Seti@home pointless?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Now your just being overenthusiastic about any result.

My not.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Most people seem to be much too hung up with UFO's when discussing this subject and you never get to other aspects or facts. When a friend or family member is stuck on UFO's and thinking they are from extraterrestrials, nothing else matters because, in their mind, they already exist and they already are here.

So, the them, of course SETI is useful because of course they will get a signal. To them, this is only showing us where all the UFO's are coming from.

 

[AWPrime]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

 

[lightfire22000]

Wouldn't intelligent life on other planets think we're idiots for sending radio signals randomly into space?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

I agree.

Bill, lumping people who aren't willing to reject the possibility that we might make contact with an ETI in with people who think UFOs are ET spacecraft is a strawman argument. It would be comparable to claiming that anyone with any criticism of the Bush and/or Obama administrations is a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I agree.

Bill, lumping people who aren't willing to reject the possibility that we might make contact with an ETI in with people who think UFOs are ET spacecraft is a strawman argument. It would be comparable to claiming that anyone with any criticism of the Bush and/or Obama administrations is a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist.

No. It is just an observation. I have just observed that talking to people often requires crossing the UFO berrier.

You assuming that I am lumping people in is a strawman argument.

Let me ask you something, "Joe the Juggler". Do you think this is an "argument" that I "want to win". It is not. My view is something that I would love to be wrong about. So, let me ask you this. Why do you suppose I believe as I do?

I believe as I do because I am aware of some of the variables that need to be just precisely right in order for there to be life and I am aware of some of the variables that need to be precisely right in order for there to be intelligent life.

Let me ask you something else. Let's say there are tens of millions of planets in our galaxy that are in the sweet spot where there is liquid water, and have the right envoronment for life to thrive -- let's say that if someone was standing there, they would find it a nice temperature and radiation free and, apart from the missing plant and animal and microbial life, a paradice -- does that mean they would automatically have life?

 

[AWPrime]

I have to agree even further with Joe. There is also a logic problem -> why bother with SETI if UFOs are real?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

No. It is just an observation. I have just observed that talking to people often requires crossing the UFO berrier[sic].

You didn't present it as a record of personal observation, but as a truism. Frankly, I don't believe that most people you've met who don't reject SETI (or even support it, whatever that might mean) believe that UFOs are ET spacecraft.

See AWPrime's comment. I don't think these two groups have a lot of overlap.

Let me ask you something else. Let's say there are tens of millions of planets in our galaxy that are in the sweet spot where there is liquid water, and have the right envoronment for life to thrive -- let's say that if someone was standing there, they would find it a nice temperature and radiation free and, apart from the missing plant and animal and microbial life, a paradice -- does that mean they would automatically have life?

I'm not sure what you mean by "automatically".

ETA: Since "automatically" means "by itself" the only alternate view I can suppose is something like through the intervention of a deity or Designer or some such, and I reject that.

I think matter obeys the laws of physics and chemistry everywhere in the universe.

So if the conditions were right for polymers to be formed spontaneously, then I think it's almost certain that any polymer that is self-replicating would become more abundant in any given sample. If the elements for forming vesicles exist, then the vesicles would form and would trap stuff inside of them. Since the self-replicating molecules would be more abundant, then they too would be in the vesicles in greater numbers. Again, through chemistry and physics, these vesicles probably would tend to form tubules that would break off (essentially dividing) and the most abundant molecules would be more likely to be represented in each "daughter" proto-cell.

All the prerequisites for natural selection are in place, so life would be off and running.

So, in sum, I think that if there were conditions as you describe, I would be very surprised if we didn't find life. But this is just speculation.

My position is based on the fact that the laws of physics probably operate the same everywhere (OK--I'm not talking about in or near a black hole or anything exotic like that), and I can think of no reason why the processes that led to life here wouldn't happen elsewhere.

The big question is whether similar conditions exist elsewhere.

I apply my same approach to that question: the things that led to the conditions on Earth are also the result of the laws of physics. Given the size of the universe (or even the galaxy), I don't see any reason to assume it's unlikely that these conditions won't exist elsewhere. The arguments made in the Rare Earth Theory have been pretty well debunked. At the very least, I don't find them compelling. (In many cases they're merely speculation, and speculating the exact opposite can be just as compelling.)

 

[Bill Thompson]

added below...

 

[Bill Thompson]

The BBC had a very cool interactive instructional presentation online showing how microbial life is constructed. It was divided into two parts. One part was called The Science and the other half was called "Reality Check".

It seems you are like the sort of person that clicked on "The Science" and was excited at how microbes are constructed without clicking on the "Reality Check".

Under the best of conditions, life coming into existance is so improbable that we would not believe that it could exist apart for the fact that it does, in fact, exist here on Earth.

It is a pipe dream to think that if an environment for life to thrive is found on another planet it will means that life will come into existance.

We know what all the parts of a microbe is made of. But is is still impossible for us to put one together just right so it will get going. If it is impossible for us to intentionally make one, the odds of one coming together ever is insanely low.

You didn't present it as a record of personal observation, but as a truism. Frankly, I don't believe that most people you've met who don't reject SETI (or even support it, whatever that might mean) believe that UFOs are ET spacecraft.

See AWPrime's comment. I don't think these two groups have a lot of overlap.





I'm not sure what you mean by "automatically".

ETA: Since "automatically" means "by itself" the only alternate view I can suppose is something like through the intervention of a deity or Designer or some such, and I reject that.

I think matter obeys the laws of physics and chemistry everywhere in the universe.

So if the conditions were right for polymers to be formed spontaneously, then I think it's almost certain that any polymer that is self-replicating would become more abundant in any given sample. If the elements for forming vesicles exist, then the vesicles would form and would trap stuff inside of them. Since the self-replicating molecules would be more abundant, then they too would be in the vesicles in greater numbers. Again, through chemistry and physics, these vesicles probably would tend to form tubules that would break off (essentially dividing) and the most abundant molecules would be more likely to be represented in each "daughter" proto-cell.

