What if we ARE all alone? Scientists say Earth may be a 'one-off fluke'

What if we ARE all alone? Scientists say Earth may be a 'one-off fluke' and the Milky Way's billions of other planets may all be lifeless

Nasa has said there are 'billions' of planets in our own Milky Way galaxy - but a new study suggests that the idea that they are teeming with alien lifeforms may just be wishful thinking.

Two Princeton scientists used what's known as 'Bayesian analysis' - a technque that 'boils down' ideas to the actual data, as opposed to scientists' own ideas about what 'should' be true.

They suggest that it's very possible Earth is a one-off aberration where life took hold unusually fast - and on the average extraterrestrial planet, the chances of life are very low indeed.

‘There is a commonly heard argument that life must be common or else it would not have arisen so quickly after the surface of the Earth cooled,’ Winn said.

‘This argument seems persuasive on its face, but Spiegel and Turner have shown it doesn't stand up to a rigorous statistical examination — with a sample of only one life-bearing planet, one cannot even get a ballpark estimate of the abundance of life in the universe.

Deep-space satellites and telescope projects have recently identified various planets that resemble Earth in their size and composition, and are within their star's habitable zone, the optimal distance for having liquid water.

While these observations tend to stoke the expectation of finding Earth-like life, they do not actually provide evidence that it does or does not exist, Spiegel explained. Instead, these planets have our knowledge of life on Earth projected onto them, he said.

Daily Mail

I think these scientists have things backwards.

If we are projecting our own experience of what a habitable planet for life would be, surely if in fact life is much more variable and able to life in enviroments beyond the earth experience, then life is likely to be much more widespread?

Science seems backwards to me most of the time anyway

I have a hard time believing that Earth is the only planet with life.
Life as we Know it ? Probably not. More than likely something very different compared to
this planets creatures.

When I saw the word fluke I had to laugh because "fluke" describes the people of earth
to a T :
any parasitic flatworm, such as the blood fluke and liver fluke.
We are definitely parasitic.

reply to post by ollncasino

with a sample of only one life-bearing planet, one cannot even get a ballpark estimate of the abundance of life in the universe.

Uh huh... so wtf are they making stupid claims like this then?

No one saying the galaxy must be teeming with life.

The estimations are based off the sheer number of planets in the galaxy.

It's just statistically likely that we aren't the only life in this galaxy.

a technque that 'boils down' ideas to the actual data

I'm sorry but what data are they going by?

Until we probe every last planet in the universe, get pictures, soil samples ect... we will never know if we are alone, and I'm pretty sure we haven't done that yet .

For some people to say they are using data to prove we are alone is ridiculous. We are still in our first 100 years of space exploration. It's early days.

I guess some people are just impatient.

We should be getting a lot more info on alien planets soon I think. We currently identify extra-solar planets from the gravitational disturbance of planet upon star. Or, by the winking effect as planet passes in front of parent star. However, we're now launching equipment that can analyse the starlight the reaches us, AFTER reflecting off an orbiting planet. This light will contain information about whatever it reflected off on the planet.

We can therefore identify the substance in that planet, from its spectral signature here on Earth. It may be that we recognise some detected molecules as being associated with life. Of course, if we don't recognise a new molecule, we can't say for sure that it has anything to do with life. But it's entirely possible that some molecules on other planets bear resemblance to some of Earth's biochemistry. If these are detected than it increases the chance of alien life.

What a ridiculous conclusion to make. Sure, if you only go by the data from Earth you will reach that conclusion. But that's like an ant saying that only his colony exists because that's the only thing he actually knows exists. Childish, immature, unintelligent, laughable.

I think the universe is teeming with life, if mars once had life then all bets are off...it shows that basic life may actually be extremely common in the universe. Now i imagine it would be rare for it to evolve in to complex life, even rarer for intelligent life, but even something extremely rare in the universe is still a lot when you take the size of it in to account.

Here is the thing. IMO, we really need to treat this planet, our home, like it is the only one. The sooner we can get the populace to understand that we ain't got nowhere to go, so we had better get our house in order, the better.

Do I really think there are others out there? Yes, why not. Do I think we should be worried about meeting them or learning about them right now? No, because at the rate we're going to wipe ourselves out.

