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
> >> >> here. The major fact for that is that we ARE here. But there
> >> >> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
> >> >> found.
> >> >>
> >> >> So yes, your argument is good. There are other possible places
> >> >> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
> >> >> would seem to have the largest chance.
> >> >>
> >> >Seem?
> >>
> >> Yes, seem. I can't state with exactitude, but that's the way
> >> I would bet.
> >>
> >What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
>
> I gather that you have given up on substantive discussion.
>

I like how you pull that word out like a weapon, but never point
it at yourself. That's the way I would bet. How it "seems" pretty
well summarizes your probability argument. And hey, that is
just what you did. What does substantive mean, again?

[Glenn]

"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in message news:kg6cj6$4ap$8...@reader1.panix.com...

Your recollection of reality.

>
> >> What I have below, as it clearly says, is my last substantive
> >> thing I posted. I think that it makes the very point that
> >> you are pushing.
>
> >I'm not going to go check what has been said in the past
> >or after I responded to your claim that what Peter said was
> >incorrect. It was not.
>
> We'll have to differ on that.

That is obvious.

[jillery]

On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:41:22 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
<gan...@panix.com> wrote:

>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:37:21 -0500, Mitchell Coffey
>><mitchell...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
>>>> Skip to end.
>>>>

>>>> pnyikos <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>>>> On Feb 19, 7:35?pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>[big snip here -- PJG]
>
>>>>> [small snip here]
>>>>
>>>> Here is the "small snip":
>>>>

>>>> Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. You are clearly
>>>> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.
>>>> I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an
>>>> engineer. I'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
>>>> start of all of this. An agreement.
>>>>
>>>> You have a suggestion for how things might have been. It has NO
>>>> evidence for it, but it remains interesting. It also has many
>>>> difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.
>>>>
>>>> We could agree on this. Indeed, I think that everyone would
>>>> agree with it.
>>>

>>>Why, I do declare: that looks like Peter's engaged in, in, in *sneaky
>>>dishonest deletia*! Why I do declare.
>
>>Yet another petard goes to hoist.
>
>I have to defend Peter here. He considers what I wrote as
>"fooling around". Indeed he constructed a three phase joke

>that he thinks I was pulling on him, but luckily he detected

>it early enough to thwart it. What he deleted was just more
>of my "fooling around", as he puts it.
>

>Of course I was not fooling around, as and fool can plainly see.
>

>But I take Peter seriously. As Mitch sugggested earlier, Peter
>seems not to recognize statements that go against his world

>view. Some part of him reclassifies them as "nonsense" or

>"foolishness" or whatever. He actually uses these terms to
>describe them.
>

>This is very very sad. I was looking for a way to disengage
>from this endless slogfest without leaving myself open to
>ten years of continual hectoring that I "cut and ran" when
>the going got tough.
>

>It isn't too tough. It is too damn sad to see a naked ego
>lying out in the open for all to view. I don't want to do
>this any more. I though that offering an agreement on the
>most basic point under discussion might meet with his
>approval and we could then go our various ways.
>
>It was not to be. He can't read it for what it says. He
>only sees it for what he thinks it says.

With a defense like that, you don't need an offense.

[pnyikos]

Below, Paul Gans finds that he has the agreement he has been on his
hobbyhorse about for most of this thread.

On Feb 21, 6:23�ｿｽpm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg5umd$q46$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> >> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>

> >> >You're arguing a strawman. Peter didn't claim there was any evidence
> >> >of panspermia, he only claimed that speculation was scientific, with

> >> >qualification. �ｿｽHe didn't say that abiogenesis was not grounded in

> >> >plausible speculation. Whether abiogenesis is "infinitely more" grounded
> >> >in science is a matter of interpretation, but still, does not make what
> >> >he said above incorrect.
> >> >There are always barriers in science, but it appears to me that
> >> >you haven't come close to showing anything Peter said above
> >> >is incorrect.
>
> >> In my opinion, and I stress that, you are mainly repeating statements

> >> I've already made to Peter. �ｿｽThe sticking point is that Peter defends

> >> his panspermic hypothesis with great ferver, citing technical literature
> >> to indicate that his viewpoint is the most logical.
>
> >> I think that you will agree that this is pushing it a bit too far.
> >It is possible that I would, except not because of what you
> >use below to support the claim.
>
> What I have below is not intended as support for the claim.
> It is as if you walked in in the middle of the movie and are
> now somewhat confused about the plot.

Actually, it is you and Coffey and Siemon who are confused about the
plot; Glenn is doing magnificently, except for not understanding the
fact that you can make relative probability calculations, or at least
rank things in order of probability without knowing what the
probabilities are.

And that is such a general issue, it has nothing to do with what went
on in this thread.

> What I have below, as it clearly says, is my last substantive

> thing I posted. �ｿｽI think that it makes the very point that
> you are pushing.
>
> You can skip the first paragraph of it. �ｿｽThat is there because

> Peter strongly objects to pruned or limited quoting.

You are demonstrating what an amoral person you are: the concept of
"dishonest deletia" or "sneaky deletia" is beyond your pay grade, as
Obama would say.