All that sounds like hitting the right numbers in a huge lottery even giving the best of the best environments.
You say " then I think it's almost certain " but I think if you would look at this honestly you would rather say "I think its as improbable as improbable can be"

Once again, this is what the large number of stars tell me. We exist because there had been a huge number of players in the lottery to get one winner --- I mean, in our galaxy, of course.

It is all a matter of statistics.

If it wasn't. If it would just fall into place easily and commonly then two things would not be true:

#1. Earth would not be so lifeless without any microbes at the beginning of its history
#2. As Fermi noticed, ETI would have come about long before we came on the scene and the whole galaxy would be colonized by now.

All the prerequisites for natural selection are in place, so life would be off and running.

So, in sum, I think that if there were conditions as you describe, I would be very surprised if we didn't find life. But this is just speculation.

My position is based on the fact that the laws of physics probably operate the same everywhere (OK--I'm not talking about in or near a black hole or anything exotic like that), and I can think of no reason why the processes that led to life here wouldn't happen elsewhere.

The big question is whether similar conditions exist elsewhere.

no it isn't.
there could be planets that are otherwise identical to earth but lifeless becuae earth was like that once.

I apply my same approach to that question: the things that led to the conditions on Earth are also the result of the laws of physics. Given the size of the universe (or even the galaxy), I don't see any reason to assume it's unlikely that these conditions won't exist elsewhere. The arguments made in the Rare Earth Theory have been pretty well debunked. At the very least, I don't find them compelling. (In many cases they're merely speculation, and speculating the exact opposite can be just as compelling.)

You are almost there but you drop off at the end. Given the best conditions, it is still a roll of the dice but in an even bigger way. Having the perfect conditions for life to survive is not the same thing as saying that live will exist. Did you get that? Having a lottery ticket does not make you a winner.

Life, in its simplest forms is still a complex machine. A chemical compound that can make perfect copies of itself is the big win -- as in winning a lotter with the right numbers.

For hundreds of millions of years. Earth was perfect for life. But was lifeless. The lottery win had to happen and by chance a self-copying primitive microbe had to fall together in all the churning and bubbling of chemicals. It does not happen very often. And once it happens it has to keep going and going and going. After it starts, it has to be just right where there is enough environmental influences to allow for mutation and evolution. Just the right of mutation and evolution too. Not too much and not too little.

A lottery is a good analogy. Every week, there are millions of potential lottery winners. And yet, many times, despite it is POSSIBLE that there could be lots of winners, there is often just one. So I think is the case with our galaxy.

This Rare Earth crap sounds like a religion. Is it? Nice try to just blow me off as a quack. It won't work.

One bottom line is that Fermi was right. If intelligent live evolution was common and not like a lottery, they would be just walking down our street. It is not speculation.

I would rather believe in a bitter truth than a pleasent and fun lie.

The idea that the only beings like us are us in our galaxy seems to me, given all the facts and evidence and statistics and physics and chemistry, to be a bitter truth.

On the other hand, the idea that we are going to get a radio signal from an advanced civilization seems to me to be a pleasent and fun lie.

And, like I said, I would rather believe in a bitter truth than a pleasent and fun lie.

SETI seems to be to have all the earmarks of a faith or something people want or even need to believe in.

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off? Normally if someone says something that is way off base, the typical approach would be to laugh it off. Instead I get hounded by wack jobs who follow me from one webforum to another on this particular topic.

 

[Roboramma]

Under the best of conditions, life coming into existance is so improbable that we would not believe that it could exist apart for the fact that it does, in fact, exist here on Earth.

It is a pipe dream to think that if an environment for life to thrive is found on another planet it will means that life will come into existance.

We know what all the parts of a microbe is made of. But is is still impossible for us to put one together just right so it will get going. If it is impossible for us to intentionally make one, the odds of one coming together ever is insanely low.

The problem is that we still don't know how life started on the earth. The science of abiogenesis is still too young. So we don't know the odds. We don't know how difficult it is for our kind of life to get started, nor to do we know how many other kinds of life are possible, and how difficult those kinds of life are.

You may be right - it might be that life getting started is such an increadibly unlikely event that looking for it elsewhere (especially in the form of technological civilizations) is useless. On the other hand, that may not be the case.
Life may be very common in the universe. It might be that in the right conditions it comes in to existence very quickly, and it might also be that the right conditions are quite common.

We don't know yet.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The assertion that the example of the Earth somehow argues that life is improbable doesn't hold up. We know nothing about how probable abiogenesis is. (ETA: But we do have pretty much all the details of how it happened on Earth--at least we've got a solid theory.)

We don't know if conditions on Earth were prime or relatively bad. So taking every possible characteristic of the Earth and calculating the odds of that constellation of conditions is just the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Back to the lottery analogy--if you've got a billion (or hundreds of billions or hundreds of billions of billions) of tickets, you know darn well you're going to have multiple winners.

Even unlikely events--like one in a million--happen all the time when there are truly large numbers involved. Having a lottery ticket does not make you a winner, but that would be analogous to arguing that every planet has life, and no one is arguing that position, so it's a straw man. Having billions of lottery tickets does guarantee you a win.

At any rate, as I've said over and over, the position I hold is that we simply don't know, but I see no reason to believe that the laws of physics operate uniquely on the Earth or that the Earth is somehow unique in the universe.

 

[Bill Thompson]

The problem is that we still don't know how life started on the earth. The science of abiogenesis is still too young. So we don't know the odds. We don't know how difficult it is for our kind of life to get started, nor to do we know how many other kinds of life are possible, and how difficult those kinds of life are.

You may be right - it might be that life getting started is such an increadibly unlikely event that looking for it elsewhere (especially in the form of technological civilizations) is useless. On the other hand, that may not be the case.
Life may be very common in the universe. It might be that in the right conditions it comes in to existence very quickly, and it might also be that the right conditions are quite common.

We don't know yet.

But I think it is the case. I have talked at length with the best biologists. I have that luxury. I was lucky. I was smart enough and lucky enough to attend the AAAS in Saint Louis and talk with both NASA scientists and biologists. In fact, there are lots of hurdles to cross going from dead stuff to a working cell "machine" capable of making copies of itself.

