Vatican Says...

[Etoh*the*Greato]

The universe is old compared to us but consider the age of the universe is 14 the age of the earth is 4.5, I'd hardly call that old. I'm not referring to life, however, as being a statistical fluke but instead the universe's existence like it is. Like I said, the universe is the youngest that we know it could potentially be to be as developed as it is, and all of the molecules, atoms, elements, etc had to develop within a very small threshold (though probably not as small as Dicke at least would have us believe) or else the whole thing would've just gone to heck

[Syreth]

From everything we have learned about life, we have no reason to suspect that it is necessarily rare.

Except for the fact that we haven't come across other intelligent life yet.

Actually, since we haven't established contact thus far, we don't have any idea whether it is rare or not. But that depends on how you define "rare." I notice that we are using quite a few relative terms here.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

There is a lot of relative verbage. I've said it before though, that the window for life to exist would probably be pretty short (short being a few thousand years, and even then how long will they be advanced to broadcast?) And any signals we can receive would be thousands of years old anyway (was it you who said that, Techno?). Even if life is thoroughly abundant in the galaxy it's pretty unsurprising we've found nothing. Even going the speed of light it would still take hundreds of years for anything to reach us from any stars even remotely likely to harbor life as we know it.

[Nate]

Even going the speed of light it would still take hundreds of years for anything to reach us from any stars even remotely likely to harbor life as we know it.

*nodnod* Which is why I think that although there may be life elsewhere in the universe, UFOs and alien abductions are a bunch of nonsense.

[Technomancer]

The universe is old compared to us but consider the age of the universe is 14 the age of the earth is 4.5, I'd hardly call that old. I'm not referring to life, however, as being a statistical fluke but instead the universe's existence like it is. Like I said, the universe is the youngest that we know it could potentially be to be as developed as it is,

Plus or minus a few billion years!

and all of the molecules, atoms, elements, etc had to develop within a very small threshold (though probably not as small as at least would have us believe) or else the whole thing would've just gone to heck

Ah, your mention of Dicke helped straighten this out to a discussion of cosmological fine-tuning. Generally, I'm not particularly fond of this line of argument since it makes several assumptions regarding the origins and relationships of the necessary physical constants that are to me, unjustified at the present time. Simply put, I wouldn't be willing to call them a "stastical fluke" unless it could be usefully demonstrated that their assignment was indeed random, and that such randomization also precluded the existence of other universes (a al Susskind's "cosmic landscape" notion).

Except for the fact that we haven't come across other intelligent life yet.

Well no, nor any other life for that matter. However, an important qualifier in that sentence was the word "necessarily". What I meant by this was that physical laws do not make it extremely unlikely for life to have arisen multiple times in any one galaxy. For the time being, I'm only considering biological life as opposed to actual civilizations since the window for the former is far greater than the latter (e.g. considering Earth we have ~3.5 billion years vs. ~10,000 years).

[Tundrawolf]

The first head was Fr. Georges Lemaitre, who developed the big bang theory.[/url]

That's all I need to know about that..

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Yeah, I uh... really don't think I was explaining my point very well at all. It was the cosmological aspect that I was referring to as "us" more than "we the humans." This is why I don't debate, actually. Hehe. I was just turned on to the anthropic argument this semester in one of my classes.

[Syreth]

However, an important qualifier in that sentence was the word "necessarily".

Right, but since "rare" is a relative term, and we haven't come across any life, it doesn't follow that life is necessarily rare or plentiful. We don't know anything about other life in the universe, therefore we don't know whether it is rare of plentiful. Even if what we know about science tells us that life could hypothetically exist elsewhere, is it good science to assume anything before we can make observations?

[Technomancer]

Even if what we know about science tells us that life could hypothetically exist elsewhere, is it good science to assume anything before we can make observations?

But these speculations aren't totally based on assumptions. We are taking known information about our own solar system, as well as known information about the relative cosmic abundances of certain elements, and forming a hypothesis about the likelihood of life developing elsewhere. Not only is this a reasonable hypothesis given the available data, it is also potentially testable with further improvements to sensing and imaging technologies. Of course there are unknowns in all of this, but scientists are working to reduce those unknowns all the time; and in any event such unknowns shouldn't be a barrier to the formation of hypotheses.

No one I've read considers this idea to be a done deal, or that life is guaranteed to exist elsewhere. It's that various people have developed a spectrum of ideas about the potential existence of life and are now seeking ways to test those ideas.

[king atlantis]

[color="Red"]i wrote a large report on why alien life CANNOT exist (at least in the confines of human understanding)...[/color]

[king atlantis]

i wrote a large report on why alien life CANNOT exist (at least in the confines of human understanding)...

