[RedRoseofDesire]

The properties of water are so unique and so essential for life as we know it that some people believe it proves that our planet was intentionally designed for our existence. What would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedRoseofDesire', 'T')he properties of water are so unique and so essential for life as we know it that some people believe it proves that our planet was intentionally designed for our existence. What would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?

[steam_cannon]

The Logic of Your Question
X created everything, was never seen again... Then a believer* in X says, hey maybe science can tell us that X created everything since X doesn't drop by to explain things anymore.

* Believer is typically an insecure Christian looking for signs...

"some people believe" turnips talk to them. As far as science is concerned though, science isn't about beliefs, just facts and conclusions that can be disproven given better knowledge.

Regarding our planet, well...
What we know is masses close to this orbit with this intensity star tend not to have their atmospheres boiled off. Between the gas giants and the lifeless rocks, it's sort of a sweet spot and it strongly effects how planets in this orbit look. So when rock and ice settle in this sweet spot this is what happens.

Where water comes from...
Space ice from commits exist because billions of years earlier** a star was fusing heavier and heavier elements in it's core. Ultimately this resulted in a huge accumulation of elements like silicon that absorb energy in fusion. So the star was losing energy externally and internally. It eventually collapsed and rebounded in one last bang and pushed out a shell of hydrogen and heavier elements.

** Most southern American Christians don't believe in long spans of time.

This expanding shell compressed interstellar gases to form more stars, like our star. So our star formed out of interstellar hydrogen and heavier matter from the core of the mother star ended up forming blobs around this new star, the planets. Some of the gas giants formed like Jupiter, but didn't pick up enough hydrogen to form a double star, so they are just big blobby planets.
http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys230/le ... sn/sn.html

But we ended up being in an orbit where lots of rock and water(oxydised hydrogen) settled. This orbit is also far enough from the sun that the atmosphere doesn't boil away. Planets in this orbit and in this time in the Universe are likely to be made up of of 98% mass...

46.6% Oxygen (O)
27.7% Silica (Si)
8.1% Aluminum (Al)
5.0% Iron (Fe)
3.6% Calcium (Ca)
2.8% Sodium (Na)
2.6% Potassium (K)
2.1% Magnesium (Mg)
http://tinyurl.com/l8baq

Hydrocarbons, water and oil
So on top of those we got a nice light dusting of carbon and hydrogen. With the reactive oxygen this formed water and hydrocarbons [oil]. So that added in with active plate tectonics and we ended up with all the buried hydrocarbons that this site discussions are dedicated to!

Life, lucky to not be dead from Gamma rays...
Also, at this time and place in the galaxy solar system killing gamma ray bursts have died down, caused by collapsing stars...
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/a ... 20516.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4198

Updating the bible?
Now you could add all that into the bible, perhaps after the section "let there be light" or you could just keep science and religion separate... Up to you I suppose. Though mixing religion and science is a great way to create a UFO cult!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(cult)

Or if you mix religion and hydrocarbons you would have Fordism as in "Brave New World"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

Are we unique? Yeah, just like everybody else. This is a sweet spot that a few other planets around the galaxy may inhabit. Probably a few others out in the boondocks of the spiral arms, [where supernovas happen infrequently enough that all nearby life isn't killed], might harbor life... But any star out in the boondocks isn't going to be close enough to any other star to have a neighbor to talk to [speed of light and signal strength peter out pretty quickly and all].

And one last thing to keep in mind; if dumb ape like me can understand all this, it ain't that special!

[Rogozhin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'i')f dumb ape like me can understand all this, it ain't that special!

[Zentric]

I think RedRoseofDesire asks a good question. I remember how a science instructor once lectured on water's mysterious, even miraculous, life-giving and sustaining properties - saying stuff like:

It's a solvent and a dispersant (good, for example, at absorbing and distributing a volcano's nutrient ash across an entire water table).

It's a coolant (drinking some water or sweating on a hot day will cool you down).

It's noncompressible (actually I don't recall what's so special about noncompressibility).

