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Do you believe in life elsewhere?

#121
stratovani said:
To me believing that there is extraterrestrial life is like belief in a god, it cannot be proven or disproven.
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"Cannot" ??? or simply "has not yet"?

Seems to me that it would be really simple to prove there is extraterrestrial life; all you'd have to do is locate some indisputable evidence of it. Now, given the vastness of the universe and the relatively short amount of time that humans have been engaged in that search, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that we have not yet proven indisputably that there's extraterrestrial life...but it would be folly to argue that based on the current lack of indisputable proof there can be any further conclusions to draw.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
 
#123
lucas vigor said:
Think about it. We have at least 3-4 intelligent species on this planet. Us, dolphins/whales, primates and possibly octopuses and some birds. But only one of those has been transmitting radio waves, and even then, only since 1930 or so.
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This kinda falls in line with what I had said earlier on.

Many people take into account the scale of the universe as being massive so there must be life.

But people seem to be glossing over the variable of time.

We've been able to send radio transmissions for less than 100 years. Within the next 900 years, it's possible that we won't be here (be it via natural or human disaster). I realise these are numbers plucked out of thin air, but run with me here. So it could be said that life on earth is only at a stage of producing communications that can go beyond our solar system, for a thousand years. A thousand years, in the grandure of the universe, is next to nothing!

There may have been amazing civilizations that have risen and fallen while life was just starting to develop on this planet (a bit of a reach, but just something to chew over, as well as the size of the universe thing).

I don't think it has been mentioned. But is anyone familiar with the Drake equation?

While it is nothing more than a rough guess, it is quite a clever way of thinking of these things:

Wikipedia:
Drake equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carl Sagan:
Carl Sagan - Cosmos - Drake Equation - YouTube

Your choice :D
 
#126
Limiting the scope to our own solar system, what ever big rock hit Earth and killed off most of the dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago -- and there are some really big impact craters to suspect -- I would think it possible that some of Earth was ejected into space and ended up on the other planets.

The theory of Transpermia has always interested me, but people usually have it such life came to use from some other planet here. I propose the opposite, that Mars may have life that came from Earth, and if we dig in the right places, we will find it.
 
#128
bassybill said:
I'd love to hear more about this! Please tell.
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The pyramids in Egypt & Mexico are prime examples of technology beyond the humans of this planet. Engineers of today still have yet to explain the process and precision of the builds, let alone the mathematical exactness of the locations and relationship to the astronomical movements.

And this http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011...entists-claims-evidence-alien-life-meteorite/

As well as archeological finds of paintings, sculpture, drawings, etc. of spacecraft that are found the world over.
 
#129
Roscoe East said:
"Cannot" ??? or simply "has not yet"?

Seems to me that it would be really simple to prove there is extraterrestrial life; all you'd have to do is locate some indisputable evidence of it. Now, given the vastness of the universe and the relatively short amount of time that humans have been engaged in that search, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that we have not yet proven indisputably that there's extraterrestrial life...but it would be folly to argue that based on the current lack of indisputable proof there can be any further conclusions to draw.

I think it was Carl Sagan who said "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
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Yep he said it and I agree you can evetually prove that life exists in the universe by "simply" (I know it isn't simple) finding some that unambiguously didn't originate on earth.

You cannot, at least in practice, prove that life doesn't exist in the universe.
 
#130
Gaius46 said:
It's not even a rough guess. Absent a statistical sampling by which to estimate the values of fl, fi and fc it's a pretty meaningless number.
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Of course you have control over the variables, and it is simply a rough guess, that's why I never said it was an estimate.

It's a nice way to consider the question that this thread is about.

It makes people stop, and think of the variables involved, so far it has been mainly "the universe is big, it must have stuff in it", without much consideration of the other variables that you put into it. While hardly a solid estimate (it's conjecture, they are different things), it is a useful tool for getting people to think in a progressive manner and take more things into consideration.
 
#131
Gaius46 said:
You cannot, at least in practice, prove that life doesn't exist in the universe.
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Of course you can't, there is life right here on earth. :D


vbsurfer3001 said:
The pyramids in Egypt & Mexico are prime examples of technology beyond the humans of this planet. Engineers of today still have yet to explain the process and precision of the builds, let alone the mathematical exactness of the locations and relationship to the astronomical movements.

