Nice try, but I didn't say that. I'm not suggesting it must exist in exactly two places. Again, nice try. I said if it exists in at least 2 places, I would agree it's likely it exists in trillions.
Actually, you said exactly that. You made up a quote for him about the possibility of god existing, and then said that that meant that he believed in something that could not be seen. If that's not what you meant you should correct your words, because it is most certainly what you said. What part of "no one" do you not understand? If I say no one suggests that, that includes you. I'm not sure who you'd be agreeing with on that. Anyway, the statement I was objecting to was "As I've repeatedly said, if we find a single cell that's not of this world, I would wholly accept the idea that life is prevalent virtually everywhere." There's actually a big difference between trillions of places and virtually everywhere. barfo
I replaced "life" with "God" in his sentence. You added words, like Faith. Which is interesting, because if believing in something you can't see, know, or prove, isn't Faith, what is it? Who else said anything about "in just two places?" You, and only you. It's up to science to provide proof or very strong evidence of its claims. Otherwise it's as much hooey as Religion. Get it?
It is faith. But, as I said, there is a difference between admitting the possibility of something, and believing in that something. There is a possibility that Paul Allen will leave the Blazers to me when he dies. However, I do not believe it will happen. I do not have faith that it will happen. It is merely a possibility. [A very small one]. You don't have a point here, do you? What claims are you talking about here? Be specific. barfo
Tada! Thank you. That life exists in at least two places (one earth, another anywhere else)... There are 8 planets and 166 moons in the solar system, or 174 places to look for life. Count pluto and it's moons and you have 178. Based upon what we have verified to date, the odds of life are 1:178. If you want to play that game.
Yes, believing in something you have no evidence exists is indeed faith. Unfortunately for your argument, science doesn't involve a belief in such things. Ok, where has science claimed that it is the case that life exists elsewhere? I think you are arguing against a strawman here. barfo
You are serving up softballs and strawmen. I never said Science claimed it has the case that life exists elsewhere, just that scientists act like it's a foregone conclusion without such evidence. Religious in nature, in fact. http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-04zv.html I believe that life exists beyond the Earth. I believe that intelligent life must exist somewhere in the vast universe of stars and galaxies. I recognize that there is, as yet, no evidence to support this belief of mine. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0331_030401_setishostak.html Aliens "Absolutely" Exist, SETI Astronomer Believes Many of the great hoaxes of the past 50 years have involved reports of UFOs, extraterrestrial visitors, and contact with distant space civilizations. Even on the week of April Fools' Day, however, Seth Shostak is seriously listening to the stars. As a senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, Shostak spends endless hours analyzing bursts of electronic noise drifting through the cosmos, captured by radio telescopes. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He and his colleagues have never found proof anyone…or anything… "up there" is trying to make contact. He readily accepts the jokes that shower down on his efforts. But when this smiling, easygoing man ambles into my studio, he is clearly out to make believers of us all. Tom Foreman: You believe something is out there? Seth Shostak: Oh, absolutely! The usual assumption is they're some sort of soft, squishy aliens like you see in the movies—just a little more advanced than we are so that we can find them. But the galaxy is two or three times that age, so there are going to be some societies out there that are millions of years, maybe more, beyond ours. So they may have proceeded beyond biology—maybe they've invented thinking machines and it could be that what we first find is something that's artificially constructed.
your statement "Due to evolution, life should exist EVERYWHERE (in the universe)" is confusing the concepts. you mean there isn't PROOF. there is plenty of evidence, starting with life on earth itself. going in circles here. the theoretical probabilities scientists come up with are based on evidence. you pulling a number out of thin air doesn't counter anything. i'm not espousing belief in anything other than the fact that the moon is lifeless isn't evidence that it's improbable life exists elsewhere. and your comparison is silly anyway. unlike the standard definition of "god" there is nothing intrinsically undetectable about other life. whether we are able to detect it or not depends on how far technology is able to progress. it is not a scientific crime to postulate something that is in principal provable in the future even though it might not be at present. also we know life CAN exist elsewhere because it does on earth, we know the elements of life are common wherever there are second generation or later stars, and we know there statistically have to be other earth-like planets, possiblity an enromous number of them. that is evidence. no such evidence exists for god. that's like saying if 1+ 1 =2 it should = 3, 4...n it's nonense. life can only exist where it can exist. we have no reason to expect it to exist where it can't : )
we aren't remotely close to "verifying" that life does not exist elsewhere in solar system. that's ludicrous.
bova is a sci fi writer. seth shostak is taking the word believe to mean he thinks the evidence statistically indicates the probability is close enough to 100% to effectively be 100%. he may be wrong about that as individual scientists frequently are, but it is still nothing like religious faith. was wondering how long it would take you to reference SETI. this whole arguement is really a political one to you, not scientific, which makes it tough to communicate.