Of course, you could be clowning around here too. But it seems you
are so amoral, you would rather be thought of as a pathological liar
than someone who clowns around practically all the time. Your
behavior on this thread is a dramatic kind of evidence for that.

Why are you like this?

> >> My
> >> last substantive thing I posted in response to Peter was this:
>

> >> "Look, if all this bores you, I'll gladly stop. �ｿｽYou are clearly

> >> not going to actually respond to any of the questions I bring up.
> >> I don't need detailed answers, you aren't a physicist nor an

> >> engineer. �ｿｽI'd even settle for what was obvious at the very
> >> start of all of this. �ｿｽAn agreement.

An agreement that was made already, but has gone down your memory
hole.

Maybe Coffey or Siemon can explain that concept "memory hole" to you,
now that Coffey has seen Siemon get burned by it. You are totally
unteachable by me.


> >> "You have a suggestion for how things might have been. �ｿｽIt has NO

> >> evidence for it, but it remains interesting.

And I say once more: earthly abiogenesis, as opposed to abiogenesis,
has NO evidence for it.

What I mean is, there is no evidence that abiogenesis took place on
earth, that is over and above the evidence that abiogenesis is
possible.

> >> It also has many
> >> difficulties that might, or might not be worked out.

This is what we already agreed on, on another thread, where controlled
fusion is concerned. You've been flogging a dead horse mercilessly in
post after post after post here, while you have barely begun to get
substantive about Project Orion.

Your initial crack about tossing bombs out of a bomb bay was a very
inauspicious beginning. Your astonishment over Dyson's numbers is
dramatic evidence that you have long lost whatever you learned by
reading his five-page article back in 1968.

Is there any objection of yours TO PROJECT ORION that I have not
answered to your satisfaction? If so, spit it out.


> >> "We could agree on this. �ｿｽIndeed, I think that everyone would
> >> agree with it."

We already did, where controlled fusion is concerned.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 6:29�pm, "Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> "Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg6a2o$g6j$4...@reader1.panix.com...

And so on, back and forth, beginning with Glenn:

> > >> >I don't agree with your claim that the probability is higher
> > >> >that life began on Earth than life beginning in space or
> > >> >coming to Earth from another planet, asteroid, comet.
> > >> >I don't believe that the probability can me measured.
>
> > >> That no specific numeric value can be assigned does not mean
> > >> that one cannot assign relative values. �Of course these can
> > >> change as we learn new things.
>
> > >Are you shitting me?
>
> > Not at all.
>
> Sure sounds like it.

He is shitting you below, but for once on this thread, he is on solid
ground above. Read on.

>
> > >> For the reasons I gave above I personally would deprecate the
> > >> possibility of life on earth having come from interstellar life.
> > >> It is much simpler to generate life here than in outer space.
> > >> Not only do factors mitigate against our life starting in space,
> > >> there are others that increase the chance that our life began
> > >> here. �The major fact for that is that we ARE here. �But there
> > >> are others, including the very early fossil forms we've already
> > >> found.
>
> > >> So yes, your argument is good. �There are other possible places
> > >> life could begin, but without evidence for them local biogenesis
> > >> would seem to have the largest chance.
>
> > >Seem?
>
> > Yes, seem. �I can't state with exactitude, but that's the way
> > I would bet.
>
> What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Yes, he is bluffing with a Nothing hand here. But the general
principle he elucidated above is sound.

In fact, I'm way ahead of him. I started a whole thread devoted to
the very topic of ranking evolutionary events in order of their
probability. Here is the inaugural post:

Local: Thurs, Sep 6 2012 9:26 am
Subject: Evolutionary benchmarks from prebiotic soup to Homo sapiens

Originally I thought to use "milestones" instead of "benchmarks", but
that creates the impression that these benchmarks are about evenly
spaced, whereas I think the difficulties in getting between successive
benchmarks are very different quantitatively.

In fact, the first thing I'd appreciate reader feedback on is this.
Try ordering the various moves from one benchmark to the next, in
order of difficulty.

I'd like even creationists to play along here. Even if you don't
think evolution bridged the gap from one benchmark to the next, you
might at least have some idea as to which ones pose the biggest
obstacle to "abiogeneticists" and "evolutionists".

Here are the main benchmarks:

B0. Prebiotic soup, with amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and
various other simple organic compounds that we know can be formed
spontaneously under early earth (before life) conditions, having
produced them in the lab and having found them in meteorites.

B1. prokaryotes (bacteria, archae)

B2. sexually reproducing eukaryotes

B3: metazoans

B4: lower chordates

B5: primitive tetrapods

B6: prosimians

B7: *Homo sapiens*

I'll designate as Move n (Mn) the evolutionary move from Bn-1 to the
next benchmark, Bn. I'll start the ball rolling with my present (very
tentative) idea of the order of difficulty, the most difficult first,
to the least difficult, last.

