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alien life possibility is pathetic

makaya325 said:
No lone, i just wanted to get that off my chest.
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Ahh, sure you want. Must be pretty uncomfortable to be "caught with the hand in the cookie jar", ain't it?

makaya325 said:
Back to the topic... Any reasonable reason to dismiss the rare earth theory?
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Nope. Guess why? Because "rare" does not mean "only here and nowhere else". And in cosmic dimensions, "rare" would still be a pretty big number, as others have pointed out already, even if one would assume the lowest numbers.

makaya325 said:
Im talking about complex life
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No, you didn't. You started this thread about "alien life", which is, by its very definition, _every_ life not from here. You might have confused that with "aliens" as seen on TV, but trust me, thats not really what "alien" means. If one would going to nitpick, even the US has aliens. You know, people from, lets say Germany, coming to the states. They would be called "alien".

Did you just tried to move that goalpost again? And i cant see Elvis either....

Edit: "here" meaning "earth"
 
Lonewulf said:
Reminds me of a creationist's Youtube log I saw. "Do I believe in alien life? Well, I have a hard time thinking that there's life on THIS planet! (hur hur hur...)"

Makaya certainly debates with the passion and general ignorance of the average ID'er, but to be fair, that might be less indicative of being an IDer, and more indicative of being young and unable to admit he might be wrong about something.
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Ah, right, of course. Just forgot the times where i was young :D

Edit: You know, back then, i was young and beautiful. Nowdays i'm just "and".
 
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No, I am an atheist, and strongly oppose ID and support evolution. Tell me, is peter ward or donald browlee creationists? Are there credentials higher than yours?

Rare doesnt mean unique, but as time progresses, every day, Life becomes less likely.
 
The drake equation is the typical believer calculation, which is EXTREMELY narrow. Why cant they follow the more scientific and skeptical rare earth equation, which is accepted by most mainstream scientists
 
Christian Klippel said:
Ah, right, of course. Just forgot the times where i was young :D

Edit: You know, back then, i was young and beautiful. Nowdays i'm just "and".
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Haha! I like that one. "and" certainly is a fitting adjective. :D

I'm young and overweight. :( Gotta work on that.

makaya325 said:
No, I am an atheist, and strongly oppose ID and support evolution. Tell me, is peter ward or donald browlee creationists? Are there credentials higher than yours?
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Believe me, if they adopted an argumentation style much like your own, I wouldn't be very impressed, no matter their credentials. I highly doubt there's a scientist alive that would state that the oceans are 100% explored.

And even then, there is still scientific debate on this topic. Yes, there is the idea that life is relatively rare. HOW rare, is of heated debate, no matter the credentials.

Rare doesnt mean unique, but as time progresses, every day, Life becomes less likely.
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So you keep stating.
 
Christian Klippel said:
Makaya,

care to answer my question from this post?

Or would it be too intimidating for you, since you obviously can't really answer it, and thus would break down your house of cards?
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http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01o.html

Our Milky Way Galaxy is unusual in that it is one of the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe. Our Solar System also seems to have qualities that make it rather unique. According to Guillermo Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Washington, these qualities make the Sun one of the few stars in the Galaxy capable of supporting complex life.
 
makaya325 said:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01o.html

Our Milky Way Galaxy is unusual in that it is one of the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe. Our Solar System also seems to have qualities that make it rather unique. According to Guillermo Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Washington, these qualities make the Sun one of the few stars in the Galaxy capable of supporting complex life.
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Sorry, makaya, but that is not an answer to my question.

Again, how can you conclude from data, that is effectively billions of years old, what the situation now is?

And also again, are you aware that an hypothetical observer, billions of lightyears away and looking at our planet, would also see something that would possibly not have any life?

Don't throw unrelated links around. Just give an answer. How can you conclude that? What would you see if you were billions of lightyears away and look at the earth?

Edit: and also keep in mind that our galaxy is just a bit of fly-poop compared to the size of the universe. So, whatever we see in our galaxy has no bearing to what can be in other galaxies.
 
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Christian, most of our universe is empty space between galaxies, which most of arent like the milky way. Tell me, any galaxies that match the milky ways metalicity of stars, size, age, location?
 
I fail to see how a differing "metalicity" of stars matter, nor the size of the galaxy. As for the age, I doubt galaxies differ that wildly as far as age goes, given the origins of the universe.

And no, the Milky Way is not the center of the universe... and you'd have to practically think so to think that it's older than all the other galaxies out there, as you seem to imply.

As for location... of course no other galaxy has our location? That's like saying, "Find a country that has the exact same coordinates of America!" It's a silly exercise.

And all of the variables you list seem quite silly. Galaxies may differ quite a bit, but solar systems will still vary quite a bit within them, especially on the outer edges (like we at Earth are at in the Milky Way).

I don't have to sift through every single galaxy to meet your extreme demand, because your demand is ultimately pointless.


I also dislike the idea of comparing theoretical alien life with life here on Earth. We're carbon-based lifeforms, with a very specific make-up, relying on very specific gasses and materials. Alien life may very well not need to do that. What about silicon-based life? What about life that can rely on, say, ammonia gas and the like? What about the (very exotic) ideas of magnetic-based life and plasma-based life?

When you keep life so narrowly defined based on conditions on Earth, then life would seem unique/rare no matter what you said or did.
 
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makaya325 said:
Christian, most of our universe is empty space between galaxies, which most of arent like the milky way. Tell me, any galaxies that match the milky ways metalicity of stars, size, age, location?
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Uhm, sorry, but that is exactly what you have to tell us. You asserted that we are somehow unique. So it is up to you to show proof for that.

