We Are Alone in the Universe!

[Subduction Zone]

Tell me what it says

It says that intelligence is unlikely, which on any given planet would be true. They make some obvious errors in their article. And the source does not appear to be a well respected professional journal, it is an example of the vanity press. The authors all appear to be rather well outside of their area for expertise, as some of their statements about abiogenesis demonstrates. They appear to make the error of assuming that there is only one possible route to life when there could be endless routes. Statistics with poor assumptions merely returns false results.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No easily. Not easily. And you know numbers in space can be awful on both sides of the equation. It took a whole bunch of random to create us. Think about it.

Handwaving is not a proper argument. Is randomness a factor? Yes, but you appear to be over rating its effect.

 

[Ratt Blastard]

Would you care to delineate that evidence?

At this point, we have explored one planet in *our* solar system in detail: the Earth. We have explored another planets using mobile probes: Mars. We have sent a probes going past some other planets.

In *our* solar system, it is possible life existed on Mars at one point and even possible it is there now. It is possible life exists on the moons Titan and Europa. The conditions seem to be within the realm of possibility, but we have not explored enough to know one way or the other.

Once we get outside of our own solar system, we just became aware of other planets within the last couple of decades and just recently achieved the technology to find Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. We already know of planets in the 'Goldilocks Zone' for other stars.

So, it looks like the conditions for life on other planets are pretty common in the universe. Whether that means life is similarly common, we don't know, but ti isn't unreasonable to think it might be. We simply don't have the necessary data as yet and we *know* we don't have that data.

Now, what we *do* know is that we have not detected any *signals* from other life. Whether that is because other intelligent life is rare, or only exists briefly, we don't know. But there may well be a lot of life that is pre-technical or that uses signals that we do not yet know how to detect (or are simply not directed at us).

So, precisely what is your evidence that we are alone?

Please send me your proof. I do not have to prove a negative

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

It took a whole bunch of random to create us. Think about it.

And yet, here we are! QED

 

[Ratt Blastard]

It says that intelligence is unlikely, which on any given planet would be true. They make some obvious errors in their article. And the source does not appear to be a well respected professional journal, it is an example of the vanity press. The authors all appear to be rather well outside of their area for expertise, as some of their statements about abiogenesis demonstrates. They appear to make the error of assuming that there is only one possible route to life when there could be endless routes. Statistics with poor assumptions merely returns false results.

Oxford University is some sort of ****ing vanity thing? I guess we should ****ing dismiss all the **** that Oxford University publishes. I like Star Trek too

 

[Subduction Zone]

Please send me your proof. I do not have to prove a negative

Not necessarily so. That would depend on the negative.

"There can be multiple claims within a debate. Nevertheless, it has been said whoever makes a claim carries the burden of proof regardless of positive or negative content in the claim."

Burden of proof (philosophy) - Wikipedia

 

[Ratt Blastard]

And yet, here we are! QED

And here we are. It means nothing.

 

[Polymath257]

First, make the distinctions between life, multicellular life, intelligent life, and technological life.

There has been life on Earth for the last 3.8 billion years, multicellular life for just under 1 billion years, intelligent life for about 2 million years (maybe longer if you include dolphins), and technological life for around 10,000 years.

We have been producing signals that could be detected elsewhere for less than 100 years.

The really big hurdle seems to be that for multicellular life. That is what took so long on Earth. Once that happened, intelligent life was fairly quick. Technology was very, very quick after that.

Now, how long do you think our species will survive? Another million years?

if so, technological life could well be common, but *overlap* between technological life in our galaxy rare.

 

[Polymath257]

Please send me your proof. I do not have to prove a negative

I am not claiming that we have a proof of other life. I *am* claiming that to say there is none is very premature.

 

[Ratt Blastard]

Not necessarily so. That would depend on the negative.

"There can be multiple claims within a debate. Nevertheless, it has been said whoever makes a claim carries the burden of proof regardless of positive or negative content in the claim."

Burden of proof (philosophy) - Wikipedia

So do I have to prove that alien don't exist when I say aliens don't exist?
I don't think so.

 

[ChristineM]

Please send me your proof. I do not have to prove a negative

Actually you made a claim in the OP without evidence and immediately in the following sentence made a giant leap of faith that you are claiming as true. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and i see none

 

[ChristineM]

So do I have to prove that alien don't exist when I say aliens don't exist?
I don't think so.

You do if you want to retain credibility

 

[Subduction Zone]

Oxford University is some sort of ****ing vanity thing? I guess we should ****ing dismiss all the **** that Oxford University publishes. I like Star Trek too

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I never claimed that about Oxford University. Nor does the fact that the authors are from Oxford mean that they are experts in the field that they wrote in. The vanity press usually refers to "Journals" that will print anything as long as people pay them to print it. Sadly right now one usually needs a subscription to read articles from well respected professional journals. Anything very recent that one can read for free is quite often just an example of the vanity press in the sciences.

 

[Ratt Blastard]

Handwaving is not a proper argument. Is randomness a factor? Yes, but you appear to be over rating its effect.

Can you prove that random factors are over rated?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

And here we are. It means nothing.

Quite incorrect -- it means exactly what it seems to mean. You keep referring to the "statistical" unlikeliness of intelligent life developing at all, when you are a (presumably) intelligent life that did (statistically certainly) evolve. You are the evidence against your own claims.

 

[Ratt Blastard]

You do if you want to retain credibility

I do not have to prove a negative. I need to be provided with positive evidence

 

[ChristineM]

I do not have to prove a negative. I need to be provided with positive evidence

You made the claim, the ball is in your court

 

[Polymath257]

So do I have to prove that alien don't exist when I say aliens don't exist?
I don't think so.

You have to supply enough evidence to think that your conclusion is reasonable. For example, where have you looked for alien life? What sort of evidence would you expect to see if such life existed and why? If such life exists, would you expect to see evidence of it?

There is a difference between saying 'I don't believe there is alien life' and saying 'There is no alien life'. You seem to be claiming the second, which does, in fact, require evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

So do I have to prove that alien don't exist when I say aliens don't exist?
I don't think so.

Then you do not understand the burden of proof, since yes, you do have to prove that.

Now you could legitimately claim that you do not believe in alien intelligences, but a belief is not worth anything. Please note others have not claimed that alien intelligences do exist because the people opposing you tend to understand the burden of proof.

 

[Ratt Blastard]

Quite incorrect -- it means exactly what it seems to mean. You keep referring to the "statistical" unlikeliness of intelligent life developing at all, when you are a (presumably) intelligent life that did (statistically certainly) evolve. You are the evidence against your own claims.

And your quaint attempts of inflicting meaning on the meaningless means nothing. So why do it? Humanism is just as basic as theism. It means nothing.