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To: Physicist
"Qualitatively, I see it in a completely unrelated thread"
Qualitatively I see it in the same category as the absence of non-endemic palms in Lord Howe Island. I capitalised the word "ONE" before, to show that.
But let's compare both facts quantitatively : Fact 1 - NO traces of non-endemic palms in Lord Howe
Fact 2 - NO traces of civilisations of other planets in Earth.
What is statistically more astonishing ?
208 posted on 05/26/2004 3:10:35 PM PDT by Truth666
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To: Truth666
Fact 1 - NO traces of non-endemic palms in Lord Howe

First, I don't think you have a clear idea of what "endemic" means. Second, considering the basic things you've gotten wrong on this thread, I won't take your word for it that there are no non-endemic palms on LHI. Please provide a source. Third, just because the LHI palms are not now found elsewhere, it doesn't mean that they didn't come from elsewhere in the past. Fourth, you've not presented any evidence that no existing species of palm elsewhere might have served as a parent stock to any given LHI palms. Fifth, you've given no indication of how different the LHI palms are from palms elsewhere. Sixth, you've presented no evidence that any of the palms (or rather, their ancestors) might have weathered the last ice age on LHI. Seventh, I thought you'd given up on the palms in favor of the coral.

Fact 2 - NO traces of civilisations of other planets in Earth.

That's very hard to parse; at least one preposition is poorly chosen. However, it seems you are referring to the Fermi problem: if alien civilizations exist, why haven't they already arrived here? My personal expectation is that civilizations don't last long. As their intelligence becomes ever greater, the timescales that are relevant to the civilization shrink to zero.

What is statistically more astonishing ?

I don't think either observation lends itself to any kind of statistical inference.

209 posted on 05/26/2004 5:37:39 PM PDT by Physicist
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