[quote="Technomancer (post: 1237470)"]But these speculations aren't totally based on assumptions. We are taking known information about our own solar system, as well as known information about the relative cosmic abundances of certain elements, and forming a hypothesis about the likelihood of life developing elsewhere. Not only is this a reasonable hypothesis given the available data, it is also potentially testable with further improvements to sensing and imaging technologies. Of course there are unknowns in all of this, but scientists are working to reduce those unknowns all the time]
[color="Red"]based on the assumption that life EVOLVES or that god must put life on any planets able OR that life can only be like the life on earth.

all three of wich have inherently flawd logic.[/color]

[Nate]

[color="Red"]i wrote a large report on why alien life CANNOT exist (at least in the confines of human understanding)...[/color]

And what experiments did you do to test your hypothesis?

...yeah, I thought so.

Also, there's this nifty little thing called an "Edit" button at the lower right hand corner of your posts. It allows you to add, delete, or alter posts you have already made. This prevents double-posting. Just, y'know, throwing that out there.

[king atlantis]

[color="Red"]not experiments, much research from people who DID do 'experiments' and, well, something many seem to lack- logic.[/color]

[Technomancer]

or that life can only be like the life on earth.

I don't think that I ever said that had to be the case (at least for a certain definition of "like life on earth"). I expect that there will be certain important simlarities such as the type of star involved, a carbon-based chemistry and so forth. These all result from constraints imposed by the laws of chemistry and physics. Admittedly, I have tended to emphasise "earth-like" conditions largely because it defines the chemistry we are familiar with. For example, the role of water in dissolving and mixing certain chemicals is well-known. Others, however, have mentioned the possibility of entirely different chemistries, such as those based on non-polar fluids like liquid methane.

not experiments, much research from people who DID do 'experiments' and, well, something many seem to lack- logic.

How well did you understand the experiments and their limitations, and have you followed any work more current than Urey and Miller's?

[king atlantis]

[color="Red"]here is the basic logic i present, based of assumptions (lol):

if the universe is billions of years old, then it would be natural to assume that other life MUST have evolved somewhere, no? and somewhere in those evolutions of other species, some must have had some form of intelligence similar to our own.
knowing this, if a species with intelligence even CLOSE to our own was around for BILLIONS of years before us (im assuming this as well, since you cant logically say humans would have been the first) then they naturally would have evolved or even changed themselves past their (assuming) carbon based forms.
they would, in essence, be trilllions times more advance than us, their for:
why have they not allready found us? met us? destroyed or taken over earth?
logically, any species that can make it to the stars must be similar to our own- greedy, lazy, and violent (on a whole). violence and problems leads to the need to solutions. its why we invented the wheel. the rocket. the plane. the space station. and please, for the love of G-d, dont tell me on a christian web site you dont belive people are inherintly evil. we are- remember the original sin and how it corrupted us? yeah.
my basic point? if alien life existed, it would have allready found us, because somewhere a society would be billions...o even just millions- or even a few thousand- years older than earth itself.
and think of how advance we our now- how far weve come in oly 100 years.

now add a few million.

and even then, you have to think about this- if alien, intelligent life, exists; would we even be able to recognize it? or would it be so alien to us, we coul never even understand it as being intelligent? or even existing?


for the record- thats just a portion i sorta just thougt of alittle while ago. i dont have my paper on me, and seeing as how i wrote it awhile ago, i have no way of rembering any details.
but im not truly arguing LIFE- certainly theirs bacterium/etc, but im arging INTELLIGENCE.

as a creationist-christian, i dont belive that the earth or universe is that old. and evolution? more holes than swiss cheese and too much circular reasoning for me to even THINK of as 'science' or truth.

and no, i dont belive in intelligent alien life, or that bying it DOES exist (i can admitt i may very well be wrong, though i dont see how) the human race will never live to see it/them.

take it how you will.
//King[/color]

[uc pseudonym]

The easy part: double post merged.

The trickier part: I don't want to just demand that discussion stop, but everyone please think carefully before posting. Discussion can be fun, but often times on the internet it is ultimately futile.

I'm going to leave most of this discussion alone (see previous sentence) but I want to jump in with one minor point.

and think of how advance we our now- how far weve come in oly 100 years.

Think about the fact that we have no flying cars - and conversely that old sci-fi movies have people using phone booths in space.

