oxygen was a deadly poison and killed quite a lot of life on earth when it first came around. sunlight is deadly. water of course has its own problems. so i agree with ronin. we have an absolutely narrow view of life on earth that has been completely decided by circumstance. i don’t think it’s far-fetched at all to think of some form of life surviving in something that would be completely inhospitable to us.
i mean there are things on earth that can survive in the vacuum of space, to within a few degrees of absolute zero and boiling temperatures. that’s just here on one planet, having evolved to our environment!
We live on a real knife’s edge on this planet. Every other planet is in the wrong spot for our life; this planet itself has huge sections that are uninhabitable by us.
Let’s not forget about black budget programs where untold trillions have been squandered without Congress’ approval or acknowledgment.
Been saying this for years. Science is about provable results, but they rarely try to expand their territory without some prodding. Then when they discover something that was hypothesized by an “eccentric” peer years ago, they start getting hype. Deep sea creatures is a perfect example what life truly is capable of.
And on the subject of intelligent life- There’s been roughly 12 billion years for intelligent life to evolve, and we haven’t been around for more than 200,000 years. Do the math.
You talking about water bears? Those things are fucking awesome. Kind of cute too, in a weird way.
In any case, science has proven itself wrong on numerous occasions, and we have really just scratched the surface on how we understand how living organisms work. I mean, the best example is when we thought it was impossible for life to exist in the deep sea because “life is impossible without light”. Obviously, science was wrong once life was discovered in the deepest parts of the ocean, and there’s so much more to be discovered. We know less about the ocean than we do about the moon; that really says a lot.
that’s the cool thing about science, though. it is capable of admitting its wrong and constantly is hedging its bets. and it’s only by the process of science that it can be proven wrong.
from the article you linked:
Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of ?273 °C (?459.400 °F), close to absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151 °C (304 °F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, and almost a decade without water. In September 2007, tardigrades were taken into low Earth orbit on the FOTON-M3 mission and for 10 days were exposed to the vacuum of space. After they were returned to Earth, it was discovered that many of them survived and laid eggs that hatched normally.
^- and that’s something that evolved on OUR planet, within OUR narrow spectrum. who can imagine what’s out there somewhere?
Bacteria have also been found in on the exterior of space shuttles after they have landed. Which also means they were exposed to the vacuum of space as well as reentry!
For the people thinking that proof of aliens (and dinosaurs) makes religion obsolete, Islam does not revoke any of these notions, but rather supports them. JUST FOR THE RECORD, DON’T WANT TO START A RELIGIOUS DEBATE OR ANYTHING…
More on the note of the thread, honestly, what is the point of all of this?
They should be putting the billions of dollars they waste on this “expansion of consciousness” towards rejuvenating 3rd world countries, or at the very least, feeding the inhabitants.
it’s pretty awesome, and it just goes to show how amazingly diverse and hardy life can be. even in the most extreme, inhospitable conditions, life will find a way. it’s truly miraculous and to me, is far more beautiful and stupefying than anything conjured up from fiction or spirituality
You know what happens when you figure out a new miracle crop for the famine wasted third world countries? Everyone has enough food right? More people live. The population grows, people are happy, well fed, and the population continues to grow until… there’s enough people such that the miracle crop is no longer enough to feed them all, and then famine kicks in again. See Ireland for historical evidence, when they introduced the potato, and what happened. The population tends to grow until it reaches critical mass.
Now if we worked harder on birth control and stopping population growth through Education instead of letting nature choose famine, war, disease, whatever, to do it for us, then we’d be a better place.
Now about whether religion is important or not in the face of alien life, well check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(film) from 1997, it’s a well done reflection on what I think is a pretty decent realistic reflection of how our society today would respond to finding what might be proof of alien life. It says, yea religion is still important because people make it important, but it also says it’s about personal choice.
In regards to religion, it’s not really a big deal. Any time any kind of scientific proof threatens the existence of God, the Catholic church’s bishops and what not will just get together, have a meeting, and then publically say it’s okay and that God willed it. Problem solved. God still exists. Science “fails” once again. Shrug.
If we are to believe that the universe is, in fact, infinite; than it is mathematically impossible for there NOT to be life on other planets. Hence the notion of infinity. There could be another planet in another system trillions of light years away that is exactly like Earth in every way, shape and form, the only difference being that everyone named Michael on this planet is named John in the other planet.
Infinity is serious business. Multiverse theory is fun to think about.
Contacting, or being contacted by, intelligent alien life would change sooooooooooo much. Like seriously, life and society as we know it would change dramatically. And I for one am all for it.
Even finding bacteria native to a planet that isn’t Earth would be a Seriously Big Deal. I wanted to end that sentence with the trademark character but I’m on a Mac and too lazy to pull up the Character Viewer.
Pubes.
Pubes.
Pubes.
I want to get the good ending for Cave Story but I’m afraid.
Ocelot.
Ocelot.
Ocelot.
Conan’s new show is no more or less funny than it was before.
Aliens with nipples > Dr. B. Except nothing can be > Dr. B, or the laws of the universe’;aoisYUVHOLJKY@{H)“POUGVB:”{)!Y&}H){"B
your insane, do you have any idea how nuts everyone is going to be. ok we might live in an age that swiftly advances into a cool sci fi movie, but if it doesn’t then there’s gonna be a lot of shit happening
I respect NASA for keeping a lid on things, it’s way too dangerous to unveal everything at the same time, we still need to sort ourselves out
In 4th grade or so I remember reading in scholastic news that NASA found microscopic fossils of single cell organisms on Mars. That being said, life at that point can only go up.
Remember how people behaved and reacted to the aliens in Mars Attacks? That’s a pretty accurate depiction of how I think it would go down.
For those who haven’t seen it there’s a scene where someone invests in hotels thinking “the aliens are gonna need a place to stay!”
