Chance of life on other planets

Depends.
It would suck to find out that they think we taste better than the canned brooola sprouts they brought with them from Zorg.

 

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On the side of the General public anyway.

Most astronomers did not take Lowell seriously.

I don't quite find this statement accurate.

Science is something that has grown in recent times, since it was in recent times that it was more allowable.

Commonly held belief by laymen of the past is not 'scientific facts' of the past.
I can think of a great many examples of past misconceptions that people today try to claim were science back then. Flat Earth. Inability to accelerate past 60 mph. Inability to fly.
But it's bunk. Because maybe the average layman thought these things commonly, back then. The educated did not- they knew better.
A big problem in our history was that only the noble, wealthy or elite could get a proper education. This allowed the FEW to hold knowledge while the masses held ignorance. It enabled power control.
But in our modern world, that has changed in significant degrees.
Layman have the Opportunity to learn.

This still does not mean that past misconceptions were scientific facts back then.

Especially considering the common place superstition of the past.

Extremely. As I said... it bore a strong social message.

 

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I'm sure we can dream up a great many reasons they might be or what they may want. Resources. Slaves... so on...

The problem is that this conjecture is based entirely on human thinking that is a product of our very long development and roots in a specific ecosystem.

I can't help but think that a likely problem if we ever met extra-terrestrials: We may be able to communicate but never be able to understand each other.

 

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That is a good question. I wish even I knew - there may be many reasons behind it, such as being ''cool and unsympathetic towards life'' ~ yes... this is a qoute from the war of the worlds, but it's such a true description of certain humans beings, so why not an alien race?

Maybe they would not share the same kind of morals. The same ambitions, the same outlook on exploration. Maybe their planet is almost nearly over, exhausted of fuel and now looking to inhabit a new planet?

 

Actually, I don't feel it is a conjecture based on human thought. It would be ignorant to think all alien life are in harmony with our endevours; afterall, to think they would, would be itself, a human way of thought.

 

True, which is why I said what I said.

 

well what are our "endeavors"? to eat fuck and procreate? would a microbe/fish/reptile share those? are all macroscopic objects in the universe subject to the laws of causation? how divergent does one want to imagine the variety of "life" to be? shapeshifters? werewolves? sagan's hunters, sinkers and floaters on jupiter? a particle?

what is the "human way of thought"
is it unique from say...the "chimp way of thought"?
we are all hominids, ja?

what do you imagine that there is that cannot be understood? a polar bear club? bulimia?

our ecosystem is the entire universe. logical extrapolations ought to be possible

 

I'm FROM this place and I don't even understand the shitheads here. How am I supposed to understand shitheads from space?

 

good enough
your limitations are duly noted

 

Thanks.

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It helps to know them.

 

Did the original OP get answered?
Yes.
Does the side question of similar migrating primeval-cellular life forms and the likelihood of similar habitats available, leave us with a likelihood of similar intelligent life forms to our own?
Yes.
Has our species been visited in the past, by intelligent forms?
Unknown. The likelihood of an intelligent form's (greater than our own) technological advancement being unrecognizable to humans, in passing, should be an expected, and reasonable conclusion.

 

Similar in what way? Organic? Carbon-based? Bilaterally symmetrical? Vertebrate? Bumpy-headed humanoid?

There is no reason to expect that intelligent lifeforms are likely to be similar to humans, unless your definition of 'similar' is very broad indeed.

 

Yes, human way of thought would be catagorically-different to a chimp way of thought, hence one is a chimp, we are not.

And our endeavours seem to be a social creation. Our ''scientific need'' is not really a prerequisite for most peoples lives... the endeavours of mankind hardly deter us at all usually. It's seems to be a united goal however, of most nations to explore the vast reaches of space and increase our knowledge of the neighbouring star systems. In doing so, we have a mutual respect which can only be classified as a human way of thought.

 

While well known astronomer Lowell did much to establish a wide belief in the existence of canals on Mars he was not the first. It is hard to know now, but it appears at circa 1900 many astronomers did believe in them and almost all of the general population (that had an opinion on them) did too:

“For a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were canals on Mars. These were a network of long straight lines that appeared in drawings of the planet Mars in the equatorial regions from 60° N. to 60° S. Lat., first observed by the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli during the opposition of 1877, and confirmed by later observers. Schiaparelli called these canali, which was translated into English as "canals". The Irish astronomer Charles E. Burton made some of the earliest drawings of straight-line features on Mars, although his drawings did not match Schiaparelli's. …”
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_canal

Also:
“…Giovanni Schiaparelli published a map of Mars in 1877. He assigned names to bright and dark features which included a large number of straight-line features that Schiaparelli and Secchi called "canali." …
The popular notion that Martian canals had been constructed by an heroic, intelligent race tapping melting polar ice for water to irrigate equatorial crops was argued persuasively by the famous astronomer Percival Lowell in his 1895 book. Not everyone* agreed with the canal theory, but the idea of Mars supporting life became established and persists today. …”
From: http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Mars/MarsThePlanet/MarsCanals.html

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* That implies that many did, just "not everyone" did.

Phrenology and phlogiston theory of heat were two other earlier era scientific ideas that were widely accepted by scientists and lay alike. That is why I said each era has its own "scientific truths." In 1900 it is fair to say that most scientist either did not believe or had vary strong doubts that atoms existed. Only when some French scientists confirmed Einstein's predictions about the vertical distribution of Brownian motion particles (which were based on atoms being real) were atoms generally accepted as a scientific fact. (I am not sure, but think that is part of why Einstein got the Nobel Prize, not for relativity theory. I.e. for helping prove that atoms exist -were real. The other part was the photo-electric effect theory, I think.)

PS if I were posting 100 years form now, I bet I could add "string theory" to this list too. Same as Reggie Poles could be, but they were only accepted for a decade or so in high energy physics. I would take even money bets that "Dark energy" & Dark matter" belong on this list too. I'd give at least a 10% chance that the "push theory" of gravity becomes accepted, throwing that "Space Warping" aspect of SRT into the trash can (except as a still useful calculation tool.)

 

categories? what would they be? i would have thought the differences were simply a matter of degree.

 

Our emotions are a catagory of moral pins.

Morality seems to escape even the lamest of chimps.

 

you mean "the best of chimps"

uhh............nevermind

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Yes. The best, Or lamest, depending on which one is more susceptible to emotions.

 

yeah
i saw the coke bottle movie too

 

Incorrect.

Schiaparelli never believed that they were canals. In fact, that word doesn't translate directly TO canals.
Schiaparelli was describing what he observed in understandable terms- but he did not ever suggest nor indicate that he believed they were intelligently made or even canals at all.
His descriptions were based on geological patterns alone.

Crap.

One, we have no reason at all to think alien lifeforms were spawned from the same stuff we are from, where they are from, how far away they are, or what they are like.

We have no reasons to conclude that we could not recognize higher technology, either.

None of that post is logical in the least.