My point is that technology does not evolve in a linear fashion. When the flying car movies were made, there had been recent revolutionary developments in the transportation field and they assumed these would continue forever - but it turns out flying cars are harder than they look. Furthermore, none of them predicted the massive development of the communication field. It's very possible that the growth we've seen in the past decade will slow or stop as we run across various limitations. Perhaps our current science fiction is ignoring a different field entirely that will receive major developments. The point is that you can't extrapolate our experience over a million years with any degree of accuracy.

Even so, however, space travel would still take a prohibitive amount of time. Unless a lot of what we think we know about science is wrong, there's no way to go faster than the speed of light - which means that anywhere even in our galaxy is many lifespans away.

[Kat Walker]

Every iota of Creation fell with Adam. That would include the universe.

Not true. If other worlds and beings and races were created by God before us and they did not sin, they would still be in their pristine state. Perhaps they rejected Satan's temptation to disobey, whereas we did not.

After all, just because Lucifer sinned, that doesn't mean he brought *all* of the angels down with him by proxy. They were each given a choice.

Sin is a choice. It can have repercussions on others, yes. In our case, it has become an inheritance. But it is not necessarily all-encompassing.

[Fish and Chips]

Not true. If other worlds and beings and races were created by God before us and they did not sin, they would still be in their pristine state. Perhaps they rejected Satan's temptation to disobey, whereas we did not.

After all, just because Lucifer sinned, that doesn't mean he brought *all* of the angels down with him by proxy. They were each given a choice.

Sin is a choice. It can have repercussions on others, yes. In our case, it has become an inheritance. But it is not necessarily all-encompassing.

This is reasonable in theory except that that would mean mankind could conceivably become advanced enough to leave our planet for a "Sinless" one several stars away. The Bible is fairly clear that sin is all pervasive in our universe and the only perfection lies in God's kingdom.

If there is intelligent life in space, they're probably in the same boat us as.

[Technomancer]

knowing this, if a species with intelligence even CLOSE to our own was around for BILLIONS of years before us (im assuming this as well, since you cant logically say humans would have been the first) then they naturally would have evolved or even changed themselves past their (assuming) carbon based forms.

We have no way of knowing if this is the case, or how possible it is in reality. While there might be lots of talk these days about "singularity", all of it really is just talk. We have no reason to believe that our fundamental biology is replaceable with machines. As uc said, there are basic limits to what technology can achieve, and how far we are away from those limits is an open question.

they would, in essence, be trilllions times more advance than us, their for:
why have they not allready found us? met us? destroyed or taken over earth?

Without a means of rapidly traversing interstellar space, it is unlikely that they would be able to do this.

logically, any species that can make it to the stars must be similar to our own- greedy, lazy, and violent (on a whole). violence and problems leads to the need to solutions.

So does cooperation. Sometimes slower, and sometimes faster. Moreover, it is also possible that a rapacious species' society will either destroy itself, or be unable to cooperate sufficiently for interstellar travel to become possible.

and even then, you have to think about this- if alien, intelligent life, exists]

I don't really hold with this argument. All life has to operate within the same set of physical and mathematical laws that we do. Whatever differences in psychology or physiology exist, such creatures would not only be recognizably alive, but also able to manipulate and create artefacts in a deliberate way.

but im not truly arguing LIFE- certainly theirs bacterium/etc, but im arging INTELLIGENCE.

This is another possibility. Some people like Simon Conway Morris and Christian DeDuve have tended to argue that intelligence is an inevitable product of evolution. However, it is possible that there are a number of contingincies involved that may contribute to its rarity. Intelligence of our sort, for example is a relative new comer, and even multi-cellular life has only been around for about 700 million years.

I do not see why the Vatican brought this up. It does not change anything unless we actually make contact with aliens. First of all there would have to be evidence of other inhabited planets in the Universe. How far have our satellites gone? I remember reading when I was a little girl about the Voyager missions. Have they yet sent a satellite to look at, say Alpha Centauri? I know from Star Trek and comic books that is the closest star to Earth.

It wasn't the Vatican that brought it up. The head of the Vatican observatory was interviewed and in the course of the interview was asked about his thoughts on the existence of extraterrestrial life and its compatibility with Catholic theology.

[ich1990]

I personally find the possibly of intelligent alien life existing within our own timespan to be extremely unlikely. A rough calculation of 153 different variables required for advanced planetary life was done recently.

This test included things like galaxy mass distribution, proximity to a solar nebula (sun), and star luminosity change relative to speciation types and rates. All told the probability of a planet taking on all 153 variables required for human life is approximately one in 10^-194. The maximum number of planets in the universe is approximately 10^22. Thus, the chances of planet forming anywere in the universe containing all 153 different life dependent traits is one in 10^172 or one in 100 thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.

