Posted on 07/13/2018 9:42:03 AM PDT by Salvation
A new study has been issued from Oxford University that casts doubt on the notion that there is “intelligent” life in abundance elsewhere in the universe. More on that study in a moment.
Meanwhile, I have written from time to time on the question of whether there is other intelligent life in the universe. As a Catholic, I have no need for the answer to be yes or no; the Church does not teach on this one way or another. Neither do the Scriptures address the point directly or make any scientific declaration.
Generally, however, my own conclusion is that intelligent life and highly developed civilizations, like or more advanced than our own, are rare and perhaps even non-existent. I based this on past study of the matter.
Some have balked at my conclusion; and that is fine, it is only my conclusion, and provisional at best. I would easily abandon the conclusion if new evidence presented itself. But I have also discovered that many people who assume that intelligent and highly organized civilizations are out there, hold their view for largely or merely statistical premises. The thinking goes: in a universe of a billion trillion stars, chances are high, almost certain, that such life is out there.
But statistics are a funny thing. Simply looking at the number of stars and galaxies, sounds expansive in terms of possibilities. But statistics can cut both ways. For it is not just one or two things that make life possible on earth; there are hundreds, even thousands of factors which make life, and especially developed and diverse life, stably possible on earth to the degree that complex and technological civilizations could emerge. Multiplying these many factors together brings the statistical possibilities of advanced life substantially down.
I have written more on these factors (sometimes called “Rare Earth” Hypothesis) here: Earth is a Rare Jewel. But the essential point of the theory is that there are many factors that have made life possible on earth by providing a stable setting for life to arise and develop. Here are just some of the many:
It would appear that for complex life to be sustained, many factors must come together in just the right way.
In June, a team of researchers at the University of Oxford released a paper that casts doubts (but does not rule out) that intelligent life is “out there” in abundance. Here is a recently published summary of their research:
In 1950, while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicist Enrico Fermi famously exclaimed to his colleagues over lunch: “Where is everybody?”
He had been pondering the surprising lack of evidence of other life outside of our planet. In a universe that had been around for some 14 billion years, and in that time developed more than a billion trillion stars, Fermi reasoned there simply must be other intelligent civilizations out there. So where are they?
We still don’t know, and the Fermi paradox has only strengthened with time. Since the 1950s, humans have walked on the moon, sent a probe beyond our solar system, and even sent an electric sports car into orbit around the sun for fun. If we can go from rudimentary wooden tools to these feats of engineering in under a million years, surely there would have been ample opportunity in our 13.8 billion-year-old-universe for other civilizations to have progressed to a similar level—and far beyond—already?
And then, surely there would be some lingering radio signals or visual clues of their expansion reaching our telescopes. …
Now, a team of researchers at the University of Oxford brings a new perspective to this conundrum. In early June, Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, and Toby Ord of the Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) released a paper on the Fermi paradox—the discrepancy between our expected existence of alien signals and the universe’s apparent lack of them—once and for all.
Using fresh statistical methods, the paper re-asks the question “Are we alone?” and draws some groundbreaking conclusions: We Earthlings are not only likely to be the sole intelligence in the Milky Way, but there is about a 50 percent chance we are alone in the entire observable universe. …
Space is a large place, and the task of accurately estimating the likelihood of little green men isn’t exactly easy.
In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake proposed a formula that multiplied seven “parameters” together to estimate the number of detectable civilizations, N, we should expect within our galaxy at a given moment in time. …
The Drake equation was only intended as a rough tool to stimulate scientific discussion around the probability of extraterrestrial life. However, in the absence of any reasonable alternatives, it has remained astronomers’ only method of calculating the probability of extraterrestrial intelligence. This is problematic because while some parameters … are relatively well-known, others remain hugely uncertain. …
This enormous uncertainty leaves the Drake equation ultimately vulnerable to the optimism or pessimism of whoever wields it. And this is reflected in previous scientific papers whose results give values of N ranging anywhere from 10 to many billions. …
Sincere attempts to overcome this vulnerability have previously been made via selecting a handful of conservative, medium, and bullish best estimates for each parameter value and then taking an average across them.
In their new paper, titled “Dissolving the Fermi Paradox,” the FHI researchers dispute this method by demonstrating how this technique typically produces a value of N far higher than it should, creating the illusion of a paradox. …
[The researchers proposed a complex two-stage process of evaluating the Drake equation that] produced striking results: Based upon the current state of astrobiological knowledge, there’s a 53 to 99.6 percent chance we are the only civilization in this galaxy and a 39 to 85 percent chance we are the only one in the observable universe [*].
