Impact of finding extra-terrestrial life ?

[Stormwatch]

Unfortunately, I think the majority of people in the UK would be more interested in watching Jade Goody dying than the prospect of life elsewhere.

[Tiny]

If we do find we are not alone I hope they don't come to visit given what happened in America to the native population when the Europeans arrived.

If we did find I assume while the powers that be might outwardly welcome the news in private they would draw up plans assuming the folks out there were not friendly.

Equally I don't think we would be humans if we didn't distrust them. And if they said we come in peace - watch out.

[Rosanella]

Extraterrestrial life might already exist at the microorganism level. And if intelligent life does exist, as we normally define it when referring to the speces homo sapiens, it could well possibly be that it consists of humans (just one possibility) who fled Earth and know all too well the risks involved in living in a Terran culture that might still be too primitive to their standards. Would the extraterrestrial humans, therefore, really want any involvement with us ? I'm not so sure, or they'll would have contacted us by now, unless they've lost their bearings, of course.

...

However, dont you find that most people dont even LOOK at the sky, let alone give a fig about what goes on up there. As the articel mentions, they would rather spend time pursuing banal interests (facebook, soap operas, Big Brother, OK Magazine etc etc blah) than actually THINKING about things that might just matter. What a shame to be more interested in what wedding dress Jordan thinks Kerrie might think looks better on Coleen than it would on Jodie......

...

Very true. Families, schools and colleges should spend 20 minutes watching very inspiring talks like this one by Jill Tarter

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_tarter_s_call_to_join_the_seti_search.html

[calibos]

You've been watching too much Battlestar Galactica Rosanella!!

[thing]

On a wider note, discounting finding bacteria and stuff (Europa is looking good IMO) I tend towards the belief that life never really gets the chance to get too advanced before it wipes itself out/it's local Sun explodes etc etc. I mean it's taken half the lifetime of our Sun for us to crawl out of the sludge, and I reckon that we've had some massive strokes of luck along the way. What chance we develop inter stellar travel before our own Sun goes pop?

Even if we did manage to get out of the Solar System, whatever new star or star systems we inhabited would eventually go bang. We would be like a band of gypsies, forever searching for new suns. Then in the end the universe will contract/freeze out depending on point of view. Entropy will have it's way. So we're heading for annihilation one way or another whichever way you look at it.

Which didn't answer the original topic. I think most people would go 'Whooa, life found on another planet', then go down the pub and play darts. But by God, wouldn't the conspiracy guys have a field day? I don't know what conspiracy they would make out of it but they would. The Daily Mail would run a weeks worth of 'Why You Should Fear The Aliens, Little Green Man Claiming £60,000 a Week Benefits Out Of Your Taxes' and I bet some people really would by tinfoil anti radiation hats.

Brought to you by thing, cheering people up for 53 years........

[*Ian*]

I'm sure if aliens did exist they'd be so advanced technologically wise that they would have been here thousands of years ago. And then quickly left after finding nothing they couldn't get anywhere else.

[Tiny]

Just think. Out there there are probably aliens saying the same thing. Bet they stargaze too!

[Pip]

I think you'd end up with people in panic mode or chilled out.

Either way I think it would be interesting to find something else other than us numpties.

[beamer3.6m]

I don't think people would care to be honest unless we found aliens.

If we find moss on another planet or some microscopic thingy then I don't care either to be honest. It will make no difference to me or my life.

In fact, and I know that I am going to get shouted at here, but if we find the answer to the big bang and what was there before it blah blah blah I still won't really care to be honest.

I personally think that there are more important things to reaearch than what happended before time began. I know people will shout that by finding out that question we could prevent future problems etc etc but I think money and time would be better spent on things that will have a bearing on the earth today, right now, such as the cure of diseases like Altzimers and Cancer.

I think if the Hadron Collider funds had been spent on reasearch which would benefit the everyday folk then it may have been money better spent.

The problem with the human race is that we have no know everything, when we should really be trying to know the things that matter.

I await the abuse!

[John]

I await the abuse!

You should not get any - you are welcome to air your views just as much as the rest of us are and you've kept off faith and politics

It would be a strange world if we all saw things just the same way.

John

[Tiny]

Speaking of seeing I read somewhere that when a supernova happens astronomers see it whether they are human or not and on other worlds or not. We might be seeing the happening millions of years before or after them but it is one thing that if there is life out there at the same stage as us they might never know about us or we about them but we share the supernova.

[Psychobilly]

Beamer I happen to agree that "Big Science" is a horrendous waste of money... Almost as bad as bailing out the banks etc... that wall just keeps getting longer and longer...

I don't care how the universe got there ... how we got here ... if there are zillions of pairs of eyes looking back at us... just give me enough warning of when the next big impacts going to happen so I can have a hell of a big "we're all going to die" party...

The "universe" is good for one thing... a pretty neat backdrop for cloud images...

Billy...

[snowstar]

Wha kens on whatna Bethlehems

Earth twinkles like a star the nicht

An' whatna shepherds lift their heids

In its unearthly licht?

'Yont a' the stars oor een can see

An' farther than their lichts can fly,

I' mony an unco warl' the nicht unco warl' : strange world

The fatefu' bairnies cry.

I' mony an unco warl' the nicht

The lift gaes black as pitch at noon, lift : sky

An sideways on their chests the heids

O' endless Christs roll doon.

An' when the earth's as cauld's the moon

An' a' its folk are lang syne deid, lang syne : long since

On coontless stars the Babe maun cry

An' the Crucified maun bleed.

Written by Hugh Macdiarmid. If there is life in this and other nebulae, in some places at least will it not relate to the deepest and most profoundly human of what we know on earth - the beauty and the tragedy of this planet's story. I would like to think that it would not just be the endless repitition that is depicted here. But there is a haunting sense here that the The Universe just might be about something that can touch us as nearly as what is expressed in these words.

[Tiny]

Arthur C. Clarke said that God made the Universe and Satan made religion to stop us appreciating his wonders.