have they found anything?

[arthwollipot]

Tell me of one single event in the bible that's constitant with reality. There is none.
There is even some doubt that Moses himself ever existed, as Abraham didn't as well.
Certainly the Egyptians make no reference to a Moses.

Numbers 22.

That's totally real.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

There are many things written in the Bible that people said either because they were deluded or under demon possession.

Deluded I could buy, but you have any evidence of demonic possession?

I hope the passage I cited shows that this is not a proper reading. Especially the last verse where it says that something like this has never happened before or since--where God obeyed the command of a human.

Well, if it happened before-- when? If it happened since-- when?

Did you miss the word "never"?

I'm tired of trying to converse with you. It's just too. . . surreal.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

He could simply have made it appear as if these things were occurring from the vantage point of the geographical area Joshua was in. Sort of a localized planetarium type effect. In short, the request was made but how the ID brought about is anybody's guess. I tend to think he made it a local phenomenon.

So you think the notion that God built a planetarium dome over Jericho and its environs and projected a sky on it, and that that's a more reasonable reading of this passage than mine (it's just stuff that was made up)?

What is reality?

I thought you said you had no problem distinguish fantasy/fiction and reality.

(Though your question about my ability to suspend disbelief during a sci-fi movie but not for the existence of God in reality sure made it look as though you have problems separating the two.)

If you don't know what "reality" is, we don't share enough conventional understanding of language to communicate with each other.

 

[amb]

Getting back to topic................

How many planets exists which might support life? Indeed, what is required for life to exist? How does life start? How does it evolve, and what fabulous creatures can evolution produce? How often do intelligent creatures appear in the giant tapestry of life? It is exactly these questions, and all of them, which are being addressed by the scientists of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.

Directed by Dr. Frank Drake, the center brings together leading researchers in a field often called "astrobiology," the study of life in the universe.

Our team focuses on a wide set of disciplines ranging from observing and modeling the precursors of life in the depths of outer space to studies of Earth, where we are attempting to learn more about how life began and how its many diverse forms have survived and evolved.

Appropriate to the sweeping scope of this research, we have many partners in our work including NASA, the National Science Foundation, and major universities.



Source: Seti Institute.

 

[Radrook]

Deluded I could buy, but you have any evidence of demonic possession?

Well, that subject would further deviate the thread. Sorry I mentioned it. It belongs on the religion forum in which I no longer participate. So I shouldn't even have mentioned it on this one.

Did you miss the word "never"?

How do you understand the words "never" "before" and "since" and the how rhjey function in that passage?

I'm tired of trying to converse with you.

Not obligatory.

It's just too. . . surreal.

That's how I view many beliefs you put forth as indisputable fact.

 

[Radrook]

So you think the notion that God built a planetarium dome over Jericho and its environs and projected a sky on it, and that that's a more reasonable reading of this passage than mine (it's just stuff that was made up)?

I was responding to the impossibility of the event as Joshua perceived it taking place within the context of the biblical. Which is the way the persons who were positing impossibility were doing and yet you have no problem with their statements. If indeed no alternative explanations are wanted, then why set up the scenario for discussion in the first place? Is my response reasonable? Well, within the parameters of the hypothetical-of course it is.

First, please note that the ones mentioning an almighty God or god, or the supernatural are the atheists and agnostics-not me. I am merely following their hypothetical and responding in accordance with the givens they posit. The ID I posited need not be God a god, or any other supernatural being. That scenario was pout forth by those who insist on seeing it that way. So if indeed you have a beef with the hypothetical you are having issues with the wrong person.

I thought you said you had no problem distinguish fantasy/fiction and reality.

Do all the professors who ask the same question have a problem distinguishing reality from fantasy? Or are you reserving that criterion for me?

(Though your question about my ability to suspend disbelief during a sci-fi movie but not for the existence of God in reality sure made it look as though you have problems separating the two.)

If that's the meaning you derived from my clear statements then you are having English comprehension problems which need remedial attention.

If you don't know what "reality" is, we don't share enough conventional understanding of language to communicate with each other.

I agree!

 

[arthwollipot]

Getting back to topic................

How many planets exists which might support life? Indeed, what is required for life to exist? How does life start? How does it evolve, and what fabulous creatures can evolution produce? How often do intelligent creatures appear in the giant tapestry of life?

We don't know. Yet. But we're working on it.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Is all of this a quote from the SETI website? Quote tags and a link would be nice. . .

Getting back to topic................

How many planets exists which might support life? Indeed, what is required for life to exist? How does life start? How does it evolve, and what fabulous creatures can evolution produce? How often do intelligent creatures appear in the giant tapestry of life? It is exactly these questions, and all of them, which are being addressed by the scientists of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.

