Posted on 06/22/2016 12:51:26 PM PDT by Heartlander
There may never have been another intelligent, technologically advanced alien species in the entire history of the Universe. Last week, in the New York Times, scientist Adam Frank emphatically wrote that Yes, There Have Been Aliens, concluding that given all the potentially habitable worlds we know must be out there from our astrophysical discoveries, intelligent life must have arisen. What he fails to account for, however, is the magnitude of the unknowns that abiogenesis, evolution, long-term habitability and other factors bring into the equation. Although it’s true that there are an astronomical number of possibilities for intelligent, technologically advanced lifeforms, the huge uncertainties make it a very real possibility that humans are the only spacefaring aliens our Universe has ever known.
[SNIP]...But that’s where our optimism, if we’re being scientifically honest and scrupulous, ought to end. Because there are three big steps out there, in order to get a human-like civilization, that need to happen:
[SNIP]...And even if life does occur, how fortunate do you need to be to have it survive and thrive for billions of years? Would a catastrophic warming scenario, like Venus, be the norm? Or a catastrophic freezing scenario ...
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
You completely miss the point. If we evolved from an abiogenic starting place, it has happened hundreds of thousands or millions of times.
The only argument against it is the belief that God created us and intentionally did not create any other life anywhere else. And even that is weak, you cannot point me to a bible verse that says God created -only- one planet with life.
Goggle Gabon depleted uranium ore. You will find that, based on universally revealed laws of physics, God operated fission reactors in the ground there about 1.7 billion years ago.
Why would that be any different than our experience here on Earth? At what point did we progress from non-life to what we see around us today? Clearly, carbon-based life forms were not present when the Earth began to coalesce given the temperatures that were present at that time. So we must have made the progression and I see no reason to assume that out of trillions of other galaxies why we should assume that we are the only one that went through the process. Indeed, I think some planet likely went through the process billions of years before we did.
Only a fool would think that we are the only life in the universe.
Chemicals react the same all over the cosmos.
What we have here has sprung up in many, many places.
In any competition, the more aggressive are more likely to win, other things being more or less equal.
Lions prey upon antelope. Yet how does an antelope compete with the lion? It doesn’t, any more than a turnip competes with garden bugs. It competes with other antelope to avoid being eaten by the lion.
The lion also competes with other lion. Every organism within an ecological niche competes only with other organisms in that niche, not those outside it.
Any organism that evolved to intelligence would have to be fairly aggressive, both to obtain the scarce resources needed to develop and power a brain, and to be able to defend itself. Because there is only so many non-technological entities a planet can support before Malthusian situations will arise
I don’t know the answer, but I’ll ask the Lord when I get there.
I’ll post the answer on FR.
5.56mm
“You completely miss the point. If we evolved from an abiogenic starting place, it has happened hundreds of thousands or millions of times.”
How did I miss your point? I specifically pointed out that you are relying on assuming that abiogenesis is a given, when there is no scientific basis for making that assumption. Once it is clear that this assumption is NOT a given, the rest of your argument is unsupportable.
“The only argument against it is the belief that God created us and intentionally did not create any other life anywhere else.”
Nonsense, I didn’t mention God at all, you’re the one bringing up God. Your argument is flawed from its foundation on a scientific level.
“Why did you cancel Alf and Small Wonder?”
The Bible is literally a revelation of some of the significant boundary conditions the the Creator put on His creation. The Word literally holds the world together.
Get that old video, “To Serve Man”, then invite her over for
a viewing party. :o)
Get that old video, “To Serve Man”, then invite her over for
a viewing party. :o)
That argument is utterly short sighted. And even more fun, life like us has already happened, run its course, and gone extinct somewhere.... just as life on earth will someday.
At best we’ve been anything we would recognize as fellow human beings for between 100-200k years.
Life happened somewhere, went for a few hundred million years, then died off. Gone.
“Why would that be any different than our experience here on Earth? At what point did we progress from non-life to what we see around us today?”
If you could scientifically establish the answer to that question, you’d probably win a Nobel prize. As of yet no scientist has been able to do that though.
“So we must have made the progression...”
See, this is what is known as a non sequitur, because the conclusion does not follow from the preceding data. Just because there was a point where there was no life on Earth and now there is life doesn’t automatically lead to the conclusion that life sprang spontaneously from non-living material. Science cannot establish that it is even possible that such a thing could happen, and they also cannot rule out the other possibilities that might account for the origin of life. So as soon as you make this assumption, you have ceased to make a scientific, or even a logical argument.
“Any organism that evolved to intelligence would have to be fairly aggressive, both to obtain the scarce resources needed to develop and power a brain, and to be able to defend itself. Because there is only so many non-technological entities a planet can support before Malthusian situations will arise.”
Well, that’s how it seems to have happened here. But aren’t we then extrapolating from an example of one?
Freegards
There is also no science supporting a creator snapping life into existence with magic, OR an abiogenic start.
The fact is that neither point of view has an unassailable scientific explanation for the magic moment carbon based life began.
But if it began through an electrochemical process, the same conditions exist on millions of planets. You are being obtuse.
If one accepts that God created life on earth deliberately, and deliberately did not do so elsewhere. Then cool. But of course, at that point, trying to use science as your tool is.... awkward.
And I didn’t say you did mention God....moron. I said there are only two explanations. That somehow through some natural process, we sprang out of this environment. OR, that God created us.
And neither one precludes in any way life happening the same way somewhere else. If you know a third theory, id love to hear it.
“I specifically pointed out that you are relying on assuming that abiogenesis is a given,”
And I never said its a given. I said if life evolved from nothing, that it has happened again and again. Google the word “IF”.
And of course we are Gods creation...,.
Only if they seek God
There are an infinite “number” of intelligent species in our infinitely large universe.
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