There HAS to be life on other planets..

[ReinyDays]

That is not true.

The only data point is that life evolved here on earth. We have no other data points.

If we could create life in a lab then we would at least know the conditions where chemistry could turn into biology. That could be another data point.

If we could find evidence of life, even microbial on Mars or another planet in the solar system, then we would have another data point.

If we wake up one day to alien visitors that would be a data point.

Until anything like those things happen we have nothing.

You said you took statistics in college ... so did I ... did you take any real math? ...

Is there life on Mars? ... yes or no ... true or false ... one or zero ...

Let's say no life there ... now we can calculate the odds of EXACT copies of humans on these two planets ... it's 1/2 ... throw in the Moon and we can calculate 1/3 ... and that's true, there a one in three chance on finding exact copies of humans on these planets/moons ... one in a million if we include all the objects on our solar system ... one in a million raised to the millionth power for the galaxy ...

Using the Drake equation ... N > 0 ... never equal ... one in a million raised to the million raised to the millionth power is still more than nothing ...

ToE says "once is enough" ...

 

[Flash]

You said you took statistics in college ... so did I ... did you take any real math? ...

Is there life on Mars? ... yes or no ... true or false ... one or zero ...

Let's say no life there ... now we can calculate the odds of EXACT copies of humans on these two planets ... it's 1/2 ... throw in the Moon and we can calculate 1/3 ... and that's true, there a one in three chance on finding exact copies of humans on these planets/moons ... one in a million if we include all the objects on our solar system ... one in a million raised to the millionth power for the galaxy ...

Using the Drake equation ... N > 0 ... never equal ... one in a million raised to the million raised to the millionth power is still more than nothing ...

ToE says "once is enough" ...

That is false statistics.

Because life on earth is dependent up factors that are not present on Mars, Venus, Mercury or any of the other planets as far as we know. The samples are not comparable. That is like saying there is a 50-50 chance that either a dog or a frog would have fur. The reality is that only the dog would have fur. You can look at ten trillion frogs and never find one with fur.

Now if we visit other planets and find life or evidence that life existed in the past then that changes everything. We can start quantifying the factors that produce life. Just being a rock planet in a habitable zone doesn't mean jackshit.

Like having the right temperature, water and carbon elements in a lab doesn't produce life. If it did then every Jr High science class in the world would be creating life. There are many other factors and even after decades of pretty high level research we can't reproduced the factors to create life.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Odds which are impossible to calculate from a sample size of one.

But which can be constrained to be negligible, in a finite universe.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

No, but it could affect another possible life form in how they develop, and in how their technology is formed, and in how they travel across space.

*in another region of space that could never affect us

 

[22lcidw]

Only life as we know it.

Don't assume our kind of life is the only possible kind

If the planets are somewhat alike, I would expect the lifeforms to be what we are used to even if the sentient and animal life looks different.

 

[Blues Man]

But which can be constrained to be negligible, in a finite universe.

Not really when that universe contain billions of galaxies, and trillions of stars and planets. You are still using a sample of 1 solar system

 

[Blues Man]

If the planets are somewhat alike, I would expect the lifeforms to be what we are used to even if the sentient and animal life looks different.

How big of an IF is that?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Not really when that universe contain billions of galaxies, and trillions of stars and planets. You are still using a sample of 1 solar system

Yes really, when determining odds of getting exactly the same life we have on earth. Same species, etc.

 

[alang1216]

What if WE are one of the “more and more rare complexities”? If that makes sense….

Makes perfect sense and that is exactly what I think we are. It took billions of years to get life to the stage of the complex cells we see today and probably another billion to the complexity of jellyfish. If you reserve the term 'intelligence' to mean only humans, we've been here for the blink of an eye.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Makes perfect sense and that is exactly what I think we are. It took billions of years to get life to the stage of the complex cells we see today and probably another billion to the complexity of jellyfish. If you reserve the term 'intelligence' to mean only humans, we've been here for the blink of an eye.

But even if something is vanishingly rare...

If you run 1 trillion trillion trials... you could still get many, many instances of that rare outcome.

 

[alang1216]

But even if something is vanishingly rare...

If you run 1 trillion trillion trials... you could still get many, many instances of that rare outcome.

Unfortunately we may never get an answer that question, certainly not in my lifetime.

 

[ReinyDays]

That is false statistics.

Because life on earth is dependent up factors that are not present on Mars, Venus, Mercury or any of the other planets as far as we know. The samples are not comparable. That is like saying there is a 50-50 chance that either a dog or a frog would have fur. The reality is that only the dog would have fur. You can look at ten trillion frogs and never find one with fur.

Now if we visit other planets and find life or evidence that life existed in the past then that changes everything. We can start quantifying the factors that produce life. Just being a rock planet in a habitable zone doesn't mean jackshit.

Like having the right temperature, water and carbon elements in a lab doesn't produce life. If it did then every Jr High science class in the world would be creating life. There are many other factors and even after decades of pretty high level research we can't reproduced the factors to create life.

Classic ... the OP is clear ... any planet ... there's no conditions on that specification ... you have to reduce the sample pool to "conditions exactly like Earth" for any of your points to be valid ... what next, must be metal rich G2 sub-dwarf star or something? ...

The OP is about any planet, and N > 0 in all cases ...

Look up "Fermi's Paradox" ... that's a lot better statement of what you're trying to say ... basically the same as Stephen Hawking asking "If time travel were possible, where are all the tourists?" ...

No life forms from the first half of Earth's history survived the Great Oxygen Catastrophe ... except the lil' blue-green algae that done did make the oxygen that killed everything else ... so how are you duplicating early Earth's conditions if no life has survive from then? ...