Directed by Dr. Frank Drake, the center brings together leading researchers in a field often called "astrobiology," the study of life in the universe.

Our team focuses on a wide set of disciplines ranging from observing and modeling the precursors of life in the depths of outer space to studies of Earth, where we are attempting to learn more about how life began and how its many diverse forms have survived and evolved.

Appropriate to the sweeping scope of this research, we have many partners in our work including NASA, the National Science Foundation, and major universities.

Yes. We don't know.

I'm pretty sure that's what my position has been all along--we don't know.

I reject as unsupported the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.

I'm fine with the proposition that we may be unique in the galaxy, since it does nothing to rule out the proposition that there may also be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy.

So, do you accept the proposition that there may be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy?

(I ask because your earlier arguments seemed to say that you rejected that possibility, which seems to contradict your denying that you were making the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Is all of this a quote from the SETI website? Quote tags and a link would be nice. . .

Getting back to topic................

How many planets exists which might support life? Indeed, what is required for life to exist? How does life start? How does it evolve, and what fabulous creatures can evolution produce? How often do intelligent creatures appear in the giant tapestry of life? It is exactly these questions, and all of them, which are being addressed by the scientists of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe.

Directed by Dr. Frank Drake, the center brings together leading researchers in a field often called "astrobiology," the study of life in the universe.

Our team focuses on a wide set of disciplines ranging from observing and modeling the precursors of life in the depths of outer space to studies of Earth, where we are attempting to learn more about how life began and how its many diverse forms have survived and evolved.

Appropriate to the sweeping scope of this research, we have many partners in our work including NASA, the National Science Foundation, and major universities.

Yes. We don't know.

I'm pretty sure that's what my position has been all along--we don't know.

I reject as unsupported the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.

I'm fine with the proposition that we may be unique in the galaxy, since it does nothing to rule out the proposition that there may also be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy.

So, do you accept the proposition that there may be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy?

(I ask because your earlier arguments seemed to say that you rejected that possibility, which seems to contradict your denying that you were making the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.)

 

[Radrook]

....having a planet at just the right habitable zone as is Earth to allow life to evolve over 4.5 billion years?

If indeed earth-zone is the only one permitting life, then why is NASA speaking about maybe finding life on Mars, Europa and Titan? These aren't earth-habital-zone planets.

 

[amb]

Is all of this a quote from the SETI website? Quote tags and a link would be nice. . .


Yes. We don't know.

I'm pretty sure that's what my position has been all along--we don't know.

I reject as unsupported the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.

I'm fine with the proposition that we may be unique in the galaxy, since it does nothing to rule out the proposition that there may also be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy.

So, do you accept the proposition that there may be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligences in our galaxy?

(I ask because your earlier arguments seemed to say that you rejected that possibility, which seems to contradict your denying that you were making the claim that we are unique in the galaxy.)

I ask you to at least have a look at the hypothesis of Rare Earth This book is very well researched and is now available on the net for zilch.
Peter D Ward and professor Donald Brownlee are no pseudo-scientists but genuine researches of repute. Since the release of this book, not one scientist has been able to shoot down their hypothesis as mumbo jumbo.
The belief that the universe is teeming with intelligent life is an act of faith.
Nowhere do these authors dispute that the universe is teeming with life. But this life is microbial.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I ask you to at least have a look at the hypothesis of Rare Earth This book is very well researched and is now available on the net for zilch.

The link you provided before was not the entire book, but just samples. What I saw of it looked pretty bad.

Peter D Ward and professor Donald Brownlee are no pseudo-scientists but genuine researches of repute. Since the release of this book, not one scientist has been able to shoot down their hypothesis as mumbo jumbo.

So if they are not pseudoscientists spouting mumbo-jumbo does it follow that their hypothesis is correct?

Here's a review of the book that concludes:

I found it not only to be not convincing, but not particularly thought provoking and in some places sloppy almost to the point of being wrong.

Here's another one (I'm just going in line of the google results of "rare earth criticism") that contends that it was a decent theory until recent results in discovering so many extra solar planets have shot it down.

The third one is on a site called SETIleague and obviously not very warm to it either:

In Rare Earth, the authors present the theories they favor as complete and widely accepted, masking the fact that many are controversial (for example, whether star metallicity is as rare as they describe and whether Cambrian Ediacarans represent additional extinct phyla). Furthermore, I spotted errors in my field of expertise (conflation of transcription and translation, a 20-fold exaggeration of the number of human genes -- both pertaining to the crucial concept of complexity) and a howler regarding the rotations of Mars and Venus (which are not locked, as the authors assert in their haste to make Earth unique in the solar system). These missteps make me wonder whether the authors misquoted additional facts instrumental to their hypothesis.

