31,573 Alien Civilizations in our Galaxy

Citation

Yet so many people still think that the mere idea of aliens is laughable. I think if as a whole, we would acknowledge the probability alone, great things could happen.

"i. panspermia: if life forms on one planet, it can spread to others in a system

ii. the rare-life hypothesis: Earth-like planets are rare but life progresses pretty well on them when they occur

iii. the tortoise and hare hypothesis: Earth-like plants are common but the steps towards civilisation are hard

And the results are:

i. panspermia predicts 37964.97 advanced civilisations in our galaxy with a standard deviation of 20.

ii. the rare life hypothesis predicts 361.2 advanced civilisations with an SD of 2

iii. the tortoise and hare hypothesis predicts 31573.52 with an SD of 20."

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[edit on 21/10/2008 by Badge01]

that link hurt my brain.


I just like to think of it as "lots"

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[edit on 21/10/2008 by Badge01]

Beautiful. It is exciting to hope that one day man will progress enough to care for this planet and eventually join into the greater community.

Right now we are infants playing out in the gated yard for our own safety.

sweet. and the scary thing is that with the millions(billions?) of stars in our galaxy, and all the planets orbiting them, that is just a drop in the bucket really. A number like that might decrease the odds that a civilisation arouse on Mars. I mean 2 civilisations for one star system would be very rare by that model . Oh well, we can still colonize it. Human civilisation for the win!

Originally posted by Wolf321
Yet so many people still think that the mere idea of aliens is laughable. I think if as a whole, we would acknowledge the probability alone, great things could happen.

There's no way to accurately determine the probability of other life (or civilizations) in this galaxy because we know of only one planet with life on it - Earth - and no clue as to how life got here.

Therefore, given all of the available data known at the moment, the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy = 1. The number of planets with life on them = 1.

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Nohup]

reply to post by Nohup


yeah and by the "what we know" assu,tion we lived at the center of the universe for thousands of years and then held back exploration of the globe for hundreds because "the world was flat"

some things are just obvious... in those cases scientific method an only slow down progress

That we are not alone is in reality a given...

Originally posted by mopusvindictus
That we are not alone is in reality a given...

Not so. There's a lot of conjecture, a lot of supposition, and a lot of hope that there is life somewhere else besides Earth. But there's not a shred of proof. So it is hardly a "given."

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Nohup]

reply to post by Nohup


You are so right Nohup.
Until there is positive proof that life exist somewhere in our Galaxy besides earth then there is only one. " 31,573 Alien Civilizations " and still no overwhelming proof of life anywhere else but here on the planet earth.

People can argue this all day long, but until we travel in our Galaxy and explore other planets then earth is our only frontier for now. It's nice to think about other life in our Galaxy but the fact is we don't know until they land here or we land there.

reply to post by Nohup


ahh.. but can you prove your answer?
That's a slippery slope. And if you slip you'll look very funny sliding down that slope.
Personally I like to say. It's possible that there's aliens out there. But we won't know till me meet one.

I personally think that number is WAY to low. There are BILLIONS of galaxies in our neck of the woods alone. Just because a planet doesnt look like earth from millions of miles away doesnt mean it isnt like us. Heck its just recently that we discovered all of them and now its only 31.5 thou that can have life? Seems awefully low considering all those galaxies.
Sorry dont mean to be degrading or anything like that: just seems that the math asc. with it is way off the mark.
xoxo

Then are the millions who already know. Also, the speculations about Mars don't follow logic. These are civilizations that have already moved from planet to planet. And Mars was a natural flow in travel to avoid catastrophe.

reply to post by Nohup


What your doing is actually anti scientific, the laws of probability and basic Math should leave us with the assumption that given prior results we can expect the same pattern to continue unless we encounter some reason to believe it should not continue.

We do not KNOW it will be hot again next summer, but proability based on prior results allows us to make accurate PREDICTIONS that it will

Likewise, through all of human history when we have predicted human centric results we have been proven wrong.

