http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceno...abound-in.html

I can't believe people think we're alone in the universe... It's impossible in just our galaxy, and there is one hundred TRILLION galaxies out there (that we can estimate based on observations/estimates). Just the thought of us being alone in this universe makes me laugh... I hate how people have to drag a bunch of religious mumbo jumbo into these discussions... (not calling religion "mumbo jumbo", just saying that some religious fanatics HAVE to bring religious ideas into the equation even though no one mentioned or even suggested anything that had to do with religion... They just have to defend their views regardless of the discussion. Yes, we all know that you have religious views, please don't start a war or kill me because I don't believe the same thing as you. TIA.


Even without these findings and this article, the sheer size of the universe and the vast number of stars that are comparable to the Sun is just too great to NOT harbor life. It would take an IMPOSSIBLE number of unlikly situations to have every one of those stars (that have been proven to have planets, and if you know how solar systems are formed you know that those stars DO have planets thanks to accretion) NOT harbor some sort of life... Some believe that we are the most intelligent lifeform out there... That is also very-VERY-VERY unlikely!

We're a very insignificant form of life who will have a very short existence in this universe. We are NOT special (well, I am, you aren't ).

I'd like to believe that we are significant... I really would.

 

 

Far more eloquent than I could ever hope to be able to explain this subject.

 

The problem is, all us earth-like planets are sooooo far away from each other I dunno how we can possible contact each other let alone visit each other, let alone have survived with appropriate technology in alignment with our own short timeline.

 

lol at Carl Sagan... ps really with this again Brucey?

 

I am not very religious myself, but after reading what you wrote. i have to say this. I agree with you, "why do people hold religion as a reason for no other possible life to be else where"... But why not just be a little more open minded and say, Maybe after a 2000+ years since the bible has been written, someone just has not come a long, maybe the messiah or whom ever to update the book. Maybe "God" has a so called "new plan" and just needs to update. I know this sounds funny... but could be possible. Heck for all I know religion could be the truth, but it was written during a time where it was possible to witness such miracles. Maybe we just need something like that.

But for the mean time I will say Keep your traps shut, Everyone. Everyone can believe as they please, but don't impose on my beliefs.

There is something out there, I just know it, and his name ain't Marvin.

 

Again? I checked to see if it was posted before and I didn't see any threads covering this story. Sorry if it's a repost!

 

Brucelee, I agree with you for the most part untill..."We're a very insignificant form of life who will have a very short existence in this universe. We are NOT special (well, I am, you aren't )". Can you explain why we're not "special" compared to what we have found elseware?

 

Just to clear things up a bit, I wasn't bashing religion, I was bashing the fanatics that can't accept the fact that there might be life outside of our own little universe (and by "our own little universe" I mean our Earth). I'd like to believe in a single religion, I really would, but I just can't... There are far too many ideas, theories, and fact that support alternate realities... Sort of like how martial arts were 100 years ago. 100 years ago, Martial arts were coveted by a single culture that didn't believe in sharing it with outsiders, and the person studying the specific art would follow that specific form and ONLY that form. It wasn't until Bruce Lee came along (there were some before Bruce Lee, but he was the most popular and did the most to bring arts and ideas together) that martial arts were explored and mixed into "mixed martial arts". A student could seek out the principals/forms/ideas that he/she liked and study them, sort of like a martial arts greatest hits... They could pick and choose what they wanted to learn instead of being closed off into a single art that followed a specific path.

I wish more people were accepting of different ideas and not just believers in a single "super-faith" (as my friend likes to call it). Why can't we believe in what makes sense to us? Of course every person on this planet has a right to believe in what he/she would like to believe in, but there will always be the fanatics that try to force you to believe in what they deem is correct and can/will use any means to make you believe it.

The majority of people on earth are peaceful with their religious views and respect other people's views, or at least accept the fact that everyone has their own mind, but there's that percentage of fanatics that can't accept that and believe it's their job to make you believe in what they think is right, and that's all I'm complaining about. Every time I bring up life outside of our own planet someone always chimes in and gets offended or at least will say something to discredit the idea because it goes against what they believe in. Why can't they believe in the same thing but accept the fact that there is overwhelming mathematical probability that life does exist outside of our solar system and that the life can and probably is more intelligent then we are (not saying all life out there is smarter then we are, just saying that it's very likely that a species exists that is far more adapted/intelligent then the human race). The probability is so great and so likely that doubting the notion is almost laughable.

