[KevinDavis]

No Comment...

[KevinDavis]

[marktwain]

Interesting parallels with the Christian worldview. Intelligent life as very rare (close to human as unique creation).

[Crazieman]

Its possible (rare earth) when you factor in star life, stability, metals, habitable zone, rotation, having a moon (tides might be critical), of course, atmosphere, chemical reactions, energy, etc etc.

[randog]

...complicated life in the universe is likely rare.

Didn't stop Cap'n Kirk from finding a dancing green chick.

[Leo Carpathian]

Give them huge grant and they will also figure out that there is no possibile to have any life on Earth. Too wobbly, dark at night, cold in the winter, Bush messing things up, SUVs, bla, bla

[Michael.SF.]

Just posing a question here:

Accepting that God created the heaven and the earth, one must also conclude he created all of the stars, many of which also have their own planetary systems. That being the case, why should we automatically conclude that God did not also create life forms on other planets?

[tlb]

I'm unclear how this rates a "barf" alert. After playing with the Drake's Equation for estimating the numbers of advanced civilizations in the galaxy, I lean to the same conclusion as in the article. We're probably alone.


http://www.seti.org/site/pp.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=179074

[A CA Guy]

I've heard of that life, they were from Chicago, were thought to be dead and voted all Democrat in the last few elections by mail.
Postage must have been hell.

[PhilipFreneau]

Why the barf?

[ryan71]

Watch the movie, "The Privileged Planet".

I think you'll all find it interesting.

[ridesthemiles]

Which "UW" is this??

[docbnj]

This posting gots lots of strong opinions on a subject we really know nothing about.

I wish intelligent life were more common on Earth.

[Mike Darancette]

In Rare Earth, a book the two co-authored, they say the conditions needed for complex life are so narrow that microbial life may be common, but complicated life in the universe is likely rare.

Seems they have given up on "time and chance".

[Kirkwood]

Billions and billions...

[BurbankKarl]

You must have a comment, Mr Triple Gaussian Shift.

[VOA]

UW biology professor Peter Ward and UW astronomy professor Donald Brownlee
believe discovering intelligent aliens on other planets is unlikely.

Either these two guys truly believe their theory...or they are some
of the stupidest academics to come down the pike.

If they cause one less grant to come into UW's astrobiology program...
they'll be treated like lepers at UW.
And probably every other university.

[SunkenCiv]

Ward and Brownlee -- greenhouse effect bandwagon riders (following Sagan) but also opposed to the idea of development of extraterrestrial intelligence (unlike Sagan). See my review (my Amazon handle is "Holy Olio").

---

Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Douglas Ward and Donald Brownlee

---

[Billthedrill]

You earthlings are fools. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[SunkenCiv]

a related(and possible pingworthy) topic:

Welsh university offers extraterrestrial degree
AFP/Yahoo | Wed Sep 28,12:27 PM ET
Posted on 09/29/2005 8:20:03 AM PDT by martin_fierro
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1493546/posts

[Drammach]

The Qualifier:

"Intelligent" Life.. Not stated in the headline.. Just "life"..

Big Difference..

While Intelligent Life may be very difficult to find, life may not be...
In fact, the simpler the life form, the easier to find..
As complexity rises, so will the rarity of such discovery..

As for suitable environments for life, there may very well be a number of such, each with it's own range of life conditions..
A crystalline life form may be possible, but only in a limited environmental range dictated by say, liquid hydrocarbons, like methane... and only within those temperature ranges where methane exists as a liquid..

Likewise, a more earth-freindly liquid water environment might encourage life, but due to high gravity and lack of land mass, the life may be aquatic, and surviving under extremely high atmospheric pressures, and under visual conditions that would mean nothing to human explorers..
Vision as we employ it may be a totally "alien" concept, with something akin to sonar being far more suitable..
Whether we would even be able to contact such life and have any sort of meaningful intercourse (dialogue) is questionable..
How does one converse with a being that uses none of our conventional means of communication??
Or a being that lives in an environment that requires a completely different set of rules for such concepts as engineering, community, authority, religion, morality?
Do they even have concepts or sciences that parrallel ours?
As it were, the philosophical discussions would be fascinating, to say the least..