have they found anything?

[amb]

Joe, you keep bringing up this creationist B/S. I'm light years away from that idea.
What I do believe is that Darwinian evolution illuminates the diversity of the animal kingdom and after more than 500 million years and numerous evolutionary lines, only primates showed true intelligence. It took another 25 million years and more evoluntionary branches before one pathway eventually led to the rise of humans, less than one-third of a million years ago. What this shows is the enormous time it took here on Earth to evolve intelligence. Our sun has had a long stable life, what are the chances that the majority of stars out there are as stable as our sun as to allow life to evolve and flourish. Then you need a planet that can hold an atmophere and certain gasses [ozone] to keep the sun's deadly ultraviolet rays from harming life. The distance of the planet from it's star is essential for life to evolve, intelligent life anyway.
And as I said before, a fair sized moon to help control our climate is also essential.
The tilt of the spin of the Earth is only possible because of the moon, and a hundred other coincidences make the Earth a very rare planet indeed.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

I think Joe knows you aren't a creationist amb, but the logic you are USING is the same type. I think that's the exception he's making about your basic approach. You approcah it from "We're here, and no one else is like us, so therefore we're the pinnacle." Just a very human-centric view on things. Your assertions are foundless and based on the actual existence of us as humans.

It's a slight distinction that you seem to be having great difficulty with.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Joe, you keep bringing up this creationist B/S. I'm light years away from that idea.

Your ideas on evolution are not light years away from Creationist ideas. Your understanding of evolution is similar to that of Creationists (aka ID proponents, and Fine Tuning proponents).

You've stated time and again that homo sapiens is the only intelligent species ever to have lived on the Earth. You've stated that it's impossible for any other species to evolve human-like intelligence. You said that humans are the pinnacle of evolution.

You've stated that either the universe is tuned for human life (which is a religious, not a scientific argument), or humans are unique. Whether human-like intelligence is unique to humans, or extremely rare or even plentiful has NOTHING to do with the religious ideas expressed in the Fine Tuning argument.

And you continue to repeat the Rare Earth argument:

The tilt of the spin of the Earth is only possible because of the moon, and a hundred other coincidences make the Earth a very rare planet indeed.

Which originated from an overtly Creationist astronomer who admits that his science is motivated by Creationism. This argument also parallels the backwards thinking of the Fine Tuning argument since it ignores the fact that life evolves to conditions rather than conditions having to be tuned (by a Tuner?) to give rise to life.

You also keep repeating this argument that conditions must be "friendly" to intelligent life even though our own history shows us that trauma and change drives major evolutionary change more than "friendliness".

The business of the need for a large moon has been well refuted. Even if the large moon is the only thing that keeps rotational precession from resonating with orbital precession, such a resonance would result in gradual climate change (thousands of years). Who knows, maybe the opposite is true: a planet where that happened would get its evolution kicked into high gear and human-like intelligence would be more likely to evolve sooner (at least endothermic animals would arise sooner).

And besides, the Rare Earth argument assumes that every little thing about the Earth is "friendly" or even prerequisite to complex life, when we know no such thing. If you use the Mediocrity Principle, you would have to assume that the Earth is only an average habitable planet. That is, there are planets with complex life where conditions are less "friendly" and planets where conditions are more "friendly".

I keep putting "friendly" in quotes because it's an example of the pathetic fallacy. Evolution doesn't care or have intentions or goals (or pinnacles). The oxygen enriched atmosphere was toxic to many life forms, and from their point of view was "unfriendly" but for all of us "higher" forms of life, it resulted in a more "friendly" environment. But that was because we evolved adapted to an oxygen rich atmosphere. The oxygen rich atmosphere wasn't created with the intention of giving rise to us.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

What I do believe is that Darwinian evolution illuminates the diversity of the animal kingdom and after more than 500 million years and numerous evolutionary lines, only primates showed true intelligence.

What you believe is false.

Other species have intelligence to a greater or lesser degree. (Dinos, cetaceans, other mammals, birds.)

Your belief is remarkably similar to Creationist beliefs that humans are different in kind from other animals.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

My sense of it is that Amb would also agree with Sagan's statement, although he might add that he believes human style intelligence is rare enough that if it didn't exist in our galaxy it wouldn't surprise him.

