(November 3, 2008 at 10:22 pm)Daystar Wrote:

(November 3, 2008 at 5:53 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: Lol, like I've said before have you ever heard of a thing called probability(?)
There is an extremely high scientific probability that aliens exist elsewhere in the universe, so thats obviously enough to believe in them.

Yeah, well, thats easy for you to say ... probability sucks in my world if not for the infinate probability drive and when Douglas Adams was drunk off his ass in a field somewhere in the United Kingdom with a towell dreaming that stuff ... time was relative ... lunchtime doubly so.

It isn't so far fetched ... this reality of ours. Ivek u8ibeen there. Bloody Cat obscured my view.

I was talking about probability, not personal experience. What do you mean?

(November 4, 2008 at 11:50 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: I was talking about probability, not personal experience. What do you mean?

What I mean is what is extremely high scientific probability? What evidence is there? Not that I disagree with you, I am just curious.

(November 4, 2008 at 2:13 pm)Daystar Wrote:

(November 4, 2008 at 11:50 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: I was talking about probability, not personal experience. What do you mean?

What I mean is what is extremely high scientific probability? What evidence is there? Not that I disagree with you, I am just curious.

The evidence is that life has arisen on this planet (Earth) and that we now know there are certain conditions needed for life to arise. The planet has to be in the habitable zone of it's star for example, and it needs an environment for self-replicating molecules to arise.

Given that there are trillions of stars and planets, the chances are that another planet has also met these conditions (seeing as they are quite wide parameters).

(November 3, 2008 at 5:53 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: There is an extremely high scientific probability that aliens exist elsewhere in the universe, so thats obviously enough to believe in them.

I would have to disagree with you on this.

The current status, as far as I am aware, is that we know of life on one planet and one planet alone (Earth) but that the universe is so vast (especially considering the number of planets we believe we have now discovered) that it has to be regarded as a serious possibility that there may be life elsewhere and that some of that life may be intelligent (otherwise why would we spend so much on projects like SETI).

Is that enough to believe there is life elsewhere? IMO no, there is no evidence as yet, but to treat it as a serious proposition (something worth continuing the search for) absolutely.

Kyu

(November 5, 2008 at 6:01 am)Kyuuketsuki Wrote:

(November 3, 2008 at 5:53 pm)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote: There is an extremely high scientific probability that aliens exist elsewhere in the universe, so thats obviously enough to believe in them.

I would have to disagree with you on this.

The current status, as far as I am aware, is that we know of life on one planet and one planet alone (Earth) but that the universe is so vast (especially considering the number of planets we believe we have now discovered) that it has to be regarded as a serious possibility that there may be life elsewhere and that some of that life may be intelligent (otherwise why would we spend so much on projects like SETI).

Is that enough to believe there is life elsewhere? IMO no, there is no evidence as yet, but to treat it as a serious proposition (something worth continuing the search for) absolutely.

Kyu

Its an awful lot more likely that there is life elsewhere in the universe than us to be alone in the universe! And if there other universes, then well!
About the evidence thing, life on this planet is evidence of life in the universe, and evidence and probability often go hand in hand.
When you use the evidence of life on this planet and then consider how many planets in the universe, it would be absurdly unlikely if we are alone in the universe.
Especially if you're not just talking about intelligent life!
I think they already found alien bacteria on mars several years back. I mean if the evidence was/is correct.