Stephen Hawking: Alien but primitive life likely

AP ^ | Apr 21 | SETH BORENSTEIN

[Aristotelian]

WASHINGTON - Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has been thinking a lot about the cosmic question, "Are we alone?" The answer is probably not, he says.

If there is life elsewhere in the universe, Hawking asks why haven't we stumbled onto some alien broadcasts in space, maybe something like "alien quiz shows?"

Hawking's comments were part of a lecture at George Washington University on Monday in honor of NASA's 50th anniversary. He theorized that there are possible answers to whether there is extraterrestrial life.

One option is that there likely isn't life elsewhere. Or maybe there is intelligent life elsewhere, but when it gets smart enough to send signals into space, it also is smart enough to make destructive nuclear weapons.

Hawking said he prefers the third option:

"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth."

[Aristotelian]

[BenLurkin]

"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare,"

One need only visit websites other than FR to see this is true.

[roaddog727]

Stephen Hawking bump

[Williams]

Is any of that particularly clever? Hawking should know the numbers well enough to know that picking up a signal from an advanced civilization is somewhat unlikely, but there are so many stars and galaxies and planets there almost certainly are advanced societies, and no reason to believe they all blow themselves up, just as we have not (yet).

[ZX12R]

One need only visit websites other than FR to see this is true.

DU is either at the primordial soup stage, or slightly advanced to the pond scum stage.

[Free ThinkerNY]

[Aristotelian]

I want the first words to come from outer space to be: “Have you heard of Jesus Christ?”

[ZX12R]

but there are so many stars and galaxies and planets there almost certainly are advanced societies

Until there is evidence otherwise, the possibility exists, that we are all there is.

[HerrBlucher]

If human beings evolved by chance via natural selection, and that chance was beyond 1 x 10 to the 65th power, I don’t care how big and old the universe is and how many stars and planets are out there, there is likely NO other life out there.

[HerrBlucher]

I want the first words to come from outer space to be: “Have you heard of Jesus Christ?”

LOL! That would absolutely crush every Athiest out there.....either that or they would Expel the alien.

[Rastus]

I once thought of writing a short story were the explorers found another planet that knew of Christ. I wonder if there are any good stories out there like that.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

There’s a time problem.

Signals within our galaxy could be over 50,000 years old & those from other galaxies would be millions or billions of years old. If we did receive a signal from the other side of the galaxy — the civilization could have died off tens of thousands of years ago.

[Aristotelian]

I recall reading something about a short story to that effect. Sorry, don’t recall any of the details.

[rbg81]

If you’ve read Arthur C. Clarke books like “2001” and “Childhoods End”, he provides perhaps the best answer to this that I’ve heard.

1. Some civilizations destroy themselves soon after becoming intelligent...or competing civilizations may destroy each other
2. Those that survive experience a very rapid acceleration of technical development. As a result, they may quickly find ways to become “god-like”—that is, exist in the Cosmos, first as indestructable machines then as part of some collective Overmind.
3. Because space is so vast, they only do limited exploring before they make the transition from flesh to something else.
4. The end result is there is a very small window from the time they are capable of communicating with a fellow civilization to when they loses all interest in communicating with “lesser” beings. While this time window may be large (1K - 100K years), it is still microscopic on the universe’s time scale.
5. The end results is that almost all maturing intelligent civilizations appear to be isolated and alone as they go through the maturation phase.

BTW—I am one of the few people not in awe of Stephen Hawkings.

[fso301]

Any Christian should believe in extraterrestrial life. From cover to cover, the bible describes highly advanced beings capable of moving through interstellar space and whose abode is not on this planet.

[Caramelgal]

I want the first words to come from outer space to be: “Have you heard of Jesus Christ?”

But if the next words to come from outer space are “Can I give a copy of the Watchtower?” then I’m crawling back into the primordial ooze.

[onewhowatches]

Hugh MacDiarmid wrote a poem in Scots dialect called “The Innumerable Christ” about a century ago.

The Innumerable Christ
(Other Stars may have their Bethlehem, and their Calvary too.)

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
The fatefu’ bairnies cry.

I’ mony an unco warl’ the nicht
The lift gaes black as pitch at noon,
An’ sideways on their chests the heids
O’ endless Christs roll doon.

An’ when the earth’s as cauld’s the mune
An’ a’ its folk are lang syne deid,
On coontless stars the Babe maun cry
An’ the Crucified maun bleed.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I've long thought that the greatest evidence for life elsewhere, is the incredibly low intelligence of people on Earth.

The universe is far too great and beautiful to have been made solely for the benefit of a planet full of retards.

[rbg81]

There is a good story like that in Ray Bradbury’s book “The Illustrated Man”.

[aft_lizard]

Hawkings is a anti-human nihilistic man who lets his personal biases pervade his opinion, he should stick to figuring out whether he is actually right or wrong on his black hole theories.