Here is another clue. It took a hell of a long time for earth to get its first microbes. If it was an easy thing, it would have happened right away.

And then it took a hell of a long time for those cells to join in colonies like they did.

A special I saw on PBS described it perfectly. If you could compress the entire history of earth down to a 24 hour period it would go like this:

From Midnight until sunrise there would be nothing on earth. No microbes. Nothing.

From sunrise all the way until sunset.... the entire daylight hours... there would only be microbes on earth.

From sunset and into the evenings there would be plants, animals and such.

Only a few moments before the stroke of midnight would human beings appear.


So just in using Earth as an example we can see that life in the universe is rare (ahem, earth is part of the universe). What is more is that life strung together in colonies is rare. What is more is that intelligent life is also rare.

Not only is it just like winning the lottery. It is like winning the lottery several times in a row. That almost never happens.

These are just a few pieces in the puzzle that form a picture of reality to me. Fermi's paradox is another piece. I also think the explainations people give for Fermi's Paradox sound too much like religious appolgoists whose goal is to have faith in something that is not real.

It is not illogial to think that just because you have a planet that looks good for life, you are not necessarily going to have life.

It is not illogial to think that just because you mocrobial life on a planet you are not necessarily going to have plants and animals

It is not illogial to think that just because you have plants and animals you might not have intelligent life.

What is more is that Nature works AGAINST life, not with life. Life has struggled to get a foot hold and survive against the forces of nature.

We have both nature and statistics working against our existance.

Another force against us is time. The Earth is middle aged now. The Earth is middle aged because the sun is middle aged. Sure, we came into existance, but we came into existance very late in our planets life. It may be likely that other planets perfect for life do not beat the proverbial clock.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

These are just a few pieces in the puzzle that form a picture of reality to me. Fermi's paradox is another piece. I also think the explainations people give for Fermi's Paradox sound too much like religious appolgoists whose goal is to have faith in something that is not real.

That's just name calling. Can you respond to the numbered arguments I have made against the argument based on Fermi's Paradox?

1.) The galaxy could be full of civilizations exactly like ours, and we are undetectable to even our own technology not so far from here. At best you're only proving that much more advanced civilizations haven't existed for a long enough time to fill the galaxy with probes.
2.) The argument assumes a technology that is impossible by today's science. I'm not saying I know for sure FTL or near lightspeed transportation will never be achieved, but it's a weak argument that assumes that such a thing is certain.
3.) Even if this tech is possible, the argument assumes that all intelligent civilizations will necessarily achieve everything that is possible. It could be that civilizations don't last long enough to, or it could be that it's economically unfeasible even if they do.
4.) Why do you use the absence of probes as evidence that no other intelligence in the galaxy exists and not that no other intelligence in the entire universe exists? If we're assuming magic technology, then why not assume quick and easy intergalactic transportation? [n.b. this was in response to amb's specific slant on the Rare Earth argument, and doesn't really need to be answered by Bill Thomson]
5.) The probes would have to be absolutely ubiquitous for it to be impossible to have missed one. What if one passed through, checked out the Earth, and went on its way a mere 1 million years ago?

In this case, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The strongest point is that you could use the Fermi Paradox argument from the point of view of an ET just like us located elsewhere in the galaxy. They wouldn't be able to detect us, so they would declare that we don't exist. Yet we certainly do exist.

ETA: That is, using the "Why aren't they here?" approach to decide whether or not "they" exist could be turned around to ask, "Why aren't we everywhere in the galaxy?" Since we're not, then we must not exist. It's obviously a bad argument.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It is not illogial to think <snip>

It is not illogial to think that <snip>

It is not illogial to think that just because you have plants and animals you might not have intelligent life.

That something is "not illogical" does not argue in favor of an assertion (like the assertion that we are unique or rare).

What is more is that Nature works AGAINST life, not with life. Life has struggled to get a foot hold and survive against the forces of nature.

Nature doesn't work either for or against anything. Saying so is to commit the pathetic fallacy.

At any rate, this sounds like you're using our samples size of one biosphere to argue that it was difficult or unlikely for life to have arisen. Yet at the same time you argue that the Earth is exactly just right for life--uniquely suited for it. We don't know either of these things, and they seem to conflict with each other.

We have both nature and statistics working against our existance.[sic]

What does that mean? Nature has no intention. What statistics are you talking about?

Another force against us is time. The Earth is middle aged now. The Earth is middle aged because the sun is middle aged. Sure, we came into existance[sic], but we came into existance[sic] very late in our planets life. It may be likely that other planets perfect for life do not beat the proverbial clock.

Or it may be that the Earth was a particularly slow developer. It may be that conditions on Earth aren't as perfect as you think. Or it may be that complex life only arises when conditions are traumatic. A huge part of what made complex forms of life a relatively (Cambrian) development was how long it took to pollute our atmosphere with oxygen. There are other situations that could result in an oxygen-rich atmosphere much earlier. For that matter, we don't know for sure that something other than oxygen could have spurred on more complex life forms.

The fact is, we don't know.

 

[shadron]

And then it took a hell of a long time for those cells to join in colonies like they did.

A special I saw on PBS described it perfectly. If you could compress the entire history of earth down to a 24 hour period it would go like this:

From Midnight until sunrise there would be nothing on earth. No microbes. Nothing.

From sunrise all the way until sunset.... the entire daylight hours... there would only be microbes on earth.

From sunset and into the evenings there would be plants, animals and such.

Only a few moments before the stroke of midnight would human beings appear.

Well, nothing changes like science. Particularly what we know about the early Earth.

For example, http://www.colorado.edu/news/r7cadd9fb58e8ed47366b4c4079a0deea.html

Now, the late heavy bombardment occurred around 3.9 billion years ago (http://www.palaeos.com/Hadean/Hadean.htm#Geological_Time-Scale ); on your clock, that would be about 3:45AM. And this paper is speculating that microbial life pre-existed that; they speculate as far back as 12:35AM.

