Posted on 01/14/2005 2:19:11 PM PST by Las Vegas Dave
Decades ago, it was physicist Enrico Fermi who pondered the issue of extraterrestrial civilizations with fellow theorists over lunch, generating the famous quip: "Where are they?" That question later became central to debates about the cosmological census count of other star folk and possible extraterrestrial (ET) visitors from afar.
Fermis brooding on the topic was later labeled "Fermis paradox". It is a well-traveled tale from the 1950s when the scientist broached the subject in discussions with colleagues in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Thoughts regarding the probability of earthlike planets, the rise of highly advanced civilizations "out there", and interstellar travel -- these remain fodder for trying to respond to Fermis paradox even today.
Now a team of American scientists note that recent astrophysical discoveries suggest that we should find ourselves in the midst of one or more extraterrestrial civilizations. Moreover, they argue it is a mistake to reject all UFO reports since some evidence for the theoretically-predicted extraterrestrial visitors might just be found there.
The researchers make their proposal in the January/February 2005 issue of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS).
Curious situation
Pick up any good science magazine and youre sure to see the latest in head-scratching ideas about superstring theory, wormholes, or the stretching of spacetime itself. Meanwhile, extrasolar planetary detection is on the verge of becoming mundane.
"We are in the curious situation today that our best modern physics and astrophysics theories predict that we should be experiencing extraterrestrial visitation, yet any possible evidence of such lurking in the UFO phenomenon is scoffed at within our scientific community," contends astrophysicist Bernard Haisch.
Haisch along with physicists James Deardorff, Bruce Maccabee and Harold Puthoff make their case in the JBIS article: "Inflation-Theory Implications for Extraterrestrial Visitation".
The scientists point to two key discoveries made by Australian astronomers and reported last year that there is a "galactic habitable zone" in our Milky Way Galaxy. And more importantly that Earths own star, the Sun, is relatively young in comparison to the average star in this zone -- by as much as a billion years.
Therefore, the researchers explain in their JBIS article that an average alien civilization would be far more advanced and have long since discovered Earth. Additionally, other research work on the supposition underlying the Big Bang -- known as the theory of inflation -- shores up the prospect, they advise, that our world is immersed in a much larger extraterrestrial civilization.
Point-to-point distances
Given billion-year advanced physics, might not buzzing around the galaxy be possible?
Even today superstring theory hypothesizes other dimensions... which could be habitable Universes adjacent to our own, the researchers speculate. It might even be possible to get around the speed of light limit by moving in and out of these dimensions.
"What we have done is somewhat of a breakthrough," Haisch told SPACE.com. "We have pulled together various recent discoveries and theoretical issues that collectively point to the strong probability that we should be in the midst of one or more huge extraterrestrial civilizations," he said.
Haisch said that superstring dimensions and wormhole and spacetime stretching possibilities address the "can't get here from there" objection often argued in view of the interstellar, point-to-point distances involved. Also, diffusion models predict that even a single civilization could spread across the Galaxy in a tiny fraction of the age of the Galaxy - even at sub-light speeds, he said.
ET signature in the data
Can the scientific community bring itself to consider any evidence coming from mysterious sightings of strange things by the public?
In large measure, the scientific community seemingly has eyed ET visitation as far from being serious stuff to cogitate over. Why so?
"The dismissal has several causes, all reinforcing each other," Haisch responded. "Most of the observations are probably misinterpretations, delusions and hoaxes. I have seen people get confused by Venus or even Sirius when it is flashing colors low in the sky under the right conditions. Having been turned off by this, most scientists never bother to look any further, and so are simply blissfully ignorant that there may be more to it," he said.
Deardorff, the lead author of the JBIS article, points out in a press statement: "It would take some humility for the scientific community to suspend its judgment and take at least some of the high quality reports seriously enough to investigate but I hope we can bring ourselves to do that."
According to Haisch, there is a motivation not just for scientific tolerance of the UFO issue, but a strong scientific prediction that there ought to be some genuine ET signature in the data.