I remember in high school for our earth science class (Freshmen year I think) we had a class debate about life outside of our solar system and the amount of people that were against the notion of life being present beyond the reaches of our system was startling! I remember that more then half the class doubted that life existed outside of our solar system... Each side had to present a report to support their argument and the next week (week after the initial debate) each side did a presentation to sway the other side to believe what they did... My side (obviously I believed that there was life outside of our system) laid down the facts with mathematical probabilities and the numbers were so insane and basically wiped any doubt that there wasn't life out there in the minds of the disbelievers. Space is so vast and there are so many stars that are so similar to the sun with so many planets that are like earth (read up on "astronomy - solar system accretion" for an explanation as to how we know that earth-like planets exist because we all form in the same way) that the probability that life doesn't exist is virtually nil.

Just using the milky way galaxy as a base, there are so many stars and planets that it's almost impossible for life to not exist outside of our solar system... Now add in to that equation all the other galaxies out there and you have a number that basically proves that life HAS TO exist. If you look at the Milky Way galaxy (our galaxy), we have around 300 to 400 BILLION stars in just our galaxy, and our galaxy isn't even a big one! Our near by neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy has an estimated 1 TRILLION stars, so sit back and try to grasp that for a moment. That's just two galaxies, now think about how many galaxies there are! Astronomers have estimated that there are hundreds of BILLIONS of galaxies in our universe!!! HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF GALAXIES, and in those galaxies you have from a hundred billion to a trillion stars on average!

For someone to say that life outside of our solar system is unlikely (and they always argue that it doesn't exist because we haven't seen it) are living in a world of fantasy... They are illogical and their views/perception of reality is flawed.

The argument that I hear the most is "if life exists outside of our solar system then why haven't we seen it?". I never understood this argument, and it's the weakest and probably the stupidest that they could possibly argue. Space is so vast that even if every single star in our galaxy had a planet like earth and had life we wouldn't know it. We humans transmit radio waves through space and have been doing so since the early 1900's... Those radio waves travel through space at the speed of light and continue traveling through space until they act on an object or an object act on it (like if the waves hit a star, they would stop and wouldn't travel through the start and continue on their path). It is our hope that if intelligent life exists outside earth then that they would have the capability to hear our radio waves and have evidence that we existed, and in the best case scenario that they would shoot radio waves right back at us to tell us that they are there and listening to us... That sounds great and dandy but that is all based off the assumption that they have the same thought processes to have invented radio transmitters that are able to capture our signals... This is very unlikely because for all we know they don't use the same kind of senses that we do (like vision/hearing/etc)... For all we know they could have senses that don't exist on earth and their way of thinking could be so different that they would never think to ever even create radio transmitters because they could be totally useless to them.

As you can see, even if life existed in every solar system in our galaxy we most likely wouldn't know about it... The only shred of hope that we have is that there is another life form somewhere out there that is similar to man and that they have technology that is similar to ours so that we could capture their radio (or whatever kind of waves/signals) waves and listen to the broadcast of patterns, etc... Otherwise we don't stand a chance in hell in ever finding life out there because space is just too vast and we can't travel to and from neighboring stars... Not with conventional methods at least. If we could open up worm holes and safely travel through them then maybe we could find life out there, but until that happens (which it wont) we will have to rely on searching for discernible patterns in things like radio waves that are broadcast through space.


Cliff notes on finding life: Space is too vast for us to visit other stars, just because we haven't seen life doesn't mean it doesn't exist. If every star in the Milky Way harbored life we most likely wouldn't even know about it because we don't have telescopes powerful enough to see life and the only way to "see" outside life would be to have similar technology, like radio wave transmission for example that we could hear if "they" (outside life) broadcast out into space, and even then we'd only receive patterns that are irregular and show signs of intelligent life. That is HIGHLY unlikely however so the chances of us ever receiving proof that life out there exists is pretty nil. (speaking of intelligent life).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik0yz...eature=related

Perhaps the "Miracles" were a bit blown out of proportion. Kind of like when people would play the game "Telephone" when they were kids and the original sentence was completely changed by the time the sentence reached the end of the line.

 

Purple monkey dishwasher?

 

Umm Brucee what about this

 

I was referring to the human race and how it has been thought about over the course of our history. Man used to think that we were the center of the universe and that everything revolved around us... we are so small and insignificant compared to how big and vast space is. If all life ended on earth tomorrow nothing would change anywhere (except for on earth).

I think humans are special in the sense that we are smarter then all other life that we've ever found, but in the great scheme of things we're not significant at all. Like a grain of sand in a vast desert.

 

Just curious but why would you 'lol' at one of the greatest minds that has ever walked among our species?

In his Drake Equation break down, all he does is explain the probability of intelligent life being found in the Universe, I really don't see what is funny about that, so unless I'm missing something...

 

kinda like you just did?