I voted yes.

Fact one; Life does exist and we have proof.

Fact two; There is nothing special about life on earth. It all breaks down to common elements.

Fact three; These same common elements are pervasive throughout the known universe.

Ergo, there is no reason to expect that life only exists here. IMHO, it is ridiculous to think otherwise.

(July 12, 2015 at 2:38 pm)Atheist_BG Wrote:

(July 12, 2015 at 2:30 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: because the evidence isn't there to answer the question one way or the other.

Yeah, because having a child without sex over 2000 years ago is so genuine...

What does this have to do with the price of fish?

(a saying around our way when someone travels into unrelated topic)

(July 12, 2015 at 3:22 pm)Beccs Wrote: ...

I question, however, claims that they've visited Earth and that the abduct people to experiment on them.

...

I think such claims are generally a sign of serious mental problems.

I do not believe in aliens. I do think it is possible they exist but until I see one I can't believe in them.

I can't understand why anyone would just outright say that they exist. There simply is no proof.

But again, I do think it is very possible.

Lichen like forms might be out there, and on maybe quite a few worlds we might even consider 'uninhabitable'. When it comes to our equals or superiors, I'm firm in my conclusion they are profoundly rare.

As I've noted before, I find the Fermi Paradox extremely persuasive. And for those who argue with me about 'life' being even 'common', it reinforces (IMO) Fermi's concept. The more advanced life you think is out there, the stronger Fermi's Paradox becomes.

I voted yes because it's almost inconceivable that we're alone. While it's true we only have this single known instance of life and we don't know exactly how it came about, we do know that it's just a product of material - material that is everywhere in an incomprehensibly vast universe.

(July 12, 2015 at 3:50 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:

(July 12, 2015 at 3:22 pm)Beccs Wrote: ...

I question, however, claims that they've visited Earth and that the abduct people to experiment on them.

...

I think such claims are generally a sign of serious mental problems.

Serious is a relative term.   There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world whose mental problems are such that they would believe in a entity who had to fuck his own mother to give himself birth, yet has the power to end the universe, but would come and make things peachy for them for ever regardless,  if only they would renounce all the benefits conferred by human progress made since the Iron Age in understanding the world they live in.   By comparison just how serious can the mental problem possibly to disbelieve that, but merely believe aliens visited, abducted them, experimented on them, but left them with hardly any lasting effect?

(July 12, 2015 at 5:07 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: Lichen like forms might be out there, and on maybe quite a few worlds we might even consider 'uninhabitable'.  When it comes to our equals or superiors, I'm firm in my conclusion they are profoundly rare.

As I've noted before, I find the Fermi Paradox extremely persuasive.  And for those who argue with me about 'life' being even 'common', it reinforces (IMO) Fermi's concept.  The more advanced life you think is out there, the stronger Fermi's Paradox becomes.

I find Fermi paradox a very shoddy exercise which neglects to hides a large number of implicit, but  totally unwarranted, assumption made in arriving at itself.

(July 12, 2015 at 5:21 pm)Chuck Wrote:

(July 12, 2015 at 5:07 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: Lichen like forms might be out there, and on maybe quite a few worlds we might even consider 'uninhabitable'.  When it comes to our equals or superiors, I'm firm in my conclusion they are profoundly rare.

As I've noted before, I find the Fermi Paradox extremely persuasive.  And for those who argue with me about 'life' being even 'common', it reinforces (IMO) Fermi's concept.  The more advanced life you think is out there, the stronger Fermi's Paradox becomes.

I find Fermi paradox a very shoddy exercise...

Me too. For starters, I can't imagine why anyone thinks it is a given that any intelligent race would have any desire to pave over the entire galaxy. The resources of a single solar system would last aeons and long before those resources are exhausted, the race would have self-evolved to a god-like state unimaginable to us. Why would they be bound by a primitive (and somewhat insecure) need to spread themselves everywhere?

It only takes a single instance of a 'pave the galaxy' alien to get a paved over galaxy. If you're thinking billions of worlds developed life = or superior to us, where's the concrete ??

Now if there are only a few, or just us, technological civilizations, an otherwise empty galaxy (which is what Borowitz etal is finding, BTW) is to be expected.