"This potentially changes the relationship of the UFO phenomenon to science in a significant way. It takes away the not invented here prejudice, pointing out that a yes to ET visitation is exactly what side our current physics and astrophysics theories would come down on as the most likely situation," Haisch concluded.
IMO, "alter" or "use" are more accurate descriptions of what we do to nature...I don't think we begin to actually control it, except in relatively minor ways.
Well, you can dance about what's unknown. I said "most likely" twice. Sheesh!
Don't get out of the cave much, do you?
The post-oil world will have few limits other than capital allocation on how much energy can be applied to a task. That means that creating a livable environment on other planets will become possible the moment we can apply enough capital to getting a large-enough power source on another planet.
The limits to human population growth are somewhere out at the limits of how many humans could be flung out beyond the solar system.
Our "environment" is anything our brains can envision and our machines can manipulate.
Can you please explain #3?
"It seems to me that people who think we are alone are the flat earthers of the 15th century."
Weren't most people in the 15th century flat earthers? They happened to be wrong, but they were in the majority. Flat earthers didn't become a minority until they were presented with some rather compelling evidence (Ferdinand Magellan comes to mind). Don't most people today think that we're not alone?
I haven't agreed with everything you've posted on this thread, but I love that statement...you ought to use it for a tagline.
A way of stating this is "Abscence of proof doesn't equal proof of abscence."
3. "It seems to me that people who think we are alone are the flat earthers of the 15th century."
>>I know what you mean, though I think you meant the 21st century.
***OK, now his statement is making more sense, assuming that's what he meant. Is that what you meant, Kevin Davis?
muir_ "Exactly. If one views the lights in the sky as time machines from our own distant future, one does less violence to physics than if one assumes they are ET's that have come from hundreds of light years away."
Quantum Teleportation FR thread
Apparently Information can move faster than the speed of light.
There is much about this universe we do not yet understand. Wonders and mysteries are waiting for to be found by those bold enough to dare.
I stand corrected.. I should have said the flat earthers of the 21st century..
Persians of the 12th century or even much earlier knew that earth was suspended in space--whether by being pulled equally in all directions or by being pushed equally in all directions was not known.
Thanks for your post. I don't really agree that the Drake equation is "pseudoscience masquerading as science." I think it is more along the lines of science venturing into inductive realms, which are traditionally more suitably described as philosophies or religions. It's not an attempt at masquerading as much as a way to generate useful results, but it can appear as a masquerade to those who double-check the initial assumptions.
The Drake equation was used to justify the SETI operation spending, and that's where it becomes a scientific and political question. Much of what goes into the equation reflects the biases of the individuals, and I agree with you that for the fl term, this is not science. But the Drake equation did strike me as an evenhanded approach to the issue.
The author of the article I cited seems to be the only one I could find who was operating within the triangle, i.e. he seemed to have no axes to grind. The Drake equation seems to have a large achilles heel, which is that fl element. When I survey the discussions taking place, I see the inputs for fl range from 10^211(or more) from creationists down to 10^6 or so from the evolutionists, and the figure of 10^125 was the only term reflecting the lack of an apparent agenda, except perhaps to spend money elsewhere, which is a legitimate approach. Note that even the creationist threads tend to push fl for the Drake equation back into a result which suggests we shouldn't be spending money on this operation.
To an engineer, it's astonishing to see significant figures bandied with so much flippancy. 200 orders of magnitude delta between 2 camps? That's not science, that's philosophy. And this scientism is on its way to becoming a religion, judging from the activism of its followers. To put it into perspective with my elephant/flea analogy, the elephant is the size of our Sun, the flea is 10^10 smaller -- about the weight of a molecule, and it is moving 5 inches per millenium rather than 5 miles per hour. There is NO WAY the flea's kinetic energy would disrupt the elephant, and we still have about 80 orders of magnitude remaining as an error bar.
It appears that we are more in agreement than we are in disagreement, perhaps just to a matter of degree.
