Quote:
Originally Posted by Boreas
That's actually not true. Ever hear of "black smokers"? They're deep undersea vents which support unique life forms. Some of those life forms have evolved to derive all of their nourishment from the chemicals contained in the material vented into the water. (They've also evolved to live at incredibly high temperatures and pressures and a complete absence of light but that's another story.) The process is called chemosynthesis and was unknown until the discovery of the vents around thirty years ago.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by noonereal
Aren't you making my point? and yes I know all about it, frankly i was surprised that science seemed surprised that they could live as they do.
|
No, I'm not making your point. I'm refuting it. You said that all life exploits other life for "energy". I cited an example of a type of life form that doesn't.
Before we discovered the ecosystem associated with black smokers we made certain assumptions about life based on what we knew up to that point. Studying black smokers and the creatures that live there caused us to toss out a number of those assumptions. Why, therefore, is it not possible, or even likely, that similar surprises await us if and when we encounter extraterrestrial life?
Oh, by the way, in addition to species which produce nourishment through chemosynthesis, there are also bacteria which do so via photosynthesis. They don't do this with sunlight because there isn't any. Rather they do it with the faint glow emanating from the hot minerals of the vents themselves. This raises the possibility that photosynthetic life forms first appeared in the deep ocean without the sun as its light source. There are also animals which produce shells from iron sulfides instead of calcium carbonate.
John