http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/04/earth-like-planets…
This is pretty badass. Greatly increases the chances of extraterrestrial life, though no way to know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing until it happens.
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This is pretty cool!
We're not special. It was considered revolutionary that the Earth was not the center of the universe several hundred years ago. Now, we're talking about multi-billion planets that are potentially inhabitable by humans, in our own galaxy. If anyone thinks we are the only intelligent species in the universe, they need to get a better understanding of statistics. I believe there are something like over 100 billion galaxies out there. Each galaxy has billions of stars. It is mind blowing. We are not alone.
While I agree that we are likely not alone, I highly doubt that we'll ever come in contact with other life. Also, the odds of the other life forms being "intelligent", even to our level (we've set the bar pretty low) is almost negligible so far as we can tell. There is a lot of controversy about the odds of their being intelligent life, as even on our planet for example, we are the only one of the millions of species to exist that are or who have ever become intelligent, despite our planet's nearly 5bn year existence.
Ok so by your high logic we are one of a few million (lets use a high number of 15MM) species. If there are 40 billion earth like planets and lets say 5% of those have life on them. Then there is a 15MM in 2 billion chance that there is intelligent life in the Galaxy. There are billions of galaxies, the chances are extremely high that there is smart life out there somewhere.
When you take an unlikely event (intelligent life) and give it an unimaginably large amount of trials (100 billion+ galaxies with hundreds of billions of stars each), it is almost for sure to happen numerous times. That's why I think it is highly likely that there are many civilizations across the universe.
I wish we had never had that religion thread. Now, I can't stop filtering everyone's posts through what I believe their views to be and trying to think of contradictions.
lmao, I was afraid that stuff was gonna spill into this. So far so good...
I'm pretty shure that there is a parallel universe out there where everything is the same but we all wear cowboy hats....no BS !
What! We all know there is a fat white man that lives in the clouds and passes judgement on people! Whats this we aren't the center of the universe nonsense.
On a serious note the author of this article needs to be jailed for even considering that this is "Earthshaking news"
Maybe if there are a species similar to ourselves living in one of these plants - they will have finance jobs for us. IB, AM, S&T , you name it. I am going to buy a ticket straight away on the first commercial flight.
This is all on big scientific circle jerk, we're not going to meet them, then why really care? Honestly, they'll never be able to prove it, lets all get back to financing around and enjoying our lives.
People don't understand the scale of the distances involved. The closest star to us is Proxima Centauri, which is roughly 4.24 light years away. By my infallible and rigorous calculations, if the Sun was the size of a basketball then Proxima Centauri would be roughly 4300 miles away. The Sun would be a basketball on the ground in New York City and Proxima Centauri would be in Rome. And that's the closest star, which is unlikely to have any intelligent life on its planets. It's pretty clear because of the distances involved we're unlikely to contact any sort of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Until we can travel at or near the speed of light. You could travel 30 light years and age far less than 30 years. So interstellar travel is possible.
I agree with heister and D M.
I don't see how we can continue to evolve as a society and not come in contact with foreign species at some point in the near future - "near", of course, being relative in galactic terms. Just 66 years after making flight for the very first time (1903), we put man on the moon. That just blows my mind. Y'all may say we haven't done much since then, but we really have. Kepler has been identifying candidates that can support life. A man-made object has just left our solar system not long ago. And our understanding of physics and the universe has increased at a phenomenal rate. There are already dozens of theories for faster-than-light travel, such as the Alcubierre drive (moving/manipulating space as opposed to moving within space), and even achieve near light speeds is feasible with future technology (perhaps powering ships via man-made black holes which convert all mass to pure energy, or utilizing wormhole travel). Is this possible now? Hell no! In our lifetimes? Unlikely. Within 1,000 years? Possibly. 100,000 years? Of course! (by then, however, homo-sapiens will have likely evolved into a more advanced species). And if we can achieve near-light travel, thanks to relativity / time dilation, much less time will have passed inside the vessel, making long distance journeys practical.