Now, granted,these are whacko geophysicists, but they are published in Nature and work for the astrobiology/xenobiology unit of NASA. They have the explicit endorsement of at least one astrobiologist. The Imperial College in London has also released a separate paper supporting this conclusion.

The first Eukaryotes (single celled with interior symbiotes) are suspected of living 2 bya, or about 1:15PM, true multicellular at 6:30PM.

There are also thought to have been between one and three episodes of snowball Earth^WP in the time period from 600 to 800 million years ago (between 7:45PM and 8:50PM) which may have delayed the appearance of advanced multicellular forms because life presumably would have been driven back to less specialized primitives living around thermal vents. For a guage, the Cambrian Explosion started about 9:15PM.

I'm not clear on whether all this weakens or strengthens your argument; perhaps both. It perhaps shows a smooth progression from the simple to the complex, and a vast ability of life to cling through adversity, like snowballs and monstrous bombardments.

 

[shadron]

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off? Normally if someone says something that is way off base, the typical approach would be to laugh it off. Instead I get hounded by wack jobs who follow me from one webforum to another on this particular topic.

Speaking only for myself, this is the only forum I've ever worked with except for primitive uucp newsgroups a long time ago, so I have no idea what whack jobs you are referring to following you around. All of the people in this thread, afaik, have been here longer than you have. However, I note that this was your first thread on this site (first one I saw, anyway), and you've managed to keep it going, single-handedly on your side, for about 180 messages. As far as I know, only you have declared SETI to be a religion; The Atheist may think it, but he doesn't say it that way, and at any rate has not joined you here. If you think this topic as bothersome and is not worthy of discussion, why did you came here and open it up? It sounds to me more like you go from forum to forum trying to pick fights.

If you think you've got fleas, then either spray them or take them outside.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

This explains why some people have confessed to me that people get upset about this topic. I get a simular [sic] rage discussing islam to a muslim or Mormonism to a Mormon or scientology to a scientologist. If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off?

Who's getting pissed off? Who's raging?

Sounds like you're conducting a side debate entirely in your imagination.

ETA: At most, I get frustrated when you and amb keep raising the argument based on Fermi's Paradox without responding to the points I made (and numbered) months ago. Actually, that's a lie. I rather enjoy whipping that out.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Who's getting pissed off? Who's raging?

Sounds like you're conducting a side debate entirely in your imagination.

ETA: At most, I get frustrated when you and amb keep raising the argument based on Fermi's Paradox without responding to the points I made (and numbered) months ago. Actually, that's a lie. I rather enjoy whipping that out.

It started at Bad Astronomy. They would say so and so or such and such who works for NASA has lots of faith in ETI and things such and such project should be launched to gather data at a particular star system. I would say, sure he would, his job would depend on it. Then they would come back and demand proof that this NASA engineer was basically a scam artist.

I did not visit the discussion thread every day. And so I would miss out when they temporarily banned me for not answering their questions promptly.

if that is not getting pissed off I don't know what is.

Lots of amature astronomers are also Star Wars or Star Trek geeks. Finding ETI is thier holy grail and they have religious devotion to the notion that we are not alone in the galaxy.

I made a list of at least 2 dozen problems that life would have to overcome in order to come into existance. Their need to poke holes in that list was intense.

It got to be a joke that I could not take seriously.

Then the morons followed me over to another web site. ANd finally one moron has followed me here. I will not name names.

Sorry I missed your points about Fermi's Paradox. Is it like a religious apologist argument? Right now I am exchanging heated arguments with Mormons from FARMS and FAIR and LDS as they try to explain how their views might be true. Will I get that same sinking feeling when I read how you have explained away Fermi's Paradox?

Listen, even SETI literature say that what they do is based on "faith" and "hope"

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

It started at Bad Astronomy. They would say so and so or such and such who works for NASA has lots of faith in ETI and things such and such project should be launched to gather data at a particular star system. I would say, sure he would, his job would depend on it. Then they would come back and demand proof that this NASA engineer was basically a scam artist.

I did not visit the discussion thread every day. And so I would miss out when they temporarily banned me for not answering their questions promptly.

if that is not getting pissed off I don't know what is.

So you're not responding to anyone or anything that was posted on this forum, right?

You said, "If I am wrong, why are you so pissed off?" It's the "you" that threw me. You're addressing someone in the second person who isn't present or you're responding to something that was said on another forum and not this one.

Lots of amature[sic] astronomers are also Star Wars or Star Trek geeks. Finding ETI is thier holy grail and they have religious devotion to the notion that we are not alone in the galaxy.

And some are not. So you're just prejudiced against amateur astronomers.

I made a list of at least 2 dozen problems that life would have to overcome in order to come into existance[sic]. Their need to poke holes in that list was intense.

And I suspect they were fully able to debunk that list. At best, many items on these lists are speculation. I've pointed out that it's often just as valid to speculate the opposite.

The biggest trouble is that arguing for a rare or unique Earth involves arguing that sometimes traumatic upheaval or less-than-ideal conditions is what spurs on life and at the same time arguing that the Earth is so incredibly "just right" that complex life isn't likely to occur again. (BTW, I think you've already recognized that this business calculating the odds against complex life is the same approach that Intelligent Design/Creation proponents use.)

Sorry I missed your points about Fermi's Paradox. Is it like a religious apologist argument? Right now I am exchanging heated arguments with Mormons from FARMS and FAIR and LDS as they try to explain how their views might be true. Will I get that same sinking feeling when I read how you have explained away Fermi's Paradox?

Bill Thompson, I call shenanigans. I've posted my refutation of the argument based on Fermi's Paradox at least twice in this thread. Now you're even replying to one of the posts where I've repeated it, but while you can't be bothered to read it much less answer the points I've made you unfairly characterize my arguments as being religious somehow, when they're clearly not.

Please do not raise Fermi's Paradox again until you have read and answered my points. Until then, I can see you're more interested in carrying on about your paranoid delusions regarding members of other forums, a topic I have zero interest in discussing, and one that is clearly off-topic.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Bill Thompson, I call shenanigans. I've posted my refutation of the argument based on Fermi's Paradox at least twice in this thread. Now you're even replying to one of the posts where I've repeated it, but while you can't be bothered to read it much less answer the points I've made you unfairly characterize my arguments as being religious somehow, when they're clearly not.

