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Title: Are We Alone In the Universe? New Analysis Says Maybe
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.livescience.com/15222-universe-analysis.html
Published: Jul 26, 2011
Author: Natalie Wolchover, Life's Little Mysteri
Post Date: 2011-07-26 11:36:56 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 423
Comments: 24

Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found. A new analysis may crush their optimism.

To calculate the likelihood that they'll make radio contact with extraterrestrials, SETI scientists use what's known as the Drake Equation. Formulated in the 1960s by Frank Drake of the SETI Institute in California, it approximates the number of radio-transmitting civilizations in our galaxy at any one time by multiplying a string of factors: the number of stars, the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those that are habitable, the probability of life arising on such planets, its likelihood of becoming intelligent and so on.

The values of almost all these factors are highly speculative. Nonetheless, Drake and others have plugged in their best guesses, and estimate that there are about 10,000 tech-savvy civilizations in the galaxy currently sending signals our way — a number that has led some scientists to predict that we'll detect alien signals within two decades.

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Their optimism relies on one factor in particular: In the equation, the probability of life arising on suitably habitable planets (ones with water, rocky surfaces and atmospheres) is almost always taken to be 100 percent. As the reasoning goes, the same fundamental laws apply to the entire universe, and because those laws engendered the genesis of life on Earth — and relatively early in its history at that — they must readily spawn life elsewhere, too. As the Russian astrobiologist Andrei Finkelstein put it at a recent SETI press conference, "the genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms." [Read: What If Our Solar System Had Formed Somewhere Else?]

But in a new paper published on arXiv.org, astrophysicist David Spiegel at Princeton University and physicist Edwin Turner at the University of Tokyo argue that this thinking is dead wrong. Using a statistical method called Bayesian reasoning, they argue that the life here on Earth could be common, or it could be extremely rare — there's no reason to prefer one conclusion over the other. With their new analysis, Spiegel and Turner say they have erased the one Drake factor scientists felt confident about and replaced it with a question mark.

While it's true that life arose quickly on Earth (within the planet's first few hundred million years), the researchers point out that if it hadn't done so, there wouldn't have been enough time for intelligent life — humans — to have evolved. So, in effect, we're biased. It took at least 3.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth, and the only reason we're able to contemplate the likelihood of life today is that its evolution happened to get started early. This requisite good luck is entirely independent of the actual probability of life emerging on a habitable planet. [Read: Believers in Mysterious Planet Nibiru Await Earth's End]

"Although life began on this planet fairly soon after the Earth became habitable, this fact is consistent with … life being arbitrarily rare in the Universe," the authors state. In the paper, they prove this statement mathematically.

Their result doesn't mean we're alone — only that there's no reason to think otherwise. "[A] Bayesian enthusiast of extraterrestrial life should be significantly encouraged by the rapid appearance of life on the early Earth but cannot be highly confident on that basis," the authors conclude. Our own existence implies very little about how many other times life has arisen.

Two data points rather than just one would make all the difference, the researchers say. If life is found to have arisen independently on Mars, then scientists would be in a much better position to assert that, under the right conditions, the genesis of life is inevitable.

This article was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 19.

#6. To: Ada (#0)

Scientists engaged in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) work under the assumption that there is, in fact, intelligent life out there to be found.

How does mankind define "intelligent life" when we only think we understand such ideas?

You see, all mankind can search for is what we know here on Earth to be "life"; this means the only models that can be used are those of obvious characteristics that are commonly understood by the methods and practices we have. It doesn't mean we are intelligent though. And it doesn't mean there are not other characteristics of "life" that we do not know.

buckeroo  posted on  2011-07-26   12:35:52 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: buckeroo (#6)

How does mankind define "intelligent life" when we only think we understand such ideas?

We might wish to lower our standards to simply life. Earth is biologically friendly but we have yet to find another such planet.

Ada  posted on  2011-07-26   13:05:23 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Ada, buckeroo, chrisine, irishthatcherite (#8)

How does mankind define "intelligent life" when we only think we understand such ideas?

We might wish to lower our standards to simply life. Earth is biologically friendly but we have yet to find another such planet.

Life is ubiquitous. In every nook and cranny including some of the most inhospitable places on earth we find life - even in the permanent ice of Antarctica or the heat and dryness of the most barren desert. Life adapts, and survives.

The photos of Mars coming back from the European Space Agency, which seems to be slightly more honest than the manipulations presented by NASA, show large expanses of green. The green of chlorophyll and hence plant life of some kind - likely mosses and lichens.

Of course the question of life on other planets resolves if one accepts as valid, as I do, the photographs that have gotten out which show the signs of intelligent presence on the Moon and Mars.

Mars, from little we have been allowed to see, appears to have at one time had a heavier atmosphere and large shallow ocean basins. There is even one NASA photo that got out which shows the petrified form of an ancient type of shelled sea creature called a Crinoid.

As well are the large surface features which appear to be buildings and possibly even Arcologies.

Photos taken of the lunar surface appear to show large glass structures including what appear may have, at one time in the distant past, been domed cities (glass made in a vaccuum free of atmospheric defects is as strong as steel as a construction material).

Because we, on earth, have for a variety of cultural, religious, and now social control reasons developed prejudices which deny the possibility of life beyond our own little grain of sand on the galactic beach proves nothing other than that we are victims of those world views.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-07-26   13:32:45 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: Original_Intent, All, 4 (#11)

Because we, on earth, have for a variety of cultural, religious, and now social control reasons developed prejudices which deny the possibility of life beyond our own little grain of sand on the galactic beach proves nothing other than that we are victims of those world views.

We're not all victims, some of us have opened our eyes to the fraud of Christyinsanity.

When you look at world religions you'll find Hindus believe there are thousand of other planets that have intelligent life and the Buddhist don't care.

It's only the Abrahamic (christ/jew/moos) religions that insist that we're alone, and it's only the Abrahamic religions that can't get along with the rest of the world.

Flintlock  posted on  2011-07-26   17:48:29 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: Flintlock (#16)

We're not all victims, some of us have opened our eyes to the fraud of Christyinsanity.

While I would agree that Christianity has been, intentionally, warped beyond all recognition as it was at inception and now religion is nevertheless a potent force in society. Mostly it has been for good, but due to the warping by power crazed materialists (the "High Priests" and worshipers of wealth and power) it was become distorted. That even applies to Buddhism. Some sects have raised Buddha to the status of a "God" and yet that is exactly contrary to what he said himself i.e., that he was only a man who had been given some insight.

However, the spiritual side of existence is as real as the material, and without recognition of that then man is left floundering worshiping such insubstantial material idols as money and power.

Original_Intent  posted on  2011-07-26   18:16:38 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 19.

#21. To: Original_Intent (#19)

However, the spiritual side of existence is as real as the material, and without recognition of that then man is left floundering worshiping such insubstantial material idols as money and power.

To use a hackneyed phrase, if a majority of people were to realize that we are "spiritual beings having a human experience," the whole paradigm would shift so dramatically that the power and control systems would crash due to irrelevancy.

angK  posted on  2011-07-26 19:10:06 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: Original_Intent (#19)

religion is nevertheless a potent force in society

As it has always been.

That said, in time our current crop of gods will probably go the way of the rest (No disrespect to ODIN!!! of course) especially if ET life becomes a proven fact.

Flintlock  posted on  2011-07-26 19:55:20 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 19.

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