Do you think there is life out there?

[Disch]

@ Luke Leber:

Rioters take advantage of protests. I can't think of a time in history where a riot just started on its own -- there was always people organized beforehand.

I guess news of alien life might get people out on the streets for like a block party or something -- which might deteriorate to riots -- but I don't know. I think that's selling humanity short. Or maybe I'm just an optimist. =P

[chrisname]

Some might riot, most would celebrate, and David Icke would say "I told you so" and insist the president is a shape-shifting reptilian (when in fact, he's a mouse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEN36nl3nEc ).

[kempofighter]

Mythology is mythology. If you entertain these kinds of ideas you're just letting yourself get overwhelmed.

I mean... why stop there? What about centaurs, or unicorns, or <insert other mythological creature here>. Maybe they are aliens! There are much more reasonable and rational explanations for all that crap. "It must have been aliens" is tin-foil hat nonsense.

To some degree you ARE just being silly. However, the theory of ancient aliens does actually include the possibility of genetic engineering and experimentation on this planet by Aliens. If Aliens were capable of getting here, then what makes you think that they need anything that we have? Perhaps their planet is dying in which case they'd settle, and take over the planet. Perhaps they are just sadistic controllers as many humans are. There is no guarantee that Aliens would be compassionate. Some might want to help a civilization in the same way that a teacher wants to help a student (the theory that aliens posed as Gods). Some might want to simply experiment on other life forms. Why? Because they can. I wouldn't say that any of those concepts are more or less logical than what you have suggested. You just seem to have a very narrow idea of what you consider to be logical. Some might want to pose as Gods to take advantage of us. The idea that I was getting at is that mythological creatures, artwork, and other forms of evidence could just be their interpretation of what they saw and/or experienced, or it could be completely made up. UFO sightings happen all of the time. Although some might be ridiculous or staged, some might not be. It is possible that they never left or that they are still watching. Star Trek - one of the latest movies demonstrated a way that we might deal with other planets with life. The policy was to observe only and not interfere. There isn't a valid reason to assume that Aliens have to colonize every planet that they encounter. Some science fiction is a way of imagining how we might deal with ET encounters. Perhaps you have watched Avatar one too many times.

As far as evidence goes, the most fascinating piece of all would be artifacts found in some ancient cities that turned out to be small scale replicas of airplanes. Engineers literally created flying machines simply by building a bigger version of what they found in Egypt, central and south America.

[Disch]

@kempofighter:

The opening of your post is a bunch of baseless assumptions that I'm not really going to focus on. All I will say is what I've said before -- instead of asking "why not", maybe you should consider asking "why".

Your post starts getting more interesting here:

The idea that I was getting at is that mythological creatures, artwork, and other forms of evidence could just be their interpretation of what they saw and/or experienced, or it could be completely made up.

Bolded for emphasis.

UFO sightings happen all of the time.

This means nothing. Most people that see UFOs have no idea what they're looking at, and pretty much 100% of the time what they're looking at is something other than what they think it is. But their paranoia and superstition makes them think they're seeing aliens.

Again... I'm going to link to that video with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He talks at length about this and why UFO sightings are untrustworthy. Seriously, watch it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSJElZwEI8o

Although some might be ridiculous or staged, some might not be.

So.... random dude with no knowledge or experience in astronomy sees something in the sky, and calls it a UFO. You're willing to entertain his claim -- even though for it to be true, that same UFO would have to have been missed by the countless number of professional astronomers who are constantly looking into space for signs of alien life?

Come on... be reasonable.

As far as evidence goes, the most fascinating piece of all would be artifacts found in some ancient cities that turned out to be small scale replicas of airplanes. Engineers literally created flying machines simply by building a bigger version of what they found in Egypt, central and south America.

I call bullshit. So much of this "ancient aliens" crap tries to sell this shit with faux historical "evidence" that has largely been fabricated. There wasn't a lost civilization that had advanced technology -- that's a fantasy.

EDIT: but even if it's not bullshit, and even if they made a simple airplane design -- wtf does that have to do with aliens?

Can you post a link to whatever source is making the above claim? I'd love to take a look at it.

[Ganado]

chrisname wrote:

There is hot water circulating under the ice on one of Saturn's moons. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-03/12/enceladus-hot-water
[wired linked] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7542/full/nature14262.html

This is exciting, I was not aware of this, the only moon I've ever heard of that might have water was Europa. The journal that wired linked is a good read (for the parts I could understand).

[TwilightSpectre]

Something interesting I read the other day - according to some professor somewhere, he reckons that the odds are against there being any life anywhere at all. It is old (2005), but from what I know it still seems pretty valid: http://worldview3.50webs.com/etlifeprobability.html

He gives the chance of life existing anywhere in the universe as 1 in 10²⁸², which is so small it may as well be no chance at all.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that there can't be other life forms elsewhere - after, the possibility (no matter how small) is still there - but it does paint a very different picture to the constant posts I've seen here talking about "The universe is so huge, therefore there must be heaps and heaps of other life forms!" (exaggerated, but you get the idea).

[TheIdeasMan]

Hi,

Just read the article in the link provided by NT3.


@NT3 Note my comments are about the article, I don't mean them to be a personal attack, I always look forward to what you have to say.

Hopefully the following doesn't start yet another flame war & derail this thread.

I am highly suspicious of articles that have "Intelligent Design" in them, not to mention the strong & direct religious message at the end.

Note that the link to the actual scientist failed for me. However the wiki page is revealing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Ross_%28creationist%29

These things are usually a pseudo science beat-up to try to justify the existence of God, and must be read with extreme caution.

Any way I hope everyone is having a great day :+D

Edit:

This is from a real scientist, and was listed as one of the references on the wiki page about Ross.

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/ross.cfm

Edit2:

Surprised no one has linked this yet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_habitability

There are a lot of reasons why some planet may not be habitable, however the article has this:

wiki wrote:

In February 2011 the Kepler Space Observatory Mission team released a list of 1235 extrasolar planet candidates, including 54 that may be in the habitable zone.[35][36] Six of the candidates in this zone are smaller than twice the size of Earth.[35] A more recent study found that one of these candidates (KOI 326.01) is much larger and hotter than first reported.[37] Based on the findings, the Kepler team estimated there to be "at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way" of which "at least 500 million" are in the habitable zone.[38]

emphasis added.

And that is only in the Milky Way.

Also discovered there is a "Creation Science" wiki - another thing to be viewed with extreme caution. Guaranteed to be full of falsehood IMHO.

[James27]

Would like to revive this thread as it is interesting to read peoples evidence/reasoning behind their stance.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit:
Why was I reported?