'No evidence' for extraterrestrials, says White House,....

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by phlogistician, Nov 8, 2011.

  1. Reiku Banned Banned

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    11,238
    Do your calculation properly. In our galaxy alone, it should be teeming with life according to the Drake equation. No ''if's'' no ''but's''

    I have shown you are wrong, I cited you wrong. Appreciate you are just wrong in saying it shouldn't be.
     
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  3. Reiku Banned Banned

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    I almost barely appreciated your correction, if it is indee a correction. Goldilock planets have been rare to find because of our limited analysis. Not because they are rare in general.

    If you have statistics of planets in much greater degree, then I assure you, this only works in my favour, my backwards friend.
     
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  5. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Which doesn't do anything to support your assertion.

    The ISSUE isn't about Galaxy formation.

    It's about PLANET formation.

    Which you claimed starts 200 million years after the Big Bang.

    So you need to find a reference that rocky PLANETS, like the earth (not gas giants like Jupiter) started forming before 8 billion years after the big bang.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Big_Bang
     
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  7. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Why doesn't it support what I said? Your original arguement with me was that galaxy formations never occurred until about 8 billion years after big bang. I showed you were wrong.

    So please, logic state!
     
  8. Reiku Banned Banned

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    11,238
    Also, planets would have been formed in a stable galaxy. I've never heard of stable star galaxies?
     
  9. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    No you haven't cited anything to indicate based on any SCIENCE that our Galaxy should be teeming with life.

    The Drake Equation is simply a formula it makes no predictions.

    Now according to Wiki these are the best current estimates for the parameters of the Drake equation.

    R* = 7/year
    fp = 0.5
    ne = 2
    fl = 0.33
    fi = 0.01
    fc = 0.01
    L = 10000 years

    result in

    N = 7 × 0.5 × 2 × 0.33 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10000 = 2.31

    Hardly TEEMING, and as I've already posted, ne = 2 appears to be VASTLY over stated, indeed, the number remains at 0 and based on Kepler is looking to be more like .2, which would drop the final number to .46, or LESS than 1 other in our Galaxy.

    No, not teeming at all, in fact, slightly better odds at not having another intelligent life than having even one.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation



    ps feel free to update Wiki with your insights
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2011
  10. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    Again with your sucky reading comprehension.

    I wrote:

    The discussion is about PLANET FORMATION not Galaxy formation

    Rocky planets that could sustain life specifically.
     
  11. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,829
    EVENTUALLY

    But it takes time.

    A lot of it to create the elements necessary for the formation of Rocky planets that could sustain life.
     
  12. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    7,829
    Why do you make this assertion when so far there is still no proof?

    It may turn out that they are not rare, but at this time we simply don't know.
     
  13. ReikuMeister Banned Banned

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    11
    Ok we will leave it at that. I feel a bit of a jerk towards you now.
     
  14. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    7,829
    The way Kepler works, we can first detect mostly planets that make rather rapid orbits around their sun. Thus our current list of planets has few in the habitable zone because fast orbits mean they orbit very close to their sun.

    It's likely to take another year of mashing the data from Kepler to start to answer the question about how common rocky planets in the GLZ are.

    You might have noticed that the first two earth size rocky planets were just found, but both of them are way too hot for life.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2.../20/planets-earth-like-exoplanet-solar-system
     
  15. sing Banned Banned

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    4
    Yeh, guys, I felt sorry towards how I acted on a different issue. But that issue is now invalid, and ADOUCETTE is complely wrong. The Drake Equations predicts millions of life forms in our galaxy alone.

    Ask any reputable scientist.
     
  16. river

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    17,307
    just look through all our ancient history and recent history from BCE O to now

    there is lots of evidence
     
  17. Reiku Banned Banned

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    11,238
    I agree there is much evidence we may study from art and even up to more recent times tantalizing forensic evidence can also back up many incidents which has allegedly occurred.

    We will know the truth one day. Even if I am wrong, I'd say it was a wonderful mystery.
     
  18. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    2,274
    @sing --

    And there are billions, if not more, on this one planet alone. That would more than account(by an order of magnitude) for all of the life that the Drake Equation predicts.