Originally posted by ChaoticOrder
It's just statistically likely that we aren't the only life in this galaxy.

edit on 28-4-2012 by ChaoticOrder because: (no reason given)

Their point was that because there is only one datapoint (earth), you can not get any kind of trustable numbers on how statistically probable it is to have life on a planet. Trustable statistical calculations would need any kind of estimation of probability of life in a planet as a starting point that is not based on scientitst theory but datapoints. People are sometimes wrong, data is not. All we know is that we have at least one, which only tells the minimum probability for life is p=1/(count of all planets in the universe). There are guesses of different probabilities, but they might be wrong and probability of life just might be 1/(count of all planets in universe).

Well, if we ARE alone then there is a whole lot of real estate to get out there and explore, claim and settle. If we'd stop cutting back on that direction of human achievement, we may not be left asking this silly question and have an answer while those alive now are still around to hear it.

Maybe or maybe not.

Does it matter actually, if we find proof of life other places than earth.

We are not even close to make technologi that can bring us there, and in less than hundred years we have screwed our own planet up, to something that is propably going to make us extinct in the near future.

It is naive and arrogant to think that Earth may be one of a kind in the way that it may be the only planet to harbour life. Regardless of what this "data" shows, the universe is ever expanding, and really, life does not have to depend on the same resources us humans do. There could be fish aliens for all we know

reply to post by ollncasino

Nasa has said there are 'billions' of planets in our own Milky Way galaxy - but a new study suggests that the idea that they are teeming with alien lifeforms may just be wishful thinking.

Obviously, that has always been a possibility. Maybe we actually are alone. Maybe we are not. Since it cannot be proven one way or the other, both possibilities are plausible.

Originally posted by ollncasino
What if we ARE all alone? Scientists say Earth may be a 'one-off fluke' and the Milky Way's billions of other planets may all be lifeless

Nasa has said there are 'billions' of planets in our own Milky Way galaxy - but a new study suggests that the idea that they are teeming with alien lifeforms may just be wishful thinking.

Note that they talking about our Galaxy only. And there are billions upon billions of them.

To think that life is unique in universe scale is just.... so human.

This is great news! If there isn't any life in all the cosmos, and there are earth-like planets out there, colonization should be a breeze, right?

I'm surprised no space agency has taken advantage of this news.

reply to post by jannerfish


We have also been able to "photograph" extra solar planets directly, pretty neat really.

As for the OP, you could look at it from both standpoints.

We may be alone, it may have been a fluke that the ingredients for life accidentally came together just here on Earth, but it's far more likely given the vast amount of stars and possible planets in the universe (not just our galaxy) that the same thing happened again, even if just once.

reply to post by ollncasino


As far as Science can truthfully prove, this story is as old as any.

Baka.

With over 100s of billions of galaxies in this universe with each galaxy having 300-500 billion stars there are trillions of planets. I can say with absolute fact there are billions upon billions of extraterrestrial civilizations in our universe. With no proof to offer I can still say it's FACT.

reply to post by ollncasino


Each planet is unique and I highly doubt you will find 2 planets identical; that does'nt mean to say humans can't live on other planets although perhaps there is a reason why we are not allowed to go beyond Earth's atmosphere as written in the Bible (re the Tower of Babel).

reply to post by ollncasino

If we are projecting our own experience of what a habitable planet for life would be, surely if in fact life is much more variable and able to life in enviroments beyond the earth experience, then life is likely to be much more widespread?

Personally, I think we will eventually discover that 'life' is a natural by-product of certain environmental conditions and that it exists everywhere those conditions exist. In sum, the universe is lousy with life... not so-called 'intelligent' life, mind you, but everything from bacterial-types to the free roaming varieties we find here on Earth.

In the coming decades... once (or IF) we rise above our petty political polarizations and critical lack of will & courage in our leadership, we'll find that life exists... in one form or another, on Mars, Titan and Europa. In fact, I think there is already ample evidence of life on Mars and this is no secret to anyone at NASA, etc. But that aforementioned shortage of courage keeps them (and us) from calling this duck a duck.

For now, denial is a comfortable corner of a big room full of people who don't want to hear that they aren't all that special. It's safer to create multi-billion dollar missions to do everything EXCEPT look for life.

Sometimes, ignoring the obvious is something that, as a species, we do with great precision.