As you may imagine, there are many who find the conclusion of the authors problematic. I, too, wonder if their conclusion is too strong given the scientific method used. However, I still thing that Earth is a rare jewel! Indeed, there is something almost enchanted about our world.
Of this much I am happy: we are moving beyond simplistic theories that simply rely on the large size of the universe and its trillions of stars and looking more to the complex interactions required for life on Earth to exist as we know it. These are part of the statistical analysis we need to make as well, and they add a sober appreciation to what has made us what and who we are.
From a religious standpoint, my response to the details that make life on Earth what it is, are wonder and awe. The more we learn, the more we should be amazed; life is indeed a great mystery! As a believer, I am grateful to God and amazed at the subtle complexity of what He does. Our life here is not a common thing. It appears to be carefully, subtly, and consistently fostered and guarded. Earth is not common. It is quite special—perhaps even unique.
Truth Passes Through Three Stages: First, It Is Ridiculed. Second, It Is Violently Opposed. Third, It Is Accepted As Self-Evident. — Schopenhauer
We’re somewhere between two and three among the intelligentsia.
The only scripture I can recall is when Jesus states that. “I have sheep that are not of this fold.”
In my mind, without the benefit of having delved deeply into the original text, that could mean human believers that are not of the country or locale. It could mean heavenly beings like angels. It could even mean beings not from the Earth. Bottom line is, I readily admit that I do not know.
“As we look out into the Universe and identify the many accidents of physics and astronomy that have worked together to our benefit, it almost seems as if the Universe must in some sense have known that we were coming.”
- Freeman Dyson
Yet we will continue to be inundated constantly, even here on FreeRepublic, with new “science” reports claiming to have discovered another “earth-like” planet somewhere in the universe.
But almost always those reports contain findings of planets - light years away and observable only with far distant reading astronomical instruments - that the “scientists” and their reporters refer to as “earth-like” merely with barely one or two valiables that proximate such measures for earth - such as inhabiting a “habitable” zone of a star and the size of the planet.
But:
1. Orbiting a star with sufficient “metallicity,” necessary for the formation of terrestrial rather than gaseous planets?
2. Orbiting a star that is orbiting a “habitable zone” within a galaxy, and not closer to the center of a galaxy, where radiation and the presence of wandering planetoids make life there unlikely?
3. Orbiting a sun that is in a disk-shaped spiral galaxy rather than in an elliptical (spheroid) galaxy?. Spiral galaxies are thought to be the only type capable of supporting life.
4. Orbiting around a star in an almost perfect circle (like earth days) rather than the more common “eccentric” (elongated) ellipse? Steep elliptical orbits take a planet relatively close to and then relatively far from a sun, with great consequences for warmth and light. Earth’s stable, nearly circular orbit around the sun keeps our distance from it relatively constant, and hence the amount of heat and light does not vary tremendously.
5. Orbiting in a star system with outer massive gas planets (like Jupiter and Saturn) that can attract and catch many wandering asteroids and comets and generally keep them from hitting planets closer to the star (like with Earth)?
6. Orbiting in a solar system with asteroid belts that also keep a lot of destructive flying rock in a stable orbit and away from other planets?
7. A planet with a molten core that creates a magnetic field that holds radiation belts in place; belts that protect the surface of a planet (like Earth) from the most harmful rays of it’s star?
8. A planet with ongoing volcanism that plays a role in generating an atmosphere, and together with seismic and plate tectonic activity is cycling rich minerals widely?
9. Orbiting just the right kind of star, putting out a fairly steady amount of energy? Other types of stars are more variable in their output and this variance can utterly destroy life or cause it to be unsustainable due to the extremes.
10. A planet with a fairly rapid rotation (like erth) that reduces the daily variation in temperature and also makes photosynthesis viable because there is enough sunlight all over the planet?
11. A planet tilted on its just enough relative to its orbital plane to allow seasonal variations that help complex life, but not so tilted as to make those variations too extreme (like earth)?
12. A planet with a moon that causes tides that are just strong enough to permit tidal zones (a great breeding ground for diverse life) but not so severe as to destroy life?
Do these often “we found anothter ‘earth-like planet’ “ reports refer to what all really makes a planet “earth-like”?
No. They are all click bait seeking groupies from which they can tell their advertisers that their ads are worth it.
