Chance of life on other planets

I was going to mention the Arecibo Signals, until I saw Neverflys response. Less to say, I hope no intelligent race ever finds us. Who is to say they will not be hostile.

 

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Then we kick their butt.

 

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If they can travel galactic distances, I doubt we would last in a fight.

 

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Maybe. An Olympian sprinter can't beat Ali in a fight, though.

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In all seriousness, my own personal view on that bit is that I refuse to let fear dictate my curiosity.

I say let 'em come. And if it turns out that they are assholes... Well, we have ways of dealing with assholes.

 

Curiosity killed the cat.

 

Oh, come on now. If we lived by that rule, we'd be squatting around the fire wishing for fridges, ipods and nice toilets.

 

If it happens that they are hostile, we might be wishing for a lot more than that

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A little microbe would help us win them: their antibiotics don't work with our virus'. It is often fogotten how powerful our immunity has become.

 

Yeah, ok...

Our totally different DNA is bound to work on alien life, especially considering that anti-biotics are for bacteria, not viral infections.

Your ignorance knows no bounds...

 

They would most probably be aware of these facts. Afterall, this isn't a stephen speilberg movie

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Such as... war of the worlds?

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To be fair, he has a reasonable point. You will find, people indiginous to remote parts of the world find our everyday infections on these sides of the worlds deadly, and yet, they share the same DNA.

 

Howsoever, with that on the side, I still think they would be aware of these dangers, and would obviously protect themselves against infections with controlled environments.

 

Uhhh Exactly. They share the same DNA. That is WHY the virus is deadly to them.

Now... what if an alien lifeform comes along that does NOT share our DNA? How can a Virus have Any Effect on them?

 

I dare say that the virus could easily mutate - it happens all the time. If Panspermia theory is correct, then also their biological makeup should not be too different to our own - so yes, it could pose a risk to them, depending on a few factors.

 

Mutations, across the over-all chain of DNA, are pretty insignificant.

Even if Panspermia was correct, that would apply within our own solar system for more than from distant stars.

And there's no reason whatsoever to think an alien life form would have something in their make up resembling our DNA to be susceptible to our viral infections.

 

Bacteria, according to Hoyle, can be transported over vast distances, acting like a cryogenic transporter. Even if it took a few stops along the way.

And I don't see how mutations are insignificant. If one of these aliens are infected by a mutated virus, that would probably be catastrophic to them, akin to the bird flu pandemic to us.

 

I say akin to that pandemic, simply because ''it came out of the blue'' - it would obviously be a lot worse for alien life if it was harmful - afterall, their bodies will not have the same defense mechanisms against such an attack.

 

Ok, I'm going to try this one more time...

In order to have a reaction to an Earth Virus, that alien would need to have DNA that evolved on Earth in order to be similar enough to it that the virus could affect it.

 

I'll try again. If Panspermia is correct, then there is a strong liklihood that their DNA is actually similar. That was the whole point.

 

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I'm not trying to pick on you... really, I'm not.

But you're not following me here.

Even if Panspermia is demonstrated as the likeliest source of life on Earth, you cannot assume that whatever aliens that are capable of (Apparent) FTL travel and visit us were the result of that SAME source.

As it is, Panspermia has Very Little Supportive evidence, whereas Earth Origin Emergence has strong experimental support. We don't KNOW either way and we may never know.

But that says what happened on EARTH at the very, very, very beginning. Billions of years of evolution followed that. Do you realize that our DNA is a product of that development and NOT the Origin?
Our DNA is a product of that and even if by the freakest of coincidence life from another solar system somehow had the same source billions of years ago, have Deoxyribonucleic Acid (Wow, that is far fetched...) there is a gap of development of BILLIONS OF YEARS.