Some people would. You wouldn't need that many, and it wouldn't be that hard to find enough volunteers.
Ancient Aliens
- Thread starter BillJ
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Some people would. You wouldn't need that many, and it wouldn't be that hard to find enough volunteers.
Explanation for what? For why the million-item list of "things we don't know about extrasolar planets" includes whether or not life exists on any of them? Why does that even require an explanation?
The fermi paradox DOES build upon a cascade of assumptions, none of which have any support. The fundamental assumption is that if life was common in the universe, we could become aware of it, and that furthermore if INTELLIGENT life was common, we would be aware of it by now. Both of those are false assumptions, and all the others proceed from them.
Even the most far-fetched and romanticized sci-fi visions of what an interstellar civilization might look like, if that civilization does not possess FTL travel, the chances of their being aware of us are extremely small; significantly, our chances of being aware of them are much much smaller.
What does a 100 million year old interstellar colonial species look like? At those timescales, our assumptions about who they are or what they are doing go right out the window, and recognizing it would become even harder: Just as far as Earth is concerned, 100 million years is a long enough time for a colony to be built, destroyed, then rebuilt and destroyed again over the course of a million years before being subsumed by erosion and elemental stress to the point that any artifacts of civilization would cease to be recognizable. OTOH, this being the Ancient Aliens thread we must also entertain the possibility that humans are the descendants of an alien race that colonized Earth millions of years ago before their society decayed into barbarism and the record of their origins was lost to time.
This, of course, stems from the assumption that interstellar colonization is likely to be a priority for spacefaring civilizations, when the only datapoint we have -- ourselves -- suggests otherwise.
They definitely didn't spend a lot of time on the internet, which is why Occam's Razor, applied in this thread, is being applied as an internet rule.
In your own words: This explanation is MORE complex, therefore it is LIKELY wrong!
Is intellectually lazy. Take the two competing explanations:
1) "She stole my wallet because she is three months behind on paying her rent and she was terrified of being evicted and winding up homeless."
2) "She stole my wallet because it was shiny."
The simplest explanation is the more likely one WITH ALL OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES BEING THE SAME. Occam's Razor is the LAST thing you resort to when evidence supports both explanations equally but one explanation requires more elements than the other. If you skip the evaluation part and don't care about the evidence, then you're really just making declarations.
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This TEDeducation animated short is amusing and informative:
Why Can't We See Evidence of ALien Life
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/03/why-cant-we-see-evidence-of-alien-life.html
Why Can't We See Evidence of ALien Life
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2012/03/why-cant-we-see-evidence-of-alien-life.html
I think one of the reasons that humans are looking for other intelligent life is that we want to know whether or not there is the possibility that we too might not go extinct. So, for me the question is about the mortality of our species. We humans are obsessive about death and, in the Western World, the death of civilizations, aren't we?
I know that the Neanderthals didn't create a civilization, yet I also know that they were intelligent and that some of them had sex with humans. So, for a brief period of history, humans were in contact with and interacting with another intelligent life form. Why do we forget that?
I am going out on a limb here, which may be sawed off the proverbial tree. I have noticed that nature generally doesn't do things in singles; 'she' does things in twos or more. Why wouldn't 'she' have created more than one intelligent species, capable of creating a civilization, and why are people arguing that two civilizations existing in the same time period could be an impossibility?
I do have to ask, why did the Q (quelle, German for "source"), the 'writer' of the physical laws that govern this universe, make intergalactic, and even interuniversal, travel difficult, if not nigh improbable?
I know that the Neanderthals didn't create a civilization, yet I also know that they were intelligent and that some of them had sex with humans. So, for a brief period of history, humans were in contact with and interacting with another intelligent life form. Why do we forget that?
I am going out on a limb here, which may be sawed off the proverbial tree. I have noticed that nature generally doesn't do things in singles; 'she' does things in twos or more. Why wouldn't 'she' have created more than one intelligent species, capable of creating a civilization, and why are people arguing that two civilizations existing in the same time period could be an impossibility?
I do have to ask, why did the Q (quelle, German for "source"), the 'writer' of the physical laws that govern this universe, make intergalactic, and even interuniversal, travel difficult, if not nigh improbable?
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We will most certainly go extinct. If we don't, that would be a first for a species on Earth, and most probably a universe first as well.
It's amazing how often people forget this.
I don't know. Maybe we will be the seed of a galactic civilization some thousands of years down the road? If we get our priorities right and don't kill ourselves first.
Sure, but they won't be human, and speciesists care too much about that.
Then again, it's possible that someone saves human DNA and decides to bring us back from extinction one day. I'm betting on someone doing that with the Neanderthals in a several decades. So why not homo sapiens sapiens too?
Great! Then there will be "Ancient Aliens" shows about us! With all the accompanying idiocies.
