What happened on Ascension Island

I'd be more likely to go for the hypothesis of 'panspermia', or random seeding by cometary heads and asteroid strikes than 'planned' ET intervention, though, as you say, there's no hard evidence of either.

From: l_ed_cox
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 1:03 PM
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: What happened on Ascension Island

This is an excellent discussion topic for this group!

The data given in the article is important not so much because of what it says, but in what it implies.

The British Navy did not technically create a completely new ecosystem on the island. The island already had one. There was a volcanic rock base, sea water, air, weather, and certainly some life forms already present. So all they really needed to do was bring plants to the island that had some chance of growing there and let them take off.

What I question is to what extent this is really "unnatural."

Scientists on earth seem to be convinced that the whole ecosystem that existed on earth, prior to the beginnings of major human interventions in its make-up, was entirely the result of eons of evolutionary development. But let's remember: evolution has been a proven factor in the adaptive changes we see in plants and animals. But no one has proven that evolution CREATED plants and animals. And I don't think anyone ever will, because I don't think that's the way things went down.

If I hadn't run across data from various other unconnected and independent sources that contradict the common assumptions we have about how the universe and its life forms came about, I would probably still believe the old scientific ideas.

But now I think earth (and Mars in its own time) went down similar to how Ascension Island went down. Some explorers ran across it. They said to themselves, "Hey, this is a great place for an outpost - but it's awfully barren." They then proceeded to "seed" the planet based on their best understanding of what would work here.

I don't think we should have any qualms about the "unnaturalness" of creating an ecosystem this way. Look at how much the flora of the Americas changed after the area was invaded by Europeans! (Do you know how many common weeds in the US are of European origin?) The only thing we need to worry about is how good our understanding of ecosystems really is. "Ecosystem experiment: Earth" worked. The dinosaurs are gone but at least mankind still survives on its surface. Mars fared less well, though some think this was due to solar system changes that no one could have prevented. Yet: no one is saying that underground life on Mars also disappeared. And a few odd fellows insist that it definitely has not!

We have a lot to learn about creating survivable habitats, but I don't think the big problems lie at the level of flora and fauna.