are there aliens?

If so whadda they look like?

Almost certainly. A bit like bacteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

I’m amazed people ask this!

What do you think we are?

We are living proof living that aliens (we) exist

Like ramblerz at weekends, all dressed the same, they dont seem to speak, show little emotions, walk or ramblze randomly,have huge life support sacks permanently attached to their backs,and when seen sitting down theyre always eating or drinking,oh and theyre always ugly.

Sometimes they chant their ramblerz song,

“wheres your bell”

i think it would be both naive and arrogant to think in the near infinite expanse of space there wouldn’t be another planet, perhaps thousands of planets, with intelligent life on them. And it would look like this…

which for some reason, reminds me of

How the chuffing hell would we know what they look like?

near infinite

interesting concept …

Pook – Member
i think it would be both naive and arrogant to think in the near infinite expanse of space there wouldn’t be another forum, perhaps thousands of forums, with intelligent life on them.

Bit like Bikemagic then

There fixed it for you

Got to be life. Whether it is intelligent or we will even be able to prove it is another question.
Space is just so vast billions of galaxies that it has to be out there
Even the religious agree they just call it god 😉

i seen em on star trek

They have one and-a-half legs and yellow humps…..

I can’t see how it could be possible that we are the only life in the entire universe.

There are more stars out there than all the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world.

That’s a lot of potential “suns”!

we will even be able to prove it is another question

I think it’s pretty certain that we wont…But it think it’s more than likely there is life out there. You really just have to look at the variety on earth, and it really could look like anything based on that evidence..

Nor will we ever communicate with them, well it’s extremely doubtful, our own radio waves are only about 100 light years away from earth right now, which isn’t very big in universe terms.

The size of the universe pretty much dictates that communicating with and never mind meeting alien civilisations is fairly remote. Well unless some new form of technology is invented/discovered.

tbh the first intellegent life we will meet is when some other form of life on earth develops as far as we have.

Ahh my one legged days, I’m much betterer with my prosthetic limb nowadays.

Happy mtb days, I seem to be mainly commuting only at present. That and building homes for chickens, country life is soo hectic!

There is already tool using non-human life on this on this planet with acknowledged intelligence, so given that, it’s almost certain that tool using life with the intelligence to work out how to do so must exist elsewhere.

would invading aliens start by taking over gingerbread establishments then?

i think it would be both naive and arrogant to think in the near infinite expanse of space there wouldn’t be another planet, perhaps thousands of planets, with intelligent life on them

Why does it have to be “naive and arrogant”?

I was just talking to someone yesterday about the fact that normal discussion is almost impossible these days without people taking up an almost instant entrenched and combative position on whichever side of the issue they decide (sometimes randomly it seems) to favour.

Given that we have absolutely no evidence of life elsewhere, it seems “naive and arrogant” to start dissing other people for holding a view either way.

OTOH, I think not.

Given that we have absolutely no evidence of life elsewhere, it seems “naive and arrogant” to start dissing other people for holding a view either way.

Well that’s not quite true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jan/15/mars-life-methane-nasa

Have you not been to Penge?

Drac,

I think that is a bit short of “evidence”.

The scientist who released the info said “We do not claim to have identified life, nor do we think it is possible to draw that conclusion solely on the basis of methane detection”

In the past 30 years, our knowledge of life in extreme environments has exploded. Scientists found microbes in nuclear reactors, microbes that love acid, and microbes that swim in boiling-hot water. Whole ecosystems have been discovered around deep sea vents where sunlight never reaches and the emerging vent-water is hot enough to melt lead.

The Goldilocks Zone is bigger than we thought.

— http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/livingthings/microbes_goldilocks.html

A team of planet hunters led by astronomers at the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz and the Carnegie Institution of Washington has announced the discovery of a planet orbiting a nearby star, Gliese 581, at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star’s “habitable zone.” This would be the most Earth-like exoplanet and the first truly habitable one yet discovered.

— http://www.nasa.gov/news/media/audiofile/First_Goldilocks_Exoplanet_Discovered.html

So, evidence that even the limited carbon-based life we know about on this planet can live in extreme conditions AND evidence that other planets like Earth exist even within the limited distance we can look for them.

As I said, more stars than sand, so at best it seems “statistically unlikely” that Earth has the only life. Why would it?

My 2p is that as per GrahamS’ links we are continuing to find life in places where it was thought to be impossible. That must then result in an increase in our theoretical probability of life existing elsewhere.

Of course there’s a huge gulf between life in its basic forms and any form of rudimentary intelligent life, then another step to use of tools, language and civilisation. Then there’s a couple of minor issues to overcome before we meet – one being the vast scale of interstellar distance and the other being the chance of two intelligent life forms that are relatively close to each other in space actually evolving and existing in the same window of time.

So while the chances of there being other life ‘out there’ are relatively high, the chances of being able to sit down for tea and biccies with them is pretty darn slim.

All in my naive and arrogant opinion of course.

My 2p is that as per GrahamS’ links we are continuing to find life in places where it was thought to be impossible.

On earth!

That must then result in an increase in our theoretical probability of life existing elsewhere.

Why?

the chances of there being other life ‘out there’ are relatively high

They are relatively high ?!?!?

Because you feel it in your water?

Your overconfidence makes it impossible to take you seriously.

They are relatively high ?!?!?

Because you feel it in your water?

Your overconfidence makes it impossible to take you seriously.

Woah there. That’s the trouble, “normal discussion is almost impossible these days without people taking up an almost instant entrenched and combative position” 😉

I’m trying to have a normal discussion with you. You asked for evidence. The evidence says that life exists in all kinds of extreme environments on our own planet AND that there are Earth like planets out there AND that there are more stars out there than anyone can fully comprehend.