IIRC, he rejected that statement. I'd have to do some hunting to find how he worded it.

If he said what you said, I would not have disagreed.

There's a difference between saying you wouldn't be surprised to learn that we are unique in the galaxy, and asserting based on faulty reasoning and scant evidence (or lack of evidence in his argument based on Fermi's Paradox) that you know for sure that there are zero to a dozen (something he greatly expanded when he was feeling generous) ETIs in the galaxy.

Early on he was saying we are unique in the galaxy and that there are no more than maybe a dozen in the entire universe.

 

[amb]

Evolution is a ramdom event. After almost 4 billion years of tinkering, we end up with the living world we see today. But there was nothing inevetable about the process. The purpose of evolution was not to produce a self concious being. Play the tape of history again, and there is no reason to suppose homo sapiens, or any equivalent sentient species, would play any role at all.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Evolution is a ramdom event.

BZZZZZZZZZZT! Wrong answer. Go to jail, directly to jail. Do not collect $200.

Really, if you are making basic mistakes like that, no wonder you sound like a creationist. Learn more molecular biology, genetics, and evolution in general please! It will prevent folks from calling you out on your misconception!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Evolution is a ramdom event.

Some sources of variants are random (notably mutation), but not all. Natural selection is not random--at least not the way you mean it.

After almost 4 billion years of tinkering, we end up with the living world we see today. But there was nothing inevetable about the process.

I agree with the second sentence here, but it belies the first. There is no end of evolution. We haven't "ended up" with any particular world because nothing is ended.

The purpose of evolution was not to produce a self concious being.

There is no purpose of evolution at all. Evolution is not a deity that has any intention.

Play the tape of history again, and there is no reason to suppose homo sapiens, or any equivalent sentient species, would play any role at all.

Actually I understand your point, but there is some reason to think that intelligence would play a role. Again, I suggest you read about principles of convergence in evolution. Some things arise again and again because the laws of physics are universal and the same solutions are likely. Things like fins, skeletons (endo- and exo-), arms, legs, eyes, wings, circulatory systems, digestive systems, nervous systems, etc. are highly adaptive and there is reason to think that they would evolve if you "play the tape" again.

 

[Roboramma]

Actually I understand your point, but there is some reason to think that intelligence would play a role. Again, I suggest you read about principles of convergence in evolution. Some things arise again and again because the laws of physics are universal and the same solutions are likely. Things like fins, skeletons (endo- and exo-), arms, legs, eyes, wings, circulatory systems, digestive systems, nervous systems, etc. are highly adaptive and there is reason to think that they would evolve if you "play the tape" again.

I'd like to second this. Amb, your point that "playing the tape again" is well taken and understood. No one here would suggest that things would turn out the same. But we would expect certain trends. And if certain structures evolved (eyes, say) that wouldn't be particularly surprising.
Complex eyes, for instance have evolved independantly 50-100 times. Why? Because, as Joe says, the laws of physics are universal. Complex eyes are simply something that are adaptive in a great many environments. Intelligence happens to be something else.

The other point I want to stress is that intelligence is something that exists in a great many species on earth, to varying degrees. Ours is simply more, or bigger. To suggest that some other species, in a world without us in it, couldn't evolve a similarly large, complex brain, is like saying that if the blue whale went extinct, nothing could ever evolve to be as large as it was.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's inevitable, only not particularly unlikely, and certainly not impossible.

 

[amb]

Eyes have independently evolved 40 times actually, and the squid has the very top of the range type eyes. Maybe god is a squid? If by the slimmest of chances we discover an ETI, it would look nothing like us, or any animal on this planet. For that to be so, the planet they evolved on would need to be an exact copy of Earth. And then, it still would have to be different as their evolution probably took another path completely different to planet Earth.
Roboramma, I'm not arguing about animal intelligence, I know all about it, but the nearest intelligence to us in the animal world is at best around a 3 year old human child like.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Eyes have independently evolved 40 times actually, and the squid has the very top of the range type eyes. Maybe god is a squid?

