Some people believe that there must be life elsewhere in the universe and that it couldn't have arisen only on our planet. This seems reasonable, if you consider how many stars and planets there must be. Others are just as sure that it can't exist — sometimes for religious reason, but sometimes not. It's often argued that life is so unlikely that no matter how many planets exist, ours is probably the only one where life exists. What do you think about it?
Of course, even if life does exist elsewhere, it might not be very evolved life. The most common forms of life on our own planet is very simple, like algae. So even if life is abundant in the universe, it might be an abundance of algae or lichen. It would be interesting to discover such life, but it's hardly the stuff of dramatic science fiction.
Sometimes belief is the existence of alien life is used by theists to argue that atheists believe in the existence of unknown, unprovable entities as well — but I'm not sure that the two are genuinely comparable. Even if an atheist had a strong desire that aliens exist and a strong belief in their existence, I've never known an atheist who wouldn't give up that belief if shown that it were self-contradictory or contradicted reality.
Moreover, such a belief is at best tangential to anything and everything else an atheist beliefs, thus rendering it far less important to an atheist's life than belief in a god is to a theist's life. Even in cases where an atheist's belief has a poor foundation, that belief itself does not then become a foundation for an entire way of life, morality, etc. If theists believed in the existence of gods in the same way that atheists believe in the existence of alien life, I doubt that there would be many arguments between then.
there is life out there.
through greater technologies we could view distant planets from earth.
there is extraterrestrial life out there.
I would have liked an option that just said yes. Extraterrestrial Life is so likely, but whether it is intelligent or not is harder to put a percentage on.
If earth is the only place intelligent life has ever arisen in the universe, SHOOT ME NOW PLEASE!!! This is IT?? So depressing indeed…
the fact is, no one knows if there is life on other planets. yeah, it seems likely, but speaking with any degree of certainty about it just seems really silly to me.
one of the things about being an atheist is being able to admit when you don’t know a thing, rather than making up an answer that fits into your worldview.
Question: When scientist’s search for intelligent life in the universe, why do they ALWAYS point their instruments AWAY from Earth????
What poeple think (read feel) about the existence of alien life is to me fairly irrelevant. If there is any eveidence for alien life should be the question we ask ourselves.
It is interesting to consider the function performed by (a) denying such a belief and (b) accepting such a belief. Acceptance seems to bother no one except monotheists – denial appears to benefit no one except monotheists.
In terms of probability – yes. Will we ever see the evidence? Probably not. I do know that the probability of hoaxes is certain.
It seems that almost every week scientist report some previously unknown life in the most humanly inhospitable locations. Life abounds in poisonous places like around ocean vents, beneath the arctic ice or microbes thousands of feet below the ocean floor. The burden of proof would seem to be shifting to the anti-ET crowd. How arrogant to presuppose Terran exclusivity on life. Arrogant and juvenile.
Since we have no direct evidence of life elsewhere we can only look at the probabilities. There are trillions of stars virtually uncountable and so trillions of planets. Sheer chance means there must be a lot of planets almost identical to the earth. So the conditions for life must exist elsewhere. Unless we believe in life as a special creation by an omnipotent being then there is no reason why life should not appear on other suitable planets. Since the study of evolution shows life develops naturally without divine guidance it seems reasonable to assume life exists on other planets.
Life probably exists other places in the universe. It may not be life like ours though. Life on Earth evolved to be compatible with Earth. Would life on another planet evolve and develop differently?
They just found a planet 4x Earth size in the Goldilocks zone.
They seem to have discovered ice of some sort on Mars. They seem to have discovered Earth like systems circling distant Sol like stars.
When are we going to mature enough to realize that there may be other islands besides our own? What kind of prescience will it take for mankind to be acknowledge that the universe is not flat and that sailing over the horizon of space will not result in a plunge off the edge of nothingness?
As John Hanks remarked earliar, the trouble is that though life is probably out there, what with there being litteraly trillions of trillions of planets, the odds of us ever seeing it is very very slim indeed. The vastness of the universe is difficult to comprehend, especially when you take in account the speed limit of the speed of light, even taking relativistic effects into account, its unlike any lifeform, be they hundreds of years above humanity in their technology, will ever build craft capable of travelling across the many light years to Earth, and that’s even if they knew where to look…
I agree with Bob, when one takes into account the number of other stars and solar systems the odds are clearly in favour of there being other life forms.
I suspect that were intelligent life to be discovered there would be a humongous effort to hide/deny it by the existing governments of the day.
I personally have no doubt and have never doubted that there is life in other planets or other universes. However, when someone says to me, he or she saw a flying soucer I become a sceptic. It invites the question for myself, what would it take for me to believe a flying saucer incident? I’m not sure. How would one prove it. Pictures? News reports? Actual material from the spacecraft? It seems like it’s all been tried before. D
I agree with most of the comments.As regards probability,it’s almost certain there is life out there,and that some of it would have evolved into what we would call”intelligent” life forms.That we should ever make contact,or even that they should be the least bit interested in us,is another matter.I think I’d steer clear of a planet like ours at the moment.
Given the size of the universe, there is life out there. Given the scale of the universe… we may never run into intelligent life.
I mean, it is four light years to the next nearest star. With our current tech and all concievable future tech that is a journey that would take decades, if not centuries…
If God created everything, then God created evil….case closed against any religious explanations for life.
I think life exists somewhere but we have many many years and maybe many many centuries between our meeting