I wasn't talking about you when I made that comment, Captain Paranoia

So, Joe The Juggler, if that is your real name, you have posted some theory that is supposed to explain away Fermi's Observation. How can what you say be any different or any better than the very best of the best ones that I have read? How can they be any better than the ones directly from The Planetary Society that are the biggest supporters of SETI who also admit that it is all a matter of faith? You demand that I comb all these 5 pages of dialog for your post that I have made? Who are you to make demands on me?

And no, I was not talking about you earlier. I was talking about someone else. Don't be paranoid.

I would like to read your new and exciting theories that explain away Fermi's Paradox. It would take just a second, since you know where they are, to post which post number they are.

So, I missed something you said. Well, excuuuuuuuse me!


You said this:

Back to the lottery analogy--if you've got a billion (or hundreds of billions or hundreds of billions of billions) of tickets, you know darn well you're going to have multiple winners.

But there are not billions of lottery tickets!!

You know damn well there are not billions.

Maybe you missed my point or maybe you choose to ignore it. But I made perfectly clear that just having the just perfect earth-like condition was a prerequsite for owning a lottery ticket. Microbrial life happening to come together was winning the lottery.l


The only ones that can have a proverbial ticket are star systems that are in the GHZ and that is a narrow ban around our galaxy. Other galaxies don't count becuase they are too far away to consider.

Now, if you take into consideration that most star systems are binary, that knocks the number down even more. Then if you take into consideration that most star systems won't have a planet in the star habital zone, that knocks the number down even more.

Then their is the life killing radiation issue. By our solar system as an example. Most small rocky planets do not have a magnetic field strong enough to have a protective magnetic field.

What you fail to understand is that just the number of planets that pass the test just to have a lotter ticket in their hand is very very small. Not freaking billions, dude.

 

[Bill Thompson]

There are not billions of earth-like planets in our galaxy. And we know this by the statistic sample we already have from the project started on Mt. Hamelton at the James Lick Observatory not far from where I once lived in Calfornia. They have found 353 extra-solar planets so far. The number of earth-like planets they have found so far is zero.

 

[Bill Thompson]

1.) The galaxy could be full of civilizations exactly like ours, and we are undetectable to even our own technology not so far from here. At best you're only proving that much more advanced civilizations haven't existed for a long enough time to fill the galaxy with probes.


"Could" is not a scientific term. Science is all about going with what is most likely. After discovering more than 300 extra-solar planets and not finding one earth-like one, it is not logical to assume that the galaxy could be full of civilization like ours. Besides even before the search for extra solar planets there was a mathematical model of how star systems were likely to appear that was published in Carl Segan's "Cosmos" and having a star system set up for life was not a likely option.

Now, you are also missing the mathematical importance of Fermi's Observation and that is that, yes, advanced civilizations actualy HAVE had MORE than enouth time to fill the galaxy.


2.) The argument assumes a technology that is impossible by today's science. I'm not saying I know for sure FTL or near lightspeed transportation will never be achieved, but it's a weak argument that assumes that such a thing is certain.


WRONG. Fermi's Paradox does NOT assume faster than light travel.



3.) Even if this tech is possible, the argument assumes that all intelligent civilizations will necessarily achieve everything that is possible. It could be that civilizations don't last long enough to, or it could be that it's economically unfeasible even if they do.


Then we are alone. That is part of Drakes Equation for determining the liklihood of ETI -- that civilizations last long enought.

4.) Why do you use the absence of probes as evidence that no other intelligence in the galaxy exists and not that no other intelligence in the entire universe exists? If we're assuming magic technology, then why not assume quick and easy intergalactic transportation? [n.b. this was in response to amb's specific slant on the Rare Earth argument, and doesn't really need to be answered by Bill Thomson]

As I said, Fermi accounted for the fact that even with the modest of technologies, the galaxy sould be colonized in just a few million years.

5.) The probes would have to be absolutely ubiquitous for it to be impossible to have missed one. What if one passed through, checked out the Earth, and went on its way a mere 1 million years ago?

Fermi was not talking about probes. He was talking about the push for survivial and colonization.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I wasn't talking about you when I made that comment, Captain Paranoia

So, Joe The Juggler, if that is your real name, you have posted some theory that is supposed to explain away Fermi's Observation. How can what you say be any different or any better than the very best of the best ones that I have read? How can they be any better than the ones directly from The Planetary Society that are the biggest supporters of SETI who also admit that it is all a matter of faith? You demand that I comb all these 5 pages of dialog for your post that I have made? Who are you to make demands on me?

OK, "dude", you still haven't replied to my numbered refutation of the arguments based on Fermi's Paradox. I did not post "some theory that is supposed to explain away Fermi's Observation". I actually listed several points, any one of which would answer the question, "Why aren't they here?" in ways other than, "They don't exist."

I would like to read your new and exciting theories that explain away Fermi's Paradox. It would take just a second, since you know where they are, to post which post number they are.

What? You actually replied to one my posts that had that list in it, but acted as if you didn't have time to read it.

I'm done with you. You're not participating in an actual discussion.

Stay on your meds, "dude".

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I see you found the list all by yourself. Next, it'd be nice if you learned how to use quote tags.

1.) The galaxy could be full of civilizations exactly like ours, and we are undetectable to even our own technology not so far from here. At best you're only proving that much more advanced civilizations haven't existed for a long enough time to fill the galaxy with probes.

"Could" is not a scientific term.

When you're making an argument based on an absence of expected evidence, all I have to do to refute it is give possible alternate explanations of why there is no evidence.

Science is all about going with what is most likely. After discovering more than 300 extra-solar planets and not finding one earth-like one, it is not logical to assume that the galaxy could be full of civilization like ours. Besides even before the search for extra solar planets there was a mathematical model of how star systems were likely to appear that was published in Carl Segan's[sic] "Cosmos" and having a star system set up for life was not a likely option.[/B]

You're making a logical, not a scientific, argument. Scientifically, all you can say is that we don't know.