That said, if we were to encounter intelligent life on a foreign planet, it is unlikely the first species we encounter is at a similar evolutionary stage as humans (either much more or much less advanced). Additionally, I am almost certain the first contact we have will be through machines. Why would we risk our lives to travel 12+ light years (12 LYs being the closest planet that we know of in the habitable zone) when we can send a drone instead? We're already doing that across our solar system. We also know that life isn't as difficult to make as we once thought, thanks to further exploration of Earth - we've identified species who can live in the harshest of environments, including the depths of the oceans where there is no sunlight and the pressure would flatten a human like a pancake. One major area of concern is communication. If we were to encounter an advanced species, would either of us know it if we can't find a way to communicate? Even if the other species can communicate audibly, who's to say we have the capacity to recognize it as speech, and vice versa? One thought was using frequencies of the visible light spectrum to communicate, but who know's if they will even perceive the same spectrum of light as us (if they are advanced enough it won't matter, since machines to all of the work. But a less advanced species wouldn't know what to do).
Last thing to note: according to the Kardashev scale, we're not even a freakin' Class I civilization (we're like a 0.7 civ). Within a few hundred years, we should fully be a Class I, which is typically considered to be capable of interplanetary travel and communication (ansible anyone?). If we continue to evolve at our current rate - and we don't destroy ourselves in the process, which should be easy once we start populating other planets - we could one day create and travel to parallel universes. All it takes is a Class III civ capable of 3 things: building a particle accelerator (just like CERN) no bigger than our solar system (with enough energy, we can CREATE a universe from scratch); arranging and moving a series of small stars quickly in a circle to create an opening for a wormhole; and stabilizing the wormhole with antimatter (which will be a byproduct of galactic engineering projects for a Class III civ). I realize how crazy this sounds given how advanced we currently are, but MIT physicist Alan Guth has shown that this is all physically possible. And after all, that's all that really matters (or antimatters..).
Sorry for the long-winded response, but happy to expand a few more chapters on the topic!
In terms of priorities, why is it so important to build a particle accelerator which is so powerful? Of course we need more energy to be able to find rarer/heavier particles (which is basically why the 15 TeV upgrade at the LHC will be important), but we still need to do a lot of precision measurements on particles and often smaller accelerators are better for this from what I've heard. Also, I'm wondering what theories we have at the moment that would require a more powerful accelerator now: we haven't seen any indications of supersymmetry yet, and from what I've heard (I used to research supersymmetry, but only as an undergrad), the mass range we've got is where it's most likely to be found...
... anyway, in short, I don't really see the point of building more powerful accelerators at the moment, as we still need precision measurements on some particles that we have found, the upgrade to the LHC hasn't happened yet (I think it's closed atm to do so), and the leading theory supersymmetry is most likely to occur at lower masses than what would be required with a large accelerator (though we haven't found signs of it yet).
I bet lots of folks in other galaxies are sitting around and wondering if we exist...they have no idea what they're missing! I mean, they don't know what Harvard even is, let alone beef jerky, sideburns, and sweatpants.
hah...
I think the fact that there may be tens of billions of Earth-like planets is actually an argument against life, let alone intelligent life. The "Do you believe in God?" thread has an interesting video about the likelihood that life would spontaneously generate. The calculation--and of course I haven't confirmed this since I'm neither a molecular biologist nor a mathematician--indicates that life spontaneously creating itself is some infinitesimal number like 1/(10^164). The 10^164 power is a number larger than the number of THINGS that have occurred since the creation of the universe at the big bang. I put forth that while this calculation makes it appear that math tells us that spontaneous life generation is impossible it only appears that way because the event occurred for us to calculate it. But since we're here to calculate the event, we know that spontaneous generation of life is essentially impossible "for every other instance."
Acting under the assumption that there is no Creator, then we know that life is almost certainly not out there based on the likelihood of spontaneous generation of life. Then you have to calculate the probability that simple organisms would evolve into complex organisms, which would evolve into creatures that are aware of their own existence and mortality--the chance of this all occurring (spontaneous generation of life and then evolution into an intelligent being) is simply astronomically small. "Billions" of Earth-like planets makes it almost certain that there is no intelligent life out there (outside of a sovereign creator). You would need to be into the trillions to even have an astronomically small chance of life developing, let alone evolving. At "tens of billions" you're into the realm of mathematical impossibility.
