Why is life on other worlds always presumed to be carbon based--maybe silicon? Why is H2O and oxygen seemingly must haves for any life form? In all the Billions of places life could have emerged-why must it be sosimilar in biological function as Earthlife
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ANSWERS: 3
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I have wondered the same thing but i do think that people tend to stick closer to things they are familiar and comfortable. For example, we assume that the life out there must be carbon based because we are, even though we say we're not the center of the universe, we think we are. Now i'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it does limit our imagination no?
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My thinking is just on stats and knowledge. The fact that carbon bonds so well with other elements makes it the likely choice. Silicon, while better then most other elements at bonding with other elements is still not as broad as carbon. This bends chance in the favor of carbon. And as far as H2O and oxygen being part of life, I think its because every thing (to my knowledge) on earth needs oxygen and water, or carbon dioxide to live. We just don't have any other examples to look at. So we just stick with that instead of trying to come up with something new.
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I tend to lean more towards the Idea of Carbon-based lifeforms because Silicon has been found to currently be unable to bond and become complex cells as of yet I think that we should consider silicon life as possible however since according to what I've read up the cosmic abundance of Carbon to silicon is roughly 10-1 but thats still 1/10 of a chance for Silicon based life so theres still a chance of even primitive or microbial life.
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