At any rate, I'm not arguing that "the galaxy is full of civilizations like ours". I'm just pointing out that the absence of evidence given our current technology doesn't come anywhere close to being evidence of absence. If we hypothesize a galaxy full of civilizations just like our own, there would not be probes all over the galaxy. Therefore, the conclusion that other civilizations don't exist (based on the absence of probes) is not logical.

That we haven't discovered many Earth-like extra-solar planets (depending on how you define "Earth-like") is more an artifact of the technology we have for detecting them. The easiest planets for us to find are large gas giants very near their stars. Those are the first kind we've found. As we've developed technology to detect other sorts of planets, we've found them in abundance.

At any rate, the argument based on Fermi's Paradox (which is what these points are responding to) does not say anything about us having to discover extrasolar Earth-like planets. That's simply not part of it at all. It just says that if ET intelligent civilizations existed, they would have sent out probes to virtually fill the galaxy. The fact that we haven't found such a probe visiting us, goes the argument, proves that they don't exist. I'm pointing out that it proves no such thing.

Now, you are also missing the mathematical importance of Fermi's Observation and that is that, yes, advanced civilizations actualy HAVE had MORE than enouth time to fill the galaxy.

Yes. That's why I said at best it argues that there hasn't been a sufficiently advanced civilization around long enough to fill the galaxy with proves. (But you're using it to conclude that ET civilization--even like our own--is extremely rare.) At worst, it makes assumptions that could be false. There could be many reasons why no civilization ever develops that fills the galaxy with its probes other than that other civilizations don't exist.

WRONG. Fermi's Paradox does NOT assume faster than light travel.

I didn't say it does. It assumes the ability to make self-replicating probes that travel at least a bit faster than the fastest thing we've sent out. And everything we've sent out so far has had to carry its own fuel. This is technology we lack at this point. The argument assumes that it's possible, and that any civilization (except, apparently our own) will have already achieved everything that is technologically possible some 5 or 10 million years ago.

Then we are alone. That is part of Drakes Equation for determining the liklihood of ETI -- that civilizations last long enought.

Nope. You're right that the Drake Equation is based on civilizations having some duration, but it does not say anything about a requirement that a technological civilization has to be able to send out self-replicating probes capable of something like 1/4 the speed of light, or that they would have had to do so millions of years ago. (Seriously--show me a factor in the Drake Equation that covers this stuff.)

As I said, Fermi accounted for the fact that even with the modest of technologies, the galaxy sould be colonized in just a few million years.

Hold on a second! Did you just say "could be"??!!

In fact, I agree, that a civilization could have filled the galaxy with probes by now, but we at least know that that didn't happen. Nobody is arguing that it did. You're arguing that because it didn't, other civilizations either don't exist or they must be extremely rare. Again, that conclusion doesn't logically follow from the absence of probes.

Fermi was not talking about probes. He was talking about the push for survivial and colonization.

So the only thing that counts as an intelligent civilization is one that colonizes the entire galaxy? So by that standard, we are not an intelligent civilization. Any way you look at it, the argument is severely flawed. It's claiming knowledge that we don't have.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

An interesting story in Time:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1907238,00.html

Speaking of the composition of the water ice that forms a trail behind Saturn's moon, Enceledaus, the article says:

For biologists, that's huge. The only way to account for that particular chemistry is if the salts have dissolved out of rocks in the interior of Enceladus into a large quantity of standing water, as would occur if the moon had a subsurface ocean. "Both components [table salt and carbonates] are in concentrations that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean," says Postberg. "The carbonates also provide a slightly alkaline pH value, which could provide a suitable environment on Enceladus for life precursors."

 

[Roboramma]

But I think it is the case. I have talked at length with the best biologists. I have that luxury. I was lucky. I was smart enough and lucky enough to attend the AAAS in Saint Louis and talk with both NASA scientists and biologists. In fact, there are lots of hurdles to cross going from dead stuff to a working cell "machine" capable of making copies of itself.

But we don't know how difficult those particular hurdles are to cross. You can't say "there are a lot of hurdles" and go from that to "it's unlikely", because each of those steps may be very likely.

Here is another clue. It took a hell of a long time for earth to get its first microbes. If it was an easy thing, it would have happened right away.

As far as I know, once the earth had a chance to cool down and stopped being bombarded by celestial objects, it did happen "right away". Moreover, we only have a latest bound for the emergence of life (ie. the earliest evidence of life we've found) it may have come earlier than that, just not later.

And then it took a hell of a long time for those cells to join in colonies like they did.

Well, your argument is certainly stronger in regards to complex life, but again, as we don't know how likely it is, showing that it happened once isn't evidence that it can't happen again. The worst probability you can derive from that is that there is a 50% chance that if life emerges, it will evolve to complex life. (Note, that probability is not to be taken seriously, the point is that you can't get anything less from this particular data point).

So just in using Earth as an example we can see that life in the universe is rare (ahem, earth is part of the universe). What is more is that life strung together in colonies is rare. What is more is that intelligent life is also rare.

Um... I don't follow. Even if complex life tends to take 5 billion years to emerge, that wouldn't make it rare: there are plenty of places that have had those 5 billion years (earth is one). If you argument is that earth is an anomaly where life emerged particularly fast, then you can't use it as an example of how quickly life emerges, so I'm not sure what you're saying here.

 

[AWPrime]

There are not billions of earth-like planets in our galaxy. And we know this by the statistic sample we already have from the project started on Mt. Hamelton at the James Lick Observatory not far from where I once lived in Calfornia. They have found 353 extra-solar planets so far. The number of earth-like planets they have found so far is zero.

Not a good argument, we lack the technology to detect earth like planets, right now we mostly detect huge planets that are very close to their star.

Now if we had technology that could find all the planets in a distant star system then we could draw some conclusions.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Not a good argument, we lack the technology to detect earth like planets, right now we mostly detect huge planets that are very close to their star.

Now if we had technology that could find all the planets in a distant star system then we could draw some conclusions.

Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.