"I don't buy this we are not ready crap..." Me neither.
I would add:
5. Babylon 5 -> There is a vast alien culture that we will stumble upon someday with differ levels and type of cultures, technologies, and motivations interacting in an environment defined on a cosmic scale. Sometimes we'll like the aliens, sometimes we won't. Sometimes they'll like each other, sometimes they won't.
Sometimes they'll want to eat us, and we'll hope we're poisonous... ;)
Of course that's just BS at the moment, but quantum physics does allow for such odd things to happen. We may never harness a worm hole or other statistical oddity but that doesn't mean we should count out such possibilities either.
I stand corrected.. I should have said the flat earthers of the 21st century..
***Very well, then. I am one of those who thinks we are alone, at least in this galaxy, on the basis of the best evidence available to us in the Drake equation (knowing its obvious faults as well). The flat earthers maintained their belief systems in contradistinction to the obvious physical evidence that was plainly available. Is there some kind of plainly available evidence that you'd like to cite that suggests the Drake Equation should be generating more than 100k planets of intelligent life? Keep in mind that the Drake Equation already tallies up the fact that there are billions & billions of stars out there.
There appears to be a lot of speculation on threads like these. Therefore I will venture into speculand and offer a view that we are the very first intelligent beings capable of extraplanetary travel in a relatively (geologically speaking) young universe. It will be up to us to colonize the galaxy, and thousands of years from now, our posterity will wonder what the "founding fathers" intended for the governments of their respective planets similar to how we shape our constitutionalist views on some of the available contextual literature of the time of our nation's founding. All of the moral choices we make now on this planet could be reflected in hundreds of generations across the galaxy. It's no better or worse than any of the other speculations I have seen.
If it is science venturing into more inductive realms, which are traditionally more described as philosophies or religions, then you have conceded my point that it is pseudoscience, and not science. I am of the old school who believes that science consists of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation is not testable and therefore is not science. It is important to make the distinction. Venturing off into philosophical or religious realms is fine. But it isn't science and shouldn't pretend to be. The Drake equation was used to justify SETI. The Drake equation cannot be tested and isn't science. SETI isn't science, it is religion. Faith is the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Bible or the Koran represent the word of God is a matter of faith. That doesn't speak to whether or not the belief is correct or not, just that it is a belief, not something that can be tested. Where we run into trouble as scientists and non-scientists is by trying to apply science to things which are untestable. We think by acknowledging that things are matters of faith that they are somehow less relevant, or conversely, by shrouding them in the trappings of science that they become more respectable to espouse. Similarly, the belief that there are other life forms in the universe is at present a belief, a matter of faith. There is not one shred of evidence for any other life forms and after 40 years of searching with SETI, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary basis to maintain this belief and therefore, SETI is a religion. Again, this doesn't deny the possibility that life exists elsewhere. BUT from a SCIENTIFIC view, the evidence to make that claim doesn't exist, and the Drake equation is useless in getting it. While it may be evenhanded, it is still completely unscientific and calling it an equation doesn't make it scientific. It remains purely speculation. That is my only objection. I personally believe that life probably does exist elsewhere, but I'm careful to express it as belief and not a scientific conclusion. This distinction may seem to be a lot of excitement about nothing. Who does it harm to present it as science? Directly no one, but by allowing such subject matter to presented as science we end up with other sloppy consensus science like global warming which uses computer models with as many, if not more unquantifiable variables as the evidence that it is occurring. The models are fine for speculative purposes, but nothing more. The actual evidence points very strongly against the so-called consensus that global warming is occurring and that it derives from human activity.
Well said.
As I stated earlier, "it appears that we are more in agreement than we are in disagreement, perhaps just to a matter of degree."
Pseudo means false. I don't think this is a good example of false science along the lines of L. Ron Hubbard. It is more of a "venturing off into philosophical or religious realms", which you say is fine.
About the only open issue is whether Quix would say you suffer from "Stubborn myopia, indeed."
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