I think the reason people make fun over what McClain said is that she implied he felt it was more than just 'something unidentifiable in the sky'. Many people, when they see something they can't explain, adopt the automatic assumption that there is intelligence behind it.

My first thought upon hearing what she said was, "Man, sometimes your friends can be your worst enemies." I knew people would seize on that, but I didn't jump on the bandwagon. There was too much else to criticize Kucinich for without relying on that one.

I saw something I couldn't explain once too, but I didn't assume we were being visited. I wasn't the only one who saw it. After talking about it we came up with a pretty plausible explanation for what it was. (Although, one person was pretty stubborn refusing to believe it was natural phenomenon.)

"All of humanity's eggs (literally) are in one very fragile basket."

That quote brought this one to mind right away: "The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!" - Larry Niven

I was having dinner with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. They told me that the Fairy God Mother say a UFO and it was martians.

Sorry. Couldn't help it. Good post JT, but anytime I see articles of this kind, I wonder where the debate is and if there is one, why? ww

Just thought I'd share with you a compelling reason why life "out there" might NOT exist, in spite of how big the universe is.

Consider earth. In two billion years, it went from rock to teeming with life. BUT, most of that evolution actually occurred within about 300 million years, with life prior to that being basically stagnant. Nonetheless let's have...

Given #1: Life can progress of stray molecule to sentience in two million years.

Now, consider humans. In our history, we began a rapid progression technologically about, let's just round it to 30,000 years ago. So let's have...

Given #2: Intelligent life can go from discovering fire to space travel in 30,000 years.

Now, let's consider what the scientists tell us. These people are often knuckelheads (dark matter? All so we don't have to fix broken equations? C'mon) but let's take at face value their "age of the universe" and round it down so that...

Given #3: The universe is 13 billion years old.

And now, let's have a supposition. Let's suppose that in the next five thousand years, man will colonize the solar system, and in the next 30,000 years, man will colonize planets, so that (rounding up)...

Given #4: A sentient species can go from discovering fire to colonizing a large chunk of their local galactic neighborhood in 100,000 years.

So, with all these givens, there is enough time and space in the universe for, let's be scientific, bajillions of species to evolve, go forth, and completely conquer space.

They should be everywhere. We should see the traces of civilizations literally ALL over the place. Even if you assume that 99.99999% of sentient species would wipe themselves out or otherwise die off, there should still be endless civilizations that started evolution 10 billion years ago, 8 billion years ago, 5 billion years ago.

Just picture where we might be in 100,000 years... then picture how in a billion years, humankind would be scattered all over the galaxy, walling off stars, making gigantic artifacts.

Where are they?

Footnote: This assumes that the coal sack, the missing mass, exploding galaxies, and other galactic WTFs are not actually dyson spheres, tame black holes, or other supertech marvels. It also assumes that humans on earth are not a lost colony of a larger human species that is, in fact, literally everywhere.

Do the bacteria living on a Petri dish realize it when they are thrown into the trash heap?

Who is to say that Earth is not in the galactic trash heap?

Proof that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, is the fact they DON'T visit us.

Lost in the 'green' discussion is the fact that no matter how much plastic we recycle, no matter how many hydrogen cars we buy, no matter how high the gas-guzzler taxes are on those evil SUVs, no matter how many children the government insures...

...one day, this place will be uninhabitable, and if we do not have an executable plan to leave before that happens, we will cease to exist.

As a grade-schooler, learning about the moon landing, it never occurred to me that 30 years later we would have gotten almost no further.

The Drake equation is fun, but since we don't know how to fill in the variables with meaningful numbers, it can only be used for speculation at this point.

However large and awesome you think the universe is - God is bigger and more awesome. He SPOKE the universe into existence. I have no problem believing that Earth contains the only life in the universe. The conditions that allow life here are very exacting. Of course, life could take other forms beyond our comprehension, but I'll believe it when I see it. I am not talking about some crawly little organism either. I mean developed, intelligent beings. Show me.

P.S. The universe is not to show us how insignificant we are, but how great God is. When theologians throw around words like omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent - and one considers the awesomeness of the universe - you begin to get an inkling what they mean.

Also, I was pondering your use of the word "overkill." Do you really think so? If so, man is not getting the message, relative to his insignificance. Have you noticed the arrogance of "science" lately? Men are asserting that they know virtually everything there is to know about the universe from how it was created to how it will all end and everything in between. The pride and hubris of it all is utterly astounding.