    To put it bluntly and concisely, we simply do not know at this current time. Anyone who claims otherwise who does not put forward some damn compelling evidence is a liar, plain and simple. We just don't have the data necessary to even guess at the moment as we still have only a very rudimentary understanding of abiogenesis, which is one of the most important things to consider here, not simply the possible number of habitable planets(nor should we assume, blindly at that, that those habitable planets out there are or were inhabited).

    Funny you should suggest that, because I did, one with quite a few discoveries under her belt who's currently working at a rather prestigious university. I hope that meets your requirements for what counts as a "reputable" scientist.

    The funny thing is though, she basically told me what Adoucette has been telling you, that we just plain don't know. Maybe she just hasn't kept up with the news though and she just doesn't know, but that doesn't seem too likely as she's a microbiologist who's been keeping up with the abiogenesis research(you know, that research that is more central to this question than any other at the moment?). Still, you could be right, and I suppose I should choose fairly between you two....

    Never mind, what was I thinking, I'll side with the scientists. They have a rather good and rather well documented tendency to get things right.

    @Mister --

    Yes, because artistic license didn't exist back then, and all of the so-called forensic evidence you've shown us so far has been either of suspect sources or turned out to be a complete lack of empirical evidence. I don't think I'll hold my breath waiting for you to prove yourself right, there are much more interesting problems for my mind to ponder.
     
  19. Reiku Banned Banned

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    11,238
    I have no idea who you have talked to, but either he/she is unclear or you have picked them up wrong. For instance, only an incorrect application of the drake equation could yield what you have said above.

    Secondly, we don't know because we haven't searched the stars. How could we know? Bottom line if, for the last time again, the Drake equation predicts millions of lifeforms in our milky way alone. We don't know for sure, but that is not the point. The point was the question of whether the drake equation predicted this or not.
     
  20. Telemachus Rex Protesting Mod Stupidity Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    249
    I think the salient point is that the Drake equation has terms that we have no ability to estimate. We can make guesses, but not informed estimates. Those who think they are making educated guesses with respect to some of Drake's terms are wrong, or at the very least are using the existence of life on Earth as their sole guide and extrapolating from there. To the best of our knowledge though, we know of only one time life evolved, one time that multicellular life evolved, and one time that a technological civilization developed.

    We also know of one time a person fell 33,000 feet without a parachute and survived (Vesna Vulovic), and surely we wouldn't extrapolate from that data point if we were modeling the dangers of falling from great heights. Exceptional events do occur.

    People who make estimates of those parameters are working based on the philosophical, not empirical, assumption that there is nothing highly exceptional about the development of life on Earth (the "mediocrity principle"). But that's not science, and we have no way, at present, of knowing whether that is true or not. If you are going to make the assumption that the mediocrity principle applies with respect to the development of life on Earth (or of attaining any particular subsequent stage), you don't need the Drake equation at all; the conclusion those people want (and that I want too) falls out of the assumption alone. The Drake equation is just a smokescreen designed to make the assumption (which is often implicit, not explicit) appear more rigorous.

    It then leads us to the Fermi Paradox...if the assumption itself is correct, why do we see no evidence of other life forms?
     
  21. Reiku Banned Banned

    Messages:
    11,238
    Well this can be answered a number of ways. We may not have been looking in the right places (afterall, spacetime is infinitely large and we have only glimpsed into a small part of the entire phenomena). Not only is the universe large, but how are we to try and find aliens by mere observations, have we been using the right techniques for instance? I heard we might look to asteroid belts to look for signs of mining. Well, this assumes that aliens require the mining of asteroids as an energy source. This was just an example.
     
  22. Arioch Valued Senior Member

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    2,274
    @Mister --

    Which was exactly my point. We don't know, in fact right now we can't know, so any claims to the contrary are either lies or ignorance. You can choose which you'd like your claims to be considered.

    Sure it does, but has that prediction been verified? No, it hasn't. So you can't use the Drake Equation as evidence of ETs, only of evidence that ETs are possible(perhaps even plausible).

