Alien Abduction meeeting in Brighton

[Triggaaar]

Here you go:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/parallel-evolution.htm

Thanks. Just reading that link - we're looking at a shared ancestor (like we share ancestors with apes) evolving into different species, but 2 of the species developing skin that allows them to glide between trees. Obviously interesting stuff. But it's not like two planets started with bacteria, and ended up with dogs.

 

[Nibble]

Nobody knows the actual size of the Universe. If it is infinite then life elsewhere is certain. Alternatively the odds are stacked in favour of life elsewhere. 400 billion stars in a galaxy x 500 billion galaxies is a LOT of stars with half a dozen planets in each solar system. The fact that moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn have been identified as having subterranean water, the chances are that life will be found in our own solar system, not to mention the theory that life on Earth could have been germinated from Mars.

No-one can claim that. I accept there might be life elsewhere but I doubt it. I can't say for certain either way. Nobody can.

 

[Nibble]

Thanks. Just reading that link - we're looking at a shared ancestor (like we share ancestors with apes) evolving into different species, but 2 of the species developing skin that allows them to glide between trees. Obviously interesting stuff. But it's not like two planets started with bacteria, and ended up with dogs.

No, but my point is if one is looking for life on other similar planets, chances are they would find similar species to those on earth but that the conditions on earth, although not known exactly are known to be very vulnerable and with little margin for variables, unlikely to be repeated elsewhere. Anyway , I doubt anyone is looking at these planets with a view to finding a few fossils or a kangaroo, they will be looking for twin aspects, water, breathable atmosphere so they can colonise it with the great and the good.

 

[glasfryn]

Our Solar System is just one member of the Milky Way galaxy with 200 to 400 billion stars. The current estimate is that there are 100 to 200 billion galaxies in the Universe, each of which has hundreds of billions of stars. A recent German supercomputer simulation put that number even higher: 500 billion. In other words, there could be a galaxy out there for every star in the Milky Way. The chances of life out there, somewhere, is, therefore, almost certain.

a long time ago when staying up late to watch Sir Patrick Moore he said words about this something like
"somewhere out there there will be somebody watching a device saying somewhere out there"

and I am more likely to believe him than anyone else talking about the subject

so your assumption is most likely correct

 

[Tubby-McFat-Fuc]

That's making the assumption that under the the right conditions life randomly emerges out of nothing in the physical universe.

Would you say you feel certain about this assumption? If not, then you are not certain about life existing elsewhere in an infinite universe either. If you are, then you haven't given it enough thought.

That's not an assumption at all. Given the right condtions life will emergae. Its not out of nothing, it could be bacteria in water on an astroid, or comet. Certainly doesn't come from "nothing" but because we can't see it doesn't mean its not there.

All things being equal, life is likely to exist on millions of planets in the universe. I would not be at all surprised if there were forms of life living under the surface of mars, our nearest neighbor. I don't mean little green men, but bacteria life forms, which is probably what life on earth evolved from.

The only other option is a god, and now that's for people who haven't or won't think it through enough.

I firmly believe there are "aliens" in the universe (other than on earth), but I don't for one second believe they ever have, or ever will visit earth. The time spans and distances are too great.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, the planet Earth 4.5 billion years old. Dinosaurs were on the Earth from 250 million years ago to 65 million years ago, that 185 million years of domination. Homo Sapiens Sapiens - modern humans 130,000 years ago to the present, and are destined to last how much longer? We really are very insignificant in the scheme of things. If the universe was created at 00:00 on 1st January, we came into existence at 23.55 on December 31. The chances are that life is beginning and ending, constantly, throughout the Universe, but our understanding of time is too limited to contemplate it.

 

[Nibble]

The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, the planet Earth 4.5 billion years old. Dinosaurs were on the Earth from 250 million years ago to 65 million years ago, that 185 million years of domination. Homo Sapiens Sapiens - modern humans 130,000 years ago to the present, and are destined to last how much longer? We really are very insignificant in the scheme of things. If the universe was created at 00:00 on 1st January, we came into existence at 23.55 on December 31. The chances are that life is beginning and ending, constantly, throughout the Universe, but our understanding of time is too limited to contemplate it.