Ask P.Z. Meyers about that one!

If by the slimmest of chances we discover an ETI, it would look nothing like us, or any animal on this planet.

Something that many of us have been saying since the beginning of this thread. I'll agree with that, and even give it a big, "DUH! No **** sherlock!"

Roboramma, I'm not arguing about animal intelligence, I know all about it, but the nearest intelligence to us in the animal world is at best around a 3 year old human child like.

HUH!? So it's only a matter of degree then? Isn't that what Joe and I have been saying? (Although many studies have put quite a few animals at the 8 year old level, but that is debateable of course.) So what are you saying here? That human children are animal-like (I think some parents would agre with that by the way.)? Is there anything that would prevent another species from developing a greater intelligence if they are already at, what we would consider, a human child level (well, aside from us occupying most ecological niches where they could possibly move to)?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Roboramma, I'm not arguing about animal intelligence,

Yes, and the fundamental problem you keep making is your failure to realize that there is no other kind of intelligence we know of but "animal intelligence".

Again, arguing that human intelligence is something different in kind smacks of Creationist thinking.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Maybe this will help you out. It is the classification of modern humans (with my notes in brackets):

Scientific classification
Domain: Eukarya [we share this category with all eucaryotes--organisms that have cells with nucleii]
Kingdom: Animalia [this is includes all "animals"]
Phylum: Chordata [animals with something like a spinal chord]
Superclass: Tetrapoda [animals that share a basic body plan of torso with 4 limbs]
Class: Mammalia [the mammals]
Infraclass: Eutheria [placental mammals or at least the non-marsupials]
Order: Primates [prosimians, monkeys and apes]
Suborder: Haplorrhini [tarsiers and true simians]
Infraorder: Simiiformes [monkeys and apes]
Parvorder: Catarrhini [old world monkeys and apes]
Superfamily: Hominoidea [apes]
Family: Hominidae [the great apes--living and extince species of chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and human]
Subfamily: Homininae [the group split off from orangutans, includes chimpanzees, humans, and gorillas]
Tribe: Hominini [the group split off from gorillas--includes humans and chimpanzees--in my opinion, it would make more sense to refer to this group as "chimpanzees" and refer to us as one type of chimpanzee]
Genus: Homo ["humans" or the group split off from the "other chimpanzees"--this includes something like a dozen now extinct species]
Species: H. sapiens [our species]
Subspecies: H. s. sapiens [the only subspecies of humans still living]


See? Humans are definitely in the Kingdom Animalia, so if you're not talking about "animal intelligence" what are you talking about? Divine intelligence? Angelic intelligence?

ETA: And do you still support the statement you keep making that homo sapiens is the only intelligent species ever to have evolved on the planet Earth?

 

[Roboramma]

Eyes have independently evolved 40 times actually, and the squid has the very top of the range type eyes. Maybe god is a squid?

Well, I got 50-100 off wikipedia, but I remembered it only as "some large number of times". 40 makes the point just as well though (actually the first link I found said 40-67, so I'm not really sure where the exact numbers are coming from).
Anyway, we're both in the same range.

If by the slimmest of chances we discover an ETI, it would look nothing like us, or any animal on this planet. For that to be so, the planet they evolved on would need to be an exact copy of Earth. And then, it still would have to be different as their evolution probably took another path completely different to planet Earth.

Oh, definitely. I'm not here arguing for the existance of star trek style aliens.
I doubt any ET we encountered would look much like any known organism, though it may have some things in common with many.

Roboramma, I'm not arguing about animal intelligence, I know all about it, but the nearest intelligence to us in the animal world is at best around a 3 year old human child like.

And the largest dinosaur was nothing like the size of a blue whale. That doesn't mean that nothing as large as a blue whale could ever evolve again. But your argument says exactly that: "blue whales are the largest ever creatures on this planet, if they went extinct nothing could ever again evolve to be that size" is no different from "humans are the most intelligent ever creatures to evolve on this planet, if they went extinct nothing could ever evolve to be so intelligent again".

Now I'm not saying it would inevitably happen, just that it's not all that unlikely.

When it comes to the main question of the thread, on the other hand, I'm still on the fence. But on the fence enough that I think SETI should continue.

