03-07-2004 11:49									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Dr Strangelove So far most of the planets discovered outside of our solar system have been huge, around Saturn sized, and having orbits as close in to their respective suns as Venus or Mercury. Based on that information alone I don't think that life is likely to be very common.

Please, rethink your argument.

I'm surprised that the poll shows 'relatively rare' as the main choice, yet most posts are optimistic about sentience within our own galaxy. I'd call that better than rare. Maybe well done and lightly seasoned.

And the post about 'It doesn't matter, we'll never meet them' has more meaning than that we, personally will never meet them. What with the speed of light barrier and expanding universe and dark energy and everything else, it's amazing we can reach up and touch our fingers to our noses.

I just read a great book on Cosmology and string theory. I have it right here....The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. O.k., it's not that great, but it's decent, and actually gets into some of the details, rather than the usual fru fru dross you find in 'popular literature'.

Me, I think we will meet other sentience. I think we will step beyond all the barriers, even lightspeed. And I agree that intelligence, once spawned, does increase the fitness of a species in many hypothetical situations. We are just on the edge (o.k., people in every generation say that about themselves) of that point in which our intelligence adds more and more to our fitness. I don't think we are fully there yet. Look at Pollution, the Cold War, and disease-by-overpopulation. No, we're not quite over the hump.

-Smack

	03-07-2004 12:00									#32
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Well, whats common?
Intelligent life on 1 in 10 systems?
1 in 1000?
1 in 1,000,000?
1 in 1,000,000,000?


The problem is with 100,000,000,000 stars in the milkyway, any of those could be considered "common", but to the average earthling, 1 in a million is not common.

Altough I would probably put it like this:
1 in 1,000,000 - Common
1 in 1,000,000,000 Rare
1 in 100,000,000,000 Very Rare
1 - Unique

Last edited by Blake on 03-07-2004 at 13:19

	03-07-2004 12:26									#33
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You should read this really excellent book

http://www.2think.org/aliens.shtml

(well - a mate of mine wrote it, but aside from my plugging it, it is a good read)

	03-07-2004 14:46									#34
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quote: There was a point in our (euro-centric) history where we though people of different race were mindless beasts

They sure changed our opinion of that three Septembers ago.

	03-07-2004 14:50									#35
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quote: Originally posted by Odin I am 75% sure there is life on Europa, but life there will never become intellegent.

Considering there's a number of posters here that don't even believe there's intelligent life in Europe, that seems very optimistic of you.

	03-07-2004 15:00									#36
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quote: So far most of the planets discovered outside of our solar system have been huge, around Saturn sized, and having orbits as close in to their respective suns as Venus or Mercury. Based on that information alone I don't think that life is likely to be very common.

But right now our technology is incapable of detecting planets smaller than gas giants IIRC.

	03-07-2004 15:13									#37
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The real problem with these kind of spectulation is that we only got one confirmed lifebringing planet in the universe. It's quite impossible to make some decent statistical predictions with a sample of 1.

	03-07-2004 15:15									#38
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"The real problem with these kind of spectulation is that we only got one confirmed lifebringing planet in the universe. It's quite impossible to make some decent statistical predictions with a sample of 1."

We only have a sample of 1 universe to analyse too..

	03-07-2004 15:21									#39
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Which really makes it perfect for a poll. After all, if there were cold hard facts about the prevalence of life in the universe speculation wouldn't be half so fun...

	03-07-2004 17:11									#40
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What's rare in context? Sentient life on one planet in a million? Sentient life in on galaxy in a million?

I believe the number of places with intelligent life represents a fairly low percentage of places with life. I base this primarily on the fact that one Earth, intelligent life* has arosen exactly once in several billion years of biological evolution.

* Intelligent life operationally defined as capable of interstellar communication; that's the only sort we can expect to contact for quite some time anyway.

	03-07-2004 17:12									#41
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I think you need to talk more philosophically in discussions like this.

	03-07-2004 17:16									#42
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More philosophically? As in using more long dashes?

	03-07-2004 18:16									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Darkstar Remember, intelligence lets species overcome drastic situations in their environment that they aren't equipped by genetic programming to defeat. So intelligence will always be a pro evolutionary force anywhere there is significant variation in the ecology.

Ehh, what about when species are so "intelligent" that they are so succesful at"overcoming drastic situations" that they eventually become extinct due to permanent and devestating ecological destruction (possibly due to overpopulation and or trying to change the enviornment to suit their genetic programming) or nuclear war? Intelligence is overrated.

	03-07-2004 18:27									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Ben Kenobi I don't see what your link has to do with the point.

It was about the blind spot which occurs as a result of the image flipping done by our eyes. Such a blind spot does not occur in squid eyes, because they don't need to flip the images. I don't know how I could have been clearer about it, since I was talking specifically about the blind spot when I referenced the link...

	03-07-2004 18:28									#45
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Has anyone commented on the irony of the title yet?

	03-07-2004 18:30									#46
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quote: Originally posted by Park Avenue We only have a sample of 1 universe to analyse too..

And how is this relevant?

