Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

"Intelligent" life on Earth isn't all that common either.

Ain't nothin' in the Bible 'bout no aliens. Why do waste all this money on science? Let's buy more guns and bombs!

Submitter: going for the alien trifecta

And you got it!

/I got the other two

clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Assuming 100 billion stars in the galaxy (generally accepted estimate), and assuming a 0.1% chance of a star having an Earthlike planet orbiting it (pulled out of my ass), and assuming a 0.01% chance of intelligent life forming in a given epoch...

...there are currently 10,000 planets with intelligent life on them in the Milky Way.

We'll never FIND any of them because of the distances involved, but they're there, somewhere.

crypticsatellite:
And you got it!
/I got the other two

Woot!
/Hi-five.

dbirchall: Woot!
/Hi-five.

\m/

I don't see how anybody can think that there is no other life out there somewhere. Sadly, we most likely won't ever discover it due to the distances involved. I can't even imagine the sheer awesomeness of waking up one day to find out that we had established communications with some distant civilization. The world would never be the same.

What is it about April 13th that all the weirdos come out?

Lionel Mandrake: Ain't nothin' in the Bible 'bout no aliens. Why do waste all this money on science? Let's buy more guns and bombs!

Ezekiel saw the wheel, biatch! Elijah went up in a flaming chariot. Giants roamed the land. Cains wife appeared from nowhere. Voices spoke from the sky and a pillar of flame and clouds led Moses from Egypt almost to the promised land (he didn't get to go for discipline reasons.)


Seriously, the Bible is full of references that could be interpreted as alien visitation.

If aliens are so smart why do they live in igloos?

0.01% seems awful high.

I can almost guarantee you that there's intelligent life out there somewhere in the universe. However, since it would take a billion years at the speed of light to reach them, I'm not sure how practical communication would be.

clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Also referred to by its scientific name: The Drake Equation

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

Darkridr: Ezekiel saw the wheel, biatch!

Wow I had no idea that Dave Chapelle had written chapters in the Bible.

Didnt we already do this?

Carl Sagan.
Fallible human perceptions.
Logical fallacies.
Poor/no good evidence.
Interstellar distances.
Etc.
Etc.

austin_millbarge: Also referred to by its scientific name: The Drake Equation

Quack.

Question: "Why is the universe so large?"
Answer: "Because that how large it has to be before you get a creature capable of asking 'Why is the universe so large?'"

austin_millbarge: Darkridr: Ezekiel saw the wheel, biatch!

Wow I had no idea that Dave Chapelle had written chapters in the Bible.

Chapelle didn't invent cursing. He just made it immensely profitable. I'm sure Abel said something unkind when he saw the rock coming for him.

You know it is a little sad to think we are the only ones in this galaxy. That is a lot of empty space.

austin_millbarge: clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Also referred to by its scientific name: The Drake Equation

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



THIS Drake equation?

Drake equation... stupid carbocentrists

Jubeebee: and assuming a 0.1% chance of a star having an Earthlike planet orbiting it

Also this assumes you need an Earth-like planet to have life, which may or may not be true. If you allow for just the possibility of Earth's extremophiles exist to evolve into intelligent life, the numbers go up even more.

Just because something isn't habitable by us, doesn't mean it can't support other intelligent forms of life.

That's it, now I know you guys are just trolling for a certain stubborn farker

austin_millbarge: clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Also referred to by its scientific name: The Drake Equation

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

Yeah, not so much...

I used to teach astro 101 at a university, and the last lab of the year was always kinda the fun one where we'd ask kids to run the drake equation and talk about the results.

Everyone always thought we wanted them to be like 'whoa, theres a lot of people out there!' so they got tens of thousands of civillizations in our galaxy...

When I ran the numbers using 'reasonable' numbers, it comes to maybe 0.7 civillizations per galaxy of our size. Not to mention various other categories(ie, wheres the IR signature of an advanced civillization? where are the scientific probes in our own backyard?)

This isn't to say that I think we're alone in the universe. I firmly believe in life outside the galaxy. But advanced life, in our galaxy, within the last/next few tens of millions of years? I'm just not buying it...

But, as has been said, I WANT to believe...

Well based on some of the posts here so far, I'd say there may be NO INTELLIGENT LIFE in this galaxy.

austin_millbarge: clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Also referred to by its scientific name: The Drake Equation

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

Yep, and people have been pulling numbers out of their asses for most of the terms of that equation since the equation was plopped down. This is no different. Though admittedly we're starting to get clearer numbers for f_p and n_e.

The alien community frowns on your shenanigans.

burrgrinder: Just because something isn't habitable by us, doesn't mean it can't support other intelligent forms of life.

True, just look at Detroit.

...OK, bad example, but you get the point.

Death by Misadventure: If aliens are so smart why do they live in igloos?

along with wearing an onion on their belts, it was the style in the day.

In a recent paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia describes an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life as the result of a small number of discrete steps.

Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

Darkridr: Cains wife appeared from nowhere.

I never understood this. Why do people think the bible says this?

Bevets: In a recent paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia describes an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life as the result of a small number of discrete steps.

Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

ELVIS HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!

Jubeebee: clancifer: Even using the 0.01 to 0.04 percent chance of intelligent life forming, the sheer number of stars and planets in our galaxy means there could easily be millions, if not tens of millions (hell if not hundreds of millions) of planets with life, some of which will evolve to be "intelligent".

