It's a good point, and one considered by SETI researchers like Frank Drake with his 'Drake equation'. Yep, there are billions of stars in this galaxy alone, but then, the probability of intelligent life may well be billions to one. Meaning that intelligent life may be so rare it could well be forever beyond our technological reach. The flood theory of sedimentation is interesting, but I can't agree with it. that amount of sedimentation as a one-off event wouldn't show the different rock strata and gradual change of fossil types through that strata that are well-known and easy to see. Something as simple as rock strata is the death-knell for creationist arguments as it's rock-solid and obvious proof of a long and varied history of the Earth as well as of its evolving life-forms. Consider, if there was a creationist event, why would god create a world seething only with bacteria for most of its life? And why do we see increasing complexity of species with many new species coming into existence long after any intial event would have taken place?
Firstly, I'd like to say that it does indeed matter. If Creationalists are right, then there's a God. If there's a God (let's say the Christian God) then there's the possibility of salvation, heaven, hell, forgiveness, and so forth. I'd say eternal life or damnation is something that should matter. I'd say that we'd made some decent technological leaps before the discovery of evolution. After the dark ages near the renaissance and reformation we started making all sorts of inventions such as the printing press long before evolution was an established scientific theory.
Funny, you failed to mention the fossil record. My belief is that he wouldn't. I don't believe in evolution.
I respect your beliefs, but often wonder why creationists challenge evolution when arguing for a biblical creation. Why not accept evolution and that maybe the entire universe itself was created? Surely the big bang could be seen as a creationist event. Some of the well-argued Intelligent Design debates have merit and carry more weight than simply denying the evidence for evolution.
Creationists argue against marco-evolution, not microevolution. It is understood and proven that small changes are made when animals migrate to different locations, and that if they stay in said places long enough, they because a part of that ecosystem. Macroevolution, on the other hand, seems so much more difficult to understand. One question i have always had that none of my evolutionist friends can answer is this: If the big bang did occur, then how does one explain mating? It seems that both the male reproductive and female reproductive areas would have to evolve at the exact same time so as to [1] preserve the species and [2] allow it to evolve. As even the reproductive area of mice is so complex, how can we say that two different creatures made the same evolutionary jump at the exact same time, and said jumps were still 100% complatible? I agree. But it should also be remarked that too many people just flat-out deny ID because of the religious implications. You'd think God was as taboo as discussing sex toys in a convent.
At any rate, back to the initial topic. It is possible and probable for life to exist elsewhere in our universe and even in our own galaxy. I don't know if any of you have read about nanobacteria. A while back, a Martian rock was found, and upon studying it, scientists found what appeared to be fossilized evidence of tiny bacteria. The problem was, they were too small to possibly live. Later on, a geologist found similar samples here on earth. So far, research has found them to be self-replicating. But the debate goes on about whether or not they are alive. If it does turn out that these nanobacteria are living, and that they (at least at one time) lived on Mars, the implications would be huge. Life on another planet, and so close to home! However, it could turn out to be nothing.
As research into extra-galactic planets progresses (astronomers have "detected" quite a few now) we should be able to determine which have the highest probability for life (based on what we know now, of course). Or you can enter the contest: Money for Earth-like planets. Or: Planet Quest Then we can focus our communication efforts on those locations. Life very probably exists out there somewhere. Whether we can communicate with it or not, who knows right now? But SETI currently leads the charge on doing what we can with what we have. Hopefully someone out there knows how to respond to frequencies. The bigger question (dependent on the first): what do we do when we find new life? That day will blow everyones' minds (assuming that we hear the details; governments may want to withhold the information out of concern for the public well-being). A few years back astromoners tracked an asteroid that looked like it would hit the earth the next day. What's the first question the government asked: do we tell people? When someone finds life they'll likely ask the same thing.
Its very hard to come to a decison about this, the universe is always expanding. And with every star that explodes new planets are formed. So you would think that there is another planet out there which could sustain some form of life. Intelligent or not.
As much as you guys are correct about the probability of life existing elsewhere being high, the question is about the probability of intelligent life. Yes, the universe probably seethes with bacterial life. It appeared on Earth in its very early and very hostile stages and has been here ever since. We know bacteria will thrive deep in rocks in the Antarctic and in Death Valley. We know it will survive in super-heated water around oceanic geothermal vents. But what about complex or intelligent life? That's a very different proposition. It may well be that the correct environments for such life are a freak occurence - literaly billions to one against them happening.
Well, there is a possibility that civilizations (if others exist besides our own) snuff themselves out of existance after a certain point. Furthermore, a lot of people assume that another civilization could be thousands of years more advanced than we are. But what if that's not true? What if we're, like, technology pioneers of the universe? The thought is kinda scary. I would be very disappointed if we turned out to have the only intelligent life in the universe. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. I'm just kinda throwing random, mismatched ideas out there right now.
I just thought I would pop back into this controvertial topic and point you to "The Uplift Wars" by David Brin. He has some very interesting ideas about the formation of intelligent life. I think that, extrapolated from the science-fiction of his work, you might enjoy the idea that the next intelligent species humans might encounter might be one that already exists: dolphins.
I dont know? Its possible Dolphins are THAT intelligent but lack the dexterity to use their minds physically. From all respects though, Dolphins are just highly intelligent and social animals, nothing extremely special? Its not just from the way they do things but from the way they react to us, its just not intelligetn enough? It is possible though that it comes across that way because of difference in the way that each race views the world?
Yes, the big bang can be seen as a creationalist event, as can evolution. However, there really isn't enough evidence for certainty. As said, miroevolution is accepted.