In sum, if there were 100 trillion Earth-like planets in the universe then you have your calculation: (1x10^12(1/(10^164))^(1x10^12). That's going to be a ridiculously small number. Then you have to multiply by the mathematical probability of evolution into intelligent life. Then you add it all up. Small.
Congrats you have just mathematically rationalized why you are an idiot. Because by your math humans aren't actually an intelligent life form because the numbers are just too small for that to possibly happen
Well, I have clearly explained in other threads that I believe in a Creator (which would explain my position on the calculation), and I explained in the "God" thread how this calculation could be theoretically correct and yet we still be here from a non-theist perspective.
The calculation is explainable by 1) a Creator or 2) an event that would be "impossible" until it actually occurred, meaning that we can calculate the improbability (even impossibility) because we are here to calculate it. It's like calculating the mathematical possibility of an absurd event occurring only AFTER it's occurred; therefore, we can even consciously consider the likelihood. We would never sit down and calculate the likelihood of the Russian President flying a 747 into a shoe factory in Kansas because it's a thought that is so absurd that it would be a mathematical impossibility such that nobody would even consider the calculation, unless it actually occurred. If the ridiculous event in question occurred then we could go back and run the math and say, "Wow, that event defies logic."
I wanna live in Star Trek damnit.
I don't get how humans get off talking about probabilities on an intergalactic scale. We know relatively so fucking little.
Seriously? In the other thread you asserted that anyone who believes in God is a complete moron, and yet when someone attempts to talk about creation and evolution in a mathematical way, now we are just mere humans? Now we are just too simple to comprehend the universe? I'm sorry, I thought you asserted that theists were clearly moronic people. Which is it? Do you know the answers to the universe or do you not?
I don't at all. But believing in some made-up nonsense ancient Mesopotamia-dwelling motherfuckers thought up is dumb.
Honestly though, I'm agnostic. I just hate organized religion. I really don't wanna have this debate again. Your statistics are of the anus-pulled variety though because we have no knowledge of the statistical population size we're working with.
Sarcasm.... But seriously the way you have assurances that no other form of life can exist because of some ridiculous theory about the ability of life to form and evolve. Lets look at the hard facts. So far we have been on 1 earth, and life is bating 1 for 1 aka 1.000 aka perfect.
Another thing to take into account: we're assuming intelligent life will form the same (or a similar) way in conditions similar to ours. For all we know it could be possible for an intelligent "life" form to evolve in a manner we don't understand.
A lot of assuming and extrapolation is going on here. Extrapolation about the number of Earth-like planets, assuming life could form in ways that defy our current understanding of science, etc.
I'm not assuming that life can form in ways we don't understand, I thought that was pretty clear. I said we're (we're, as in science) assuming that life forms in one way when it COULD very well form in a way we don't understand.
And nobody is assuming that there is that many earth-like planets. That's why this specific article is littered with the words "possibly" and "might". Regardless, that's good reason for us to pursue this type of science.
I have complete confidence the government will get us to the speed of light in no time!
Anyways, why does religion even have to be part of this? Are there actually Christians who think humans are the only living organism? Why couldn't God create humans on other planets?
I only brought it up because a Creator could be the explanation as to why math MAY tell us that creation of life from nothing is impossible and hence the number of beings out there would be dictated by what the Creator determines it to be. I also brought it up because bic in another thread claimed that believing in God is stupid and irrational, and yet somehow in this thread asserts that we can't understand the cosmos because it is too big. Either you understand the cosmos and a Creator is clearly wrong or you have no idea--it can't be both. That would be a mathematical impossibility, as it were.
Why are we talking about traveling to Alpha Centauri or the speed of light when we haven't even gone to the moon since the 60s (apparently)? So much for advanced civilization.