In history, with each civilization that believed it was the extent of things more , new lands with indigenous people were discovered, when we thought we were the center and the universe revolved around us...it turned out we revolve around it...

likewise in Biology, where ever we have claimed there could be no life... the deepest we have dug into the Earth, the furthest reaches of the Ocean...

Continually we have failed to find a single location on our world devoid of some kind of life...

extremes... far beyond what it takes for life to survive on other worlds...

the coldest temperatures, the most extreme heat, the highest pressures

where ever we look we find life...

so from where would a scientific assumption that this pattern would not continue come from... what environment have we explored where there is NO Life for certain?

I'm sorry but, we know pieces of our planet and atmosphere blow off all the time, we know life seeds... there is simply No evidence that Life doesn't exist everywhere... and every bit of evidence that it manages to survive in every condition it is presented with

Alien Environments?

There is Bacteria that thrives in Gamma Irradiated Chernobyl reactors...

what difficulty does Mars then present for simple life forms?

In fact why steralize the craft we send at all if from a scientific perspective.. it wouldn't survive...

the answer is simple.. we know it can survive...

and the Earth itself has thrown far more at Mars alone... than we can in the next 100 years...

In every single attempt the Human Mind Invents to isolate ourselves as special we are shown we are not...

Not long ago, we believed Pluto marked the end of the solar system...

Now we find worlds, the Kupier Belt, then the Oort Cloud which we have barely scratched the surface on...

Is there more between that and A centuri?

If failed stars numerically should out number stars 4 to 1

then you betcha... there are at least a handful of Jupiter sized bodies loose in the abyss with moons, internal heating and mini systems of thier own...

not long ago it would have been said there was no PROOF of planets... and that was for the bulk of my life... the PROOF the naysayers used in these debates

and you were all wrong...

so why doubt?

Should I rephrase and make it 99.999999% sure there is life...

perhaps that is the true answer

Because the burden of proof that there is NOT life should be on the debunkers in this one, because there is NO single example of anyplace we have observed in true form and personal exploration...where we do not discover new worlds, new environments and as far as Earth... Life, every single place we look.

I am sorry but, from a perspective of evidence...300 planets, life in every terrain, determination of appropriate environments.... all of it every sinkle bit has fallen into the realm of indication that we are not very unique...

and Mathamatics defies any possibility that we are.

If you choose to wait until you catch a Bacteria from an Ocean on Europa your going to wait a long time...

But that the Ocean is there and there is a warm layer is virtual certainty...

and if life lives on those condiotions on Earth... it is the More Plausable assumption that it can do so anywhwere else

To claim we are alone makes about as much sense as doubting that the physics of Earth are the same as they are on the other side of the solar system, there simply is no valid reason to conclude in any aspect of science that the same physical properties of the universe that affect us are not exactly the same across the whole of the universe

The only thing that stands in the way of making that leap is our own internal desire to be special... and the words of Creationists

and frankly, even creationists should pay more attention

because the books are filled with in native language references to beings from "the heavens" not heaven as in after you die... but "the heavens" and even Christ refers to us as Conquer of Stars even the book tells us to "be fruitful and multiply" certainly Not the advice if your a believer that says to us... there are limited resources for life available to us

So what evidence or indication is there...from Religion or Science that we are alone, what discovery have we made that has not shown us that wherever we look there is life or the capacity for life or new worlds...

the answer is NONE, there is not one plausable thing other than "I wont believe it until I see it" that says things should not be the same as we constantly and without fail discover them to be...

the burden of proof would be in fact... to prove that life does not exist... not vice versa



[edit on 20-10-2008 by mopusvindictus]

reply to post by Nohup


Yep, an absolutely nonsense number, derived from an absolutely nonsense equation.

"So Forgan has attempted to inject a little more precision into the calculation... using reasonable, modern estimates for the values in the Drake equation." - Erm nope, the most reasonable estimate would be 0 until otherwise proved.

Quackery.

reply to post by mopusvindictus


Nope, it is scientific method to assume that something does not exist until proven it exists, not that it exists until proven otherwise.