 

[Roboramma]

Joe, just noticed your last post. Well said.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

When it comes to the main question of the thread, on the other hand, I'm still on the fence.

And my position is still best expressed by the Sagan quote I offered. We don't know. There's absolutely no evidence of the existence of ETIs. However, the laws of physics operate the same everywhere, and the galaxy and the universe in general is really really big, so there's no reason to think we are unique. (Yes, I would include in that statement that the arguments offered by the Rare Earth "hypothesis" are not valid.)

As for SETI with radio telescopy, I agree that no results should be expected. As has been pointed out, with our current radio telescopes, we wouldn't be able to detect our own civilization outside our solar system unless there were a directed signal aimed at us that we happened to be looking at just when it arrives. However, since it costs very little and the potential payoff is huge, and we ought not think that we know every possible scenario for detecting a civilization*, and the collateral benefits are real regardless of the results, I have no problem with it.

*For example, while it may be impossible or at least highly improbable that we'd ever detect a radio signal from an ETI home planet, we might catch a signal broadcast from a probe that is much nearer to us.

 

[amb]

I have this phobia if there is abundance intelligent species out there, the creationist could argue that the cosmos is designed for life to evolve in many other places by a designer.
But if we look at Darwinian evolution by natural selection, we should expect microbial, or lower complex life to populate the galaxy and beyond only.
The chance of life originating without any interference from any god like force are almost zero.
So, who is the almost creationist here?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I have this phobia if there is abundance intelligent species out there, the creationist could argue that the cosmos is designed for life to evolve in many other places by a designer.

And again, what Creationists argue or "could argue" is completely irrelevant. So you're saying the reason you argue in favor of the Rare Earth hypothesis (which is an argument embraced by Creationists) is because you're worried about giving the Creationists fodder for making some other bogus argument?

But if we look at Darwinian evolution by natural selection, we should expect microbial, or lower complex life to populate the galaxy and beyond only.

That is a false statement. We are the result of evolution by natural selection. (Is there something different about it if you refer to it as "Darwinian"? That's something else the Creationists like to do--link the scientific theory with the person of Darwin so it sounds more like a cult or philosophical following.) "Higher" complex life, as with "lower" complex life and microbial life", is also explained by evolution through natural selection.

The chance of life originating without any interference from any god like force are almost zero.

Again, that is a false statement, and one that smacks of Creationist thinking.

So, who is the almost creationist here?

I accept that you're an atheist, but your reasoning and your very poor understanding of evolution parallels Creationist thinking.

 

[amb]

I understand evolution. But evolution needs something to start it off. The origins of life is a completely different matter. Even today scientist cannot yet explain it. Sure all the elements that produced the very first living thing originated in the core of an exploding star many billions of years ago, but as yet no one has worked out how it happened. A very rare occurrence that may not even have happened here on Earth but was transported here by a comet. If this is correct, then many planets may have been seeded this way, and only a planet such as Earth may have had just the right conditions for life to get a foothold on and flourish. Dead planets such Mars, Venus, close to the habitable zone, but not quite enough to allow life to start, not animal life anyway.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Even today scientist cannot yet explain it.

A hundred years ago, scientists couldn't explain 90% of what everyone takes for granted on a daily basis now. They didn't even know about tectonic plates, or that asteroids impacted the earth, or a billion other things. So exactly what bearing does that have on the problem?

And if anything, a lot of studies are showing that self organization and self replication at the molecular level seems to be rather common. We are just starting on a realistic path of research here, and you're upset that we haven't found the answer?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/harvard-team-cr.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/09/11/0806714105.full.pdf+html

http://web.archive.org/web/20061015...afe.edu/sfi/People/kauffman/sak-peptides.html

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/23/1...&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=pnas

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/

And your fears... Sorry, I had to chuckle, because I see fear as the primary motivator for theistic thought. It may be driving you to Rare Earthism. Wouldn't it be funnier if we found all sorts of ETI, and none of them had a concept of god(s), and that left us as the socially retarded beings of the galaxy? (Yes, this is ultra speculative, and wishful thinking, just having fun.)