Bringing the alien life debate back to reality

[Dutch Uncle]

You know there is a form of atheism that basically just fails to believe in God as opposed to "refusing the acknowledge the possibility". I'm that kind of atheist. While I accept that I COULD BE WRONG right now I fail to see sufficient evidence for God. But if more information comes to me that proves to be compelling I will hopefully change my mind.

Sounds like that is what you are in relation to alien life. You simply fail to see any evidence for it, so you assume it likely doesn't exist. If such evidence comes to the fore you'll change your mind. Fair enough.

As the other poster noted, however, no one on here is saying for sure there's alien life. Just that all things considered the likelihood is non-zero. But it's all a guess anyway.

Anything outside the Universe is a big unknown. Asserting there is something out there is a belief. Asserting nothing is out there is also a belief, even if some prefer to call it "disbelief".

The logical answer is "I don't know" and then focus upon the knowable.

 

[Cypress]

Primed? The elements are there. The only thing missing is life itself. It's like prepping a garden; pick a nice sunny spot, till the soil, add fertilizer, install a watering system. So what's missing? Seeds of life.

While it's possible, that the seeds could spontaneously generate, the odds of doing so seem a bit long. LOL

FWIW, I do believe, given enough attempts, the seeds could self-generate, but it would take billions of years and trillions of attempts. The current results bear this out.

Agreed, that's what I'm saying. The building blocks for life are there, but the jump from pre-biotic chemistry to cellular life seems neither obvious nor easy.

My guess is that it takes a rare set of perfect storm conditions for self replicating life to emerge from inert chemicals.

I think we should get closer to an answer by establishing whether or not microbial life exists, or did exist, on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede. And also if we can detect atmospheres with biosignatures on exoplanets.

Detecting artificial radio signatures in the EM spectrum is a search for a needle in a haystack, and if primitive life is as rare as I think it is, I doubt there are very many technologically advanced civilizations in the galaxy.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Agreed, that's what I'm saying. The building blocks for life are there, but the jump from pre-biotic chemistry to cellular life seems neither obvious nor easy.

My guess is that it takes a rare set of perfect storm conditions for self replicating life to emerge from inert chemicals.

I think we should get closer to an answer by establishing whether or not microbial life exists, or did exist, on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, Ganymede. And also if we can detect atmospheres with biosignatures on exoplanets.

Detecting artificial radio signatures in the EM spectrum is a search for a needle in a haystack, and if primitive life is as rare as I think it is, I doubt there are very many technologically advanced civilizations in the galaxy.

I tend to agree here based upon the results. Another fact is that, even if advanced civilizations developed, they face the risk of annihilation by natural events or species suicide as we've seen on our own planet and come close to doing ourselves.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

Anything outside the Universe is a big unknown. Asserting there is something out there is a belief. Asserting nothing is out there is also a belief, even if some prefer to call it "disbelief".

The logical answer is "I don't know" and then focus upon the knowable.

Agreed.