Are we sure we want that?
I have to point out also that Neanderthal were human. In addition, the conclusion that the two ever mated is highly controversial and disputed. I know anthropologists that are proponents of the theory and those that think it's scientific nonsense.
Humans share up to 4% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110809/full/476136a.html
There are life forms that are on this planet that have survived multiple extinction level events. An example is the horseshoe crab which has been around for approximately 450 million years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab
We humans are a stubborn and resilient species. 75,000 years ago, the super volcano Toba erupted. This volcano killed a majority of humans living then, yet we survived. For us to go extinct, the event would have to be more catastrophic than Toba.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110809/full/476136a.html
There are life forms that are on this planet that have survived multiple extinction level events. An example is the horseshoe crab which has been around for approximately 450 million years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab
We humans are a stubborn and resilient species. 75,000 years ago, the super volcano Toba erupted. This volcano killed a majority of humans living then, yet we survived. For us to go extinct, the event would have to be more catastrophic than Toba.
I did watch it for the first season, the four 2-hour episodes or however many there were because the concept sounded interesting. However I gave up after that, it felt they were just making shit up as they went.
I won't make fun of the porcupine on his head though, that's not fair to the poor critter.
I won't make fun of the porcupine on his head though, that's not fair to the poor critter.
Yes and there are some modern human populations that allegedly share features consistent with having ancestors that were Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. It's still highly disputed by experts in the field. IIRC, the study supporting interbreeding is based on Mitochondrial DNA, which is useful in some areas, but poses its own problems. It's certainly a possible explanation, but we don't "know" that it happened.
Shit, I find it inconceivable that they didn't mate. There are people that fuck animals. And never mind that, what about women being abducted by one side or the other? Granted, I am not talking about evidence here, but unless the argument is that the two groups never came into contact with one another, I can't see it.
I'm fairly certain, biologists on the board will correct me if I'm wrong, but humans share 100% of their genetic makeup with humans.
I think there is still a residual bias in the scientific community toward the Neanderthals. For a long time, they were viewed as a less intelligent brutish humanoid. This bias has slipped into our language when we call a person a neanderthal. It's only in the past few decades that our understanding of Neanderthals is changing.
I have no issue with our ancestors having sex with Neanderthals. It's better than thinking that our ancestors totally obliterated them in the first genocidal campaign in human history, or accepting the belief that the two species operated in a vacuum and never met the other.
Returning to the topic, I think many of the diagrams that proponents of ancient alien visitation cited as evidence were rather the creation of an imaginative, intelligent artist. Our ancestors were capable of creating fantasy and science fiction. During the Roman Empire, Lucian created stories, in True History, wherein humans travel to the Moon and to Venus, of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and of wars between planets. I think it's conceivable that he wasn't the only writer who wrote on these matters in the ancient world.
Like I said earlier, this inability to envision our ancestors as like us was a bias - a terrible bias at that - that I would like to see buried along with the other beliefs like that blacks were less intelligent and less brave than whites, or that a woman's place was in the house and that such an individual didn't have an intelligent mind and was incapable of uttering an opinion.
I don't know what aliens will look like, but I would like to think they feel emotions, they form family and friendship bonds, they go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to go to work, they like to eat and to drink, they like to party, and they like music and dancing. This is my bias. I can't imagine an alien civilization that doesn't embrace some of these likes. This is my human weakness - that I like to think at some fundamental level they are like us.
I have no issue with our ancestors having sex with Neanderthals. It's better than thinking that our ancestors totally obliterated them in the first genocidal campaign in human history, or accepting the belief that the two species operated in a vacuum and never met the other.
Returning to the topic, I think many of the diagrams that proponents of ancient alien visitation cited as evidence were rather the creation of an imaginative, intelligent artist. Our ancestors were capable of creating fantasy and science fiction. During the Roman Empire, Lucian created stories, in True History, wherein humans travel to the Moon and to Venus, of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and of wars between planets. I think it's conceivable that he wasn't the only writer who wrote on these matters in the ancient world.
Like I said earlier, this inability to envision our ancestors as like us was a bias - a terrible bias at that - that I would like to see buried along with the other beliefs like that blacks were less intelligent and less brave than whites, or that a woman's place was in the house and that such an individual didn't have an intelligent mind and was incapable of uttering an opinion.
I don't know what aliens will look like, but I would like to think they feel emotions, they form family and friendship bonds, they go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to go to work, they like to eat and to drink, they like to party, and they like music and dancing. This is my bias. I can't imagine an alien civilization that doesn't embrace some of these likes. This is my human weakness - that I like to think at some fundamental level they are like us.
This may have been discussed upthread, but... Maybe. Recent discoveries indicate planet formation might have started occuring much earlier than previously supposed, but the data is as yet from too small a sample to draw too may conclusions, especially re rocky bodies.
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