Libs never get pass the second stage
“And if there’s life on other planets, then I’m sure that he must know. And he’s been there once already, and has died to save their souls.”
- Larry Norman
It would be hard for me to imagine earth being the only planet capable of supporting life.
The way the scientists talk you would think they know the universe from a to z but i believe the truth is that they really know very little.
The Bible tells us that God has no beginning and no end, if we are the only ones who has ever been here then what has God been doing for eternity?
The Bible tells us that God is for the living which tells me that man has been living some where for much longer than what they have been here, they were most likely some where else.
I chuckle every time there is some breathless report that water might be on the Moon - or Mars!
'Cause it's generally believed that: water + "dirt" + solar energy + TIME = life
You'd expect it to look that way to life on that planet. Just as life on a different planet would think theirs was designed for their life. Reverse the cause and effect.
The article has a point about the MANY variables that all came together to allow the miracle of life to be created on Earth.
We truly are a unique.....like billions to one odds.
BUT the universe is frigging HUGE.
Life MUST exist elsewhere, if it happened here it happened there as well.
Intelligent life?
Just looked it up, 8.7 million species of life on Earth with only one being truly sentient.
that drops the odds a bit but again the universe is HUGE.
Do you believe that the universe was created in 6 literal days?
“Life MUST exist elsewhere, if it happened here it happened there as well.”
Must exist, did exist or will exist.
Yes.
If I may try,
The Bibles’ stated purpose of;
The Stars...to give light and
mark the seasons. —Gen.1:14-28.
The Earth...Created to be inhabited Only.
-—Is.45:18.
Other Sheep, but Not biological Entities
Gen.2:1——Luke2,24.
yup, time...how long have we been around, 300,000 years?
A drip in the ocean to how old the universe is and will survive until all the lights go out.
The most obvious definitions differ from each other:
"There was evening and morning" --- which is referenced Biblically after every verse describing Creation --- wouldn't quite work before the sun was created. This raises the question of what "evening and morning" meant with no sun.
"24-hour period" assumes, without warrant, that the earth's rotational period was always what it is now.
"A thousand years are as one day to the Lord, and one day as a thousand years" suggests that these may be very long, possibly indefinitely long, periods.
???
Please explain what this undefined period of time
has to do with the existence of other inhabited planets. I'm still interested.
Earth is uncommon, but it’s essentially impossible to prove that it’s unique in having intelligent life.
Now consider, the human world stands about midway between the infinitesimal and the immense . The size of our planet is near the geometric mean of the size of the known universe and the size of the atom. The mass of a human being is the geometric mean of the mass of the earth and the mass of a proton. A person contains about 1028 atoms, more atoms than there are stars in the universe. In our 150 pounds of protoplasm, in our three pounds of brain, there may be more operational organization than there is in the whole of the Andromeda Galaxy. The number of associations possible among our 10 billion neurons, and hence the number of thoughts humans can think, may exceed the number of atoms in the universe.
The sun orbits the galactic core at the speed of about 220 km/s and takes about 230 million years to make one revolution around the center of the Galaxy. If the Sun was to be scaled down to the size of a white blood cell, the Milky Way would be the size of the continental United States. Kilogram for kilogram, the human body generates 8000 times more power than the Sun. You have about 10 trillion cells in your body and the length of one uncoiled strand of human DNA is approximately 2 meters. The moon is only about 400,000 km away, so all your DNA would stretch to the moon and back almost 1500 times (to put that in perspective, all the planets in our Solar System can fit between the Earth and moon). To put in another way, the DNA in all your cells put together would be about twice the diameter of the Solar System.
The size of an atom is governed by the average location of its electrons. Nuclei are around 100,000 times smaller than the atoms they’re housed in. If the nucleus were the size of a peanut, the atom would be about the size of a baseball stadium. If we lost all the dead space inside our atoms, we would each be able to fit into a particle of lead dust, and the entire human race would fit into the volume of a sugar cube.
As you might guess, these spaced-out particles make up only a tiny portion of your mass. The protons and neutrons inside of an atom’s nucleus are each made up of three quarks. The mass of the quarks, which comes from their interaction with the Higgs field, accounts for just a few percent of the mass of a proton or neutron. Gluons, carriers of the strong nuclear force that holds these quarks together, are completely massless.
If your mass doesn’t come from the masses of these particles, where does it come from? Energy. Scientists believe that almost all of your body’s mass comes from the kinetic energy of the quarks and the binding energy of the gluons.
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