Re: Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
capsulecorpjx
I don't think your implication that a given solar system with planets have around an 11% chance of having life is correct (due to Earth being 1/9 or 8 planets).
That's like me saying, that because I exist in my family of four, that means in any given family, there is a 25% chance of someone that looks like me, works as a software developer and went to UNC.
Here is why I think it's so rare for intelligent life:
1) It took 1 billion years to evolve the Eukaryotes, one requirement of which is the symbiotic absorbtion of the Mitochondria bacterium (no mitochondria, cells can't power efficiently enough to create multicellular).
2) Even on Earth, the only Family in the tree of life who has created organisms capable of real language, advanced tools and clothing (to adapt to climates) are Primates. This includes the Neanderthals and Humans.
There is no evidence of any previous civilization, nor of any other branches of Animals that come close to a true organized language.
3) Humans themselves almost died out at one point, seen by the ridiculously narrow genetic bottle neck just 10 or 15 thousand years ago.
So you throw all these things together. The chances of alien civilizations capable of Space Travel seems really really really dim.
One in a billion Galaxies might be generous, it could be as few as one in a thousand Universes.
You're missing a couple of things here. One: What part of our civilization is going to exist 65 million years from now? as far as we really know, velociraptors had cars. Also your "required for energy" may or may not be correct, but i am aware of bacteria that exist just on earth that get energy from three different sources. One uses photosynthesis. One gets thermal energy from heat vents on the ocean floor, and one gets it from eating other organics.
Also "it took a million years to evolve"...
it took a million years, on one single planet of millions, which also have each also had those same millions of years. How do those odds fall? Even if you look at straight probabability, you can't predict it. The odds could have been as good as fifty-fifty each single year earth developed life and it just never hit that side of the coin toss.
Re: Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?
In all truth, we aren't very adaptable at all. The most we differ is the length of our noses, depending on the temperature of the air. Aside from that, we manipulate the environment to suit us. Every other creature either adapts or moves. We change the rules. More like a virus than anything else...
Re: Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
timeshifter
In all truth, we aren't very adaptable at all. The most we differ is the length of our noses, depending on the temperature of the air. Aside from that, we manipulate the environment to suit us. Every other creature either adapts or moves. We change the rules. More like a virus than anything else...
agent Smith, is that you?
as far as adaptability, most mass extinctions in the past have happened not because of one change in the environment, but two. And we've lived through at least one mass extinction. Creatures are pretty well going to survive one climate change. It's when it is followed by a second change that they die off. scientists have theorized that genes have a certain amount of flexibility and the first change used up most of the flexibility available in a quick adaptation. This article elocutes better than i do:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29240524/
Just look at the evidence of your own body if you think you don't adapt. The very fact we stand up right is an adaptation to plains life. Then there's skin pigment which varies according to the latitude you live at due to different intensities in sun rays. We're even capable of adapting to aquatic life. Some people are already born with webbed hands and feet, your eyes have a vestigal 3rd eyelid that currently isn't used, and we have the same reflex in our physiology dolphins do that slows down our heart rate, etc when under water for extended periods. This is how divers can hold their breath for up to five minutes. Some scientists have even suggested the reason these things exist is that at one time in the past, we actually did live in water. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A730531
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/top...ating_membrane
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1182842
http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/hw019.htm
Re: Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximilian
I love the arrogance of people who need to feel special about being nothing more than slightly more organised monkeys
I'm not just slightly organized. :mad: I know exactly where everything is. :cool:
