It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: whereislogic
Realy and despite the exoplanet discoveries, organic molecules found to exist space, extremophiles that live on Earth and Astrobiology research which seem to indicate life is not as special as you seem to think.
originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: setemkamaat
This universe may very well be a simulation so you might not be far off the mark.
originally posted by: Dalamax
Or biological sentience may be the result of artificial sentience.
originally posted by: BeyondKnowledge3
The Fermi Paradox reduced to more human scaling.
The universe is full of planets with life but only for a certain amount of existence each incidence.
originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: OmegaLogos
I wonder if andy06shake managed to get through this rather lengthy comment (it could 'tickle his ears' 'according to his desires', as per 2 Tim 4:3,4). As for me, I dropped out as soon as I read the term "hypothesis". I think we have enough so-implied "scientific hypotheses"* that nobody has bothered to test for, or even propose a test for to verify if they have any merit in the sciences, printed in so-called "scientific literature" already.
*: According to the Encyclopedia of Scientific Principles, Laws, and Theories, a scientific theory, such as Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity, must
1. Be observable
2. Be reproducible by controlled experiments
3. Make accurate predictions
The same encyclopedia defines a hypothesis as “a more tentative observation of facts [than a theory],” yet lends itself “to deductions that can be experimentally tested.”
What are we doing here, presenting science/knowledge of facts/certainties/realities/truths or are we philosophizing and speculating and then printing it in so-called "scientific" magazines? (making it pseudoscience, just to rake up the number of published articles to boost one's reputation and not fall victim to the phenomenon of 'publish or perish')
What's the business being engaged in here?
Psychology: The Art of selling nonsense/contradictions part 1
Psychology: Dawkins&Krauss selling the philosophy and contradiction that nothing is something
“Make sure of all things; hold fast to what is fine.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
A number of scientists are beginning to realize that their colleagues have made far too many optimistic assumptions in addressing this question. Such scientists come up with a much lower number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy. Some have said that there is but one—us. Others have said that mathematically, there should be fewer than one—even we shouldn’t be here!
The basis for their skepticism is not hard to see. It could be summed up with two questions: If such extraterrestrials existed, where would they live? And how did they get there?
‘Why, they would live on planets,’ some might reply to the first question. But there is only one planet in our solar system that is not downright hostile to life, the one we occupy. But what about the planets circling the thousands of millions of other stars in our galaxy? Might not some of them harbor life? The fact is that up to now scientists have not conclusively proved the existence of a single planet outside of our solar system (although they often claim that they have, but it's based on indirect evidence, not conclusive evidence, more on that later). Why not?
Because to detect one is exceedingly difficult. Since stars are so distant and planets do not emit any light of themselves, detecting even a giant planet, such as Jupiter, is like trying to spot a speck of dust floating around a powerful light bulb miles away.
Even if such planets do exist—and some indirect evidence has accumulated to indicate that they do—this still does not mean that they orbit precisely the right kind of star in the right galactic neighborhood, at precisely the right distance from the star, and are themselves of precisely the right size and composition to sustain life. (in spite of all the claims concerning supposedly "potential[ly] habitable worlds")
A Crumbling Foundation
Yet, even if many planets do exist that meet the stringent conditions necessary to sustain life as we know it, the question remains, How would life arise on those worlds? This brings us to the very foundation of the belief in beings on other worlds—evolution.
To many scientists, it seems logical to believe that if life could evolve from nonliving matter on this planet, that could be true on others as well. As one writer put it: “The general thinking among biologists is that life will begin whenever it is given an environment where it can begin.” But that is where evolution faces an insurmountable objection. Evolutionists cannot even explain how life began on this planet.
originally posted by: Dalamax
It was just a thought 👍 the odds you have given, are they calculated over a particular timeframe? Or is that just a snapshot of an instant? If they are calculated over a period of time, what kind of timeframe are we talking about here; how old is the universe?
How did life come to be in your opinion?
... as I phrased it before when presenting the 2 relevant and well-established and observed facts about machinery, and where machinery comes from, what causes machinery to emerge, which we all know quite well, it's just a matter of admitting it now and being honest about it with ourselves, and not follow Greenstein's and Hoyle's example as quoted in the article about fraud in science).
Is Intelligence Involved?