The fourth hit was the wiki article, which includes a number of different criticisms of the theory.

The belief that the universe is teeming with intelligent life is an act of faith.

And you keep setting this up as the only alternative to the "we are probably unique" position. It is not.

The fact is, we don't know how common ET life (microbial or complex) in the universe is. There's no reason to think that conditions are so exceptional here that there is something special or unique about the Earth. I reject the assertion that ET intelligence is probably common (again, see my repeated issues with the fact that terms like "common" and "rare" are relative), but I also reject the assertion that we are probably unique in the galaxy.

I think the rare Earth hypothesis basically describes how complex life on Earth came about. It may or may not be a good description of what was required for we humans to arise. Even if it is, the authors are wrong to assert 1) that these are the only conditions under which intelligent/complex life could arise and 2) that these conditions aren't likely to occur elsewhere in the galaxy.

Nowhere do these authors dispute that the universe is teeming with life. But this life is microbial.

And this is pure speculation. It's little more than an opinion.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

It just occurred to me. Regarding the story of the sun stopping in the sky in Joshua:

if you weren't saying that the passage means the sun only appeared to hold still because it seemed like a long day, then you might be arguing that the Earth stopped rotating.

Is that what you meant? Surely you realize that that's as incompatible with reality as the geocentric model!

That whole story just reminds me how primitive the writers of those fables were. The entire story is written as if the sun is a small, localized object that does the traveling accross the sky.

Not only that... If this event had happened, there were a great many civilizations that observed the sky much more closely than the writers. Yet they seem not to have noticed this incredibly peculiar celestial event at all. No other civilization says that at some point the sky stopped moving altogether (and isn't there even a passage of the sun reversing track).

SURELY someone woud have noticed?

Yah, primitive fables...

And again, people bring up this mythical habitable zone... That's only applicable to earth life really. We jsut don't know. Come on, say it with me, "I don't know." It's actually quite liberating. However, becasue we don't know something doesn't mean we can't speculate within the laws of chemistry. There's more to your universe than is dreamed of in your philosophy (to butcher the bard).

This is absolutely an area where we need more datapoints. Just because we don't actually have those datapoints yet, we should stop looking?

 

[amb]

The link you provided before was not the entire book, but just samples. What I saw of it looked pretty bad.


So if they are not pseudoscientists spouting mumbo-jumbo does it follow that their hypothesis is correct?

Here's a review of the book that concludes:

Here's another one (I'm just going in line of the google results of "rare earth criticism") that contends that it was a decent theory until recent results in discovering so many extra solar planets have shot it down.

The third one is on a site called SETIleague and obviously not very warm to it either:


The fourth hit was the wiki article, which includes a number of different criticisms of the theory.



And you keep setting this up as the only alternative to the "we are probably unique" position. It is not.

The fact is, we don't know how common ET life (microbial or complex) in the universe is. There's no reason to think that conditions are so exceptional here that there is something special or unique about the Earth. I reject the assertion that ET intelligence is probably common (again, see my repeated issues with the fact that terms like "common" and "rare" are relative), but I also reject the assertion that we are probably unique in the galaxy.

I think the rare Earth hypothesis basically describes how complex life on Earth came about. It may or may not be a good description of what was required for we humans to arise. Even if it is, the authors are wrong to assert 1) that these are the only conditions under which intelligent/complex life could arise and 2) that these conditions aren't likely to occur elsewhere in the galaxy.



And this is pure speculation. It's little more than an opinion.

(After I finished this review, I read the review by C. P. McKay in the 2000 April 28 issue of Science. McKay is one of the premier astrobiologists. His review seems lukewarm. He describes the authors as "[making] the case (if not always convincingly) that the situation on our Earth is optimal for the devlopment of complex life." Later he also writes that "we have only one example of life" and that the "assessment of [the] probability" for the development of life "is uncertain at best." He concludes that "theories of life and evolution" should guide us but not constrain us"---they may be wrong. In this spirit Rare Earth provides a sobering [...] perspective in just how difficult it might be for complex life [...] to arise.")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. P. Mckay isn't as harsh on the hypothesis as is the reviewer is he?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

He describes the authors as "[making] the case (if not always convincingly) that the situation on our Earth is optimal for the devlopment of complex life." Later he also writes that "we have only one example of life" and that the "assessment of [the] probability" for the development of life "is uncertain at best." He concludes that "theories of life and evolution" should guide us but not constrain us"---they may be wrong. In this spirit Rare Earth provides a sobering [...] perspective in just how difficult it might be for complex life [...] to arise.")
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. P. Mckay isn't as harsh on the hypothesis as is the reviewer is he?