It's got a high surface tension (water skeeters and organisms in rain drops and droplets on leaves depend on it, and so do all things using osmosis).

It commonly freezes, liquefies or evaporates in a matter that sustains life on earth (at least that was true until recently).

It, just like any other liquid, will contract as it cools down. But water is unique in that, once it hits about 4[sup]o[/sup] Celsius, it will actually begin to expand up until it reaches its freezing point (great for a population of fish that lives in the non-frozen water at the very bottom of a lake during the winter).

And it has a very high specific heat due to its dipolar molecular geometry (helps you retain your proper body temperature in the summer or winter, and often is responsible for moderating the temperatures of coastal areas).

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedRoseofDesire', 'T')he properties of water are so unique and so essential for life as we know it that some people believe it proves that our planet was intentionally designed for our existence. What would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?

[Curator]

Water is a very special substance that has several unusual properties. These properties are essential for life to have evolved on Earth. Zentric does a great job of enumerating these.

For instance, water is unusual in that the solid form of water (ice) has a lower density than the liquid form. Ice floats, so living things can go on living below the surface. If water didn't have this property, the bodies of water could have just frozen completely from the bottom up, never allowing life to evolve or become complex in the oceans of early Earth.

As Zentric mentions, water has a very high specific heat. This is why coastal areas are much more mild in climate than inland areas (the temperature doesn't change very much). Without the modulation of climate provided by large bodies of water, the weather might have been too extreme for life to evolve into anything interesting (i.e., us).

You're absolutely right. Without water, life might never have evolved---or might have evolved very differently. Aliens who evolved in a mercury-rich world would probably be having this same conversation, but about mercury!

P.S. This probably belong in Open Discussion, right?

[basil_hayden]

Water isn't designed around life, life is designed around water.

If on some other planet there was some other substance that life could take advantage of, it would. Life would conceptually evolve differently with different available raw materials.

[Zentric]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('basil_hayden', 'W')ater isn't designed around life, life is designed around water.

If on some other planet there was some other substance that life could take advantage of, it would. Life would conceptually evolve differently with different available raw materials.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('basil_hayden', 'W')ater isn't designed around life, life is designed around water.

If on some other planet there was some other substance that life could take advantage of, it would. Life would conceptually evolve differently with different available raw materials.

[threadbear]

It's not just miraculous, it's more miraculous than we can possibly imagine, as is everything around us. We should be living in a constant state of gob-smacked wonder.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedRoseofDesire', 'W')hat would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?"

[Zentric]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I')t's not just miraculous, it's more miraculous than we can possibly imagine, as is everything around us. We should be living in a constant state of gob-smacked wonder.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I')t's not just miraculous, it's more miraculous than we can possibly imagine, as is everything around us. We should be living in a constant state of gob-smacked wonder.

[Zentric]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'I')t's not just miraculous, it's more miraculous than we can possibly imagine, as is everything around us. We should be living in a constant state of gob-smacked wonder.

[Mircea]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', 'I')t's noncompressible (actually I don't recall what's so special about noncompressibility).

[Mircea]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'I')IRC a planet with a Mars zone orbit would be quite able to support a three phase Ammonia 'hydrosphere'. Such a planet could conceivably evolve life based on Ammonia NH3 as the working fluid in place of Water OH2. The only real hangup would be complex lifeforms in area's where the river/lake/ocean freezes because NH3 freezes from the bottom up instead of the top down. Life forms in those area's might be limited to simple single cell organism or complex life might be designed to freeze and thaw without damage.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mircea', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zentric', 'I')t's noncompressible (actually I don't recall what's so special about noncompressibility).

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedRoseofDesire', 'T')he properties of water are so unique and so essential for life as we know it that some people believe it proves that our planet was intentionally designed for our existence. What would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RedRoseofDesire', 'T')he properties of water are so unique and so essential for life as we know it that some people believe it proves that our planet was intentionally designed for our existence. What would an enviromental scientist say about this belief?