Search for Life

[the iron horse]

Mars:
Bloomberg.com: News


I don't think they will find it.
They have been listening for radio signals for almost fifty years
and not a word yet.

 

[A_Wanderer]

The variables in Drakes equation makes communication unlikely, and radio is not the ideal way to get noticed, neutrino beams could be just the thing.

 

[BVS]

I don't think they will find it.
They have been listening for radio signals for almost fifty years
and not a word yet.

So your reason for thinking we'll never find life is that we haven't found radio signals?

I think it's pretty arrogant to believe in a god and think this whole universe was just made for one planet. It's also pretty narrow minded to think radio signals would tell us anything.

 

[deep]

They say there is water on Mars

and this lander is near a pole where ice exist.

This probe will most likely verify there are quantities of water still on Mars.


Could there even have been some kind of life on Mars?

Will there be any fossils remains to find?

I forget how old we think it is.

 

[melon]

I don't think they will find it.
They have been listening for radio signals for almost fifty years
and not a word yet.

That has to be the silliest reasoning I've ever heard.

Now I do think it is conceivable that Mars will be sterile, and that there is no other life within this solar system. Because of that, of course, we would have to accept that any other life, intelligent or non-intelligent, would be light years away.

Then we'd have to look for favorable stars.

Then we'd have to look for favorable stars with favorable planets.

Then we'd have to accept that even favorable planets might be in a different stage of evolution, meaning that intelligent life might not exist until the distant future...or existed in our distant past.

And considering the size of our universe, it is quite conceivable that numerous planets have existed, currently exist, or will exist that harbor life. It is just equally conceivable that, considering the challenges of distance, we may never encounter it.

I think that radio signals are a pretty useless metric, considering the level of distance and diffusion. If we can't listen to a radio station beyond a few hundred miles, I find it pretty difficult to see a random signal making it intact numerous light years away. But who knows, I guess.

 

[A_Wanderer]

It's also pretty narrow minded to think radio signals would tell us anything.

Hey, radio astronomy has taught a lot about the universe, it isn't narrow minded to think that information is valuable.

The question is if intelligent life capable of signaling has evolved elsewhere would it necessarily use radio, would it exist at the right time for us to detect it (we have had radio for about a century - even less if you want to get outside the solar system), thats only 100 / 13,700,000,000 years. There is the possibility that life has evolved but it already extinct, or it is well out of signalling range for us.

I don't feel that radio SETI in and of itself is likely to find anything, if we presume that signalling to other civilizations is admirable (and it may not be) there are still probably better ways to use those resources. The same argument can be said of many things though and I wouldn't want to defend the scrapping of research budgets and reassigning them to war and welfare cheats.

 

[deep]

the likelihood that some higher lifeforms would even be within a distance that humans would ever come in any contact them

is much, much less than the possibility that higher lifeforms may exist.


As big as the universe is, and we have no real concept, except that it is almost vast beyond our ability to understand.

 

[DrTeeth]

Mars:
Bloomberg.com: News


I don't think they will find it.
They have been listening for radio signals for almost fifty years
and not a word yet.

Maybe that's because micro-organisms have a problem pushing the buttons.

Seriously though, tax money well spent, and I'm not even sarcastic on this one.

 

[INDY500]

Martian Bigfoot.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i'm glad we're spending billions of dollars looking for little green men... or rather signs of little green men.

perhaps they're looking for osama.

 

[financeguy]

Waste of time and money.

We are most probably alone and if we are not then....it's still a waste of time and money.

 

[Pearl]

Waste of time and money.

We are most probably alone and if we are not then....it's still a waste of time and money.

Even though I believe there is life on other planets, I do wonder if the search for it is worth all the money and effort. Maybe if we searched for resources on Mars or elsewhere, then it would worth the time and money.

 

[martha]

Exploration is always worth it. It's who we are as humans. It's what we do.

 

[A_Wanderer]

NASA has a budget of 17 billion dollars, these missions are more than just looking for life, they really build up a picture of Martian geology. If there were hot fluids running through the martian crust in the past then it isn't out of the question to have mineral deposits, that could be useful.

 

[the iron horse]

So your reason for thinking we'll never find life is that we haven't found radio signals?