Assuming 100 billion stars in the galaxy (generally accepted estimate), and assuming a 0.1% chance of a star having an Earthlike planet orbiting it (pulled out of my ass), and assuming a 0.01% chance of intelligent life forming in a given epoch...

...there are currently 10,000 planets with intelligent life on them in the Milky Way.

We'll never FIND any of them because of the distances involved, but they're there, somewhere.

Heck, even if we could travel there, would they care? Might they be Xenophobic? Might they have already died off? Might they be completely different as far as chemical structure? They might be intelligent squid for all we know. Larry Niven wrote about this in one of his anthology books.

Stupid morons, make this assumption, make that assumption, and they call it SCIENCE!!!

Using radio communication to communicate with a civilization that could be 100 million years ahead of us is simply ludicrous.

And why would a civilization that has the technology to receive a radio message decades of lighyears away consider us worthy peers? They would probably be laughing their asses off!!

If we received a formal communication from bushmen in Kalahari written on a leaf with cow's blood, we would not consider them our peer and grant them respectable access to ourselves.

The drake equation isn't bad, but you can't even guess at the values of the parameters.

As if this thread couldn't possibly get any more stupid...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, HEEERRRREEE'SSSS BEVETS!

Professor Watson is making the logical mistake of assuming the ratio of vast emptiness to intelligence in the UK can be projected throughout the galaxy.

If this assumption was correct, why, the United States would have a dope-addict for president, a killer for first lady, a corporate felon for vice-president and 535+ conmen sitting in a room trying to divide billions of dollars worth of bribes.

Wait. What? Oh snap.

/Now, if Watson had left out the north of England, his assumption might have worked.

Probably the most important question facing humanity is where do we fit in the Universe? Is sentient technological life a unique occurrence? This question goes right to the heart of the purpose, meaning, and future of humanity.

If we can get a definitive answer, it will potentially change the entire course of human history. Ultimately, a definitive answer goes right to the heart of most of humanities non economic conflicts, especially the religion questions.

I have no clue, but I do believe one thing. Either intelligent life is either extremely common place, or unique. If intelligent life is unique to this planet, then we have as a species an incredible responsibility which we are not fulfilling.

Wooo! Bevets-bot is back, bring out the biatches and begin bombing down the beers, it's bout time to be bemused by the one, the only, big B!

/ Not drinking
// Yet

mathmonkey: Darkridr: Cains wife appeared from nowhere.

I never understood this. Why do people think the bible says this?

At first, their wives were all like "I wanna be in the bible". But then the men were all like:

Yay, Bevets is here!!

There is not that much intelligent life on this planet.

/the fact that American Idol is so highly watched should tell you that

Biologists, especially those who study evolution, have always been pessimists one how likely it was for a technological civilization to evolve from a planet with life. The scientists who figured that if an Earth-like planet existed that a technological civilization was likely are usually astronomers and other physical scientists. Ernst Mayr pointed this out in 1985. He cited George Gaylord Simpson with having similar views in 1964. He is clear that evolutionary biologists as a group are very skeptical about extraterrestrial intelligence and that the odds are so close to zero that they might as well be zero for all practical purposes. (I assume he is referring to ET intelligence in our Galaxy and thus close enough to be theoretically contacted and not to the universe as a whole.)

The consideration that the Sun will make things too hot in a billion years only takes out a bit under half the time availiable. No one thought it was likely that an Earth-like planet by an Sun-like star was likely to evolve intelligent life after the Red Giant stage of the star's life. Given the extreme uncertainties in the estimates of how likely for x to evolve, I don't see that changing from say ten billion year window to a 6 billion year window is all that significant.

Thus this story is: no news. Move along.

Torc: burrgrinder: Just because something isn't habitable by us, doesn't mean it can't support other intelligent forms of life.

True, just look at Detroit.

...OK, bad example, but you get the point.

I saw a UFO in Detroit. I'm a CPA.

Bevets: In a recent paper published in the journal Astrobiology, Professor Andrew Watson of the University of East Anglia describes an improved mathematical model for the evolution of intelligent life as the result of a small number of discrete steps.

Evolutionism is the tinfoil hat atheists wear to keep God out of their brainwaves.

Read more at Bevets.com. Be sure to buy your Bevets Piece of the True Cross, Bevets Brand Pre-Diluvian Healing Water, Bevets Combination Prayer Shawl and Shroud of Turin, Bucket o' Bevets Bacon Bits, and the old standard Bevets Picture Book of Talking Points.

That's Bevets.com. Where you can hang your brain on a hook and let others do your thinking--and talking--for you. After all, what's a brain but a counterweight for your feet.

Bevets, you're right, by the way. Once I started reading more on evolution(ism) I began to see some of the intrinsic flaws in the idea of God. So I guess, in many ways, it did act as a block to the brainwashing provided by the Christian church and its members, allowing me freedom to make a choice based on empirical evidence and testable observations rather than uninformed fear of the unknown.

Thanks evolutionism!

That Alien Planet show and the other one, Extraterrestrial, told me there are aliens.

robbiedo: If intelligent life is unique to this planet, then we have as a species an incredible responsibility which we are not fulfilling.

You will get into trouble with the scientific darwinian evolutionists for saying this. According to them "nothing" can easily change into "something" and that "something" can change further and become "something+" which can then finally emerge into highly intellegent beings.

_{/if here then everywhere
/wave hello to your intergalactic cousins next time you spot a UFO}

blkhwk86: What is it about April 13th that all the weirdos come out?

It's Thai New Year.
I thought only the trannies came out.