Does Alien Life Exist Poll

[pete_l]

But how many alien life forms would recognise us as intelligent life (and would they be right?)

[Arushin]

As another great man once said ...

"And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,

'Cause there's [removed word] all down here on Earth!"

Eric Idle, The Galaxy Song, Monty Pythons Meaning of Life.

Some great points raised in this thread... In my opinion it has to be option 1.

I'm not convinced it's coming here though... even if they could, why would they bother?

Unless they are worried about what will happen when we get out there.

[starlady]

I believe there are many forms of life out there in the universe, but the distances are so great that we will never meet them face to face ( if they have a face!).

We may encounter life in the Solar System, maybe on Mars or Europa, but they will probably be primitive.

[davew]

If i may ask.

1. Why is it scary or sad if we are infact alone ?

2. Are the words " Arrogant ", " Ignorant " and " Naive " an attempt to stiffle a contrary theory ?

Not meaning to offend anyone I assure you.

Dave.

[Luke]

Wow, it sounds like there is no hiding from ET? What an imaging set-up!:

"If hostile aliens can direct their battle rockets our way [not that they necessarily want to] - a distance of thousands of trillions of miles - then they can surely place some telescopes at a mere 0.02 light-years from their home. Doing so would allow them to use their own sun as a gravitational lens to study the cosmos. They would be able to trivially find our leakage signals, and even the street lights of our cities."

Seth Shostak: Don't Tell ET!

Personally, I think ET would be friendly, and would have had dark moments in its ancient history. Destroying a much more primitive race might be like going back in time and destroying itself?

Maybe I'm optimistic, but out of the tiny fraction of people on earth I've met, they're not a bad bunch! Hopefully one day we can get past the big problems, I guess we are going to need massive social changes and it won't be an easy ride, but hey, ya never know!

[Jamie]

I think you are right there Dave.

The afore mentioned words are commonly used to shore up someone's view on this subject and generally mean that if you openly disagree with the stated view then you must be " Arrogant ", " Ignorant " and " Naive "

Which generaly stops others openly expressing their view on the subject for fear of being labeled as such...

Nicely put Dave.....

[Photosbykev]

Personally I think there has to be significantly more advanced lifeforms out there and they probably don't even exist in any form we might like to consider or even imagine.

To call ourselves intelligent is, imo, extremely arrogant for a species that is destroying itself, the environment and every other species that it makes contact with.

[ollypenrice]

I believe that believing ourselves to be so special is one of the last surviving violations of the Copernican Principle. It is profoundly anthropocentric to think in this way. Obviously I don't KNOW there is life but it would strike me as devellish odd if there weren't...

Olly

[Jamie]

Oh cheers for that Olly.......

Now folk won't be confident enough to disagree with YOU for fear of being labeled a 15 letter word.....

[Ogri]

Perhaps more importantly, 'Do they taste like chicken?'

[Tim]

LOL @ Ogri

Before getting anywhere close to a realistic answer, you would need to define 'life', and you would need to have a demonstrable method for spontaneous production of life, as we know it, from non living materials. Then you could begin to estimate the odds perhaps.

For any form of life to be described as 'primitive' is pushing a point really, the processes involved in survival and reproduction of any living organism can hardly be described as basic, even bacteria have hugely complex systems within themselves.

As we stand at present, without empirical evidence of spontaneous life, and in the face of the evidence, which appears to lead toward the conclusion that actually, nothing comes from nothing, I would say that for life to be here at all, there HAS to be life of some shape or form elsewhere that wanted us here, and so No.1 is realistic.

Jamie's points are good, we have to be very careful not to bias the results of any poll artificially by presenting our own viewpoints in such a way that discourages others from sharing theirs. After all, it is only opinions.

Nice lively poll

TJ