    Furthermore you have no way of knowing what form that life would take, or whether or not we could even recognize it as life. You also can't use the Drake Equation to justify your assumption that any ETs that might be out there are intelligent or even multicellular because you have zero idea what kind of selection pressures said ETs may have been subjected to. This is especially true given the fact that the most successful organisms that we're aware of are single celled organisms and the fact that intelligence is a trait that has virtually always been selected against(rather than for) by evolution, with a few notable exceptions of course.

    In other words, even with the Drake Equation, you still can't say shit about extraterrestrial life because you just plain don't know and have much less of a clue than you seem to think.

    Actually what you don't know is of supreme importance here because it seems to be responsible for a large number of your mistakes. So while that may not have been your point it certainly was mine and certainly is relevant(and valid).

    But then, we've been over this before, haven't we? Your rather extreme lack of knowledge when it comes down to evolution and abiogenesis have caused you to make some rather grandiose claims that are flat out wrong, and the evidence we have proves that. Of course, I don't expect you to accept any of these facts, I expect you to keep doing what you've been doing, sticking your head in the sand and ignoring(or attempting to insult) anything that conflicts with your precious little pet theory.

    The Drake Equation predicts life in the universe, yes, that's very true, and I've never actually denied that(going so far as to say that I would be shocked to discover that there was no other life in the universe). However that is literally all that it predicts. You can glean nothing more from that equation. You and others here would do well to remember that.
     
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2012
  23. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    7,829
    No, that's not true.

    The Drake Equation is just that, an equation.

    It makes no predictions at all.

    Only by putting in values for the many variables can you use it to make a prediction.

    But, as TR put it so well:

    And so people make informed estimates on a few of the variables and guesses at the others.

    According to Wiki, these are the "current best estimates" (but with few citations given)

    R* = 7/year
    fp = 0.5
    ne = 2
    fl = 0.33
    fi = 0.01
    fc = 0.01
    L = 10,000 years

    Which yields a value of 2.31 for our Galaxy.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

    But as we come up on 3 years since Kepler's launch the data already suggests that the "best estimate" for fp, the number of stars with planets at .5 is WAY too high.

    Consider that Kepler is looking at data from ~170,000 stars out of about 500,000 in it's field of view with over 300,000 left out because they are not likely to be conducive to life (too small/dim)) and so far we have only ~2,300 candidates and only 33 confirmed planets. While this number of confirmed planets will go up, still it is not looking like it will be anywhere near the 80,000 planets you would need for fp to equal 0.5 for just the 170,000 being looked at. Indeed the number of .01 seems like a more realistic value for fp.


    But more importantly, the value ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets, at 2 is WAY too high (so far we have found NONE among all the planets we have studied), so at this point we have 1 out of 33 that is in the habitable zone, but not likely to be habitable, or an implied value of less than .03. Again, we think this number is likely to go up but a value of .2 now also seems quite high.

    Just changing those two values in the current "best estimates"

    R* = 7
    fp = 0.01
    ne = .2

    fl = 0.33
    fi = 0.01
    fc = 0.01
    L = 10,000 years

    Gives a value of .005 planets in our Galaxy with intelligent life.

    Or not at all likely.

    But consider, even that value is based on the assumption that .33 of the habitable planets go on to develop life.

    Personally I think that considering our 4+ Billion year history and yet life only forming once over that time frame, that .33 for fl is WAY too high.

    Indeed that number could be MUCH smaller and a value on the order of .0000001 for fl is not unreasonable.

    Then there is fi = the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life, and again, considering that it's taken 4 billion years for this to occur and only once of all the millions of species that have existed and millions that currently exist, this number, at .01, is also (IMHO) likely WAY too high.

    Indeed a value on the order of .0000001 for fi is again, not unreasonable.

    R* = 7
    fp = 0.01
    ne = .2
    fl = 0.0000001
    fi = 0.0000001

    fc = 0.01
    L = 10,000 years


    Which (if my numbers are more reasonable (and you can't actually prove they aren't)) would say the likelyhood of intelligent life in our Galaxy is .000000000000014

    Or an absurdly remote possibility.

    Even given ~80 Billion other Galaxies in the Universe that would still imply the chance of other intelligent life in the Universe as but .001

    Or not very likely at all.

    Arthur
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2012

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