Considering the sheer number of stars in the heavens (250 billion in our own galaxy, 70 sextillion (that's 70 with 21 zeroes after it) in the visible universe, and god only knows how many beyond that), the odds that only one of those planets has intelligent life are not only literally astronomically small, but represent an arrogance beyond comprehension.

I've never been much impressed with this argument. It's nothing more than a sophisticated version of "just gotta be." Is there life on other planets? Look how big the universe is! There just gotta be!

Not necessarily.

Consider the number 224,036,583-1. Now, you would think that, given this number's immense size, there would have to be a number that you could divide it by and get no remainder. After all, it's so huge, there would have to be such a number. I mean, what are the odds against it? Just gotta be!

But, you would be wrong. As it turns out, 224,036,583-1 is a prime number. In fact, it's the largest prime number ever found. So despite how enormous it is, there is in fact no smaller number that evenly divides it. Not one. The "just gotta be" line of reasoning fails.

That's why I think Drake's equation is based on a fallacious argument.

Argh. Apparently, the superscripting HTML tag doesn't work here, even though you can see it work ok in in the preview screen. The number I was using as an example should be 2**24,036,583-1 where 24,036,583 is the exponent.

Raptisoft: Lot of givens there. You're not taking into consideration the context here; the 'size' of the Universe and the possibility that there are few, if any, civilizations so much more advanced than ours that distance is not an issue.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is other intelligent life out there. The odds are just too great to ignore or brush off with 'givens' like this:

"Given #4: A sentient species can go from discovering fire to colonizing a large chunk of their local galactic neighborhood in 100,000 years."

First, a "local galactic neighborhood" is hardly "completely conquering space" and hardly a convincing reason against other life. Given the sheer size of space that is just a pin prick.

That no one has contacted us is not a testament to the fact that they don't exist. It's possible that there are intelligent species in our "local galactic neighborhood" that are progressing at the same rate we are and are faced with the same barriers we are.

With all this I'm just talking about intelligent life biologically capable of any space travel at all. To say there is no life at all is just way to much to assume.

OregonMuse: Do you believe in God?

At this point I have two negative votes for my first comment. I really like to know why someone felt it was bad or wrong.

Oyster: yes, very much so. Why do you ask?

Puny? Al Gore says we have teh powah to destroy a whole planet!

Best. Post. Evah.

Oyster, you only have one negative vote, not two. From a total of three votes, it takes two positive votes and one negative to return a value of +1.

Maybe Shirley stopped by and dinged you for misspelling MacLaine.

Oyster:
Still, there must has been, in 10 billion years of history, a race evolved enough in our galaxy alone, to create a galactic empire. Just saying "local neighborhoods aren't big enough" doesn't work with the immense amounts of time here. I mean, in a billion years, even if we never discover faster than light travel, would could colonize this galaxy a thousand times over.

And it's not just that nobody has contacted us-- where are the gigantic artifacts that such a civilization would create (at least one science fiction writer has written a story where red drawfs are actually dyson spheres).

Not only that, but even if all those civilizations spend only a few decades using radio for communication, the whole galaxy should be awash with the waves, all arriving at different times. I suppose it's BARELY possible that we're just in a radio hiatus, but not very likely, considering the numbers involved.

And if there's life anywhere, it will evolve intelligence. Every species on earth develops "space travel" independently-- microbes leaving the local mass is space travel to them. Amphibians going up onto land is space travel to them. You won't get very many planets that evolve life but never space travel. Again, this just comes down to numbers... you can't say the universe has billions of planets with life, and only ours gets into space. And if you don't say that, then it HAS to be that long ago someone-- someone whose species started evolving even two million years before ours-- colonized huge chunks of sky, and we should be detecting them.

OregonMuse, please don't take this as being rude because it is not my intent, but "There's just gotta be," right?

Drake's equation isn't a proof either way, while it's demonstrably proven that your number cannot be divided evenly. Once something is proven, odds are out the window. Until then, all possibilities are still on the table. The odds of other life being out there are incalculable because we can only guess how many galaxies and solar systems are out there. Drake's equation is probably an extremely conservative guess and it would be foolish to ignore it.

For the record, I too believe in "God". Just not in a conventional sense. I'd describe it if I could. I just don't have the words.

Senor Cardgage: I misread it. Thought it said -1. Had my mind out in space :)

Sorry Shirley!