If you can't, then simply say so. But don't try to push your nonsensical agenda upon us and force us to prove negatives. You know what it means to prove a negative?

So, again, you made the bold claim that our planet or solar system is somehow unique. You further asserted that only under these very special conditions life could evolve. So really, it is up to you to prove that. You have to tell us exactly which galaxies don't match the milky way enough to "create" life. You have to tell us exactly what the conditions are there _now_ that would prohibit that.

So, go ahead and tell us. If you can't, you have to admit that you simply don't know and therefore can not rule out that life exists in the universe beyond our galaxy.

Edit: And be aware that "creation of life" may happen in thousand years, or a million, or a billion. It just happens when the conditions are right. So you also have to specify the exact conditions under which life can start. If you really can do that, you should get a nobel prize. But i really doubt that you can do and that instead you will just continue to wiggle out.
 
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Our Milky Way Galaxy is unusual in that it is one of the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe.
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What does "nearby universe" mean? Just what we can see, right? What about the rest of the universe that we can't see?

'Sides that, as it's been pointed out, the galaxies that we can see, such as the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest galaxy-neighbor is 2,000,000 light years away from us. So light from that galaxy has travelled 2,000,000 years to get to us.

Considering the number of stars and the time that it took for light to reach us, it's not impossible that there is a species of sentient beings there.

We don't know for sure, no way to tell, but to out-and-out say it's impossible is amazing considering you're arguing in another thread that Big Foot exists.

I'd like to understand how you can say Big Foot exists when there has been no evidence, only conjecture and hear-say, where we can actually test for Big Foot here on our own planet. Yet in the same breath, you say that there is no chance that sentient life could (notice "could" not "did") in all the universe.....

(By the way, in the beginning of this thread, you said that no life at all was possible. Did you change your mind and are now limiting it to intelligent life.....?)
 
makaya325 said:
Joe, we know the composition of other galaxies, other system, other planets, and so far... all seem to be unhabitable
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What? Did I miss the announcement?

No. You're assuming we have knowledge that we do not have.

We don't know anything in detail about any planet outside of the solar system. So far, as we develop new techniques for detecting extrasolar planets of a given mass (and orientation with regard to their primaries and/or our vantage point), we've found them in abundance. So far, we know little beyond that.

We most certainly do not know the composition of all the other planets in our galaxy. What you are asserting requires that sort of knowledge.
 
You say "even if life is rare, its bound to happen many other times". This is wrong. After you factor out most of our stars, and that remains a couple 1000 of stars, and thats when you say "Even if its one in a trillion". Sorry, but compare 1000 to trillion. its sad.
 
Belz... said:
Hummm... so it's the fine-tuning argument all over again.
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You've noticed that similar way of thinking too, have you?

Wow, what are the odds against the exact conditions of the Earth happening? It could NEVER happen again! ;)
 
makaya325 said:
You say "even if life is rare, its bound to happen many other times". This is wrong. After you factor out most of our stars, and that remains a couple 1000 of stars, and thats when you say "Even if its one in a trillion". Sorry, but compare 1000 to trillion. its sad.
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Uhm, huh?

So what? 1 in a thousand, one in a trillion. Does it really matter as to the topic of this thread? And are you aware that one in a thousand is a way bigger chance than one in a trillion?

Seems you get lost in your own ramblings. Short attention span, maybe?
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
We don't know anything in detail about any planet outside of the solar system.
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Hello Joe,

just for the fun of nitpicking (really big nits, of course).

I'd say that we even don't know every detail about any planet in our solar system. In fact, we don't even now every detail of our own planet.

But indeed that doesn't make your argument any less valid.

Greetings,

Chris
 
makaya325 said:
You say "even if life is rare, its bound to happen many other times". This is wrong. After you factor out most of our stars, and that remains a couple 1000 of stars, and thats when you say "Even if its one in a trillion". Sorry, but compare 1000 to trillion. its sad.
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ETA: By the way, if you're quoting me, I'm pretty sure this is a misquote. I don't think I would ever say "bound to happen". I said it could happen that many times in our galaxy and no two examples ever run into one another.

I'm pointing out that while "rare" is a relative term, "unique" is not. Unique is absolute. You're making one of those "all swans are white" sort of statements.

You're claiming knowledge about the rest of the galaxy and universe that we simply do not have. Christian is making a good point about your claim that we know the composition of galaxies, and that the Milky Way is unique among the 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe.

Even within our own galaxy, you claim that know the composition of all the planets, and that the Earth is unique. We simply do not. The ONLY planets we've studied in any detail are those in our own solar system. What we know about extrasolar planets is extremely limited. However, what we've found so far is that whenever we have the ability to detect planets of a given mass, etc., we've found them in relative abundance.
 
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Christian Klippel said:
I'd say that we even don't know every detail about any planet in our solar system. In fact, we don't even now every detail of our own planet.
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True that. For all the detailed information and observations and even landing probes on the planet Mars, we still don't know for sure whether or not microbial life exists there.

About all we know about extrasolar planets is the stuff given in this chart (mass, radius, semimajor axis of the orbit, and inclination). And, as Woollery pointed out, we only know that sort of information on a few hundred planets within a teeny tiny volume of space (infinitesimally small) compared to the size of the galaxy. And even in that space, we certainly haven't ruled out the presence of many many more planets. (Most likely, the ones we've detected are merely the tip of the iceberg--to strain the hell out of a metaphor.)
 
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