I think there's a certain level of arrogance with the way in which intelligence is understood by us primarily on our level as a species all of our own that we simply expect to be true to other life forms in comparison. You can compare the levels of intelligence between two humans because we are all common to each other. But we can't simply just "throw" the same way of conscious thinking on other species, such as a common household pet (dog or cat), as they must have a different type of consciousness, or their own laws of logic that are similar but not exact to ours. It might be similar but we can only begin to understand anything about any other species on our human conscious level otherwise it simply becomes confusing to us. We can train any animal to mimic our thought and behavioural patterns, but sooner or later the animal concerned will simply delve back into its own conscious wake. Same goes with all of us having the ability to act physically like other animals or mimicking their sounds, but when we enter back into our "normal" selves the acting ceases to exist as we enter our normal behavioural patterns. Of course there is intelligent life out there, but we have to start thinking that it is intelligent in its own right. We all assume that if an extra-terrestrial isn't "super-duper" intelligent based on our "Hollywood-ised" viewpoint of what intelligence is then we automatically assume that they can't be very intelligent at all. Hell, if we discover a species on another planet that is exactly like a cow on this planet then it's fair to say that we have inadvertantly discovered other intelligent life form. It may not be able to solve complex mathematical algorithms, or [insert HUMANdefinition of intelligence here] but it's still intelligent nonetheless. Never forget the possibility that we are looking for signs of life that may have already discovered us a LONG time ago and simply thought of us as so primitive compared to them that they simply thought to pass us on and go somewhere else in the vast universe instead, the same way we would with something like an ant-like colony. It's humiliating, but it's just another possibility. We can't always use ourselves as a comparison example. If we walked into an "alien" species right now exactly how can we begin to even comprehend the species with which is right in front of us? It's also fair to say that an alien might conform to a whole different biological, mathematical, psychological, etc laws that we couldn't even begin to fathom out based on our own laws of thinking and logic that we know of and are familiar with today. I think it would be best to further evolve a few million years before we begin to even desire to make contact with a species that we have no prior knowledge of. If we gave out signals that we have been doing for the last thirty years, which we have been doing through SETI, and any malevolent species out there (who may have missed us) figure out how primitive we are compared to them, it's quite obvious that a full-scale planetary invasion could occur knowing that there would be no way in hell that we could even have the military might and resources necessary to survive an attack. Of course, I'm not trying to rehash any cheesy Sci-fi film plot or idea that we have seen in the past fifty years. It's just thinking in terms of logic the possible dangers of interaction in what could be percieved that we may be as yet vulnerable in our current evolved state as a species (after all, we as a species can't seem to interact without starting wars against each other. What makes anyone think that any other species out there wouldn't do the same to us no matter how vastly intelligent they are?) Awesome thread by the way!
Are We Alone Does anyone else think that there is other life out there. Or am I the only one of this opinion. I refuse to believe that we are the only lifeforms in the universe. There has to be others out there. They could even be humanoid like us. What are your thoughts on this. ~Raven.
Humanoid like us? Nah... But life -- yes. The universe is said to be eternal in size it's also said that it's exanding..... I don't understand that part because if it's eternal... how could it still be expanding... oh well. Anyways -- it's BIG! It's so big that Earth, this massive globe we stand on, is so small that a speck would be too big of a comparison for it. We are in such a minute splotch in space... so tiny and so miniscule and meaningless that if you look at the eternal scope of just how BIG everything is -- it's inevitable that there's life SOMEWHERE. And if there's life then there's something that's either sentient or will in later years BECOME sentient.
I find it ludicrous that so many humans assume they are the only inhabitants of this universe. I honestly don't understand how so many people can NOT believe/acknowledge that there are other forms of life out there...but to each his/her own I suppose... I can tell you without an ounce of doubt that there are other alien races out there, the majority of whom are much more intelligent/evolved than our narrow-minded human race. They look at the Earth with sadness...because the Earth is one of the most beautiful planets in the Universe (and amongst the most beautiful planet out of all the other universes. There's more than one you know...), but humans treat the Earth like a dump and pollute it with their stupidity.
I highly doubt we are alone. If your sky is clear tonight, you should go out and take a look at it. Try to count the stars. You'll count to well past four-thousand, and that's just from your vantage point. You can assume that each of those stars has five or six planets orbitting it. From that alone, the idea of coexisting with other lifeforms doesn't seem so hard to grasp. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. In our galaxy alone, there are over one hundred billion stars. We know of at least two hundred billion galaxies in our Universe. Do that math. Even if you assume that only one out of every thousand planets has the chance to sustain life, you still must conclude that at least a million planets out there, in our galaxy alone, have life on them. Sentient life? I don't know how many, but with a million planets out there working toward it, I'm sure we are not the only ones.
Its not enough to say these planets could support life therefore there must be life somewhere else. Not enough is known about how the first living organisms emerged to say if life could develop somewhere else. We know, based on observations of those planets, that if life developed in a similar way to the way it theoretically developed on Earth, that similar life forms could develop, but there is simply no way to know if that really is the case. Then there's the problem of evolution. Higher intelligence is not an inevitability of evolution. A look at the variety of creatures on Earth is more than enough evidence of that. The only motivation in evolutionary development is the propogation and continued survival of the species. There is no logical progression towards some goal, simply a response to the environment that will result in the animal being better equipped to deal with its surroundings. So, there is no guarantee at all that life on other planets would be "intelligent", if it existed at all. So yes, I believe there is life elsewhere in the universe. No, it cannot be proven with current technology. No, the logic of counting planets does not suggest there is definitely life on other planets. No, there is no guarantee other life forms would be intelligent, or even developed beyond single cell organisms. But it would be fun to imagine