No, but I certainly agree with his Mckay's opinion. The fact is, we don't know. The latest findings (stuff we've learned AFTER 2000) of the abundance of extra solar planets leads us to think that planets are fairly abundant in the galaxy. The case for the Rare Earth claim hasn't been made. So, as it stands, it's just speculation. If you, or anyone else, claims that it is something we know, you're wrong.

The danger is in extended conclusions far beyond the data. In the SETI program, for example, we've been listening to spots in the sky for some 30 years now. Even with a telescope 100 times the sensitivity of Arecibo, we would not be able to detect "leakage" signals (like our own TV and radio broadcasts) beyond the limit of our own solar system. So what can we can conclude from that?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

A book offering very nearly the opposite point of view of the Rare Earth hypothesis has been in the news lately:

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

Another group has done some modeling of the universe:

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland constructed a computer model to create a synthetic galaxy with billions of stars and planets. They then studied how life evolved under various conditions in this virtual world, using a supercomputer to crunch the results.

In a paper published recently in the International Journal of Astrobiology, the researchers concluded that based on what they saw, at least 361 intelligent civilizations have emerged in the Milky Way since its creation, and as many as 38,000 may have formed.

Duncan Forgan, a doctoral candidate at the university who led the study, said he was surprised by the hardiness of life on these other worlds.

"The computer model takes into account what we refer to as resetting or extinction events. The classic example is the asteroid impact that may have wiped out the dinosaurs," Forgan said.

"I half-expected these events to disallow the rise of intelligence, and yet civilizations seemed to flourish."

Forgan readily admits the results are an educated guess at best, since there are still many unanswered questions about how life formed on Earth and only limited information about the 330 "exoplanets" -- those circling sun-like stars outside the solar system -- discovered so far.

 

[amb]

Not very convincing are they? Microbial life is agreed to, but intelligence? That's altogether a different question. I will more than likely buy this book when released in my locality as I love nothing better than reading such books. I'm not pig headed, in fact far from it, show me evidence that's hard to refute, and I'll change my mind.
The point is. Out of the billions of life forms that have evolved on this perfect Earth, only one has developed a mind enough to ask or discuss this very subject.
Why would matters be any different on other worlds.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm not pig headed, in fact far from it, show me evidence that's hard to refute, and I'll change my mind.

That's where I stand too. Again, the ONLY conclusion right now is that we don't know.

I've pointed out that I'm OK with the assertion that we might be unique in the galaxy, but you still haven't answered whether you accept the statement that there also might be hundreds or thousands of ET intelligence civilizations in the galaxy.

If you don't, then your assertion is not one of "might be" but "is". If that's the case, the burden of evidence is on you to support that conclusion.

The point is. Out of the billions of life forms that have evolved on this perfect Earth, only one has developed a mind enough to ask or discuss this very subject.

No, that's not the point at all. In fact, this is an argument you raised already and I've already pointed out that it doesn't help your case in the least.

If you want to re-do the Drake Equation to calculate the number of intelligent species as a ratio of total species (rather than as a ratio of intelligent species to the number of planets with life), that's fine, but it doesn't help your argument. If you treat the Earth as 1:some billions rather than 1:1, just make sure you use the correct second term (number of species in the galaxy, rather than number of planets).

It does nothing to further the claim that we are unique.

Why would matters be any different on other worlds.

Indeed, why would they? So if you get one intelligent species out of a planet, and if it turns out there are a great many Earth-like planets, then chances are you'll have a great many intelligent species.

See. If you want to say other worlds aren't different than the Earth, that's what you come up with.

Unless you're saying other Earth-like planets are NOT like the Earth and they don't give you a gazillion species of life on each one.

But why would matters be any different on other worlds?

 

[amb]

All I'm saying is that intelligence is not a given. In the one example we have to study we know the fluke that produced homo sapien. Had it not being a fluke, there would surely be other species like Chimps that would also have a civilization and computors, just as we have. Whales and dolphins are said to be very intelligent. Then why haven't they built some kind of defence against whalers. Could it be that they have reached the pinnacle of their intelligence millions of years ago. Meanwhile homo sapiens is still evolving higher faculties.
Could it be that the reason we haven't heard from ET is because it is still in a microbial state?
Questions that really, we at present still don't know. That's where we are in agreement.

 

[paximperium]

Whales and dolphins are said to be very intelligent. Then why haven't they built some kind of defence against whalers.

Because their intelligence is not directed at tool making.

Could it be that they have reached the pinnacle of their intelligence millions of years ago.

That is inherently false. There is no "pinacle" of anything in evolution. There is only the most efficient for survival in a given environment.

Meanwhile homo sapiens is still evolving higher faculties.

That is an unfounded assertion.

Could it be that the reason we haven't heard from ET is because it is still in a microbial state?

Sure.