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alien life possibility is pathetic

makaya325 said:
Christian, Do you realize that extremophiles here on earth would die if put on another planet due to the extremer conditions that make earths extreme conditions look laughable? Even if it is possible to survive on a deadly planet, What are the chances if something like bacteria, which couldnt even survive on most planets, could even ARISE on them?
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So, you want to tell me that you have visited all the other planets in this universe, checked the conditions there, and found them to be more extreme than the ones on earth? Care to share with us how you managed to do that?

And if you didn't travel to all of them, you surely can link to some data that definitely confirms your bold assertion that all other planets have more extreme environments than the earth, and that they are all deadly?

Unless you can, all what you said is just speculation presented as facts to push your agenda.

And besides, you grasp the concept of a metaphor? And you did notice my use of "biological matter" instead of "whole lifeform", did you?

Edit: Oh, and just to make sure. If you really claim that life is possible only on earth, then you can surely explain this critter and why it can withstand conditions that cant be found on earth even? What would be the reason for evolution to bring up these abilities, if there is actually no real need for them?
 
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makaya325 said:
Christian, Do you realize that extremophiles here on earth would die if put on another planet due to the extremer conditions that make earths extreme conditions look laughable? Even if it is possible to survive on a deadly planet, What are the chances if something like bacteria, which couldnt even survive on most planets, could even ARISE on them?
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Actually the survival of microbes is a serious concern with probes sent away from Earth. Here are two articles from New Scientist:

  1. Discussing microbes and Phoenix.
  2. Another, this one a more general discussion relating to interstellar probes.


Last but not least, here is a tangentially related post from Space.com regarding Viking and [hypothetical] unintended consequences.
 
I apologize for the double post, I want to separate the idea in this one from that in the last.

Makaya: just an observation. Many of your posts in this thread seem to be defending your idea (good) by discrediting others (not as good). There is certainly a place and method for discrediting ideas competing with yours. This is as good a place as any, but I think your method is wanting.

Instead of merely attacking ideas at odds with your own, bolster them with sources and citations. Also do your critics a favor and read their sources and respond to the claims of the sources. I admit I am on their side in this argument, and not likely to be persuaded. That said, I could be if the few reasons you have cited so far pan out as good arguments. The long, long list counts as one until you seperate them out and either explain why each is critical or point to a good alternative that does the same.

Reasons such as "it's just impossible" don't fly--why are they impossible? Has someone done work to figure out why each or any of those reasons are supportable? Until that work is done, the other side of the coin is just as valid: "there could be life adapted to that/those situation(s)". If you do not want to address each of those ~200 reasons at once (and I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to), start with a few. Or throw a link pointing to a place where there is further discussion.

The list is WHAT you think--a good starting point and I commend you for that. In order to keep the commendation and win/settle this debate though, you must next satisfy step two: tell us HOW you know what you know. (And if you don't know, write emails to people who made the list and ask them). Nothing less is expected of anyone else and we are providing reasons and sources for our side. Please share yours with us!
 
This topic has been discussed at length on the Bad Astronomy/Universe Today forum.

Personally, I attended a Colloquium, wherein I heard from an astrophysicist (I forget her name...), about the possibilities of finding alien life on giant earth-like planets.

Essentially, giant earth-like planets are the only planets we're likely to see at such a distance, and she ran us through all that would be required to spot them. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that a giant planet could not sustain life. She talked purely about looking for carbon-based lifeforms, as it would be very difficult to know exactly what to look for if we were looking for, say, silicon-based lifeforms and the like, as we have few examples of such things. Furthermore, it's more than possible to find an alien civilization on such a world, as they would influence their environment (as we do) above and beyond what the planet would naturally undergo.

If you want to get crazy, life could easily grow more weird than silicon, carbon, and the like. It's theoretically possible for life to result from a myriad of different basic building blocks.

There have even been suggestions that, for the most exotic of life forms, that even magnetic-based life forms on Neutron Stars, and plasma-based lifeforms in stars, could potentially exist (as to how likely, well, I don't know really). All that is really required, is the ability to retain information (the real building blocks of life), and the ability to pass that information to a new generation of life.
 
makaya325 said:
Christian, Do you realize that extremophiles here on earth would die if put on another planet due to the extremer conditions that make earths extreme conditions look laughable? Even if it is possible to survive on a deadly planet, What are the chances if something like bacteria, which couldnt even survive on most planets, could even ARISE on them?
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On what evidence do you conclude that all planets on all the galaxies in all the universe must be deadly?
 
Just because the planets we can observe aren't suitable to earth's life forms doesn't mean there could not be a planet out there that could. On the topic of logic and reasoning, you fail, Makaya.
 
bruto said:
On what evidence do you conclude that all planets on all the galaxies in all the universe must be deadly?
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You're one step too far. "Deadly" here is an entirely meaningless term. Deadly for what?

Humans?
Penguins?
Bacteria?
All and any carbon-based life?

Or every single possible form of life that might exist within our universe, whether we can or have imagined it yet or not?
 
Jcr, i view even simple life as a problem. It is not whether life (extreme) can survive on the planet, but could they have formed? The case seems to be no, and that the earth, which is incredibly diverse in species, a couple million, is unique
 
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When you take the number of stars in the universe and subject them to neccessary conditions, and so on and so on, the probability shrinks dramatically
 
makaya325 said:
Nobby, where is the proof that our solar system is not unique?
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That's completely backwards, makaya. You're starting from the assumption that the Earth is unique and demanding proof that it's not.

In the history of science, thinking that "we" are somehow unique in the universe has proven to be an unproductive assumption.

As far as the "rare Earth" stuff--it's mostly speculation. For example, it's speculated that we'd need a gas giant (like Jupiter) at about the right distance to vacuum up all the extra debris and protect the potential life-bearing planet from devastating meteor strikes for life to thrive long enough to evolve an intelligent form. In fact, you could as easily argue the opposite. The Earth gets a gigantic ecological "reset" about once every 50 million years. If it happened more frequently than that, maybe you'd get more chances for an intelligent form to emerge and it might take a lot less than 4.5 billion years to happen.

It's just speculation. We don't know.

And, as I keep repeating, even if something like the Earth is "rare", it might still happen thousands of times in our galaxy alone (over the course of billions of years). So it's really going out on a limb to declare the Earth to be unique.
 
makaya325 said:
Long, i already have provided links supporting the rare earth theory.
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Yeah but you also seem to deliberately ignore all other theories that dont support it too.

You also selectively ignore the literal fact that as of current technology and knowledge- the bottom line is we simply dont know what the facts are.
 
Long, the other theories that contend that earth is typical is ridicolous. Every day, we are finding things that make earth seem like a precise gem in a deadly factory. Tell me, do you even have the feeling to suggest anything like us could even exist?
 
makaya325 said:
When you take the number of stars in the universe and subject them to neccessary conditions, and so on and so on, the probability shrinks dramatically
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Even assuming that all these conditions you imagine to be necessary are necessary, the probability would shrink to what? 1 in a billion? 1 in 10 billion?

You realize that would still mean the Earth is not unique even in the galaxy.

Remember, life adapts to conditions. It's silly to talk about the odds against the "coincidence" of circumstances that lead to the conditions on Earth. There was no coincidence at all. You really think it's a coincidence that oxygen-breathing organisms evolved only after there was oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere?
 
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