When confronted with the astronomical odds against a living cell forming by chance, some evolutionists feel forced to back away. For example, the authors of Evolution From Space (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe) give up, saying: “These issues are too complex to set numbers to.” They add: “There is no way . . . in which we can simply get by with a bigger and better organic soup, as we ourselves hoped might be possible a year or two ago. The numbers we calculated above are essentially just as unfaceable for a universal soup as for a terrestrial one.”23
Hence, after acknowledging that intelligence must somehow have been involved in bringing life into existence, the authors continue: “Indeed, such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.”24 Thus an observer might conclude that a “psychological” barrier is the only plausible explanation as to why most evolutionists cling to a chance origin for life and reject any “design or purpose or directedness,”25 as Dawkins expressed it. Indeed, even Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, after acknowledging the need for intelligence, say that they do not believe a personal Creator is responsible for the origin of life.26 In their thinking, intelligence is mandatory, but a Creator is unacceptable. Do you find that contradictory?
originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: whereislogic
...
All of this ☝️ to say, the fermi paradox can be answered with the proclamation or hypothesis that "life hasn't been found among the stars because the agency responsible for life as we know it has been here the whole time and never went anywhere else".
Is that the gist of your dissertation?
The Bible’s answer
God is able to see everything and to act anywhere he chooses. (Proverbs 15:3; Hebrews 4:13) However, the Bible does not teach that God is omnipresent—that is, present everywhere, in all things. Instead, it shows that he is a person and that he resides in a dwelling place.
God’s form: God is a spirit person. (John 4:24) He is invisible to humans. (John 1:18) Visions of God recorded in the Bible consistently portray him as having a distinct location. He is never depicted as existing everywhere.—Isaiah 6:1, 2; Revelation 4:2, 3, 8.
God’s dwelling place: God resides in the spirit realm, which is distinct from physical creation. Within that realm, God has a “dwelling place in the heavens.” (1 Kings 8:30) The Bible mentions an occasion when spirit creatures “entered to take their station before Jehovah,”* showing that in a sense, God resides at a specific location.—Job 1:6. [*: Jehovah is the name of God as revealed in the Bible.]
...
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe observe that “the theory that life was assembled by an intelligence” is “vastly” more probable than spontaneous generation. “Indeed,” they add, “such a theory is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.” Yes, many scientists recoil from the idea of a Creator, even though the evidence points that way. In the process, they have created a religion of their own. As the above authors see it, Darwinism simply replaces the word “God” with the word “Nature.”
So in answer to the question, “Is anyone out there?” science clearly gives no grounds for belief in life on other planets. In fact, as the years pass and the silence from the stars continues, SETI is a growing embarrassment to scientists who believe in evolution. If various types of life evolve readily from nonlife, then why do we not hear from them in this vast universe? Where are they? [Fermi's question, or so-called "paradox"]
On the other hand, if the question belongs in the realm of religion, how do we find an answer? Did God create life on other worlds? Extraterrestrials—Finding the Answer (Awake!—1990) (see that article for an answer to that question)
a reply to: setemkamaat
If this hypothesis is correct, it could help explain the Fermi paradox: perhaps the reason we haven't encountered any other intelligent civilizations is that they have all rapidly transitioned to a purely artificial intelligence-based existence, which may be fundamentally different from biological life and therefore difficult or impossible for us to detect or comprehend.
...
New Scientist noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. . . . known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.”31 And geneticist Stebbins writes: “No transitional forms are known between any of the major phyla of animals or plants.” He speaks of “the large gaps which exist between many major categories of organisms.”32 “In fact,” The New Evolutionary Timetable acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time.”33—Italics added.
...
...
DARWIN’S TREE CHOPPED DOWN
...
WHAT ABOUT THE FOSSIL RECORD?
Many scientists point to the fossil record as support for the idea that life emerged from a common origin. They argue, for example, that the fossil record documents the notion that fish became amphibians and reptiles became mammals. What, though, does the fossil evidence really show?
“Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life,” says evolutionary paleontologist David M. Raup, “what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record.”32
In reality, the vast majority of fossils show stability among types of creatures over extensive amounts of time. The evidence does not show them evolving from one type into another. Unique body plans appear suddenly. New features appear suddenly. For example, bats with sonar and echolocation systems appear with no obvious link to a more primitive ancestor.