SMH its like arguing with a wall. If you want to use the theory of statistical anomalies to explain anything you have to talk in numbers that are incomprehensible to any person. I am looking at the hard 100% proven facts. We are on 1 earth, we have been to two other galactic bodies. Neither of which we have deemed capable to support any form of advanced life. One of those two had life at one point, Mars just in case you cant keep up, that means life is has been on 2 galactic bodies, one of which is universally agreed upon as being in the "life zone" the other almost universally agreed upon as being outside of it. Therefore any creation stories about a man in the sky picking up some clay off the ground and molding people out of it is about as believable as the Earth being the center of the universe.
I've never read ANYWHERE that definitive proof of life on Mars has ever been found. You want to talk about talking out of one's posterior--you just asserted something that isn't true.
Also, I saw a flying saucer hover over a field for like 10 seconds once before it zoomed up. Shit was pretty fly (lool). Haven't told anyone in real life in order to avoid having my sanity questioned.
@DCDepository; I'm not sure exactly where you got that equation (I can't see that video), but I find it kind of hard to believe. Again, it is all conjecture. There are a lot of different theories as to how life came to be, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Also, just because you can't challenge a statistic because you don't have the aptitude or possible knowledge, does not make it a valid theory. The burden of proof is on the one that makes the claim.
Depends on the perspective. You can't call something "wrong" or "absurd" unless you have at least a basic counter argument. That doesn't make the theory valid--it just means that you don't have the right to assert something is wrong unless you have the technical knowledge to speak on it.
You can say, "Hmm, that seems questionable," or "I'm going to do some research on that." But you can't make a claim that something is false without having FAITH.
The very basis of "faith" is belief in something you can't directly prove... Just saying
Also, they have found bacterial life on Mars.
I know Wikipedia has its limitations, but I can't find anything on bacterial life found on Mars. That would be the front page of every newspaper in the world.
I remember someone saying life on Earth may have started from a piece of Mars that broke off, and landed here.
One of the existing theories, as you have alluded to, is that simple life (i.e. complex proteins) were carried from Mars to Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment 4 billion years ago. This, however, isn't considered the leading theory, as there is evidence of amino acids (building blocks of proteins) in meteors throughout the galaxy (and likely universe). This means that the basic ingredients for life exist EVERYWHERE! Which is absolutely crazy/awesome. There was also a lab experiment a few years back that showed during the early stages of Earth's development, harsh weather conditions (ie lightening) and chemicals from beneath the planet's surface (elevated via geysers) created in a few days time these very amino acids that are the basis for RNA (which of course is the predecessor to DNA).
Bottom line: very difficult to say what the exact cause of life on Earth was, but so many sound theories suggest that life is not only possible elsewhere, but probable and likely very abundant. All you need are amino acids (as previously mentioned, found on meteors across the galaxy/universe) and a spark... and we get LIFE! Of course, sentient life takes a little more time and luck.
@DCDepository; Yes, I believe you can. That is what burden of proof is. If you claim that you can do 100 push ups, and I say no you can't (based on no evidence to the contrary), you are the one that has to prove that you can (I don't have to prove that you can't) since you made the initial claim.
That is why all this mathematical conjecture becomes convoluting; it is very, very hard to prove. Anthropic biases also distort the way we view the creation of life ---> ie we only have our own experiences and planet as evidence to base theory off of.
EDIT: Bottom line, I don't have to have a counter argument. The person that makes the claim is the one who has the burden of proving that claim.
You just gave a terrible example since most human beings have a sense of what a push-up is and how much strength and energy it would take to do 100 push-ups. Unless you have specific understanding of biology, physics, and mathematics (which I readily admit that I don't) you wouldn't have anyway of knowing if that mathematical equation claim has any validity at all.
It's not the example that matters, it's the logic! If I say "Earth was created by a spaghetti monster", you can deny my claim. In order to validate my claim, I have to prove it. You don't have to prove that the Earth wasn't created by a spaghetti monster.
This has absolutely nothing to do with math or science. It is logical fallacy.
Thanks a lot @"D M", this just turned into Do you believe in God part 2.
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