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."

[JRandomFreeper]

I've read a lot of SCI-FI where humans were the youngest race to enter the galactic discourse. What if WE are the old and ancient wise ones? Tag, we're it. Be smart and witty and capable.

/johnny/

[Psycho_Bunny]

You have no idea, at all, what the chances of evolution are. None.

No human mind can conceptualize the numbers involved.

[UnChained]

CS Lewis Science fiction trilogy:

Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength

[rbg81]

Of course, some advance societies may destroy themselves by massive physical destruction (e.g., nuclear war). Others may destroy themselves by embracing socialism and devolving back into the primordial ooze (e.g., like in “The Time Machine”).

[Aristotelian]

Milky Way–Andromeda Galaxy Collision
John Dubinski (University of Toronto)

Download
We live in the Milky Way Galaxy, a collection of gas, dust, and hundreds of billions of stars. About two million light years (20 billion billion kilometers) away lies the Andromeda Galaxy, a spiral galaxy similar in size and shape to our Milky Way. Current measurements suggest that, in about three billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies may collide. What will happen? The stars in the galaxies, our Sun included, will probably not hit each other, but the galaxies’ mutual gravity will probably pull, twist, and distort them until, about a billion years later, a new elliptical-shaped galaxy is born.

http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/movies/ava/G0601andmilwy.mpg

Video: 1016 kB, MPEG

[Aristotelian]

Why do Jehovah’s Witnesses always survive earthquakes?

Because their always standing in doorways.

[Enchante]

wow, I sure hope I’m not around in 3 billion years ‘cause I wouldn’t want to live through colliding galaxies

Al Gore had better hurry and mobilize humanity to deal with this threat

[JRandomFreeper]

Remind me in a billion years.

Please.

/johnny/

[Aristotelian]

Maybe the descendants of Adam and Eve where the pair didn't take a bite of forbidden fruit?

[BillT]

I am sure that they have been screaming at us for several decades now.

That being said, it will be a few million years before their screams reach us. It really is a big universe!

Evolution creates quick and deadly not intelligence.

[Drew68]

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.

I recently read where members of SETI have come to accept the depressing realization that radio waves disintegrate into white noise at about 2 light years.

[Reeses]

The evidence on Earth is that out of millions of life forms only an animal with a tribal-warfare making disposition has sufficient evolutionary pressure to develop an advanced intelligence. The simplest and most likely reason we can't detect advanced civilizations out there is because they have learned the hard way to hide.

[TheWasteLand]

The evidence on Earth is that out of millions of life forms only an animal with a tribal-warfare making disposition has sufficient evolutionary pressure to develop an advanced intelligence. The simplest and most likely reason we can't detect advanced civilizations out there is because they have learned the hard way to hide.

If what you say in the first sentence is true, it seems to me more likely that the reason we can't detect them is once they have reached a sufficiently advanced technological state to emit something we can detect, they annihilate themselves :)

[Reeses]

There is a digital radio technique that encodes bits of information into statistically chosen blocks of white noise. Unless you know what to look for the signal is indistinguishable. It’s not done for privacy but for operating in a noisy radio environment.

[Reeses]

I fear some physicist will accidentally stumble upon a way of inducing a microscopically small black hole. It will be all over for us within a fraction of a second. You won't feel a thing.

[HerrBlucher]

That wasn’t my number, it was a number calculated by an ID’r who was attempting to determine the likelyhood of all the circumstances coming together to create the first reproducing bug. Irreducible complexity and abiogenesis etc. That was for the first bug, getting to humans would be a a far larger number. I could find the source but somehow I don’t think it would satisfy you.

Yes, you can reject it, but can you offer an alternative?

Tornado + junkyard = 747 yeeeehawwwwww.....

[TheWasteLand]

Certainly possible. I was thinking of the more mundane possibility that for a species with a “tribal-warfare making disposition”, once it had developed advanced technology (to emit radio waves we could detect as well as create nuclear weapons), had a high probability of destroying itself in war, thus making the window of detection of said society very small.

[onedoug]

Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W Richards, The Privileged Planet

[kellyrae]

What if WE are the old and ancient wise ones?

That's my theory! For some reason it seems to annoy people though.

[DannyTN]

Scripture describes other creatures: Angels, and the living beings around God's throne. But they may be spiritual beings and not flesh and blood.

Scripture is silent on whether there is other life in the Universe.

I suspect there is not other life, but can't be certain. The reason is that the universe's end is described in scripture and corresponds with man's history.

A couple of possibilities exist:

• The end described could be figureative in some way and thereflore, less than the entire universe. But it descrives the heaven and earth being destroyed and a new heaven and earth being created.
• Other worlds could have their history and end coordinated with man's.