There are other reasons to consider why advanced alien intelligences have, to our knowledge, not landed on the White House lawn...

1.) Physical limitations of space travel. It may be that no matter how advanced a species becomes, it is a physical impossibility to say "howdy" to our nearest (intelligent) neighbors.

2.) We are out in the burbs, and no one has bothered with us yet. We are like your Aunt Millicent who you know you should visit, but there's a good football game on.

3.) Any significant alien intelligence results in an inevitable "technological singularity", an event where the intelligent species develops a superior (relative to them) artificial intelligence that is capable of self-replication and evolution. That evolution takes place in computer-time, and may slingshot the species to an ultimate fate of either destruction, or even a doorway out of this plane of existence (so no aliens to visit us).

4.) We are being visited and observed by stealthy aliens already, but only catch glimpses of them randomly when they get lazy. Perhaps they are out-of-phase with our reality, and can be standing right next to you all the time. They don't interfere because we are a giant, blue-marbled petri dish.

5.) Relating to #3: If an intelligent society reaches a point of technological singularity, an offshoot could be that they wish to run powerful simulation experiments in a quest for knowledge that never ceases. We are that simulation. Red pill, or blue?

Raptisoft: We may yet find that we cannot physically travel great distances. Wormholes are a great theory, but physically practical? We don't know. We know little.

If we are considering the size of space we must also consider time. Even the age of the Universe is constantly adjusted. Radio waves? Could radio waves have already passed us by? Will we yet encounter them? I don't know. They have a long way to travel and they're not that fast. Frequencies and strengths vary.

You're implying that if there is life out there then it must exist at least elsewhere in our own galaxy. That we would have encountered something. We don't even know what we're looking for at this point. We're limited in our knowledge and ability. I'm saying that we may be the only ones in a hundred or thousands of nearby galaxies, but that the odds are infinitely great that there is someone out there somewhere. That's all.

I have considered all the things you bring up and I'm still a believer - because of the things that have 'yet' to be considered.

Raptisoft, one thing that tends to get overlooked is the confluence of time and space when it comes to observing distant objects. Say we're studying the star Arcturus, just to pick an example. Arcturus is one of our closer neighbors, just 36.7 light years away, meaning what we are seeing is how it looked 36.7 years ago. The farther the star, the longer back in time we're gazing.

Hell, it's noticeable on a local level. When we observe the sun, we see how it looked seven minutes ago.

Dang, I MEANT to include that in the main body...

J.

Drake's equation isn't a proof either way

It generally gets proffered as a reason for belief (in intelligent life elsewhere). My only point was to demonstrate that it offers considereably less than advertised.

Personally, I don't care one way or another how this question gets answered. i am thoroughly agnostic on the subject. It's just that there is no hard evidence that there is intelligent life elsewhere, and when I bring up this fact in any of the bull sessions I've been in, the believers usually bring up Drake's equation. That's really all they have.

Drake's equation is probably an extremely conservative guess and it would be foolish to ignore it.

Again, this is the "just gotta be" argument. Which only works if we know for a fact that we're not living in a universe that's the equivalent of a very large prime number.

Oyster;

Given that a species can go from non-sentience to colonizing the entire galaxy in just 10 or 20 Myears, the odds that another civilization is anywhere close to us in development in this galaxy that's 10,000 M years old is small.

As for physical travel being impossible between stars, all we're lacking right now is extended lifetimes. If we lived 10,000 years instead of 100, no one would doubt the possibility of interstellar travel. It's also very easy for artificial intelligences, so if you believe that's possible you have to accept the near inevitability of interstellar travel / colonization.

What I meant by saying, "Drake's equation is probably an extremely conservative guess and it would be foolish to ignore it," was in reference to the possible number of planets out there. Not the percentage of them likely to contain life. Just want to make that clearer.

Nevertheless, I'll stick with my "there's just gotta be!" :)

If life has evolved on this planet and was not created? where all the tweeners? still evolving missing links?
I know the Democratic candidates could qualify as knuckledragging neanderthals.. but cmon..

Wow. I'm impressed by your use of a quote from an Animaniacs song.

Should I be offended about being compared size-wise to Mickey Rooney?

Apparently I am wrong. There are a number of people who want to debate this issue. My bad. ww

Remember everyone, the white mice are running the show and the answer is 42.

And if the dolphins disappear, it's time to worry.

somebody removed my bigfoot post from #2
bigfoot discrimination

I knew bigfoot,and you sir,are no bigfoot