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"Updates on the origins of Cthulhu" Topic


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John the OFM19 May 2018 7:41 a.m. PST
Personal logo Saber6 Supporting Member of TMP Fezian19 May 2018 9:23 a.m. PST

Interesting. Many curious things about the octopus

GR C1719 May 2018 1:35 p.m. PST

I,for one, welcome are new cephalopod masters.

Gunfreak Supporting Member of TMP19 May 2018 2:42 p.m. PST

They aren't new.

Patrick R19 May 2018 11:45 p.m. PST

Just because a paper is published doesn't mean it's the word of Moses coming from the mountain.

It boils down to the idea that only panspermia can explain the octopus, even though we do have several good links to earlier forms. Just google a couple of the names involved and you'll find that they are barely a step up from the average creationist and about as good at ignoring any evidence that demolishes their and will no doubt invoke the notion that they are "Yet another Galileo being suppressed by the evil scientific establishment !" – Please believe and support our theory by buying our overpriced books and be extremely vocal on social media so people will start to believe we are actually scientifically grounded …

The very fact you only talk about how controversial your theory is and that nobody will accept it, is a big hint, if you have a case or evidence that should sway people, you don't need to claim you are an unrecognized genius and everybody else is wrong, evil and is actively trying to suppress you.

Bob Hume20 May 2018 7:29 a.m. PST

Yeah, what he said.

Bowman21 May 2018 5:55 a.m. PST

You know, Patrick hits the nail on the head.

Just because a paper is published doesn't mean it's the word of Moses coming from the mountain.

Well, to be fair, some papers are simply meant to propose interesting ideas in order to stimulate discussion. They are not proposing a definitive conclusion. I suspect this is one such example.

Now imagine that every hominid and ape died out millions of years ago. You could use the same (shaky) argument that Homo Sapiens were aliens. We have a large brain capacity, walk upright, have unique genes (for speech), have incredibly accurate stereo vision, etc, etc. Compared to our nearest living cousins, now being old world monkeys, we are evolutionary standouts. Ergo, aliens. Problem is we would have a good fossil record showing how we evolved from our common ancestors. This is much harder with non skeletal ocean dwellers like cephalopods.

Also, how do you explain the coincidences in biology between native Earth creatures and alien octopuses? We use the same DNA, we have the same manner of building proteins, we both use mRNA and tRNA and rRNA. We both read the DNA using codons that are made of 3 nucleotides. We both utilize similar metabolic pathways and produce ATP in the Krebs cycle. We both dephosphorylate the ATP to create energy to survive. Our neurons work the same, shunting sodium and potassium ions across a semi-permeable membrane to produce an electric charge. Gawd, the list goes on and on and on. That's a bit of a coincidence!

I'll leave you with another internet article, which includes comments by the outspoken blogger and cephalopod researcher PZ Myers:

link

Here is Dr. Myers in his usual mode on his blog:

link

link

Gunfreak Supporting Member of TMP21 May 2018 11:13 a.m. PST

But I learned on life of Brian they we're all unique (except that one guy) and you're basically saying I'm an octopus!

Bowman22 May 2018 7:12 a.m. PST

And Octopus eyes are extraordinary…….not quite alien, but cool nonetheless:

link

Martin From Canada22 May 2018 2:26 p.m. PST

And as Cara Santa Maria said on Skeptics Guide to the Universe, this provides a handy tool to prune gullible "science" reporters from one's rss reader…

Charlie 1222 May 2018 6:40 p.m. PST

Going back to the original paper, its interesting that the primary author is been one of the premier 'pushers' of the panspermia idea. And has been roundly mocked for it.

Winston Smith23 May 2018 6:07 a.m. PST

Among the crackpots who have shown some degrees of support for panspermia are Fred Hoyle and Stephen Hawking.
link

My thoughts about it have always been along the lines of "Well, where did THAT life originate?" It had to have started somewhere. Why not here?

Bowman24 May 2018 4:48 a.m. PST

Among the crackpots who have shown some degrees of support for panspermia are Fred Hoyle and Stephen Hawking.

I'm not sure it's a crack pot idea. It's just that making a case that life originated here, but some creatures evolved elsewhere is pretty silly, given the similarities in biochemistry, genetics and physiology. There is nothing that crazy about panspermia, especially "soft panspermia" where the biological building blocks have arrived here on meteorites. This has already been shown to occur.

Also, Fred Hoyle was Chandra Wickramasinghe's PhD supervisor and mentor.

My thoughts about it have always been along the lines of "Well, where did THAT life originate?" It had to have started somewhere. Why not here?

Well, life could have started on Mars a lot earlier than of Earth (if indeed it ever existed) as Mars cooled down a lot faster than the Earth did, and pro-life conditions happened there first. A few tons of Mars drop onto the Earth every year.

link

link

You can even buy some:

link

And as Cara Santa Maria said on Skeptics Guide to the Universe, this provides a handy tool to prune gullible "science" reporters from one's rss reader…

Hmmm……Cara Santa Maria……

picture

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