[edit on 20-10-2008 by Man_Versus_AntiMan]

So, going with the fun math, what are the mathematical odds of that number of alien civilizations actually being correct (lets assume more than 1)?

reply to post by mystiq


please expand on your theory.... millions of who know what ???

reply to post by Wolf321


Uhm, do you really believe that precise # or are you just saying that you think the probability of life "out there" is good?

Just seems weird (being honest) when people claim to know how many alien civilizations, names of the different types of aliens (even that there ARE different types of aliens), their languages, etc etc.

I shy away from these kinds of threads because I fear that people are so out of touch with reality IN THIS MOMENT HERE ON EARTH that they have turned to fantasies they grew up with on television and/or in movies.

Whether there is other life out there or not is a fascinating thought, but seems to me like we need to focus more of our attention on our problems here before running out "the door" in search of other life to screw up.

The bottom line is this.

The fact that there is only one planet with life, Earth, cannot be proven.

The fact that there are more planets than Earth which have life, cannot be proven.

The only thing we have is which position is more likely. The most likely case is clearly that there are many because thats what probability dictates and where you dont have proof you only have probabilities.

I think the mathematics behind this thread is interesting.

However, it is only counting the number of civilizations in a galaxy, not much more.

We also are unsure of how many civilizations there have been on this Earth. It is possible that every single one of the 31 thousand civilizations were here on this planet.

reply to post by justamomma


I am not putting my faith in that particular number. I do believe, probability-wise, that life, even intelligent life to include life with the ability to travel between systems, in our galaxy is considerably high. I think society could only benefit from understanding such probability.

reply to post by Man_Versus_AntiMan


Only in the most basic sense of proof of something that has no prior evidence.

In this case life Exists... at the bottom of the ocean, given lack of sunlight, we have PROOF that life exists in hydrothermal vents, if those exist on Europa you would have to derive the proof to explain Why Archaeobacteria would not develop in that location exactly as it does on Earth

What would be the scientific reason for the non existance of something that developed under the exact same conditions... we Posses the PROOF that archeobacteria exist... you do NOT posses the proof that under the same conditions it would not exists elsewhere...

The same would have to be said of all life... we have proven planets, we have also proven Rocky worlds with similar conditions... we have multiple models for life and environments here on Earth... that even if you argue the odds against another Earth... we have similar environments right in our back yard to where various alternative forms of life exist here

Percholate driven bacteria in peru in the same soil as Martian soil has shown, antifreeze driven organisms under the south pole in temperature of martian extremes devoid of sunlight,

In the case of Mars..if on Earth we have Bacteria that lives 2 miles down... can thaw after Milions of years of being frozen and we Know we have had pieces of Earth blown that have landed on mars... why would that life be unable to live under the surface?

If the conditions exist for that life... then the burden of proof shifts to showing why it would Fail to be the same elsewhere

No one questions that Physics are essentially the same on other worlds... so why would we have to PROVE Bio Chemistry is any different?

Your just wrong, the burden of proof.. is on your end, we Know life exisits, we know our condition is not unique for the environments right here where life can exist elsewhere and that's just in our solar system...

LIFE is Real... I am here typing these words, I think, therefore I am, life is knowm in various conditions Here that are for all intents and purposes more hostile than other parts of our solar system...

you have to prove why the Bichemistry wouldn't be the same

We have proven life can exists in hostile envirionments... extremophiles...

We have located the worlds

We have identified these environments on worlds right in our line of sight and right next door let alone in defiance to Billions/Trillions of worlds

We have ... brought life to space ourselves and the history of Earth is very long, what we can do may have been done before

and

the prinicpals of science have not been found to change where ever we look...

"scientific burden demands proof" yes we have proven... the worlds exists and life exists in a diversity of environments that emulate many worlds, worlds within reach...

The burden of proof has shifted in the last Decade...

You need to determine why Life would not exists in environments we can porve right here it exists in

There is zero logic to conclude that given the proper chemicals the same environment and the identical conditions and the worlds to do so... why the same scientific process would not occour



[edit on 20-10-2008 by mopusvindictus]