[meteorite-list] OT: Listening To Fermi

[Meteorites USA]

Hi Phil, My point wouldn't work very well for Big Foot or Nessy... ;) 
There are none proven to exist. However we know there are humans in the 
universe, and can say with reasonable thought that there are probably 
other intelligent lifeforms out there. There's simply too much space and 
time for it to be empty and devoid of life besides us.

I like analogies so I'll use another. Picture a native tribe of humans 
on an island in the Pacific. This island has never been visited by 
"civilized" humans with technology of any kind. As far as these humans 
"know" they are in fact the only people on the planet. They will not 
know that a mere few thousand miles away New York City is bustling with 
millions of people on another island called Manhattan. The tribe would 
not know of money, nor technology, boats, planes, and sadly, they would 
not know about the Met-List.... ;)

My point is they most probably "believe" that they are the only humans 
on the planet. They would be wrong.

During WWII the United States and other nations landed on islands in the 
Pacific, native peoples enjoyed the "cargo", food, supplies, and other 
goodies, that the "gods" brought to them. In fact, after the war ended, 
and the American and foreign military left the islands, some of these 
tribes actually created likenesses of airplanes, and such, and practiced 
ritualistic behavior trying in vain to bring back the "gods" that had 
come to bring them gifts. Read Cargo Cults 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult The native humans had no way to 
explain where these "gods" came from. They only knew they appeared 
practically out of thin air, and came bearing gifts from the gods.

I'll directly answer your questions:

"...If life is so common, why is it so conspicuously lacking on the 
close-by formerly Earth-like planet Mars?..."

Scientists are studying that as we speak. It take time... We have 
rovers, and satellites/probes circling Mars. We've found evidence that 
Mars had liquid water in it's past, and now we're building a new rover 
that will hopefully discover even more. It's lacking life, because 
something happened in it's past. It's a possibility that it never had 
life on it at all, but that's not very likely.

We have meteorites from Mars that scientist have analyzed and think 
contain fossilized microbes that may be proof of ancient life on the 
planet. It's a fact that other meteorite have within them certain amino 
acids, which are described as "the building blocks of life".

"...Why was/is  Mars not swarming with life?..."

It may have been in the past. We're not sure. Yet... It will take more 
study, and more TIME. Keep in mid, we've been there for how long? And 
how old is Mars? Hmmm... Have a little patience.

"...Wouldn't conditions there have been perfect for life to exist? Yet 
there's no evidence for it...."

Again, I'll use the child analogy since it seems so fitting for us as 
humans, and the relationship to cosmic time and the age of space.

Time is relative, a day to a child can drag on forever it would seem, 
but for an adult time seems to move more quickly. As we get older time 
seems to speed up, and I would argue this is why old people drive so 
slow. They simply are trying to slow down time... ;)

Seriously, compared cosmic time we've barely been looking out the window 
of our planet Earth for a 32/1000th of a second since the birth of our 
own Milky Way galaxy. There are over 100 million Suns out there, and 
that's just in our galaxy. There are billions of other galaxies out there.

Picture this... We "know" there are meteorites out there yet some people 
hunt for hundreds if not thousands of hours and may not find anything at 
all. Would they be correct in forming a conclusion that there were none 
where they were hunting. Look right, look left, step over one, miss it. 
It's very easy to not "see" the meteorite that's sitting in front of 
you, if you don't know what to look for.

Now, try to find a meteorite on another planet. Have you ever walked 
around on Mars? How about the Moon? How hard would it be for a human to 
do this? It's hard enough for a human to find a meteorite on Earth, much 
less tromp around another celestial body looking for little black rocks.

Are we seriously going to come to the conclusion that "intelligent life" 
besides humans on Earth does not exist out there?

I liken people who disbelieve in the existence of intelligent life forms 
elsewhere in the universe to the naysayers of old that thought the Earth 
was flat, or that believed if you drove too fast you'd die, or that 
people would never fly.

I'll argue that we've barely spent more than 32/1000th of a second 
looking, to form a conclusion so quickly isn't scientifically viable. We 
need to continue looking if we are to find the answers we seek.

Regards,
Eric


On 9/16/2010 10:32 PM, Phil Whitmer wrote:
> Eric,
> Your point is well taken. According to the laws of probablity, 
> anything that happened once could happen again, not matter how 
> unlikely. However I could use your logic to argue for the existence of 
> the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, if I chose to believe in such 
> things. This argument was also used by Dick Cheney to get us into the 
> Iraq War. According to Tricky Dick lack of evidence did not mean that 
> the weapons of mass destruction did not exist. Look where that got us.
>
> If life is so common, why is it so conspicuously lacking on the 
> close-by formerly Earth-like planet Mars? Why was/is  Mars not 
> swarming with life? Wouldn't conditions there have been perfect for 
> life to exist? Yet there's no evidence for it. No matter how many 
> probes we send up, the results for the search for ET always come up 
> negative. Eventually you have to conclude it just ain't there, no 
> matter how much you want it to be. They keep saying, we aren't looking 
> in the right places, we checked the equator, it wasn't there, lets 
> check the polar region, nope not there, so now they're saying we have 
> to dig deep, it must be way underground. It kind of reminds me of 
> ghost hunting. You believe it's there, but you just can't find it.
> And you can always come up with an excuse why you can't find it. Ghost 
> busting equipment just isn't advanced enough, we need more time to 
> locate the ghosts,  the ghosts have no interest in communicating with 
> us, etc. etc.
>
> Phil Whitmer
>
> -----------------------------------
>
> Hi Phil, I agree completely with your sentiment, and respect your
> belief. However I sincerely disagree that your conclusion that
> intelligent extra terrestrial life does NOT exist is based on evidenced
> fact. There is only a lack of evidence, and the best argument to the
> contrary is us. Humans are the biggest single evidence in this universe
> that the development of intelligent life forms is possible. (though the
> intelligent part is arguable)
>
> I know you believe we're the only intelligent lifeform, and I know you
> think it's based on evidence, but it's actually lack of evidence to the
> contrary that you are basing your belief on.
>
> You're merely repeating Fermi's "Where are they?" question. Saying show
> me... I've already given an analogy that very simply shows Fermi's
> Paradox is not a paradox at all because we haven't the information to
> quantify the question to begin with.
>
> Lack of evidence is not evidence.
>
> You'll be surprised to know, I don't "believe" in extraterrestrials.
> However I can conclude they "most probably" exist because we are "here",
> and the chances of them not being "there" (wherever there is) are so
> minute it's statistically impossible considering the vastness and the
> age of the universe.
>
> We could also phrase this as "when" they were. Or how we "will" be in
> 1000 years, or 10,000 years. At the rate of technological advancement
> (if we don't destroy ourselves first) where will we be in 1000 years?
> That is curiously and seriously what I would like to know!
>
> Even so, one can still safely use statistics and numbers to figure the
> probability. No, I'm not hanging my alien hat on the Drake equation. I
> wouldn't know how to read it any more than I could read War & Peace in
> one sitting. I'm saying One must take into account ALL the variables
> possible to form a conclusion. Still, probability won't make it so. We
> may never know, or we might find ET tomorrow.
>
> I'll agree with Richard in that I believe that the universe is teaming
> with life. Intelligent life however is probably extremely rare.
>
> But even that, like time itself is probably relative.
>
> Regards,
> Eric
>
>
> ______________________________________________
> Visit the Archives at 
> http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>