Habemas Papem!

[PLATO]

Agree. I've yet to discover any intelligent life on this planet.

Look somewhere besides the mirror.

[The Mad Monk]

[Ben Kenobi]

And it sounds like he's just as much of a close-minded neanderthal as the previous pope. Congrats.

I'd be worried if you liked one of our popes!

[Kidlicious]

That's because your puny brain does not allow for intellectual curiosity, or expansive thinking.

Intelligent people call it skepticism.

[kentonio]

The probability of intelligent life on other planets is extremely low even if the universe is infinite. But I find it interesting that you are comforted by the thought that things just happen for no reason. Then anything can happen, no?

The probability of intelligent life on other planets is so close to 100% as to require a vast number of decimal places to represent it. The arguments in favour of earth containing the only intelligent life are utterly ridiculous, and rely on some mindnumbingly stupid suppositions.

[kentonio]

I'm assuming you're talking about the Fermi Paradox btw, if there's something else on your mind I'd be interested in hearing it.

[Kidlicious]

I'm assuming you're talking about the Fermi Paradox btw, if there's something else on your mind I'd be interested in hearing it.

No. The Fermi Paradox states that the probability is high. It isn't. There is no paradox. We don't have contact or evidence of intelligent life on other planets because it's near impossible for intelligent life to exist on other planets.

[kentonio]

No. The Fermi Paradox states that the probability is high. It isn't. There is no paradox. We don't have contact or evidence of intelligent life on other planets because it's near impossible for intelligent life to exist on other planets.

Please justify that wildly inaccurate statement.

[Kidlicious]

Please justify that wildly inaccurate statement.

If the theory of evolution is true, then it happens at random. There is no goal of evolution. Evolution doesn't imply that given the right conditions that intelligent life will evolve. Even if there is life on other planets the possibility of it evolving into intelligent life is mindblowingly small.

[giblets]

Evolution isn't "random". Natural selection isn't random, and over the course of billions of years so many mutations will happen that the randomness of mutations isn't much of a limitation. If the conditions make intelligence advantageous for survival, it is very likely intelligent life will evolve.

[MichaeltheGreat]

The probability of intelligent life on other planets is extremely low even if the universe is infinite. But I find it interesting that you are comforted by the thought that things just happen for no reason. Then anything can happen, no?

Evidence for your first two assertions? And no, not anything can happen. The universe (this one, at least) is bound by the laws of physics.

[Kidlicious]

Evolution isn't "random". Natural selection isn't random, and over the course of billions of years so many mutations will happen that the randomness of mutations isn't much of a limitation. If the conditions make intelligence advantageous for survival, it is very likely intelligent life will evolve.

You would have to have a planet exactly like earth. It couldn't be even a little bit different. It would have to have exactly the same history etc..

[kentonio]

If the theory of evolution is true, then it happens at random. There is no goal of evolution. Evolution doesn't imply that given the right conditions that intelligent life will evolve.

Given that 'intelligent life' is an arbitrary definition, why would that matter anyway?

Even if there is life on other planets the possibility of it evolving into intelligent life is mindblowingly small.

No, that's the point it really isn't. We're talking trillions of planets over billions of years. The reason so many people struggle with the concept of evolution is because the numbers involved are so mind numbingly huge that things seem utterly impossible that are actually perfectly reasonable. It's exactly the same thing here. On one tiny planet out of trillions of planets, life evolved into a form that we consider intelligent, yet you're calling it almost impossible that the same should have happened on other worlds, many of which have existed for considerably longer than Earth.

It seems impossible that you could drop a grain of sand from a plane and it land in a perfect sand grain sized hole miles below. If you spend a billion years pouring a solid mile wide stream of sand from that plane however, suddenly the idea of one grain falling in the hole suddenly doesn't seem anything like as impossible.

[kentonio]

You would have to have a planet exactly like earth. It couldn't be even a little bit different. It would have to have exactly the same history etc..

Sorry that makes no sense. Every year we discover the places life can exist are considerably wider than we previously believed.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Barnabas- do you know the Labours of Hercules ?

This, the sixth labor of Heracles, was not an easy task. Augeas, the king of Elis had been given a huge amount of cattle as a gift from his father, many herds in fact. His problem was, the stables where he kept them had never been cleaned. His neglect was so great that not only the stables, which were in a very bad state, but the land surrounding them had been unfertilized for many years, due to the unused manure which lay within the compound.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/augean_stables.html

Augeas sounds like half my clients. Clean their **** up that they've caused through their own bad practices, want it done with an impossible deadline, then want to stiff you after you perform the work.