But, at the same time, the planets we have found that are in the sweet spot for life have hostile environments for life, as I recall. Somehow they have determined that their atmospheres are too violent ...

 

[AWPrime]

Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.

But, at the same time, the planets we have found that are in the sweet spot for life have hostile environments for life, as I recall. Somehow they have determined that their atmospheres are too violent ...

Could be a side effect of their size.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

But, at the same time, the planets we have found that are in the sweet spot for life have hostile environments for life, as I recall. Somehow they have determined that their atmospheres are too violent ...

You're definitely overstating what we know.

We've only detected extra solar planets in a teeny tiny volume of space near us--a very small percentage of the volume of the Milky Way. For most of them, we don't know any details (composition, whether they have moons, etc.). We certainly haven't ruled out that one or more of them might harbor life, or even complex life.

This is one of the few exoplanets whose atmospheric composition we know something about. (It's a gas giant with sodium and water vapor in its atmosphere, we think.)


By and large, the selection effect (based on the techniques we've used so far) accounts for why we've found so many more gas giants than rocky terrestrial planets.

I expect you're talking about the "sweet spot" where liquid water is possible. That, of course, depends on a lot of factors, many of which we are ignorant. For example, we first thought Gliese 581 wasn't in the "Goldilocks Zone" but now we're pretty certain it is.

The Kepler mission recently launched will be able to detect more Earth-like planets. We'll start getting some results in about 2 or 3 years.

Here's a list of extrasolar planets found to date. Note the bar graph near the top of the article showing the increasing number of extra solar planets discovered per year since 1989. I expect that overall trend will continue for a while. We're just at the beginning of this.

Of the 350 or so we've found so far, we only know the true mass of some 75 of them.

In short, about all we know is that planets are relatively common. It would seem that planet formation is a routine thing that happens along with star formation.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

Ditto.

At the very least, I don't think anyone participating in the discussion here in this forum has thought that UFOs have anything to do with ETIs.

I think we can safely leave UFOs out of this discussion.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Unlikely, I haven't met a SETIer that believes in UFOs.

I suppose this might be because in many peoples' minds, SETI is there to find intelligent life, to confirm that we are not alone. If you believe in UFOs, well, then you already 'know' we aren't alone and there's no need for SETI to tell you.

Make perfect sense to me, at least.

 

[AWPrime]

I have to agree even further with Joe. There is also a logic problem -> why bother with SETI if UFOs are real?

Yep I already made that conclusion.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Joe the Juggler,

Probes? Self replicating probes? Do you have a link to where you get this information? This is a new one on me and I have read about Fermi's Paradox several times. I would like to see where you get your information.

This sounds nothing at all like Fermi's Paradox to me. And so, before discussing your ideas to explain it, I want to know that we are both on the same page in understanding it.

I saved a very good article explaining it that was published online by the Planetary Society and Space.com:

Is there obvious proof that we could be alone in the Galaxy? Enrico Fermi thought so -- and he was a pretty smart guy. Might he have been right?
It's been a hundred years since Fermi, an icon of physics, was born (and nearly a half-century since he died). He's best remembered for building a working atomic reactor in a squash court. But in 1950, Fermi made a seemingly innocuous lunchtime remark that has caught and held the attention of every SETI researcher since. (How many luncheon quips have you made with similar consequence?)

The remark came while Fermi was discussing with his mealtime mates the possibility that many sophisticated societies populate the Galaxy. They thought it reasonable to assume that we have a lot of cosmic company. But somewhere between one sentence and the next, Fermi's supple brain realized that if this was true, it implied something profound. If there are really a lot of alien societies, then some of them might have spread out.
Fermi realized that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire Galaxy. Within ten million years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Ten million years may sound long, but in fact it's quite short compared with the age of the Galaxy, which is roughly ten thousand million years. Colonization of the Milky Way should be a quick exercise.

So what Fermi immediately realized was that the aliens have had more than enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, he didn't see any clear indication that they're out and about. This prompted Fermi to ask what was (to him) an obvious question: "where is everybody?"

This sounds a bit silly at first. The fact that aliens don't seem to be walking our planet apparently implies that there are no extraterrestrials anywhere among the vast tracts of the Galaxy. Many researchers consider this to be a radical conclusion to draw from such a simple observation. Surely there is a straightforward explanation for what has become known as the Fermi Paradox. There must be some way to account for our apparent loneliness in a galaxy that we assume is filled with other clever beings.

A lot of folks have given this thought. The first thing they note is that the Fermi Paradox is a remarkably strong argument. You can quibble about the speed of alien spacecraft, and whether they can move at 1 percent of the speed of light or 10 percent of the speed of light. It doesn't matter. You can argue about how long it would take for a new star colony to spawn colonies of its own. It still doesn't matter. Any halfway reasonable assumption about how fast colonization could take place still ends up with time scales that are profoundly shorter than the age of the Galaxy. It's like having a heated discussion about whether Spanish ships of the 16th century could heave along at two knots or twenty. Either way they could speedily colonize the Americas.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Our+Galaxy+Should+Be+Teeming+With+Civilizations%2C+But+Where+Are+They%3F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

It is a solid argument. And, sure, you can come up with theories as to why we "seem" to be alone while we actually are not alone. But all the arguments I have read are complex. According to Occam's razor, if there are hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler. The simpliest explaination is that, for some reason or multitude of reasons (and I can make a list as to what those might be) we are the only ones like us in our galaxy.

We human beings cannot accept this. I too wish it was not true. Ask yourself do you believe this because you want to believe it?

Before I heard of Fermi's Paradox I was a firm believer that there had to be life out there, and intelligent life as well. But when I heard of this simple, logical observation I was forced to reevaluate my view.

My theory is that we believe we are not alone because we, as human beings -- a social animal -- cannot stand the very idea that we are alone. In fact, I believe, we are incapable of giving up that faith.

Seth Shostak wrote that quote I have included. He has also included some of the outlandish ideas that provide an explaination to Fermi's Paradox. Once again, as logical thinkers, we have to turn to Occam's razor.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Joe the Juggler,

Probes? Self replicating probes? Do you have a link to where you get this information? This is a new one on me and I have read about Fermi's Paradox several times. I would like to see where you get your information.