I'm not saying you're wrong ... I'm saying neither of us have proof ... if you're replacing my speculation with just another speculation, don't be screaming about speculations ...

 

[ReinyDays]

Unfortunately we may never get an answer that question, certainly not in my lifetime.

We may have the answer already stuck in some data bank ... NASA is asking for the public's help going through all the Kepler data ... maybe the one you find will have that magic N2/O2 atmosphere ...

Planet Hunters TESS - NASA Science

science.nasa.gov

"Exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system, orbiting stars beyond the Sun. You could discover the next one! Join the Planet Hunters TESS project, and you’ll learn how to read light curves - plots of light data from distant stars - to find telltale signals from orbiting exoplanets. Then you’ll examine data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission to begin your own search."

 

[alang1216]

We may have the answer already stuck in some data bank ... NASA is asking for the public's help going through all the Kepler data ... maybe the one you find will have that magic N2/O2 atmosphere ...

Planet Hunters TESS - NASA Science

science.nasa.gov

"Exoplanets are planets outside of our solar system, orbiting stars beyond the Sun. You could discover the next one! Join the Planet Hunters TESS project, and you’ll learn how to read light curves - plots of light data from distant stars - to find telltale signals from orbiting exoplanets. Then you’ll examine data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission to begin your own search."

I have no doubt that life is common in the universe, maybe even in our solar system but intelligent life is another matter entirely. Alas, no magic will reveal that. We've been looking for radio signals for decades and, so far, nothing.

 

[rightwinger]

I have no doubt that life is common in the universe, maybe even in our solar system but intelligent life is another matter entirely. Alas, no magic will reveal that. We've been looking for radio signals for decades and, so far, nothing.

Hard for a radio signal to maintain itself over hundreds of light years

 

[Flash]

Classic ... the OP is clear ... any planet ... there's no conditions on that specification ... you have to reduce the sample pool to "conditions exactly like Earth" for any of your points to be valid ... what next, must be metal rich G2 sub-dwarf star or something? ...

The OP is about any planet, and N > 0 in all cases ...

Look up "Fermi's Paradox" ... that's a lot better statement of what you're trying to say ... basically the same as Stephen Hawking asking "If time travel were possible, where are all the tourists?" ...

No life forms from the first half of Earth's history survived the Great Oxygen Catastrophe ... except the lil' blue-green algae that done did make the oxygen that killed everything else ... so how are you duplicating early Earth's conditions if no life has survive from then? ...

I'm not saying you're wrong ... I'm saying neither of us have proof ... if you're replacing my speculation with just another speculation, don't be screaming about speculations ...

The sample pool has to include planets with the same conditions that we know produced life. At this time the only life we know about would be one similar to earth.

It would be stupid to have a sample pool with the Moon, Pluto, Mercury or any gas planet. You could even include any planet orbiting a Red Dwarf because they are so variable. It is hard to have life when it is 70F one day and 700F the next day. By the way, most of the stars in the universe are cool and very variable Red Dwarfs. Our stable warm Yellow Dwarf star is in the minority.

Since we don't know what the factors are that created life on earth then we really don't know what the sample pool should be.

I posted a video earlier discussing the fact that of the 3K or so planets we have discovered none of them really fit the earth model. There were three possibilities but upon closer examination they were unsuitable. One of them they are not even sure is a planet.

Until we can create life in a lab so we know the conditions or until we find life or evidence of life elsewhere then we have nothing and any statements to the contrary is nothing more than half ass speculation.

"There just gotta be" doesn't hack it and has no scientific validity. The first video I posted discussed that fallacy in detail.

 

[Carl in Michigan]

And there are those of use who believe both in Creation and that the probability of sentient life existing elsewhere in the universe is so high that other beings almost have to be out there.

What EVIDENCE do you have for that belief

 

[ThisIsMe]

I do not believe the universe is infinite, because for that to be so, there would have to be an infinite number of humans like us.

But I think it is a certainty there is other life in the universe.

That’s kinda what I was getting at here. So many planets, so many galaxies…and yet earth is the only place all of this could have happened? Just seems improbable to me

 

[ThisIsMe]

The thing that atheists miss is preparing for the afterlife is also what makes for the best possible earthly life.
Love, humility, serving others, self-sacrifice, doing right.

Atheists can have all of those things.

 

[ThisIsMe]

The sample pool has to include planets with the same conditions that we know produced life. At this time the only life we know about would be one similar to earth.

It would be stupid to have a sample pool with the Moon, Pluto, Mercury or any gas planet. You could even include any planet orbiting a Red Dwarf because they are so variable. It is hard to have life when it is 70F one day and 700F the next day. By the way, most of the stars in the universe are cool and very variable Red Dwarfs. Our stable warm Yellow Dwarf star is in the minority.

Since we don't know what the factors are that created life on earth then we really don't know what the sample pool should be.

I posted a video earlier discussing the fact that of the 3K or so planets we have discovered none of them really fit the earth model. There were three possibilities but upon closer examination they were unsuitable. One of them they are not even sure is a planet.

Until we can create life in a lab so we know the conditions or until we find life or evidence of life elsewhere then we have nothing and any statements to the contrary is nothing more than half ass speculation.

"There just gotta be" doesn't hack it and has no scientific validity. The first video I posted discussed that fallacy in detail.

You do make a good point, about why it didn’t happen anywhere else in our solar system, but that doesn’t exclude it from happening in any number of other solar systems in galaxies. Out observable universe is 93 billion light years. Who knows how many trillions of light years the entire universe is.

so we’ve looked at 3000 planets, out of possible trillions. The number is actually unknown.

Hard to fathom that much space and that much time, and we’re the only ones in it.