Statistically speaking it seems “very likely” that we are not alone in the universe.

Can you offer any evidence (or even theory/philosophy) the other way?
Why would Earth be so uniquely special that we are the only planet capable of supporting life out of the uncountable billions upon billions in the universe?

The difference between us is that when I’ve given my opinion, I’ve flagged it as my opinion.

You’ve started bandying stuff around about statistics as if that actually means anything, but it’s pseudo science.

Until the day that we actually do discover life, or something a bit more concrete than “some methane” then saying that it is “very likely” is just going way too far.

Can you offer any evidence (or even theory/philosophy) the other way?

Duh!

Why would Earth be so uniquely special that we are the only planet capable of supporting life out of the uncountable billions upon billions in the universe?

Because that’s what we know. I seem to keep trotting this out, but I’ll do it again – see Occam’s Razor

Some look a bit like us

You’ve started bandying stuff around about statistics as if that actually means anything, but it’s pseudo science.

Erm.. no statistics is pretty fundamental to most science. See practically any scientific paper for a raft of statistics.

Duh!

I’ll take that as a no.

I seem to keep trotting this out, but I’ll do it again – see Occam’s Razor

Funny I was going to use that argument on you!

You see a herd of cows in a field. You’ve never seen a cow before, but you do know that there are billions of other fields just like this one.

Why would Occam’s Razor suggest that cows only exist in that field?
And why would it suggest that all the other fields are devoid of any life?

rightplacerighttime – Member
The difference between us is that when I’ve given my opinion, I’ve flagged it as my opinion.

You’ve started bandying stuff around about statistics as if that actually means anything, but it’s pseudo science.

Until the day that we actually do discover life, or something a bit more concrete than “some methane” then saying that it is “very likely” is just going way too far.

Blimey – get out of the bed on the wrong side?? Or were you abducted by aliens and holding some kind of pent-up anger towards your captors??

I’d say through probability and other blah blah stuff, there will undoubtedly be other life forms out there. Chances are they won’t be green versions of ourselves (like Star Trek), but there will be other life out there…..

Another straw man argument (quell surprise) – I’m not saying that statistics can’t be used in science, just that you are misusing statistical terms.

re’ Occam’s Razor, the (wrong) assumption that you are making is that there are billions of planets “just like earth”

Your field of cows analogy is wrong because we already know that there are lots of cows.

If I took you to the Louvre and showed you the Mona Lisa, would it be right to assume that there were loads of other Mona Lisas in art galleries around the world?

stumpy01

there will undoubtedly be other life forms out there

Sounds like blind faith to me.

GrahamS

I’ll take that as a no.

Why don’t you take it as scorn for your asking me to prove a -ve.

Or do we need to debate whether that is possible?

rightplacerighttime – OK, so the fact that we have found life where it wasn’t believed to be possible doesn’t actually increase the probability of life existing elsewhere (it will or it won’t exist regardless of what we’ve found), but it must increase our theoretical probability of that life existing. Eg. this discovery means that a previous constraint on the theoretical pre-conditions for life has been proved wrong, thereby expanding the range of planets that could possible be suitable for developing life and ipso facto expanding our theoretical possibility of such life existing.

There are (fact) billions of galaxies containing billions of stars existing over billions of years. What are the chances of at least one other planet orbiting one of those stars having suitable conditions for life to develop? Someone’s already posted Drake’s equation which is the current best guess of the existence of civilised life in one galaxy. Take the last couple of terms out of that and you have an equation that expresses the bare existence of life in our galaxy. Multiply that by the number of galaxies and there’s a pretty big number for you to consider.

Apologies if this reference to the scientific community’s current best practice is too overconfident and can’t be taken seriously.

Why don’t you take it as scorn for your asking me to prove a -ve.

That’s why I allowed you the leeway of theory or philosphy, but you seemed unable to take either without getting all frothy and angry.

If I took you to the Louvre and showed you the Mona Lisa, would it be right to assume that there were loads of other Mona Lisas in art galleries around the world?

No, but I wouldn’t reach that conclusion by applying Occam’s Razor.

re’ Occam’s Razor, the (wrong) assumption that you are making is that there are billions of planets “just like earth”

Because that is what the best scientific evidence we have says.
There are 50 billion planets in our galaxy alone, 50 million of which are in the habitable “goldilocks” zone.

And NASA bods reckon there are 100 billion galaxies!

re’ Occam’s Razor, the (wrong) assumption that you are making is that there are billions of planets “just like earth”

and the wrong assumption you are making is that life requires a planet ‘just like Earth’ to flourish……..

you have to ask the question, “If there are aliens, why dont we see them?”

In the large universe that we live in it is statistically impossible that “X” number of civilisations have not evolved and developed. The electromagnetic noise of these should be visible. The universe is however quiet.

I do not believe there are aliens, in fact i believe we are in a simulation

you have to ask the question, “If there are aliens, why dont we see them?”

In the large universe that we live in it is statistically impossible that “X” number of civilisations have not evolved and developed. The electromagnetic noise of these should be visible. The universe is however quiet.

“Space… is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is…”

As someone said earlier our own electromagnetic noise has barely made it out of our own solar system.
And we’ve only been listening for other civilisations for a few decades.

As we established yesterday…

They look like Elfin 😀

Are you talking about now?

Whats the odds there are other lifeforms – personally I think there must be somewhere, however if your question is have there ever been or will there ever be other lifeforms then that increases the odds massively in an infinity x infinity kind of a way

Or maybe it depends if God made them, or do other universes have their own imaginary friends?

Anyway I’m not the Alien (which is an in joke so not funny but I have a mate who is)