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The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that because of the intricate design and infrastructure of our planet, the amount of coincidences and circumstances that must occur together make life almost impossible."

I'm of this opinion -- I never knew it had the official title, "The Rare Earth" hypothesis, though. That being said, it would be incredibly fascinating to be wrong about this...

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Yup. I'm with Rappy on this one.

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The real problem isn't that we haven't "found" life elsewhere - it's that we've barely (literally) scratched the surface in our search for it elsewhere. There are oceans of liquid water on Europa, and strange discolorations it the ice sheets that may or may not be evidence of microbial activity; we don't know. We think, we imagine, and we speculate, but our minds are larger than our ability to put feet on the ground and take samples and really, REALLY *LOOK*.

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The thing that hacks me off is that I won't live long enough to see FTL drives and the exploration of the galaxy. Per the SF of the 1950s, we should be at least living on other planets within the Solar System by now. WTF happened?

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Of course it's big, that's why they call it... SPACE.

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*rimshot*

Ok, yeah, well we do have some suspicions about Gliese581 - and I'd like to see more research or even a probe launch using the DS1 engine, but I also suspect that any first contact with any civilization even remotely like ours will be a disaster cause our leaders are insane.

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Originally posted by Geezer:

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Originally posted by Kwicko:
Yup. I'm with Rappy on this one.

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Would you guys quit it. It's already 20 degrees here with a zero wind chill factor. Hell can't freeze much harder.


But, yeah. Given the size of the universe and the amazingly short time we've been looking (or even capable of looking), it's not surprising that we haven't found alien life. The distances alone make it improbable to find even radio signals limited to the speed of light.

It is, however, interesting that astronomers are now finding so-called "Cinderella" planets that are relatively like our own in mass and distance from the primary in other solar systems. Seems reasonable that if we can find such planets within the limited scope of our technology, that there must be a lot of them out there. Seems sort of arrogant to think we're the only game in town.

The thing that hacks me off is that I won't live long enough to see FTL drives and the exploration of the galaxy. Per the SF of the 1950s, we should be at least living on other planets within the Solar System by now. WTF happened?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Originally posted by kpo:

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The real problem isn't that we haven't "found" life elsewhere - it's that we've barely (literally) scratched the surface in our search for it elsewhere. There are oceans of liquid water on Europa, and strange discolorations it the ice sheets that may or may not be evidence of microbial activity; we don't know. We think, we imagine, and we speculate, but our minds are larger than our ability to put feet on the ground and take samples and really, REALLY *LOOK*.

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An interesting segment of this documentary I just watched was following some researchers looking at examples of life forms in very extreme places here on Earth, and one they've isolated that they think might be different to all other earth life as we know it in its fundamental building blocks - as in not related at all. It's from a very arsenic rich lake, in America I think. The scientist was quite excited about it, and said they were 'close to an announcement'.

So yeah, we just need to find that second example of life coming spontaneously into being, even on our own planet - and it proves that life must occur anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe (or on the thousands of Earth-like planets at least).

It's not personal. It's just war.

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