Humans may be alone in the Universe.

[Hollie]

I suggested to a Canadian oil company geologist that it was profoundly unlikely that dead plants and animals formed the massive amounts of crude oil and natural gas found worldwide under miles of shale and oceans and lakes.
"Find me one place on earth where such accumulations of dead organisms are compressing," I said. "Bacteria eat them."

He said that there is a great deal of confusion over the origins of mineral deposits for just those reasons.

God put them there, somehow. And we have only about 40 years left of crude oil, so that is His timetable, I submit to you.
He knew how much we would need.

Romans 1.1. What the gawds giveth, Chevron can taketh’.

 

[Flopper]

Not so much contact but we could pickup up alien signals. We have been blasting out radio signals for over a 100 years. That's over a 100 light years in any direction and covers around 75 star systems.

While 100 years seems like a very long time to us, it is likely only a blink in the development on an intelligent life form. It has taken us 6 million years to develop to a point that we would be able to receive signals from space. Signals may have come millions of years ago but no one was listening or they may come millions of years from now after the human race no longer exist.

Going a step further, the age of the universe and estimated time it has left is measured in billions of years. There may have been many intelligent life forms that sent signals out billions of years ago or will send them billions of years after we are long gone.

So time is an important factor to consider when considering the likelihood of receiving a signal from an intelligent life form but so is distance. Even if we might have the technology to pick up intelligent life signals from distance galaxies, those life forms may well have become extinct by the time their signal reaches earth.

Even if we are very lucky and intelligent life exist during our time of existence, and they are a reasonable distance away, these intelligent beings may have little interest in contacting us. In short, I would not hold my breath hoping to hear from intelligent life.

 

[alang1216]

"Find me one place on earth where such accumulations of dead organisms are compressing," I said. "Bacteria eat them."

Except they don't once the O2 is used up. Peat bog people have been preserved intact for thousands of years.

 

[alang1216]

There are mountains with coal (maybe not on the main island). The Hawaiians were against coal mining as it made industrial their lush and beautiful islands. You know this and are just using an outlier to try and win a lost argument.

Got a link to coal in Hawaii? Unlikely I think. The Hawaiians are against coal because they have to import all theirs from Indonesia.

 

[james bond]

Got a link to coal in Hawaii? Unlikely I think. The Hawaiians are against coal because they have to import all theirs from Indonesia.

My daughter and son live in Hawaii, so I know there are no coal mines, but there are a couple of coal seams on two of the smaller islands. It goes to show coal is everywhere. I can't find the link I found before.

 

[Staidhup]

The likelihood of life as defined by reproducing organisms is rather high, however, life as defined in the terms of humanoids in one form or another is minuscule at best, furthermore, when one considers the distance between stars and candidates that exist in an orbit we define as habitable even smaller. I am rather certain scientists, mathematicians, and UFO experts have another viewpoint. So who really cares?

 

[james bond]

Got a link to coal in Hawaii? Unlikely I think. The Hawaiians are against coal because they have to import all theirs from Indonesia.

Are you going to claim it took millions of years to form coal now? We know coal forms quickly.

 

[alang1216]

Are you going to claim it took millions of years to form coal now? We know coal forms quickly.

Coal is formed when dead plant matter submerged in swamp environments is subjected to the geological forces of heat and pressure over hundreds of millions of years.

I'm anxious, but not expecting, to learn otherwise.

 

[james bond]

Coal is formed when dead plant matter submerged in swamp environments is subjected to the geological forces of heat and pressure over hundreds of millions of years.

I'm anxious, but not expecting, to learn otherwise.

Yeah, but that's in swamps and bogs. How did it get on top of mountains?

Scientists have proven that coal can form in only a few months with dead plants under high pressure in their labs. You and evos are wrong again.

COAL FORMED RAPIDLY IN A LAB INSIDE OF ONE YEAR – Evolution is a Myth

 

[DGS49]

What are the chances that an alien from planet Krypton could pass for a human insurance salesman? Or that he could reproduce with a human female - Lois Lane?

I worry about this.

 

[alang1216]

Yeah, but that's in swamps and bogs. How did it get on top of mountains?

Continental drift. A process still going on today.

Scientists have proven that coal can form in only a few months with dead plants under high pressure in their labs. You and evos are wrong again.

Assuming this is true, where did the high heat and pressure come from? If the coal is found on a mountain top it was never buried very deeply.

 

[JoeMoma]

I know, but the simplest answer for why we have no evidence of extraterrestrial life is that there simply isn’t any.

I’m not saying it’s impossible that there’s life, but the fact that there’s limitless star systems out there doesn’t mean that it’s inevitable.