And this Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence Of Alien Life On Meteorite | Fox News

As well as archeological finds of paintings, sculpture, drawings, etc. of spacecraft that are found the world over.
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In terms of the finds of paintings etc. There has always been a curiosity with the sky. Many cultures developed different ways of explaining it, from travellers to gods.

I'm not even an engineer and I can explain how they managed to build the pyramids. Ever see the size of whips they used! :eek:
 
#132
vbsurfer3001 said:
The pyramids in Egypt & Mexico are prime examples of technology beyond the humans of this planet. Engineers of today still have yet to explain the process and precision of the builds, let alone the mathematical exactness of the locations and relationship to the astronomical movements.

And this Exclusive: NASA Scientist Claims Evidence Of Alien Life On Meteorite | Fox News

As well as archeological finds of paintings, sculpture, drawings, etc. of spacecraft that are found the world over.
Click to expand...

They are? I'm sorry but that's pure silliness. Given the vast pool of both skilled and expendable labor available to the pharoahs it was certainly within their power to build the pyramids. Men had been constructing buildings and towns and monuments for a thousand years prior to the pyramids. They were simply large construction projects.
 
#133
Gaius46 said:
They are? I'm sorry but that's pure silliness. Given the vast pool of both skilled and expendable labor available to the pharoahs it was certainly within their power to build the pyramids. Men had been constructing buildings and towns and monuments for a thousand years prior to the pyramids. They were simply large construction projects.
Click to expand...

Like I said, really big whips!
 
#137
caeman said:
Coming in late to the convo. To the OP, yes, I believe there is the existence of life outside of Earth, at least in the form of microbial life or simpler. We have life literally everyone on our planet. Extremophiles are fascinating for the environments they have been found in, from sulfer plumes, acidic pools of water, 3 miles down in rock and dirt, 2 miles under the ice in Antarctica. This is proof to me that we are hardly experts to be limiting the definition of life and how it can exist, so I leave the door open to the most likely answer of: yes,

At the minimum, we've put some of it there. There are microbes that can survive the vacuum of space and the harsh environment of Mars. Just imagine the entire microbial colonies we've sent to Mars on our explorers!
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Extremophiles conform to the scientific definition of "living organism." So do the microbes (itself a scientific term) that survive the vacuum of space. So where is your example of "life" that doesn't conform to our "limiting definitions" of life?

I hate to keep coming back to this, but I don't see where people come from when they say "we don't know what life is" when the only examples of life they mention are organisms that conform to our model. A far better choice would have been a virus, the one wrench in our nomenclature gears, but microbes and extremophiles and all that fit the scientific definition of life just fine.
 
#138
On the subject of "probability", we can't yet say whether life of extra-terrestrial origins is probable in our Universe or not. There are variables in the Drake equation for which we have no reliable estimates of the values. The origin of life could be so probable that it has arisen in the Universe many, many times in the last few billion years or so. Or life itself could be so incredibly improbable that it's astounding that the Universe has managed it even on the one occasion about which we can be certain. We simply don't know. Statements like "The Universe is so big that it's highly probable that life has originated in other places apart from Earth" don't hold any water at all. We just don't have enough evidence to make that call - or the opposite one.

Interesting reading:

Stephen Jay Gould, "Will We Figure Out How Life Began?" 2000
 
#139
jmlee said:
The problem, of course, is that even if life existed elsewhere, "elsewhere" may about a thousand light years that 'a way and the life in question may have the IQ of a bowl of yoghurt.
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It's only a problem for you. Especially dismissing the value of yogurt!

Until someone lands on my lawn or I get an interstellar guidebook on how to cook decent risotto, it's all simply irrelevant. Next question...
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You don't have to stick your finger in an electric plug to know you'll get shocked or get cancer to verify it's existence.

The bars you raise are irrelevant to whether life exists else where in the galaxy.

Why would an all powerful intelligent designer wimp out with creating the only example of life as we know it here? I mean, the dinos failed and man was created, is that how it goes? Lots of life forms existed before man. Who designed them? If here, why not somewhere else?
 

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