Aliens and Life in other Worlds [Merged]

Originally posted by FistOfThe North
Not at all? I doubt that.

the religious will seek answers. and some, hopefully many, would turn because of that lack of it because like many of the things they have no proof of but can explain can be reasonably backed up by the bible. But scientifically speaking, astrobiology, is not in the bible. And when they see hard evidence, proof they can see and hold, they'll turn in droves.

In fact if we find intelligent life the first thing devout Christians and Muslims will do is try to convert them.

Originally posted by FistOfThe North
WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Holy shit. The hell did they find?

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Except they won't. Truly religious people aren't easy to sway.

In fact if we find intelligent life the first thing devout Christians and Muslims will do is try to convert them.

Originally posted by 753
i think john paull II actually published some document saying that. catholics need not fear alien life for we will convert them

I do recall him stating that if alien life is found it is not to be demonized, as alien life was most certainly also created by God.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Something like that.

I do recall him stating that if alien life is found it is not to be demonized, as alien life was most certainly also created by God.

What if aliens came here to convert us to their god? 😱

That'll teach us!

well, we know that the aliens would know aliens exist (us), so there is no way they could still be religious

Sure they could, they'd just assume we were created by the devil instead of their God.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
No, but to say its impossible, or even unlikely is baseless.

I don't know the universe being a big place is a baseless argument? Are we including other universes? Ants don't know humans exist.

Originally posted by Deadline
Ants don't know humans exist.

But in either case ants interact with humans all the time directly and indirectly.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I don't think ants "know" anything exists.

Not sure what you mean by that but they clearly do otherwise they wouldn't be able have a community.

Originally posted by Omega Vision

But in either case ants interact with humans all the time directly and indirectly.

Of course they do but from what we know about ants they would probably interpret us differently.

Originally posted by Deadline
Not sure what you mean by that but they clearly do otherwise they wouldn't be able have a community.

Of course they do but from what we know about ants they would probably interpret us differently.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Not really. Flowers can adjust to stimuli in their environment without so much as a single nerve cell. Working as a community unit does not suggest higher cognitive functions. Just the ability to adjust to stimuli and respond to pheremones.

Im pretty sure scientists think insects are sentient.

Originally posted by Omega Vision

I don't really see how this has anything to do with whether or not aliens exist.

Point is other organisms exist with us but are not aware of our existance or may interpret us differently. Therefore we could argue that the reason why we haven't discovered aliens is because we are not aware of them.

Originally posted by Deadline
I don't know the universe being a big place is a baseless argument?

yes

because the argument makes inferences that are based on no statistical probability.

By saying the universe is huge, you are implying that the frequency of life is such that, in a space that big, you would expect to find that.

we have no idea about how probable the conditions for life are, therefore, any prediction about how much space would hold how much life, is baseless.

This also includes other universes, for the exact same reason.

Originally posted by inimalist
yes

because the argument makes inferences that are based on no statistical probability.

By saying the universe is huge, you are implying that the frequency of life is such that, in a space that big, you would expect to find that.

[b]we have no idea about how probable the conditions for life are, therefore, any prediction about how much space would hold how much life, is baseless.

This also includes other universes, for the exact same reason. [/B]

You have NO idea? You've got some idea.

Why do you say we have no idea about how probable the conditions for life are? I think we have some idea.

Originally posted by Deadline
Im pretty sure scientists think insects are sentient.

lol, no

its hard enough to get "scientists" [sic] to agree on what that would even mean, but it is still considered "revolutionary" when we show that apes and other mammals have a physical representation of self.

Ants are complex beings with very intricate social organization, but there really isn't much to say they "know" anything in a way that is comparable to the way humans "know" things.

Originally posted by Deadline
You have NO idea? You've got some idea.

yes, but those ideas are based on my own opinions, not on any reasonable analysis of statistical probability.

When you say, "Look at how much space there is", you are making an appeal to how statistically probable life must be. If not, the fact that there is space is unrelated to the fact that life exists.

But we do have some idea; we have lots of information about the circumstances that support life just by looking at our own planet. That gives us something to work from.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
Why do you say we have no idea about how probable the conditions for life are? I think we have some idea.

I've heard people break down the Drake equation before, looking at all of the variables individually and trying to find values to it. However, in all cases, these values are built by inferring facts about life in the universe from the single instance of life originating on Earth.

I suppose some people might be able to come up with numbers from that type of analysis, but in terms of real statistics, it has no power.

The findings of extrasolar planets will help this immensly, because if we can figure out how likely "Earth-type" planets are (our size, distance from star, atmpspheric make-up, colission that caused a moon [tidal effects], and a host of potentially billions of other variables), we can make better assumptions, but how would we ever know the probability of life originating on "earth-type" planets? We would need to discover dozens before we could make those inferences, and even then, they are not very statistically powerful. There would almost certainly be a sampling bias too, ie, the earth-type planets we are able to discover probably don't represent a random distribution of all earth-type planets

Originally posted by Ushgarak
But we do have some idea; we have lots of information about the circumstances that support life just by looking at our own planet. That gives us something to work from.

the problem is the inference from earth to other planets. We don't know how representative of other "earth-type" planets earth is.

Say there are 160000000000000000000000000 earth like planets in the universe, we don't know that the specific chain of events that produced life here aren't 1/160000000000000000000000000, an instance in which we would only expect to find ourselves alive in the universe

though, this brings up the complication of, "how do we know we need "earth-type" planets?", which makes the ability for us to draw inferences from earth life even weaker

No, I don't agree. Although hardly 100% accurate, we can make not unreasonable speculations about the likelihood of an Earth-like planet on other stars by looking at things such as mass, gravity, star size etc.

As Earth is proof that such a planet can exist, and as we are able to make inroads into showing how Earth came to be, it is actually an entirely reasonable process to say it is a near certainty that those circumstances have been replicated, based on the size of the known universe.

That is a view taken by exceptionally reputable scientists. It's hardly fringe stuff.