There are a few considerations, however. First, the measurements are extremely hard to calculate with accuracy. Almost all of the variable probabilities are calculated from nearby planets and what we know of planetary formation. This small sample size could skew the results. Also, keep in mind that if God wanted two intelligent species to interact, he could have easily circumvented the odds making this whole calculation irrelevant.

The chances of this planet spawning life near enough to our own planet and on a timetable concurrent with our own is astronomical (ha ha ha). Therefore, until God proves me otherwise, I think it is safe to say that we will not encounter alien intelligent life.

I have pulled all of this information from Hugh Ross' book Lights in the Sky and Little Green Men. The variable probabilities are gathered from 204 seperate articles, the majority of which come from scientific journals, so I believe the information is reasonably accurate.

You can view an updated list containing 165 variables and 96 references at the link below.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/2001_probabilities_for_life_on_earth.shtml

Something to think about anyway.

[Technomancer]

I personally find the possibly of intelligent alien life existing within our own timespan to be extremely unlikely. A rough calculation of 153 different variables required for advanced planetary life was done recently.

I would say that the calculation is simply not valid. To begin with, it is not clear how, or even if, several of the parameters (esp. those relating galaxies) affect the possibility of either planet formation or life. Second, it is assumed that all variables are statistically independent, which is very definately not the case. The "probabilities" relating to solar systems and planets must also be dispensed with, as we only have a full description of our own solar system (and it is not clear how random these parameters actually are). At the present time we cannot detect Earth-sized planets, so any conclusions drawn from known extra-solar planets are also invalid.

[ich1990]

To begin with, it is not clear how, or even if, several of the parameters (esp. those relating galaxies) affect the possibility of either planet formation or life. The "probabilities" relating to solar systems and planets must also be dispensed with, as we only have a full description of our own solar system (and it is not clear how random these parameters actually are). At the present time we cannot detect Earth-sized planets, so any conclusions drawn from known extra-solar planets are also invalid.

Yep.

There are a few considerations, however. First, the measurements are extremely hard to calculate with accuracy. Almost all of the variable probabilities are calculated from nearby planets and what we know of planetary formation. This small sample size could skew the results.

Whether the measurement should be considered completely invalid or very rough is a decision best made by those more knowledgable than myself. Thanks for pointing out the other side of the story nonetheless.

[king atlantis]

Originally posted by Kat Walker (post: 1238150):
Not true. If other worlds and beings and races were created by God before us and they did not sin, they would still be in their pristine state. Perhaps they rejected Satan's temptation to disobey, whereas we did not.

After all, just because Lucifer sinned, that doesn't mean he brought *all* of the angels down with him by proxy. They were each given a choice.

Sin is a choice. It can have repercussions on others, yes. In our case, it has become an inheritance. But it is not necessarily all-encompassing.

and if this is the case, earth was screwed.

'im gonna go mess up your creation God!'

'which one? ive made tons of lifeforms in the universe'

-satan randomly points-

'this one!'



since it doesnt say in the bible about the devil haveing dominion over ALL earths...just earth.
wich would suxs.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

Shocking new development!

Gist of it is, one of the record holders for longest moonwalk claims to have been visited during one of his Apollo missons, that there is a huge government cover-up, people have been actually briefed on the alien "situation" and that they're not hostile.

[Kkun]

Shocking new development!

Gist of it is, one of the record holders for longest moonwalk claims to have been visited during one of his Apollo missons, that there is a huge government cover-up, people have been actually briefed on the alien "situation" and that they're not hostile.

I want to believe.

*X-Files theme*

[Fish and Chips]

I believe in Harvey Dent.

[Nate]

Gist of it is, one of the record holders for longest moonwalk claims to have been visited during one of his Apollo missons, that there is a huge government cover-up, people have been actually briefed on the alien "situation" and that they're not hostile.

"As you can see, walking on the moon clearly makes me an expert in physics and astrobiology."

Coming up next on the news, this third grade kid who got a perfect score on a math test, which makes him an expert in theoretical calculus.

But no, seriously, Edgar Mitchell is a dolt. "A teenager who has magical healing powers cured me of kidney cancer from thousands of miles away! Never mind that I didn't actually get a test for cancer in the first place!"

[Technomancer]

"As you can see, walking on the moon clearly makes me an expert in physics and astrobiology."

You'd be suprised how often irrelevant experiences are trumpeted in the place of actual expertise and knowledge.

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I believe in Harvey Dent.

As do we all, my friend, as do we all.

[uc pseudonym]

You have to love the euphemism that is NASA's response:

Dr Mitchell is a great American, but we do not share his opinions on this issue.