Why I'm getting more and more pecimistic about 'little green men'...

[Mike70]

In all seriousness, think about what happens, even if intentions are benign, when an advanced culture meets a less advanced one in earth history. I'd imagine alien cultures had similar experences in their advancement, and learned from it. M_ indeed. as i said in my first post the history of advanced, technological cultures meeting one another on this planet has been disastrous to say the very least. just ask the incas, aztecs or the woodland indians - oh wait you can't because they have been destroyed. the area that i live in ohio used to be home to some of the greatest woodland tribes - all extinct (in ohio at least through forced relocation) now. well, at least the miami indians got a university named after them in oxford- some consolation prize huh?

[Chaos]

Our solar system is in the bottom corner of the Milky Way galaxy. There's billions of other solar systems, besides ours, in the Milky Way too. Let's just say one in nine planets in every other solar system in the Milky Way galaxy is able to support life, like Earth. That means there's a good chance of other life in our own solar system. Then, you have our next door neighbor galaxy, Andromeda. Just imagine how many solar systems it has. There's a good chance that we're not alone in the universe. I don't know about little green men and the like, but i'm sure there is life comparable to ours somewhere out there.

[Neil]

Our solar system is in the bottom corner of the Milky Way galaxy. There's billions of other solar systems, besides ours, in the Milky Way too. Let's just say one in nine planets in every other solar system in the Milky Way galaxy is able to support life, like Earth. That means there's a good chance of other life in our own solar system. Then, you have our next door neighbor galaxy, Andromeda. Just imagine how many solar systems it has. There's a good chance that we're not alone in the universe. I don't know about little green men and the like, but i'm sure there is life comparable to ours somewhere out there. I don't think you read my original post... It's not just a matter of putting a planet at roughly the right distance from a star, adding water and viola! On earth if any of the myriad of coincidences were in place, we wouldn't be here... If we didn't have a large moon for example... Chances are no humans... If we didn't have a tectonic plates (no other planet the solar system has), no humans... If we didn't have a string magnetic field, no humans... As I originally said, I feel other intelligent life must exist, but I think it is going to be far far rarer that we first thought. Maybe to the extent that civilisation are so rare, and therefore so distant from one another that they for all intents and purposes are alone... 5-10 years ago I remember someone from SETI saying they reconned that they would pick up a signal with a few years - There are so many civilisations out there the odds are we should... Guess what... Of course we haven't yet received this signal... I fear that there's maybe not as many people out there to phone us as we first thought! ps: Other galaxies are sooooo distant they're just not worth considering IMHO....

[Terran]

It's not just a matter of putting a planet at roughly the right distance from a star, adding water and viola! To see life based in the way things are here....DNA, lipids, proteins etc... Needing water is an earth based assumption Im not trying to say life is unrare ...

[Neil]

To see life based in the way things are here....DNA, lipids, proteins etc... Needing water is an earth based assumption You missed my point... Read the other points and not my analogy Stable conditions would almost certainly be required for any complex organism to evolve... We have here on earth a hole set of circumstances and chances that conspire to make that possible... Many of these things are seemingly never mentioned when considering how likely alien life is to evolve, but almost certainly many such coincidences will be required. For example, how many planets out there will have a large moon AND tectonic plate movement AND a strong magnetic field AND so on so on?

[Terran]

You missed my point... Read the other points and not my analogy Stable conditions would almost certainly be required for any complex organism to evolve... We have here on earth a hole set of circumstances and chances that conspire to make that possible... Many of these things are seemingly never mentioned when considering how likely alien life is to evolve, but almost certainly many such coincidences will be required. For example, how many planets out there will have a large moon AND tectonic plate movement AND a strong magnetic field AND so on so on? Yeah its kindof what I have been unsuccessfully trying to talk about... YOu talk about rolling of the dice.... Add some more dice in there....add like 15 dice...and roll each one individually... Now after your done rolling all those dice...what are the chances that one would roll those same numbers in order.... Incredibly slim... And thats kindof like the human search for life...we look back...and we see the dice that we rolled that caused everything on the planet that we see today... So all of our searching for life is searching for indentical dice rolls.... So we are totally negating other possibilities other fundementals... Lets say earth's fundemental was water....another planet might have steady conditions with liquid methane.... that means that all life as we know it...all biology knowledge is tossed out the window because their whole system operates on an entirely "alien" physiology... So once you enter this sort of variable...what kind of stable condition do you need.... Suddenly if methane is the main key to the life...a moon can be positioned differently....a sun can offer a different temperature.... Once that becomes a possibility the only protection that is neccessary is one from catastropic meteor impact....and if its an inner planet of a solar system thats a given... Essentially life is just self replicating molecules...A water basis is only a begining.... Tetonic plates moving isnt a big deal....once they start magnetic fields result.. Ug Im too drunk ...i dont know if I went all over the place....or said anything worthwhile...

[_liam_]

the dice thing was wicked, i'm using that in the next drunken debate over aliens i have. mind you, i've had a couple bottles of wine...we'll see how good it is in the morning (aint that always the way)

[DVW5150]

Grey or GRAY DANGIT!!!

[kortick]

there are aliens cuz art bell told me so also there are structures on the moon and the 12th planet is coming back and will cause a great catastrophe we are being watched and have been for years put on your aluminum foil hats so they dont read your thoughts

[_liam_]

[Neil]

Tetonic plates moving isnt a big deal.... Tectonic plate action is basically vital to our survival on earth. Without it there would be no mountains, and erosion would basically iron a planet virtually flat so you'd have either no flowing rivers or just one planet covering ocean. All sediment and nutreants would just sink to never be recycled... In the case of earth, without tectonic plate action the whole planet would be an ocean, and quite possibly a mostly dead one...

[Danny]

there are aliens cuz art bell told me so also there are structures on the moon and the 12th planet is coming back and will cause a great catastrophe we are being watched and have been for years put on your aluminum foil hats so they dont read your thoughts damn, i thought the g-man was my local paperboy

[Terran]

Tectonic plate action is basically vital to our survival on earth. Without it there would be no mountains, and erosion would basically iron a planet virtually flat so you'd have either no flowing rivers or just one planet covering ocean. All sediment and nutreants would just sink to never be recycled... In the case of earth, without tectonic plate action the whole planet would be an ocean, and quite possibly a mostly dead one... What I meant to say was that Tectonic plates are not a big deal when it comes to rarity...

[Neil]

What I meant to say was that Tectonic plates are not a big deal when it comes to rarity... ? We've not found them anywhere else (in the solar system)...

[Dropper]

Tectonic plate action is basically vital to our survival on earth. Without it there would be no mountains, and erosion would basically iron a planet virtually flat so you'd have either no flowing rivers or just one planet covering ocean. All sediment and nutreants would just sink to never be recycled... In the case of earth, without tectonic plate action the whole planet would be an ocean, and quite possibly a mostly dead one... I think that you are seeing just what a miracle life is. Is this by just chance? Has everything magically aligned here and it works? I am sure the answer is that there is a higher power out there. God has created us (the Earth and everything contained in it) to be unique. We are a miracle from God. I know some of you will just think that I am a simpleton, a quack, superstitious or whatever, but I am sure that I have an answer to all that happens to me and around me. You would not believe what kind of reassurance that is...