Can you imagine being born on a small island that is out in ocean a thousands of years ago. One might think that there are no people other than those that live on the island because they have never met them and never seen any evidence of them. That is kind of how we are now concerning extraterrestrial life. Yes, it is possible that there is no extraterrestrial life, but it is also possible we simply do not have the technology to travel or "see" that extraterrestrial life that is so far far away.

 

[Nobody911]

Humans are lonely and miserable. Here.

I am also lonely.

Lol. If I was ET, I'd never communicate with humans. Too dangerous! Lol.

 

[JohnDB]

It literally doesn't matter if there is life in other solar systems. They are so far away that neither can we reach them or they us.

Let's say for example that there's another solar system that is only 500 light years away. Meaning that it takes 500 years for light to travel from them to us. A really close neighbor considering solar systems.

We can't travel at that speed or even a significant portion of light speed.

So let's say that we could somehow get ¼ of light speed. Meaning that a space ship would leave earth and arrive there in 2,000 years....but wait....it takes a year to accelerate to that kind of speed and then another year to slow down. So we need to add a few years to the overall timeliness. Then because of some really complicated math....time here on Earth goes by faster than it does on the spaceship. So you need to add even more years of time here on Earth.

Now 2,000 years ago the Roman Empire was ruling the planet except for North and South America....because they hadn't been discovered yet.

5600 years ago the Egyptians ruled the known world.

Everyone fought with bows and arrows and swords. (Kinda) steel wasn't discovered yet and iron was a secret skill. Aluminum? They were using glass beads back then as a medium of exchange and it had the same value as silver.

BUT 500 years ago the first printing presses were being produced.

So....
I don't see it happening....like ever.

 

[Flopper]

It literally doesn't matter if there is life in other solar systems. They are so far away that neither can we reach them or they us.

Let's say for example that there's another solar system that is only 500 light years away. Meaning that it takes 500 years for light to travel from them to us. A really close neighbor considering solar systems.

We can't travel at that speed or even a significant portion of light speed.

So let's say that we could somehow get ¼ of light speed. Meaning that a space ship would leave earth and arrive there in 2,000 years....but wait....it takes a year to accelerate to that kind of speed and then another year to slow down. So we need to add a few years to the overall timeliness. Then because of some really complicated math....time here on Earth goes by faster than it does on the spaceship. So you need to add even more years of time here on Earth.

Now 2,000 years ago the Roman Empire was ruling the planet except for North and South America....because they hadn't been discovered yet.

5600 years ago the Egyptians ruled the known world.

Everyone fought with bows and arrows and swords. (Kinda) steel wasn't discovered yet and iron was a secret skill. Aluminum? They were using glass beads back then as a medium of exchange and it had the same value as silver.

BUT 500 years ago the first printing presses were being produced.

So....
I don't see it happening....like ever.

Assuming we we would not have suspended animation that would last 2000 years, we would need a generational starship. Before building such a starship that would cost an ungodly amount of money we would have to know that there is a planet there that actually does support life as we know it. However, without knowledge and experience in space travel out our solar system, such a mission would be foolhardily

What seems to be the most likely future is establishment of bases on the Moon and Mars and exploration of the outer planets while sending unmanned probes to the nearest star systems that have planets that might support life. Once we find them, then we establish bases and those with promise we colonized. We continue through the galaxy in search of intelligent life and habitable planets, colonizing those with promise. At best it will take hundreds of years or maybe thousands.

My guess is somewhere along the line, wars, epidemics, and/or global warming will send the earth back into a stone age. or something close to it. If by that time, we have developed a sustainable colony, then it will become the new Earth and will eventually continue the exploration of the stars.

 

[Flash]

The likelihood of life as defined by reproducing organisms is rather high,

What do you base that statement on?

What are your inputs for "likelihood"?

I think it is low (if not nonexistent) based upon the facts that we have only found it on earth and we can't reproduce it in a laboratory.

Turning Chemistry into Biology may be unique to earth.

 

[Flopper]

Can you imagine being born on a small island that is out in ocean a thousands of years ago. One might think that there are no people other than those that live on the island because they have never met them and never seen any evidence of them. That is kind of how we are now concerning extraterrestrial life. Yes, it is possible that there is no extraterrestrial life, but it is also possible we simply do not have the technology to travel or "see" that extraterrestrial life that is so far far away.

Unlike someone who was born on a small island thousands of years ago, we have the technology to find places where life could exist. The person born on that island with nothing around and no land masses where life might exist is not likely to suspect that it exists. This person and others on the island are most likely to look to a supernatural being(s) for the explanation for that which is not within their sphere of knowledge just as mem did thousands of years ago, and many do today.