Try Wikipedia.

ETA: From the first couple of lines in the Wiki article:

The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.
The extreme age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common.[1] In an informal discussion in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the Milky Way galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes are not seen.

Also, that was the version of the argument discussed at length by amb on this thread.

Actually, the self-replicating probes idea is an attempt to make it easier to argue that any technical civilization would have a ubiquitous presence in the galaxy by now. Arguing that they have to have colonized or visited every place in the galaxy and leave enduring evidence makes the argument even weaker.

This sounds nothing at all like Fermi's Paradox to me.

Really? The argument is, if they exist why aren't they here? Or rather, since they're not here, they must not exist. It's very faulty reasoning, as I've shown in my numbered points.

ETA: What do you suppose the argument based on Fermi's Paradox is?

If the probe thing isn't the version you're arguing, just substitute for that technology whatever technology it takes to colonize every corner of the galaxy (and again, all we've been able to rule out is a very tiny corner of it) or otherwise leave evidence available to a civilization like ours in every place in the galaxy.

My numbered points work just as well for any other technology it would take to leave evidence everywhere in the galaxy. You first have to assume such technology is possible, then you have to assume that whatever technology is possible will necessarily be attained, then you have to assume that whatever technology that is attained will be implemented (there are plenty of things we can do that we don't because we spend a large part of our economic activity on eating and preparing for war and so on). And you've got to assume that any civilization will have been in existence long enough (a million years?) to spread by whatever means throughout the galaxy, even though our one example of an intelligent civilization has not.

It is a solid argument.

Not it's not. Just asserting that it's a solid argument doesn't make it so.

Again, by the same reasoning, we Earthlings shouldn't exist since we have not filled the entire galaxy with evidence of our existence. You can't insist that the argument that we are alone based on lack of evidence (Fermi's Paradox) is valid without addressing this point.

And, sure, you can come up with theories as to why we "seem" to be alone while we actually are not alone.

That's a straw man. I'm not claiming that we "seem" to be alone. I'm claiming that we might very well not be alone, but we don't have the evidence for it one way or another. A civilization just like our own could exist relatively near us (say a couple of hundred light years) and we still might not have any evidence of it.

It's the Rare Earthers who are claiming knowledge we don't have. We haven't even examined the nearest extra-solar planets well enough to detect a civilization. (We almost certainly haven't even found all the nearest extra-solar planets.) We probably couldn't detect our own existence from a distance of the nearest extra-solar planets.

In other words, the absence of evidence at this point doesn't prove anything. We just don't have the information we need to make conclusions on the existence of ETIs yet.

That's why it's a good idea to keep looking.

As I've said from the start of this thread, I agree that it's incredibly unlikely that we'll get a radio signal from an ETI via the SETI program, I don't think it's pointless. I've given my reasons for that, but I'll recap: 1. We don't know what we don't know, 2. It costs almost nothing (and is entirely privately funded), 3. There may be side benefits from any such undertaking.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Here's another approach. So far, we've found no physical evidence for the existence of a Higgs Boson. Would you claim then that they don't exist?

After the Large Hadron Collider starts working, at which point it is expected to produce a Higgs Boson every few hours, if none is discovered after some period of time, you'll have a stronger case for the non-existence of the Higgs Boson. But before we have the technology to detect it, it's premature to say anything about the absence of evidence.

Similarly, we lack the ability to detect intelligent civilizations at any significant galactic distance from us. Making a conclusion on the lack of evidence is premature.

Another example: if I lost my keys and I haven't yet looked in my bedroom, it would be premature for me to rule out that my keys are in the bedroom just because I have no evidence of my keys being in the bedroom.

 

[Beerina]

I watched a documentary on how fast the remains of human civilization would disappear if we all vanished in an instant, and one of the things they mentioned was that radio signals dissipate pretty fast. Of course, I don't know their sources, and TV documentaries have been going downhill lately.

I read in a science column that using the sun as a gravitational lens would allow you to see houses on planets in other solar systems in our galaxy, and continents on planets in other solar systems in other galaxies.

It's about the technology you use. Keep in mind there's little use for radio telescopes beyond pure research, and that's funded by government. If extra-solar society is detected, you could expect money like the Internet boom to be dumped into radio telescopes.

What we have is no more stressing what we're capable of any more than the space program.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I read in a science column that using the sun as a gravitational lens would allow you to see houses on planets in other solar systems in our galaxy, and continents on planets in other solar systems in other galaxies.

I find that difficult to believe. Even if the lensing effect were so strong that you could resolve shapes on the edge of a disk (inside an atmosphere, presumably), how would you distinguish "houses" from natural shapes like mesas?

Also, I thought I'd read that solar gravity lensing was problematic because of fluctuations in the sun's corona. I could be wrong. I'm not sure where I read that.

ETA: Even if I'm wrong about that, it would still only work for extremely nearby planets. It's a great big galaxy!

I think it's far more likely that we'll be able to detect an atmosphere in extreme disequilibrium (like ours, with more oxygen than is likely to remain for any length of time in the absence of life) as evidence of life. Civilization or intelligence will be much more difficult to detect.

At any rate, it's far too early for us to make anything out of a lack of evidence. In a few years, Kepler will at least tell us whether Earth-like planets are abundant.

 

[AWPrime]

Joe I think I agree with most of your arguments, however:

Here's another approach. So far, we've found no physical evidence for the existence of a Higgs Boson. Would you claim then that they don't exist?

After the Large Hadron Collider starts working, at which point it is expected to produce a Higgs Boson every few hours, if none is discovered after some period of time, you'll have a stronger case for the non-existence of the Higgs Boson. But before we have the technology to detect it, it's premature to say anything about the absence of evidence.

Not discovering a Higgs Boson also provides information and the LHC is useful for many other goals. Therefore I don't fully agree with the comparison.


Although the chances of alien life in this galaxy is very high, I think that current results could point to one or more of these scenarios:
- They lack the technology
- They are too far
- They won't have the will
- We lack the technology