I think it's pretty arrogant to believe in a god and think this whole universe was just made for one planet. It's also pretty narrow minded to think radio signals would tell us anything.

ar·ro·gant
adj.
1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others



If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.


Why not dance

 

[Pearl]

If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.

I think what BVS means if God could create this planet, why not others if the universe is so vast?

 

[Irvine511]

ar·ro·gant
adj.
1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others



If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.


Why not dance

 

[deep]

there are still plenty of us here

that could learn plenty from the teachings of "Jesus from Nazareth".

 

[melon]

If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.

BBC NEWS | Europe | Vatican says aliens could exist

Vatican says aliens could exist
By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

The Pope's chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out.

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.

Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.

The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.

The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article 'Aliens Are My Brother'.

'Free from sin'

Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.

Asked about the Catholic Church's condemnation four centuries ago of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo, Father Funes diplomatically says mistakes were made, but it is time to turn the page and look towards the future.

Science and religion need each other, and many astronomers believe in God, he assures readers.

To strengthen its scientific credentials, the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.

It's an interesting stance quite reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien, a self-professed conservative Catholic, 50 years prior.

Tolkien understood Eru ["Eru Ilúvatar" is the name of God, the single omnipotent creator in Tolkien's legendarium] not as a fictional deity but as a name in a fictional language for the actual monotheistic God of Christian faith, although in a fictional context. A clear explanation of this appears in a draft of a letter that Tolkien wrote in 1954 to Peter Hastings, manager of the Newman Bookshop (a Catholic bookshop in Oxford). In the letter, Tolkien, a devout Catholic, defended the non-orthodox portrayal of God (Eru) in his writing as rightly within the scope of his legendarium, as an exploration of the infinite "potential variety" of God.

Regarding the possibility of reincarnation of Elves, Hastings had written:

"God has not used that device in any of the creations of which we have knowledge, and it seems to me to be stepping beyond the position of a sub-creator to produce it as an actual working thing, because a sub-creator, when dealing with the relations between creator and created, should use those channels which he knows the creator to have used already."

Tolkien's reply contains an explanation of his view of the relation of (divine) Creation to (human) sub-creation:

"We differ entirely about the nature of the relation of sub-creation to Creation. I should have said that liberation "from the channels the creator is known to have used already" is the fundamental function of "sub-creation", a tribute to the infinity of His potential variety [...] I am not a metaphysician; but I should have thought it a curious metaphysic — there is not one but many, indeed potentially innumerable ones — that declared the channels known (in such a finite corner as we have any inkling of) to have been used, are the only possible ones, or efficacious, or possibly acceptable to and by Him!"

Hastings had also criticised the description of Tom Bombadil by Goldberry: "He is", saying that this seemed to imply that Bombadil was God.

Tolkien replied to this:

"As for Tom Bombadil, I really do think you are being too serious, besides missing the point. [...] You rather remind me of a Protestant relation who to me objected to the (modern) Catholic habit of calling priests Father, because the name father belonged only to the First Person."

It's quite interesting how sensible they can be, when unencumbered by nonsensical medieval tradition. It reminds me why I'll probably never switch religions, in spite of my grudges with the Vatican.

 

[BVS]

ar·ro·gant
adj.
1. Having or displaying a sense of overbearing self-worth or self-importance.
2. Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others



If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.


Why not dance

Thanks for definition.

You missed my point entirely. If God created the entire universe, what makes you think your species is the only one worth heaven? Why not martians? If you honestly believe your God is all powerful then why could "he" have not created more?

 

[martha]

If believing there is only one creator God in this entire universe who came to this planet as a human to talk to us about life makes me narrow minded, then I guess I am a narrow minded clown.

This is such a tiresome response to anything you don't feel like discussing. Why did you even start the thread then?

Of course, you do this all the time, and we all still take the bait.

 

[cobl04]

It's a god-awful small affair I have to say....

Agree with a wanderer's points here.

 

[Irvine511]

this thread reminded me of one of my favorite kinda-spooky stories.

on June 27, 1982, Steven Spielberg was invited to the White House to give a special screening of "E.T." to the Reagans and a few guests (Sandra Day O'Connor was among them). the movie went well, Nancy cried at the end, and afterwards, Ronnie himself came up to Spielberg, told him he had made a classic film, and then said, and i quote, "You know, I bet there aren't six people in this room who know just how true this is."

love it.