 

[Flopper]

What do you base that statement on?

What are your inputs for "likelihood"?

I think it is low (if not nonexistent) based upon the facts that we have only found it on earth and we can't reproduce it in a laboratory.

Turning Chemistry into Biology may be unique to earth.

We have no evidence that life does not exist on any other planets. However, we do have a bit of evidence of existence. For example, astronomers have observed a pair of exoplanets about 100 light-years from Earth, and they say one, which has never been seen before, is a strong candidate for supporting life. There have been at least 3 other studies that found planets with the strong possibility of supporting life.

Thanks to planet-finding methods like stellar wobble, the transit method, direct imaging, and microlensing, we know of thousands of planets beyond our Solar System.
Given the limitations of what we're able to see and the physics of how planets are formed, we fully expect there are trillions of planets in just the Milky Way alone. Estimates are that at least a billion or more other galaxies exist. Thus the estimate of the number of planets in the universe would be at least billions of trillion planets.

With no evidence that life does not exist on any other planets and evidence that life could exist on at least 1 out of a thousands planets we know that exist, it's reasonable to assume that there will be many among the billions of trillions of planets.

I wouldn't be placing any bets on non-existence but neither would I be betting on existence only because I won't be around to collect.

How many planets are there in the Universe?

In 1990, we only knew of the ones in our Solar System. Today, we know of thousands, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

bigthink.com

How many galaxies are in the Universe?

After the James Webb Space Telescope is fully operational, the number of visible galaxies is likely to increase

universemagazine.com

 

[Flash]

We have no evidence that life does not exist on any other planets. However, we do have a bit of evidence of existence. For example, astronomers have observed a pair of exoplanets about 100 light-years from Earth, and they say one, which has never been seen before, is a strong candidate for supporting life. There have been at least 3 other studies that found planets with the strong possibility of supporting life.

Thanks to planet-finding methods like stellar wobble, the transit method, direct imaging, and microlensing, we know of thousands of planets beyond our Solar System.
Given the limitations of what we're able to see and the physics of how planets are formed, we fully expect there are trillions of planets in just the Milky Way alone. Estimates are that at least a billion or more other galaxies exist. Thus the estimate of the number of planets in the universe would be at least billions of trillion planets.

With no evidence that life does not exist on any other planets and evidence that life could exist on at least 1 out of a thousands planets we know that exist, it's reasonable to assume that there will be many among the billions of trillions of planets.

I wouldn't be placing any bets on non-existence but neither would I be betting on existence only because I won't be around to collect.

How many planets are there in the Universe?

In 1990, we only knew of the ones in our Solar System. Today, we know of thousands, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

bigthink.com

How many galaxies are in the Universe?

After the James Webb Space Telescope is fully operational, the number of visible galaxies is likely to increase

universemagazine.com

Here are a couple of videos that looked at the 3K or planets that we have discovered and only three of them came anywhere close to being considered earth like and one of them was tidal locked. All three of them were marginal at best.

You are falling for the old "it must be because there are so many" fallacy. Every where we look we see planets and conditions that are hostile to life as we know it. Statistics doesn't turn Chemistry in Biology. If the universe is finite then there will be unique things in it. Life may very well be unique to earth.

 

[JohnDB]

Assuming we we would not have suspended animation that would last 2000 years, we would need a generational starship. Before building such a starship that would cost an ungodly amount of money we would have to know that there is a planet there that actually does support life as we know it. However, without knowledge and experience in space travel out our solar system, such a mission would be foolhardily

What seems to be the most likely future is establishment of bases on the Moon and Mars and exploration of the outer planets while sending unmanned probes to the nearest star systems that have planets that might support life. Once we find them, then we establish bases and those with promise we colonized. We continue through the galaxy in search of intelligent life and habitable planets, colonizing those with promise. At best it will take hundreds of years or maybe thousands.

My guess is somewhere along the line, wars, epidemics, and/or global warming will send the earth back into a stone age. or something close to it. If by that time, we have developed a sustainable colony, then it will become the new Earth and will eventually continue the exploration of the stars.

A much more plausible guess is that as technology advances some group with mental health issues will use some piece of old technology to wipe out mankind.

Using a common commuter jet a group of deranged idiots took the pentagon and two towers in NYC.

What other tech lays about that no one considers a weapon except for a deranged mind.
A microscope and some patience and the next plague is unleashed. It could be on people or it could be on livestock or it could be on agriculture. There's no way to ban microscopes...they are sold at every toy store.

In all of our "wisdom " we are really simple idiots. We will destroy ourselves as we try to improve our lifestyles.