This morning I read an article in the Daily Telegraph by Adrian Berry
which contained the assertion that unlike the other solar system moons, Titan was not barren..... I wonder if Adrian has the same understanding of the term 'barren' as I do. I think not. Barren to me means devoid of abundant life, plants, the potential to grow things. I'd say that deep frozen Titan was pretty much more barren than any spot on earth.
Underneath Adrian's piece were various nonsensical discussions contributed by random posters suggesting that as the sun moved towards its future red giant stage, people might be able to move there and so continue our species. When do they think this is going to be needed? It will be at least five hundred million years in the future when the sun becomes too hot for us. Need I point out that our species has only been in its current form for about fifty thousand years - a hundred thousand at a stretch and that a million years ago, our ancestors had much more in common with the apes than with ourselves. The idea that homo sapiens will exist in five million years time is almost ridiculous. If we have not wiped ourselves out through germ warfare or some other form of self created catastrophe in the next twenty thousand years, we will have been done away with by some yet unknown plague. If not, I would be most surprised. After that, evolution will have destroyed us. Our own tendency to foster far from perfect specimens will in any case degenerate our species into a far less robust version of ourselves.
The idea that we can move to a horrid, hydrocarbon swamped place like frozen Titan is utterly ridiculous. I just wish some of these sci-fi fantasists would think a bit about what they are proposing. Which of these planets looks like the best bet for you?
This morning I read an article in the Daily Telegraph by Adrian Berry which contained the assertion that unlike the other solar system moons, Titan was not barren..... I wonder if Adrian has the same understanding of the term 'barren' as I do. I think not. Barren to me means devoid of abundant life, plants, the potential to grow things. I'd say that deep frozen Titan was pretty much more barren than any spot on earth.
Underneath Adrian's piece were various nonsensical discussions contributed by random posters suggesting that as the sun moved towards its future red giant stage, people might be able to move there and so continue our species. When do they think this is going to be needed? It will be at least five hundred million years in the future when the sun becomes too hot for us. Need I point out that our species has only been in its current form for about fifty thousand years - a hundred thousand at a stretch and that a million years ago, our ancestors had much more in common with the apes than with ourselves. The idea that homo sapiens will exist in five million years time is almost ridiculous. If we have not wiped ourselves out through germ warfare or some other form of self created catastrophe in the next twenty thousand years, we will have been done away with by some yet unknown plague. If not, I would be most surprised. After that, evolution will have destroyed us. Our own tendency to foster far from perfect specimens will in any case degenerate our species into a far less robust version of ourselves.
The idea that we can move to a horrid, hydrocarbon swamped place like frozen Titan is utterly ridiculous. I just wish some of these sci-fi fantasists would think a bit about what they are proposing. Which of these planets looks like the best bet for you?
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