Alien, I mean really Alien.

Atrocities · #1 March 26th, 2004, 01:18 AM

There are no aliens living on other worlds. It is mathamatically improbable that sentient space faring life could have evolved on another world given the absolute uniqueness that spawned life here. The chances for another life giving planet are so astronomically rare that if you could explore space in its entirety in one day it would take you a trillion years to find one planet like Earth. We are it and until one lands on this planet and proves me wrong, I am going to stick by this narrow minded concept.

Captain Kwok · #2 March 26th, 2004, 01:38 AM

Atrocities:

I'll give you the chance that Aliens visiting us here is next to nothing, but I sincerely doubt your assertion that there is no alien life elsewhere in our galaxy. Once we have better tools in place, we'll start identifying planets much more like our own than the ones they've found so far.

Atrocities · #3 March 26th, 2004, 01:45 AM

CK I have to tell you that our being here is an accident of epic proportions. The simple fact that life evolved on Earth is such a rare event that chances of it occuring twice or more in the universe is so great that if you took the number 1 and put 0 behind it to the point that it could circle the universe a centrillion times to the billionth power you might be within 1% of the chance.

This planet is so rare that it equals 1 10th of a grain of sand compared to the entire galaxy. And we are wasting it away.

No CK, life does not exsist "out there" it only exsists here.

Randallw · #4 March 26th, 2004, 01:51 AM

Wow, did this thread take off. I bow to Captain Kwok and others superior knowledge, as I explained I am no expert I was simply trying to put forth some limited knowledge I had. So my numbers might be wrong but I seemed to remember it was a proportion such as 5 out of 20. It could well be 3 out of 15, but I'm pretty sure the number of fossils was less than 20 "types". The types I was referring to are (using my simple example)
1. creature with a backbone and 4 limbs.
2. creature without a backbone.
3. Creature with a backbone but 3 unsymetrical limbs spaced around torse (like Cygnans from Jupiter theft).
4. Creature with 20 legs and backbone (sort of like a centipede but not an insect).
5. creature with a tubular body and circular mouth studded by teeth in 3 sets (like a lamprey).
6-20 various other types.
basically think of 20 really alien variations on possible forms, but only (in my example) 5 survived.

I read this in a magazine many years ago and it stuck in my mind. The magazine could have been Popular Science, National Geographic or Time for all I know. I apologise for being unable to provide links or detailed information, really I was hoping for someone with more knowledge to elaborate on what I knew. For the person who wanted to know the 3 types of Monotremes, they are 1 type of Platypus and there are 2 type of Echidnas.

Captain Kwok · #5 March 26th, 2004, 01:51 AM

...and what do you base this on? Your own pessimistic view?

Nah, I'm hoping that one of the Mars rovers will accidently stumble upon some microfossils to spite you.

All in good humour of course.

Captain Kwok · #6 March 26th, 2004, 01:58 AM

RandallW:

Are these real examples of lifeforms from Earth's past? Or possible forms that life could have taken?

Randallw · #7 March 26th, 2004, 02:16 AM

They are real. basically someone found a set of fossils from long ago (whenever simple life was forming, but a bit above amoeba and such) they looked at this set of fossils and it was "Ok, I recognize these ones with the backbone and legs, but what are all these fossils with no bones or odd numbers of legs?". (ME) Then again how do you have a fossil with no bones?. I seem to recall the circumstance was there were all the different forms of life coexisting in a lake when a cliff fell on top of them.