It could happen at any moment now.
Human drillers (in this particular instance, from Russia) are poised to break through to Lake Vostok, sealed beneath miles of Antarctic ice for thousands of years (millions, according to the conventional theories).
This moment has been delayed for years, due to concerns about contaminating the pristine, undisturbed body of water, but the drilling team has finally convinced the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat to allow them to proceed, and now the probe is now only 40 feet from the buried lake.
The method selected has been designed to safeguard the lake as much as possible: this article explains that the plan calls for the mechanical bit to be replaced by a "thermal lance" which will get close enough to the lake to enable the water pressure to push water upwards towards the borehole. This water will then be allowed to freeze into ice (presumably sealing the breach again) and a sample taken of the newly-frozen ice (which will give scientists an opportunity to analyze the water of the lake (now frozen) without contaminating the lake itself.
Why on earth would we decide to disturb this pristine environment, one of the last places on earth to avoid human contamination? Read just about any article describing the operation, and you will see some variation of these two reasons offered:
1) the lake may be home to microbes that have been living in these extreme conditions for a very long time: because the lake is such a unique isolated environment, these microbes may shed light on "the earliest life" on earth, similar to microbes which may have been the ancestors of all other forms of life on earth.
2) the lake and its extreme conditions are the closest on earth to the conditions on extraterrestrial bodies Europa (a Galilean moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn), so understanding of the life found in and around Lake Vostok could strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life on those heavenly bodies.
In other words, the main rationale for risking the contamination of this precious undisturbed lake consists of questionable Darwinist theories about life on earth and life on planets in the solar system.
What if the theory of Darwinian evolution is completely incorrect? It will certainly not be the first time that entrenched paradigms (which "everyone knows" have been "proven beyond a doubt") will turn out to be totally mistaken (see here and here, for instance).
In fact, the originator of the hydroplate theory, West Point graduate and retired Colonel Walt Brown (also a graduate of MIT) has theorized that the origin of the water spewing out of Enceladus may in fact be earth itself -- Enceladus may be composed of materials launched violently into space during the initial rupture of the earth which unleashed a global flood (see the discussion in point 8 of "Question 7" towards the bottom half of this web page from the online edition of Walt Brown's book).
In this case, it seems quite possible that the two primary reasons driving the rush to break into Lake Vostok include a mistaken theory about the history of life on earth, and a mistaken theory about the origin of life elsewhere in the solar system.
On the other hand, if the hydroplate theory proves to be correct (or much closer to the truth than any theory so far to date), then Lake Vostok is a precious time capsule preserving evidence from the time after the flood, prior to earth's "Big Roll," evidence we don't want to destroy or compromise.
It would be tragic to despoil Lake Vostok under the auspices of two theories which future generations may look back on as deeply flawed and in error.
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update: Today, some news outlets are reporting that the team drilling at Lake Vostok has been out of radio contact for over five days, and scientists are becoming concerned for their safety. We of course join in wishing them safety even if we disagree with their mission, and are confident that they will be safe, even if their communications equipment fails. We have great confidence in the ability of human beings to survive incredibly severe ordeals: we are far more amazing than we usually even realize.
This moment has been delayed for years, due to concerns about contaminating the pristine, undisturbed body of water, but the drilling team has finally convinced the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat to allow them to proceed, and now the probe is now only 40 feet from the buried lake.
The method selected has been designed to safeguard the lake as much as possible: this article explains that the plan calls for the mechanical bit to be replaced by a "thermal lance" which will get close enough to the lake to enable the water pressure to push water upwards towards the borehole. This water will then be allowed to freeze into ice (presumably sealing the breach again) and a sample taken of the newly-frozen ice (which will give scientists an opportunity to analyze the water of the lake (now frozen) without contaminating the lake itself.
Why on earth would we decide to disturb this pristine environment, one of the last places on earth to avoid human contamination? Read just about any article describing the operation, and you will see some variation of these two reasons offered:
1) the lake may be home to microbes that have been living in these extreme conditions for a very long time: because the lake is such a unique isolated environment, these microbes may shed light on "the earliest life" on earth, similar to microbes which may have been the ancestors of all other forms of life on earth.
2) the lake and its extreme conditions are the closest on earth to the conditions on extraterrestrial bodies Europa (a Galilean moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn), so understanding of the life found in and around Lake Vostok could strengthen the case for extraterrestrial life on those heavenly bodies.
In other words, the main rationale for risking the contamination of this precious undisturbed lake consists of questionable Darwinist theories about life on earth and life on planets in the solar system.
What if the theory of Darwinian evolution is completely incorrect? It will certainly not be the first time that entrenched paradigms (which "everyone knows" have been "proven beyond a doubt") will turn out to be totally mistaken (see here and here, for instance).
In fact, the originator of the hydroplate theory, West Point graduate and retired Colonel Walt Brown (also a graduate of MIT) has theorized that the origin of the water spewing out of Enceladus may in fact be earth itself -- Enceladus may be composed of materials launched violently into space during the initial rupture of the earth which unleashed a global flood (see the discussion in point 8 of "Question 7" towards the bottom half of this web page from the online edition of Walt Brown's book).
In this case, it seems quite possible that the two primary reasons driving the rush to break into Lake Vostok include a mistaken theory about the history of life on earth, and a mistaken theory about the origin of life elsewhere in the solar system.
On the other hand, if the hydroplate theory proves to be correct (or much closer to the truth than any theory so far to date), then Lake Vostok is a precious time capsule preserving evidence from the time after the flood, prior to earth's "Big Roll," evidence we don't want to destroy or compromise.
It would be tragic to despoil Lake Vostok under the auspices of two theories which future generations may look back on as deeply flawed and in error.
----
update: Today, some news outlets are reporting that the team drilling at Lake Vostok has been out of radio contact for over five days, and scientists are becoming concerned for their safety. We of course join in wishing them safety even if we disagree with their mission, and are confident that they will be safe, even if their communications equipment fails. We have great confidence in the ability of human beings to survive incredibly severe ordeals: we are far more amazing than we usually even realize.
