Twelve reasons we haven't found aliens

This article isn't suggesting that aliens don't exist, but perhaps there are reasons as to why we simply haven't located them. What ''reason'' do you identify with the most? I'd say for me, #6 through #9 seem compelling. I'm open to the possibility of alien life existing, but how to find it still remains a mystery. (But #1 could be a distinct possibility.)

https://www.space.com/37157-possible-reasons-we-havent-found-aliens.html

 

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I pick 6 and 7. As Slartibartfast said, "In space travel all the numbers are awful."

This applies both to the vastness of the cosmos, compared to the likely number of instances of advanced intelligent life, and the likely distribution of these instances through time.

 

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Well down on my list

Number 6 would be on top, space is big, and from that comes some of the other problems such as signal strength, both outgoing and incoming

Might even be we are receiving signals, but in a unknown form, hence we are not recognise them as such, hence have no reason apply any translation effort

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If assumed life originates via the same patterns; abiogenesis --> evolution, can it also be assumed life will always originate in the oceans and then eventually move onto land? Is it also assumed that those planets life forms will evolve into dinosaurs? Will intelligent life evolve from dinosaurs or will a catastrophic event that wipes them out be necessary in order for other life to flourish and evolve an intelligence?

 

#9.

Keep in mind that if 1930's Earth looked at 2020 Earth with a radiotelescope they would see mostly noise. The modulation methods we use nowadays (CDMA for example) look like random noise unless you know exactly what to look for, and most of the frequencies we use were not detectable in 1930. Radio astronomers of the time would decide that it's just natural random noise. They might be lucky and stumble across an AM radio band, but those won't exist for much longer.

 

NO

I would contend developing life forms would follow the simplistic named Darwin's survival of the fittest

With the conditions unlikely to mirror Earth conditions unlikely life forms would mirror Earth life forms

That being said it would not be any suprise if a dominant life form was bipedal with slightly different designed hands

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It's more than that, according to some paleobiologists. Even here on Earth, with the same conditions, S.J. Gould contends that - if we were to roll the clock back on Earth to the Precambrian (500My ago) and let it run forward again - we would not get a repeat of what we have now.

That bisymmetric critters rose to dominate life is just a luck happenstance. Modern life could have just as easily risen from critters back then with three-fold radial symmetry - or five-fold or ten or twenty.

 

I may have worded that vaguely. What I meant was that it seemed the dominant lifeform to emerge from the oceans wound up being dinosaurs. Now, I'm not saying life elsewhere would mirror earths, but it would be similar to how it emerged and what kind of species would eventually dominate, that they would be similar to dinosaurs.

 

Think of the Butterfly Effect multiplied a billion billion times.

 

Yes. Bilateral symmetry was only a single body plan among a dozen or more than were competing at the time - I didn't pull those numbers out of thin air. If a ten-fold radial symmetric starfish-like critter had just a little more of an advantage, it could have taken over the dominant role instead of quadripeds.

 

We don't have to guess. There are plenty of critters here on Earth that are doing fine with other body plans. Some are even managing intelligence quite and fine manipulation nicely without the use of bones.

 

Maybe they don't have the technology, or they are lower level life forms like plants and animals. Or they are just waiting for us to evolve more capabilities before enslaving us. Idk.

 

I added it. It's kind of required to be there when we're speculating about body plans of alien critters.

Why?

I submit it cannot be separated from Earth-centricism.

That would be your claim, but you didn't effectively back it up. Suggestions that top predators are bilateral has been countered by

a] many successful predators are radially symmetrical - and that's here on Earth, in similar conditions as bilaterals, and

b] the fact that its kind of observation biased. We may assume bilats are a better form because they bested their competitors. That's not a given. As Sideshowbob points out, the Butterfly Effect shouldn't be ignored. (a small external advantage a half billion years ago could have turned the tide toward bilats.)

 

I suppose you have a point. Although a bilateral system has some advantages, as James point out. A radial system that became successful might have given rise to a lineage that then became dominant, in the same sort of way that the Porsche evolved from a design that was not a good starting point for a sports car.

 

A radially symmetric organism with a mouth on the top of his head, and eyes all around, does not require a front side or a back side. Nor does the mouth need to be fixed.

And radial symmetry is even easier/simpler.

Bilateral symmetry works OK. But it's just the decision that evolution made for most land animals. It's not because it's the best plan, it's just because it's the plan that worked.