For as "smart" as "scientists" are...

[Dent]

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

If there even is life on other planets, we will never find it within our lifetimes, so this entire thread is pointless.

Edit : felt like adding a bit more

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

What I was saying was this:

In order for life to exist, the environmental conditions must be suitable for organic life. Basically, I'd expect to see another planet like Earth in many ways.

This would be perfect if you'd just get rid of 'organic', no one can prove that life can't come from something inorganic.
It's called the anthropic principle.

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

I believe the end result would be something almost identical to human beings

Do you really mean this? how 'almost identical' are we talking here? It's scary if you think that humans are some sort of pinnacle of evolution.
The chances of us being here in our forms is beyond description, the chances of there being other humans ON ANY PLANET IN THE UNIVERSE, IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE is pretty much nil.
I can flirt with the idea that some sort of Humanoid, Eyes and things like that have evolved separately many times on Earth, and i'd expect there to be many earth-like planets out there.

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

Since the universe is expanding from the point of the big bang, it seems likely that any life-haboring planet that exists further away than us from the singularity would have younger intelligent life on it. Any such planet closer to the singularity would have older intelligent life on it.

??? expanding from the "point" of the big bang? point me in the direction of the centre of the universe please.
There is no such thing as life-harboring planets further away from the big bang, the big bang involved the creation of space-time.
If you are imagining an explosion with the first bits of shit flicked out cooling and evolving, and the latter bits of shit evolving at a later stage, then you're wrong.
Cosmic microwave background shows that the universe was pretty uniform a few hundred thousand years after creation.

Anyone watched the drake equation program? there's a discussion with someone about the possibility of a second genesis on earth, that not everything here is related to each other may be related.

[Saint DH]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mistoffelees

You like Nickleback, don't you?

I don't like Nickleback, but I don't understand why so many people hate this band with the volumes of shit music out there these days. I guess it has something to do with their being rednecks and playing music that rednecks enjoy. Still, there's not nearly as much hatred for country music stars who do the same thing. It's like as long as they put on some trendy demin, wear a cowboy hat and some boots, and sing to some poppy beats about heartbreak and shit, they'll win a Grammy.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by f3lix

This thread is to show what we thought as individuals at this point in time. It's great going back and seeing how dumb or accepting of ignorance we were in previous times.

Past scientists or knowledge seekers getting an idea wrong doesn't mean that they are dumb or non-scientific, which you inferred by your post title. Almost all of them were doing the best they could under the religious and political environment of their time with the evidence they had at that time.

This whole post makes you look like an ignorant hick from Indiana, F3lix. Easy for you to criticize the scientists, great men and women who helped to build our current human knowledge (even if their ideas proved wrong by history and more evidence) by being a sniveling fuck behind a computer with Google and Wikipedia.

You're basically picking on dead people who have accomplished more with their lives for humanity than you ever will. You're standing on the shoulders of giants and then calling those giants stupid because they lived in an era before you did.

You are a piece of shit.

[f3lix]

Somebody needs to check their tampon.

[ninjaface]

Why should anyone check their tampon with a douche like you around?

[f3lix]

I see what you did there.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by Dirty Harry

What I was saying was this:

In order for life to exist, the environmental conditions must be suitable for organic life.

Well are we assuming all life is carbon based (organic)?

Everything in this thread, minus Dent, is just a semantic argument on what "life" could possibly be.

[f3lix]

I just hope we see the day where everything humans think to be the correct is proven false.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by f3lix

I just hope we see the day where everything humans think to be the correct is proven false.

What the fuck does that even mean?

[f3lix]

Referring to the limits of life. We are so dense to think that life has to fit the qualifications of one planet in the entire universe.

[Saint DH]

You're right, science is soooo dumb like omg.

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by f3lix

Referring to the limits of life. We are so dense to think that life has to fit the qualifications of one planet in the entire universe.

I can get with this, but the first one was just empty bullshit hyperbole.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

This thread is so bad because none of the ideas the OP has declared are new or novel. I don't know of any self respecting scientist that would say water is an absolute requirement for life, let alone "unilaterally" the entire scientific community.

What makes you bring this up? Did Yahoo news just turn a corner on this or something?

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Mr. Mistoffelees

This thread is so bad because none of the ideas the OP has declared are new or novel. I don't know of any self respecting scientist that would say water is an absolute requirement for life, let alone "unilaterally" the entire scientific community.

What makes you bring this up? Did Yahoo news just turn a corner on this or something?

+1 nonissue in the scientific community. Astro/Xenobiology is also such an extreme niche sector of science that the people actually studying this shit would not give this thread more than a cursory glance.

[f3lix]

I've just been watching things like Through the Wormhole, and while fascinating, there are still people on there claiming things must be the way there are on earth to sustain life.

[Beebs]

Either belief is not unreasonable given the data set.

Edit: In my idiot brain. They aren't 50/50, but both can be reasonably argued given what smarter people than myself know.

[Dent]

Originally Posted by f3lix

This thread is to show what we thought as individuals at this point in time. It's great going back and seeing how dumb or accepting of ignorance we were in previous times.

More of this please, lets speculate!

Any reasons why we shouldn't prioritize organic life? should we go looking for a fight with some inorganic life?

If we're going to Mars around 2035 and a huge drilling operation isn't on the cards i'll be pissed.
I don't think its unreasonable to expect to find life elsewhere within our lifetimes.
I don't think we will be much further along with the inorganic life question.

Originally Posted by f3lix

Referring to the limits of life. We are so dense to think that life has to fit the qualifications of one planet in the entire universe.

The questions change over time, no one wondered if life could exist in a black hole 100 years ago, and in 100 years time our knowledge of black holes might render the question pointless.

Originally Posted by f3lix

I just hope we see the day where everything humans think to be the correct is proven false.

GL proving the negative, nothing taught in a science class has ever been factual.
Newtonian mechanics is still taught because its usefulness for engineering isn't even close to it's expiry date, for all intensive purposes.
If they got fucked in the head by quanta the bridges would collapse!

[Dent]

Aliens could be found within 40 years | The Sun |News

"And he said super brainy extra-terrestrials could even help us understand the most difficult scientific conundrums."
haha.. gotta love The Sun!

Also the dude is definitely Reptilian

[Dent]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

As an aside, I like Richard Dawkins idea that meme's can be considered actual living things.

living isn't what memes do, replication yes evolution yes living no.
BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Richard Dawkins latest Dawkins podcast, brief mention for the meme.

What lies beneath? Antarctic mission to find life isolated deep under the ice - Science - News - The Independent

This is an important experiment for both furthering our knowledge of extreme life and also testing equipment for space missions.

“Finding evidence of such compounds would show us that if life can withstand even the deepest, darkest and most isolated conditions for more than a million years, then it has the ability to exist anywhere – and by that I mean not just on Earth.”

OOooOOoooOOOoo (he means in space)

[Mr. Blonde]

This thread may answer some of F3lix's questions.

kaax comments on A "Super-Earth" found 50-lightyears away.

[thekremlin]

I'm surprised no one has commented on Dent's new avatar, which is the likeness of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Dent, remember that picture you posted of yourself with the towel but then you took it down? Do you still have a copy?

[Dent]

Somewhere I think, what towel?
Edit : cant find it, send me your copy.. pretty sure you had the ones without towel

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

I can't find it, it's probably on my old laptop I gave away on craig's list.