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.
And you can never confirm the current existence of life.
Suppose a radio telescope on earth receives a signal that says, “Hey, we have high hopes for your planet that just formed! Get back to us ASAP!”
That message was sent perhaps three billion years ago from a planet three billion light years away and we respond, “Guess what? Donald Trump was elected president!” They get that message, if they still exist in three billion years, and by the time they get back to us in six billion years. we will not exist.
It would be like a very slow AOL Chat Room.
Since there’s no evidence of that, there is plenty of doubt.
Perhaps more to the point; for how many of those years have humans had the ability to count past ten?
You don't have to go back very far, if at all, to find ridiculous things that humans believed.
If humanity lasts another 1000 years, we may then have a very different picture of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.
The Drake Equation perhaps needs some terms to reflect the limited capabilities of those who are using the equation.
f I may try,
The Bibles’ stated purpose of;
The Stars...to give light and
mark the seasons. —Gen.1:14-28.
First, peoples and religions before Christianity and Judaism used the stars to mark the growing seasons. To write this down is only to affirm what was happening before it was written down.
The Earth...Created to be inhabited Only.
-—Is.45:18.
Second, no the Earth was created to be a carnival ride in the Universe. It spins. It travels really really fast and occasionally there are bumps. Let’s not forget the ones who throw things at the Earth to knock down the milk bottles! /s
Other Sheep, but Not biological Entities
A corporation is an entity but is not biological, unless it is Monsanto, in that case, it seeks to destroy biological entities. Gitty up! Roundup.
Gen.2:1——Luke2,24.
f I may try,
The Bibles’ stated purpose of;
The Stars...to give light and
mark the seasons. —Gen.1:14-28.
First, peoples and religions before Christianity and Judaism used the stars to mark the growing seasons. To write this down is only to affirm what was happening before it was written down.
The Earth...Created to be inhabited Only.
-—Is.45:18.
Second, no the Earth was created to be a carnival ride in the Universe. It spins. It travels really really fast and occasionally there are bumps. Let’s not forget the ones who throw things at the Earth to knock down the milk bottles! /s
Other Sheep, but Not biological Entities
A corporation is an entity but is not biological, unless it is Monsanto, in that case, it seeks to destroy biological entities. Gitty up! Roundup.
Gen.2:1——Luke2,24.
I stand...
Well
Corrected?
I liked the Milkbottle thing!
No, it doesn’t.
Finding evidence of life in the universe is not impossible because there is no other life in the universe, it’s because we cannot observe current conditions other places in the universe.
The same can be said of Bigfoot or the lock ness monster. I’m not saying life does not exist on other worlds, but saying it MUST exist is no different than saying God MUST exist. In the absence of evidence, there is plenty of doubt.
Chances are far greater that life exists in the universe than the chances the Lockness Monster existing.
Yet there’s the same amount of evidence for the Lock Ness Monster since people claim to have seen both.
One of the most impressive lectures I remember from elementary physics was the description of how Maxwell's equations applied to electromagnetic waves derived a propagation velocity for the waves which somewhat unexpectedly turned out to be virtually indistinguishable from the speed of light. These calculations provided very convincing evidence that "light" was an electromagnetic wave.
In this article we are expected to believe that a rigorous calculation of the probability of finding other life in the universe is approximately 50%.
Think about that for a moment.
Imagine the coincidence of multiplying a dozen or so extremely large or extremely small probabilities together and just coincidentally getting a product which is anywhere near the value "1" (as is the case with a probability of 53%, for example).
If any of the factors making up the product were uncertain by a factor of 100, then that factor alone could cause the resulting product to vary from a low of 0.01 to a high of 100. I doubt very seriously that the combination of factors which make up the Drake Equation are sufficiently well known to ascertain that the probability of finding other life in the universe can be thought of as equivalent to a coin flip. It's much more likely that the incertainties in such a calculation would span many, many orders of magnitude.
There would be three possible outcomes I might expect.
One would be that there is a wide range of probabilities but that the entire range is one of very tiny numbers.
The second possible outcome is quite the opposite; that is, the entire range consists of very large numbers; indicating that the probability is almost certain.
The final possible outcome would be that the range of results goes from the very tiny to the very large; indicating that we are quite uncertain whether there is little chance of other life or whether there is almost certainly other life.
I’ve never believed in space aliens. After I became a Christian I doubled down on that belief because when you look at His creation no two things are alike: not leaves on a tree, not one blade of grass is like another, no two stars are duplicates, no two fingerprints are the same. So why would He duplicate our beautiful Earth? He’s not in the business of xeroxing anything including mankind.
From this I conclude the following:
Mormons have latched on to that statement as a means to justify Mormonism. However, Jesus is referring to Gentiles as the other sheep in this passage.
Seems like all this is based on the one example of life we know about, us. I mean we can extrapolate the conditions and parameters that allow our type of life to exist, but how can you then say with such assurance all life must have these conditions? We have exactly one example—no one can extrapolate much from one example and claim this must apply everywhere. It could very well apply everywhere, but no one can know for sure until and if we ever find other examples.
Freegards
Let’s add a bit to number 12...
“Our moon 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.”
Yes, but how much MORE unlikely is it that our moon is also precisely the right size and in an orbit that routinely places it at the precise distance between the surface of the Earth and the Sun such that we can just see bits of it in the cracks between moon mountains during full eclipses.
“The first or final piece of solar photosphere shining through the deepest valley on the Moon’s edge creates, with the ring band of the inner corona, the most spectacular of all eclipse phenomena: the diamond ring.”
Get back to me when
A. It can be shown, universally speaking, that that isn’t spectacularly rare.
or
B. We can engineer such conditions on a similar scale. (Go Space Force!)
In other news researchers prove that there are no Black Swans. I’m just sayin’.
24 hour days that are the same before the sun as they were after the sun. There is no point in the time being different before or after the sun.
Given that the universe is 6000 years old and the stars were all made as window dressings on the 4th day. In Revelation 6 the stars will be instantly turned into sparkles and fall to the earth because the earth is the center of creation.
Given these biblical truths there is no reason to think for one second that there is life on other planets.
However, the Pope doesn't seen to believe any of these things.
Even if we stipulated the above as facts, it would not constitute an argument against life on other planets. There's no logical connection.
BTW I don't have nearly enough knowledge to justify having a firm opinion one way or the other.
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