You certainly strongly implied that it did: So what? There are scientists who believe in God, too. That doesn't say anything about science, just says something about those particular scientists. Ok, that guy sounds like a believer. So what? As the prophet Michael Jackson once said, "One bad apple don't spoil the whole bunch, girl". This one sounds a little more like an enthusiast than a man of faith, but even if he is a true believer, who gives a rat's ass, really. Like I say, there are hundreds if not thousands of scientists who have religious beliefs. That doesn't mean science claims god exists. You have to separate science from scientists. Scientists are arguably human and at times act like other humans. barfo
I am still not confusing the two, your protestations to the contrary withstanding. Life, ONCE IT EXISTS (abiogenesis), adapts to all sorts of harsh environments (evolution). If abiogenesis occurs, evolution should do its thing, as we see in nature here on earth. Those extremophiles are pretty good evidence that life would adapt to whatever conditions. That isn't evidence of life elsewhere. It's only evidence that under incredibly rare circumstances, life will spawn and evolve. Going around in circles... As barfo said, there's probability Paul Allen will give him the blazers, but the real chance is zero. To roughly quote Fermi, "Where is it?" There is nothing intrinsically undetectable about God, either. There are eye witnesses, and that's just the start of that road you don't want to go down. It's not nonsense. It debunks the rare earth theory. Given how robust life is on earth, there would be no reason to expect it not to be the same elsewhere. But only if it does exist elsewhere. I never said it would exist absolutely everywhere. The evidence is to the contrary - it doesn't exist on the moon, as you said. But as I said, there'd be no reason to expect life to be a result of the perfect storm.
How does SETI differ from any other scientific instrument? Is it also religion to be using the large hadron collider to look for the Higgs Boson? After all, you can't see or touch the Higgs Boson, and there's no evidence for it, just theoretical supposition. And if those religious fellows at CERN do find the Higgs Boson, will they suddenly become scientists? Or will they retroactively become scientists? Or will they continue to be on a religious quest, even though they have physical evidence? You seem deeply confused about the nature of science. It's ok to look for things that might turn out not to be there. It's ok to do experiments. It's even ok to fail. Science doesn't require scientists to be right about everything every time. You don't like SETI for some weird reason, I get it. But that doesn't mean it is a religion. barfo
life has to START before it can evolve. evolution (currently) says nothing about the probability of life STARTING elsewhere in the universe. you have been saying it does, freely interchanging the domains of evolution and abiogenesis. "incredibly rare circumstances" is your hypothesis, not fact. not many scientists would agree with you. unless you define him that way, which you certainly did to make your comparison. trying to set a new low for credibility level on scientific topics? your notion that the fact that the moon is lifeless indicates life is improbable everywhere else is beyond silly. you're insulting your own intelligence.
No, that's not correct. The chance is non-zero. It is very very small, but there is a difference between a very very small number and zero. barfo
again science doesn't have to "believe" there is life elsewhere to be validated in looking for it. they just have to think it's a reasonable probability, and they have good reason to think that. science happens to be in the business of theorizing about and exploring the unseen/unknown. you happen to have a politically-based problem with spending funds on that for some reason.
I've said no such thing. My only assumption is that IF life STARTs, evolution will kick in and just like on earth, life would flourish. Where is the freely interchanging of the domains here? The whole issue is whether it STARTs. Evolution is what will make it obvious that it was started at some point. Incredibly rare circumstances is all we have to go on. "Where is it?" I only equate God to this argument because you argue the unseeable and unknowable as if it's fact. So do those who aren't in the "not many scientists" category. So do religious people. No, just pointing out flimsy evidence that is as flimsy as "life exists elsewhere." My notion is that everywhere else we look is lifeless. The moon only indicates that IF we found life somewhere else, that it's not going to be everywhere, but it would be so common we'd be finding it most places we look. Life has to start, period. Once it does, it will evolve to live in Mono Lake, very high temperatures, frigid temperatures, pressures that would crush a man in a nanosecond, the poisonous atmosphere of the early earth, and so on. There's the evidence you find on earth that says "if life started on Mars, it would adapt."