In fact, more than half of all the major divisions of animal life seem to have appeared in a relatively short period of time. Because many new and distinct life forms appear so suddenly in the fossil record, paleontologists refer to this period as “the Cambrian explosion.” When was the Cambrian period?
...
The relatively sudden appearance of these diverse life forms is causing some evolutionary researchers to question the traditional version of Darwin’s theory. For example, in an interview in 2008, evolutionary biologist Stuart Newman discussed the need for a new theory of evolution that could explain the sudden appearance of novel forms of life. He said: “The Darwinian mechanism that’s used to explain all evolutionary change will be relegated, I believe, to being just one of several mechanisms—maybe not even the most important when it comes to understanding macroevolution, the evolution of major transitions in body type.”33
PROBLEMS WITH THE “PROOF”
What, though, of the fossils that are used to show fish changing into amphibians, and reptiles into mammals? Do they provide solid proof of evolution in action? Upon closer inspection, several problems become obvious.
First, the comparative size of the creatures placed in the reptile-to-mammal sequence is sometimes misrepresented in textbooks. Rather than being similar in size, some creatures in the series are huge, while others are small.
A second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related. Specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years. Regarding the time spans that separate many of these fossils, zoologist Henry Gee says: “The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.”34* [Henry Gee does not suggest that the theory of evolution is wrong. His comments are made to show the limits of what can be learned from the fossil record.]
Commenting on the fossils of fish and amphibians, biologist Malcolm S. Gordon states that the fossils found represent only a small, “possibly quite unrepresentative, sample of the biodiversity that existed in these groups at those times.” [whereislogic: there's the excuse for why the fossil evidence hasn't been found.] He further says: “There is no way of knowing to what extent, if at all, those specific organisms were relevant to later developments, or what their relationships might have been to each other.”35* [Malcolm S. Gordon supports the teaching of evolution.]
WHAT DOES THE “FILM” REALLY SHOW?
...
How does that illustration relate to the way evolutionists view the fossil record? For years, researchers did not acknowledge that the vast majority of fossils—the 95 frames of the movie—showed that species change very little over time. Why the silence about such important evidence? Author Richard Morris says: “Apparently paleontologists had adopted the orthodox idea of gradual evolutionary change and had held onto it, even when they discovered evidence to the contrary. They had been trying to interpret fossil evidence in terms of accepted evolutionary ideas.”37
“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”—In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, pp. 116-117 [whereislogic: this guy is senior editor of Nature magazine as well.]
What about evolutionists today? Could it be that they continue to place fossils in a certain order, not because such a sequence is well-supported by the majority of fossil and genetic evidence, but because doing so is in harmony with currently accepted evolutionary ideas?* [See, for example, the box “What About Human Evolution?”]
...
The human genome - the full set of genetic instructions for a human being - is made up of 20,000 instructions called genes.
But add all the genes in our microbiome together and the figure comes out between two and 20 million microbial genes.
Prof Sarkis Mazmanian, a microbiologist from Caltech, argues: "We don't have just one genome, the genes of our microbiome present essentially a second genome which augment the activity of our own.
Well-established and observed fact #1: life is made up of molecular machinery
Well-established and observed fact #2: machinery is the product of engineering
General conclusion by induction: the machinery that life is made up of (effect/phenomenon) is the product of engineering (cause, or causal mechanism or process) by at least 1 engineer (causal agent).
“Rule I. We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
...
Rule IV. In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions collected by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, 'till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions,
This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.”
“As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy.”
- Isaac Newton (from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica)
The Encyclopædia Britannica on inductive reasoning:
"When a person uses a number of established facts to draw a general conclusion, he uses inductive reasoning. THIS IS THE KIND OF LOGIC NORMALLY USED IN THE SCIENCES. ..."
Because to detect one [a planet] is exceedingly difficult. Since stars are so distant and planets do not emit any light of themselves, detecting even a giant planet, such as Jupiter, is like trying to spot a speck of dust floating around a powerful light bulb miles away.
Even if such planets do exist—and some indirect evidence has accumulated to indicate that they do—this still does not mean that they orbit precisely the right kind of star in the right galactic neighborhood, at precisely the right distance from the star, and are themselves of precisely the right size and composition to sustain life. (in spite of all the claims concerning supposedly "potential[ly] habitable worlds")