That is of course very true. We certainly haven't been around long and IF life exists it as you say, flares up and dies away continuosly over the expanse of space and time.

 

[beorhthelm]

That's making the assumption that under the the right conditions life randomly emerges out of nothing in the physical universe.

Would you say you feel certain about this assumption? If not, then you are not certain about life existing elsewhere in an infinite universe either. If you are, then you haven't given it enough thought.

I'd feel very certain about this assumption, because the probability of this occuring is 1:1, since it has happened. The conditions are not as random as they might seem, since the major variables are quite likely to reoccur given the vastness of space.

whats really very, very unlikely is that such life would, once suitably evolved, decide to travel hundred or thousands of light years, happen upon a blue-green spec in the unfashionable arm of the Milkyway, decend and carry out abductions and experiments on Billy-bob the farmer from Utah.

 

[sydney]

imagine if the aliens had come here 150 million years ago, abducted a stegasaurus and thought " **** that for a lark"...!!

 

[Bold Seagull]

That's making the assumption that under the the right conditions life randomly emerges out of nothing in the physical universe.

Would you say you feel certain about this assumption? If not, then you are not certain about life existing elsewhere in an infinite universe either. If you are, then you haven't given it enough thought.

We know it doesn't emerge out of nothing, but we know from our own planet it can emerge and flourish in the most unlikely of circumstances from microbes developing from sulphuric acid, to frozen environments, to whole eco-systems developing by hydrothermic vents, to bacteria that actually live inside the very structure of rock. Life has developed in such extreme and unlikely conditions here on earth, that we can extrapolate those varied conditions to predictions of these circumstances existing elsewhere creating similar environments for life.

 

[Philzo-93]

Whenever I hear the word aliens, I think of the game: South Park and the Stick of Truth.

 

[Nibble]

Having read a few of the more rational arguments on here, for once on an NSC thread my mind, while certainly not entirely changed, has swayed a fraction towards the possibilty of other life possibly being out there. I've always believed it possible but perhaps slightly more likely than I first thought. Slightly.

 

[Paskman]

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

 

[WATFORD zero]

Well it seems to me that the only proven FACT on this thread was on the first page (backed up by a Youtube video to prove it's a fact) and since then, we have just had 10 pages of theories and possibilities

 

[Nibble]

...indeed, even in the most extreme conditions "extremophiles" can exist and flourish here on earth - places where there is no light, water or oxygen, life has been observed here. This is the basis of the assumption that life inevitably exists elsewhere in this vast universe, but it fails to take into account that there may be a unique and unknown quality about this planet (or its inhabitants) which make it possible only here, even if that quality is life itself.

I think this is what I find so fascinating. Strong theories support both ideas and myriad ideas in between. The vast unknown/unknowable.

 

[Nibble]

...indeed, even in the most extreme conditions "extremophiles" can exist and flourish here on NSC- places where there is no light, water or oxygen, life has been observed here. .

Indeed it has.

 

[pastafarian]

I believe in giant spaghetti monsters...

RAmen

 

[Questions]

Why do Alien abductions only happen to Americans?

That is not true. They happen in Cornwall and North Devon for some reason as well.

 

[Bold Seagull]

...indeed, even in the most extreme conditions "extremophiles" can exist and flourish here on earth - places where there is no light, water or oxygen, life has been observed here. This is the basis of the assumption that life inevitably exists elsewhere in this vast universe, but it fails to take into account that there may be a unique and unknown quality about this planet (or its inhabitants) which make it possible only here, even if that quality is life itself.

It doesn't fail to take that into account, because it is a theory on which hypothesis are made which remain hypothetical until experimentation or evidence proves otherwise. If we discover evidence of life having existed on say Mars, or the moons of Jupiter, then we have supportive evidence. Until then, it is of course theoretical - as is a unique or unknown quality.

 

[Tubby-McFat-Fuc]

There is absolutely no evidence supporting that view, it's a total assumption and one that has become dangerously dogmatic. It is essentially based on the hypothesis that life is a physical process, and so a product of the physical universe, when increasing evidence is suggesting otherwise.

No evidence. Errr okay. What about life on earth, is that not evidence?

Just tell me if you believe a god put is all here, and I will know to move on!