reply to post by Pimander
Surely you know that was poor form?
Trying to boost your credibility on ATS by making unfalsifiable assertions about yourself is
very poor form.
You the readers of this will have to judge me by the content of my posts.
I already have, Pimander, and doubtless others have too. I may be wrong about you, but that is neither here nor there. The fault is yours for making a
claim in the first place that you are unwilling or unable to substantiate. You are in the court of public opinion here, my friend; you submitted
yourself to its judgement when first you chose to put ‘scientist’ under your screen name – just as I did when I chose to put ‘mind firmly
closed’ under mine. It’s a little late now for coming over all hurt and offended.
*
I see you don’t like Occam’s Razor. Cranks with pet theories of their own tend not to. I’m not saying you are a crank, merely noting the company
you’re in here.
Scientists, on the other hand, are rather fond of the Venerable Blade. Here is Newton’s formulation of it, which is repeated on that very strange
web page you quoted from:
We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
For your information, this is the
very first of the set of ‘rules for reasoning in philosophy’ Newton put down in his masterwork, the
Principia Mathematica. Yes, Occam’s Razor is that important. Newton’s rival Liebniz said something similar; I’m too lazy to walk
downstairs and fetch his
Discourse on Metaphysics to procure the exact quote for you, but he asserted that God produces the richest effects
from the simplest actions in the same way that an apparently simple function can trace out a very complex curve when it is graphed. People who choose
to take exception to Occam’s Razor are on very shaky intellectual ground, I’m afraid.
*
reply to post by Pimander
Panspermia is NOT stupid. I could easily be a lot ruder here but I prefer not to stoop to your level.
Fred Hoyle is dead. Are you Chandra Wickramasinghe? If you are not, then it is not your hypothesis I’m calling stupid. Don’t be so quick to take
offence.
As for that news item you quoted – well,
if we find Martian microbes, and
if they turn out to use something like DNA to preserve and
transcribe genetic information about themselves, then perhaps we can start considering panspermia again. Until then, it remains both speculative and
scientifically irrelevant.
edit on 27/3/11 by Astyanax because: I wanted to add a tip of the hat to my man Gottfried.
. I guess anyone that think's a Thesaurus is some kind of
creature that require's food is probably due my sympathy, so i do appologise for my hearty laughter 
. I guess you never stop learning, keep up
the good work! 