	03-07-2004 18:55									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Blake Well, whats common? Intelligent life on 1 in 10 systems? 1 in 1000? 1 in 1,000,000? 1 in 1,000,000,000? The problem is with 100,000,000,000 stars in the milkyway, any of those could be considered "common", but to the average earthling, 1 in a million is not common. Altough I would probably put it like this: 1 in 1,000,000 - Common 1 in 1,000,000,000 Rare 1 in 100,000,000,000 Very Rare 1 - Unique

where does pretty damned rare fit into that?

	03-07-2004 19:01									#48
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quote: That doesn't count the need of a big, stailizing moon, Jupiter clearing out the asteroids, and most of all, the Sagans of the world forget that intelegence isn't the goal of evolution. I consider that equation a bunch of over-optimisstic crap.

The same equation can be outfitted with different wildcards, as I have done. 4 - 50 intelligent species (capable of intelligent communication across interstellar) in this galaxy is reasonable, excluding Earth of course, where we are not the only said species... dolphins for example and some other primates that can communicate and thus possible attain the characteristics to develop a civilisation capable of interstellar communication... seems to indicate the intelligence is not an evolutionary fluke. As for species building spaceships and zapping each other with lasers, that's most likely less common for several other reasons, though it would be idiotic to discount it.

quote: Are we talking intelligent as in dolphins frolicking in the sea or intelligent as in humans building New York and selling Big Macs?

In terms of what is the "better" intelligence, I'd say dolphins! In terms of intelligence according to the Drake equation, it's big macs all the way . Drake works on the idea that a species would be capable of interstellar communication.

	03-07-2004 19:48									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Dissident there isn't intelligent life on earth. Why would the universe have any?

	03-07-2004 20:05									#50
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy *Whips out Drake equation...*

With all due respect, Drakes equation is a crock of sh1t.

Most of the numbers you need to plug in are guesses

	03-07-2004 20:07									#51
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quote: Originally posted by Skanky Burns Has anyone commented on the irony of the title yet?

Spotted it straight away, I must be in a mellow mood today, I let it ride!

	03-07-2004 21:58									#52
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quote: Originally posted by Sava

'Twas neither creative nor funny the first time it was said...

	04-07-2004 01:59									#53
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quote: Originally posted by reds4ever With all due respect, Drakes equation is a crock of sh1t. Most of the numbers you need to plug in are guesses

BINGO!

There is a book where a lot of my ideas on ETs came from called Rare Earth. it is a good read on how lucky we really are compared to other possible living worlds. As I said before, Most life will probably be found in the Europas of the universe.

	04-07-2004 02:23									#54
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quote: Originally posted by reds4ever With all due respect, Drakes equation is a crock of sh1t. Most of the numbers you need to plug in are guesses

I thought the point was just to get thinking about the numbers, not to provide anything like a hypothesis. Without 'guessing' what kind of factors might come into play, how are we to search for answers?

-S

	04-07-2004 02:51									#55
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If we want our aliens we're gonna hafta seed the galaxy MoO style.

	04-07-2004 05:26									#56
	Re: Intelegent life in the Universe, how common is it? Get a bigger avatar today!

As you spelled 'intelligent' wrong in the title, you're probably not the most qualified to ask this question.

	04-07-2004 05:28									#57
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quote: Most of the numbers you need to plug in are guesses

Until we find better evidence though, guesswork based on guesswork is the best we can do

	04-07-2004 05:58									#58
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'you'd better hope there something up there,
cos theres bugger all down here on earth.'

Now you've put it that way, yes, you can have me liver.

	04-07-2004 07:16									#59
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy Until we find better evidence though, guesswork based on guesswork is the best we can do

The Drake Equation does not have enough variables. For example, Earths tilt is kept between 20 and 25 degrees because of Luna. The Erath-Moon system is the only case of a double planet in the Solar System (I don't consider Pluto a planet, it is the largest known Kuiper Belt object, technically). Without the Moon the Earth's axis will wobble around randomly between 0-90 degrees, preventing the evolution of complex life. The moon formed when a Mars-sized protoplanet collided with the proto-earth at a very off-center angle. the impactor's core and much of its mantle merged with the proto-earth. Vaporized chunks of the mantles of the earth and the impactor recoalesed to form the Moon. How likwly are such double planets in a star system's habitalble zone?

Onother trump card is the thickness of the stellar disc. If the desc is too thick and dense it will cause the planets to spiral inward untill the disc is cleared. this is carried to great extremes with the systems with "epistellar giants", gas giant planets that are closer to their star then Mercury is to the Sun. The only hope for such systems is if a Jovian planet with an earth-sized moon ends up in the star's habitable zone. There is one such planet known. HD177830 b is a 1.28 Jupiter mass planet orbiting the K0 (yellow-orange) star HD177830, located 192 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula. This planet is likely to be within its habitable zone. A moon found here could have liquid water and look similar to Earth.

	04-07-2004 07:37									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Whaleboy Until we find better evidence though, guesswork based on guesswork is the best we can do

Indeed guesswork is the best we can do at the moment, but to call it an 'equation' implies otherwise, don't you think?

'Drakes guess',while a more accurate description, does n't have the same ring of authority to it though?