M1, M2, M3, M5, M7, M6, M4

Later, I will be giving some ideas as to why I rank these as I do.
Feel free to confine yourselves to individual comparisons, e.g. "I
think M1 is much easier than M2" [a widely shared sentiment] and to
give comparisons like these long before giving reasons for your
belief.

It would be nice to have at least "order-of-magnitude" estimates of
the relative difficulties in getting from one benchmark to the other,
but that's not what this thread is mainly about.
============== text of post archived
at http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/msg/497ab8e37fde467b?dmode=source

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 6:37�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> >"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg5ur0$q46$2...@reader1.panix.com...

> >> What specifically is the "what he said above". �He said many
> >> things above. �Please be specific.
>
> >No, Peter did not say many things above.
>
> Peter said:
>
> � "It is certainly scientific, in that it does not go outside the
> � �bounds of what we know to be possible. �As to its validity,
> � �there is no direct evidence for homegrown abiogenesis, any more
> � �than there is for directed panspermia."
>
> Is that what you mean? �This statement is wrong.

Your only excuse for saying this is that you have been boycotting
everything that I've posted on this thread since my third reply to
you. I've said that I was pressed for time and could not give all the
senses in which DP is scientific; but I've given several since then,
one of which is that it is scientifically testable.

Your reason for boycotting me no longer applies. I've revealed that
we have had the agreement you've been badgering me about all along.

But now I expect you to go along with something you wrote in
connection with that, about going our separate ways. I took that to
mean that you would no longer post to this thread after you got that
agreement out of me.

And I think I've given you all the reason in the world to disappear
from this thread now, and to forever after rewrite Usenet history as
to what transpired here.

[That's another allusion to Orwell's _1984_]




,�It is not

> scientific. �Things that stay within the bounds of what we
> know to be possible are not automatically scientific. �Asserting
> that anti-gravity exists does not make it scientific.

That is NOT within the bounds of what we know to be possible. You are
just revealing your ignorance of basic physics with this.

> As for evidence, what would direct evidence of abiogenesis of
> life on earth look like? �One would need to know this. �Indeed,
> there are many forms of evidence that would indicate that
> abiogenesis did NOT start here. �One would be that finding
> the fossil record began with complex multicellular organisms.

"multicellular" shows this is a strawman argument.

> But we don't find that.

What we do find is that there are prokaryotes, which are already
unbelievably complex, and no evidence of life forms that can be
identified as evolutionary precursors.

The "microspheres" of Fox are NOT evolutionary precursors; they are a
dead end. NOTHING we have fossils of before the first confirmed
prokaryote fossil has been shown to be anything but a dead end.


>�We expect that the earliest life forms

> were not fossilizable. �We also have a shortage of very early
> rock formations to look at. �But what we do find corresponds
> very nicely to what we would expect.

Baloney. It is even worse than Gould calling *Ambulocetus,* whose
hind legs were longer than its forelegs, as "the smoking gun" for
whales descending from fully terrestrial mammals.

*Rodhocetus* does qualify in a lot of ways, but (surprise!) there is
evidence that it is outside the crown group of artiodactyls, where
whales were believed to be safely ensconced.

But that's kid stuff compared to your sophomoric assertion above.

> That counts as direct
> evidence.
>
> There is also the fact that we exist. �There is today only
> one way to explain this.

Thus you reveal your TRUE opinion about earthly abiogenesis. You have
a closed mind about DP.

>�Could this change in the future.

> Of course. �That's science. �Things change as we know more
> and more.

How good is your knowledge of the science, and even of the philosophy
of science, that is relevant to evolution and abiogenesis?

Is it anywhere beyond the middle school level? There's no evidence of
that on this thread.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 21, 6:42�pm, Paul J Gans <gan...@panix.com> wrote:
> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> >"Paul J Gans" <gan...@panix.com> wrote in messagenews:kg5vvk$45r$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> >> Glenn <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> >> >"Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in messagenews:mlsiemon-F977EA...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> >> >> In article <kg4e2t$43...@dont-email.me>,
> >> >> �"Glenn" <gl...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
> >> >> > "Michael Siemon" <mlsie...@sonic.net> wrote in message
> >> >> >news:mlsiemon-6DD939...@c-61-68-245-199.per.connect.net.au...
> >> >> > > In article <kg4aqv$os...@dont-email.me>,

Where I am concerned, you basically have my answer in the post I did a
few minutes ago.

Namely, fossils that lead clearly from something like your beloved
"small molecules life" to the simplest free-living prokaryotes.

It would help greatly if we still had such life forms around, because
that would tell us what to look for.

Viruses and viroids don't qualify. But you are probably too ignorant
of science to know that.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

Done already, less than an hour ago.

The ball is in your court.

Peter Nyikos

[pnyikos]

On Feb 22, 4:24�am, jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:41:22 +0000 (UTC), Paul J Gans
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <gan...@panix.com> wrote:

> >jillery <69jpi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 01:37:21 -0500, Mitchell Coffey
> >><mitchelldotcof...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>On 2/20/2013 7:54 PM, Paul J Gans wrote:
> >>>> Skip to end.
>

jillery seems to know Paul better than Paul knows himself.

Peter Nyikos