Habemas Papem!

[Kidlicious]

Evidence for your first two assertions?

Two?
The first is that we have no evidence of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. Therefore those who made calculations that the probability is high miscalculated. The alternative is the belief in the paradox, which is a poor substitute for having what you predict actually come true.

And no, not anything can happen. The universe (this one, at least) is bound by the laws of physics.

Then how did the universe come to exist?

[Kidlicious]

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

Because claiming there's singlecell organisms on other planets is different from claiming that there are beings with human type intelligence. The former is much more unlikely.

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.

You're talking about billions and trillions, but it makes no difference. It doesn't make it more likely. Your calculations are off. That's why we have no evicence.

[Sava]

Intelligent people call it skepticism.

I don't think you know what that word means.

[MichaeltheGreat]

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.

Evolution is a process. By definition, processes themselves do not have goals.

Mutations happen pseudorandomly. Most mutations are detrimental to the organism and die out quickly. Mutations that are successful become increasingly represented in the gene pool because they confer an advantage on the organism. You deal with human controlled microevolution daily. It's called "agriculture." Naturally occuring and manipulated evolution has been observed over time in hundreds of instances with microorganisms.

[kentonio]

Two?
The first is that we have no evidence of the existence of intelligent life on other planets. Therefore those who made calculations that the probability is high miscalculated.

We have looked out for a microscopically small period of time with awfully primitive tools and there's already been at least one incident (The Wow! Signal) where it's possible we might have detected something. Add to that that we have no idea what we're actually looking for, as there's no reason to think alien intelligent life would be anything at all like ours, and it's hardly a surprise we haven't found anything yet.

It's the equivalent of a half blind man standing on a mountain with his eyes closed, blinking a few times and stating that because he didn't see any other humans, no other humans can possibly exist.

The alternative is the belief in the paradox, which is a poor substitute for having what you predict actually come true.

The Fermi Paradox relies on a number of extremely arbitrary suppositions.

[kentonio]

Because claiming there's singlecell organisms on other planets is different from claiming that there are beings with human type intelligence. The former is much more unlikely.

You're trying to argue that it's highly unlikely that there are single celled organisms on other planets? Seriously?

You're talking about billions and trillions, but it makes no difference. It doesn't make it more likely. Your calculations are off. That's why we have no evicence.

There's a reason why you don't believe in evolution despite the evidence being all around you. The billions and trillions matter an awful lot.

[Kidlicious]

Evolution is a process. By definition, processes themselves do not have goals.

Mutations happen pseudorandomly. Most mutations are detrimental to the organism and die out quickly. Mutations that are successful become increasingly represented in the gene pool because they confer an advantage on the organism. You deal with human controlled microevolution daily. It's called "agriculture." Naturally occuring and manipulated evolution has been observed over time in hundreds of instances with microorganisms.

A.. that's what I said. According to the theory of evolution, evolution happens at random. There is no goal of evolution. That's why the evolution of intelligent beings has such a low probability.

[kentonio]

A.. that's what I said. According to the theory of evolution, evolution happens at random. There is no goal of evolution. That's why the evolution of intelligent beings has such a low probability.

As Gribbler already told you (on this very same page) evolution is not about things just happening randomly. Think about the selection part rather than the occurance of mutations part, and it might make more sense.

[MichaeltheGreat]

You're talking about billions and trillions, but it makes no difference. It doesn't make it more likely. Your calculations are off. That's why we have no evicence.

Evolution is opportunistic. Having more chances for a given result to occur will render it more likely to occur. If you post once, the likelihood of you posting something intelligent is minimal. If you post a million times, then there's a possibility you might randomly post something intelligent.

And we have no evidence because these otehr plants are a long ****ing ways away. We didn't even confirm the existence of exoplanets until 1995 or so. Now we've confirmed hundreds in a much wide variety of configurations and around a much greater variety of stars than we'd believed possible. We've since observed a few accretion disks around young stars, and observed planets with atmospheres. The first exoplanets discovered were super-Jupiter sizes, we've now observed planets less than double the mass of earth and a handful of habitable zone planets.

Direct observation of life on exoplanets is essentially impossible. We can never do it by remote observations, and we are centuries, if ever, from significant interstellar travel.

[MichaeltheGreat]

A.. that's what I said. According to the theory of evolution, evolution happens at random. There is no goal of evolution. That's why the evolution of intelligent beings has such a low probability.

Evolution is a result of environment. It's not random. You don't have aquatic giraffes with gills for a reason.

[Kidlicious]

We have looked out for a microscopically small period of time with awfully primitive tools and there's already been at least one incident (The Wow! Signal) where it's possible we might have detected something. Add to that that we have no idea what we're actually looking for, as there's no reason to think alien intelligent life would be anything at all like ours, and it's hardly a surprise we haven't found anything yet.

It's the equivalent of a half blind man standing on a mountain with his eyes closed, blinking a few times and stating that because he didn't see any other humans, no other humans can possibly exist.

A yeeeeaaaaah. Keep telling yourself that. That's not the way reason works though. When you don't find what you are looking for, it probably doesn't exist.

[Kidlicious]

You're trying to argue that it's highly unlikely that there are single celled organisms on other planets? Seriously?

You gonna do nothing but resort to pulling BKs on me?

[kentonio]

A yeeeeaaaaah. Keep telling yourself that. That's not the way reason works though. When you don't find what you are looking for, it probably doesn't exist.

When you lose your car keys, do you glance at a single patch of floor right in front of you, and then decide that as they obviously aren't there, that they're lost for ever? Your reasoning makes no sense.

[kentonio]

You gonna do nothing but resort to pulling BKs on me?

Well you're providing no arguments to back up what you're saying other than 'life can't exist because we haven't found it yet'. Why would life not exist in any of the trillions of other planets? How does it even make sense that it only happened here? Unless you're going to pull the god card, the likelihood is that life came from chemistry, and I'm not aware of that being any different here to anywhere else.

[Kidlicious]

As Gribbler already told you (on this very same page) evolution is not about things just happening randomly. Think about the selection part rather than the occurance of mutations part, and it might make more sense.

Selection for survival isn't the same thing as selection for intelligence sweetheart.