Probability of ET Life Arbitrarily Small, Say Astrobiologists

reply to post by Zeer0
Why am I more worried about life finding us?

reply to post by Balkan


You shouldnt because its probably already did. But if you dont believe Aliens havent made contact i dont know what to tell you.

reply to post by game over man


Its ironic that so many are familiar with the Drake equation but so few with the equally compelling Fermi Paradox...

The Fermi paradox (Fermi's paradox or Fermi-paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

Fermi paradox

Originally posted by Zeer0
reply to post by Balkan

 

You shouldnt because its probably already did. But if you dont believe Aliens havent made contact i dont know what to tell you.

And they haven't tried to eat us or enslave us yet? Yeah, I'm not so sure then.

From the article:

"Of course, that doesn't mean that we are alone; only that the evidence can't tell us otherwise.
And if the evidence changes then so to will the probabilities that we can infer from it."

AKA, we have no freaking clue.

reply to post by Balkan


No. Why do you assume these ET's would be hostile?

reply to post by Blaine91555

This is not about whether or not life exists. The assumption is it does.

I never implied such.

---------------------

Did you miss this part of the OP?

Life is indeed highly improbable... I would argue miraculous.

reply to post by Drunkenparrot

Really?

If so I'm sure you wont mind sharing some shred of evidence to support your claim.

Hello Drunkenparrot You ought to check out the link in my edited post.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


The Drake equation is only an educated "guess" from the era of the 60s. And it had some strange beginnings with Sagan, Dr. Lilly and others in PR before it came out. Check out "Order of the Dolphins."

With more earth-like planets being discovered every month or so, you can't make me believe that the tide is not turning in the formerly anthropocentric sciences. A bitter pill for scientists, but one then must accept.

Originally posted by Zeer0
reply to post by Balkan

 

You shouldnt because its probably already did. But if you dont believe Aliens haven't made contact i dont know what to tell you.

I don't believe Aliens have made contact in modern times (as in the existing historical record) and there is nothing to support the idea of their presence in prehistory.

I've been interested in the subject since the 70's after reading Erich von Däniken's "Chariots of the Gods" and have seen nothing to support E.T.

I have,however, seen plenty of hoaxes,scams and misidentifications (often a combination of the three) enough to strongly support the concept of visitation as an increasingly flawed, human generated argument.

Originally posted by Zeer0
reply to post by Balkan

 

No. Why do you assume these ET's would be hostile?

Look at life here on the planet. Everything eats everything else. Would life in the universe be any different?

Originally posted by Drunkenparrot
reply to post by game over man

 

Its ironic that so many are familiar with the Drake equation but so few with the equally compelling Fermi Paradox...

The Fermi paradox (Fermi's paradox or Fermi-paradox) is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

Fermi paradox

In an informal discussion in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exists in the Milky Way galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes is not seen.

I counter that with this:

If you were an advanced race, would you want Humans to know of your existence?

reply to post by TheUniverse


Yes, I read it and think its fantastic news but... it is still playing "what if" with terran biology.

Its all a lot of speculation until somebody discovers a single celled extraterrestrial fossil, a signal of inarguable intelligent design or they land on the whitehouse lawn.

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Exactly but the Scientists in the OP's article are making broad assertions.

I think the life ubiquitous is much more plausible.

We on Earth are already evidence of life existing in the Universe.

And they have found life in the most hostile of all places on Earth.

In every crevice

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Because it's covered up by the Government? Because to observe ET's by the naked eye, well, then it would have to be an actual alien encounter! Why don't we observe them? Because the Universe is huge, and we've only been tinkering with the technology to discover life in the Universe for the past 60 years.

60 years of searching in a nearly 15 billion year old Universe is barely scratching the surface.

I think what we know at this point is pretty exciting! All the possibilities of exotic life in our Solar System and the discovery of Exo-Planets is practically sci-fi!!

The theories on space travel, quantum physics and how we "observe" the Universe is very fascinating too!

reply to post by boncho


True Boncho.

I actually fall into the category of folks who believe Star Trek transcends syndicated television reruns and can be looked to as something more prophetic (one need look no farther than Jim Kirk's communicator and the modern cell phone.)

The concept of "the prime directive" and zero exposure or interference with a culture until they are socially evolved is a very tempting way out however I'll stick with the lack of observation infers the lack of existence rather than vice versa.

I do hope to be mistaken but so far I don't see anything other than an interesting social/psychological phenomena at the root of the extraterrestrial hypothesis.

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Yes there are ALOT of Hoaxes but many things cant be explained. And how you came to your conclusion is your own and i dont hate you for it.

The article is rediculous. Basically, it states that since earth only had one evolution of life, we must consider it a slow evolution towards life, meaning life doesn't pop up quickly, meaning this (relatively) young universe probably hasn't had enough time to develop life overall and we are all special and unique..after all, we are all we truely know.

They say if there was multiple cases of life evolving on earth, this would change their mind though.

Hmm

So, extinction level events that happened repeatedly on earth (what, 6 or 7 times now?) has no bearing on their assessment.
Basically, the article is based on far more assumptions than the drakes equasion.

Drakes equasion is not a scientific equasion, no...any probability equasion is not scientific, its just an abstract probability method to determine likelyhood...however, the counter is far more flaky. nonsense I say..and my personal view, wherever the conditions for life is right, life will find a way, be it a slow process over millions of years as our origins understanding, or some spores from space smacking down and taking root.

reply to post by TheUniverse


Plausible, yes, of course.

Certain by no means.

If the chance of life is small, then there is a chance.

To date their is no evidence of intelligent life forms. Regardless of what nut cases say. There is simply no proof.

If they exist we will not likely be around to see them anyway.

Unless they are actually hiding on the other side of the moon.

I am sure toomorrow another scientist will make a media statement that 'its only a matter of years till they find intelligent life'

So until the proof is there, we are the smartest species thus far. The universe revolves around us!

reply to post by SaturnFX

Agreed. Life is obviously amazingly tenacious.

Teeming.