Given enough time and monkeys with typewriters...

7/27/2008 2:13:23 PM

I've said this before, but I'll annoy you all with it again. The chances of not only a civilization with space travel but one who has then traveled to visit us is SO much smaller than the chances of just another intelligent species with a civilization, and even smaller than the chances of just another intelligent species who are, say, hunter-gatherers.

Consider a species even 1000 times more intelligent than we are who has been around much, much longer. Assuming that they are intelligent enough, they still need so many things to be able to invent space travel: complicated speech, organized and motivated citizens and leaders (well, at least citizens), the necessary materials and fuels, and, the one we don't think about as much, appropriate limbs and something similar to an opposable thumb, combining to create a grasping system. Or, of course, some form of psychokinesis or other method of making something as intricate as a space travel system.

I'd say the chances of other species, probably far more advanced than we are mentally, is pretty high. At least, that is, the chances that they ever existed. You then have to consider whether they exist now and whether they have the qualities I mentioned, not to mention tons of others I didn't mention or can't think of myself. There could be super-intelligent gasses and fish out there (see dolphins) that couldn't ever create even a city, much less a spacecraft.

And, you can consider the example from Hitchhiker's Guide, where there could be tons of species who live on parts of the universe where they see nothing in the sky and therefore they never even consider traveling into space.

Those, in my opinion, blow Drake's equation out of the water.

[Edited on July 27, 2008 at 3:30 PM. Reason : .]

7/27/2008 3:27:57 PM

Quote :

" I understand the desire for evidence. But we may have numerous examples of evidence right in front of our eyes, but the limitations of our knowledge could be blocking our view."

EarthDogg - Intellectually, I understand your point that we may currently lack the knowledge to detect the presence of current or past alien visitors. That's fine, and I would agree with the notion that we would lack any number of technologies that would allow an alien civilization to travel to earth, much less remain undetected.

Practically, though, I'm not sure what you expect us to do with that information. It's not like scientists are standing still, sitting on their thumbs and trying to silence people are are attempting to "advance knowledge" ahead of them. To the contrary, billions of dollars and millions of man-hours a year are spent by scientists trying to enrich, expand upon, and even overturn all the scientific knowledge that has been gathered up to now. If this research someday uncovers or reveals a technology which could allow an alien spacecraft to completely avoid detection by us, then that would be stupendous. No one would be happier to discover this than mainstream scientists like physicists and astronomers. (it's also worth noting that if such a discovery were made, it would almost certainly be made in a major research lab or university, not in a basement by tinfoil hat "the truth is out there" geeks)

So barring an imminent breakthrough in that area, my question is: what is your damned point?

7/27/2008 11:57:26 PM

I don't think that out of trillions of stars and billions of years that there hasn't been, isn't, and won't be other intelligent life forms, somewhere.

but I'd like to know how you people think they're going to cross distances of hundreds or thousands of light-years just to come and wave their spindly little arms at us and say "hi" -- given what we know to be true about relativistic time dilation that occurs when speeds of just a fraction of the speed of light are approached.

we're in a vast galaxy full of potential life, but the even larger vastness of the empty spaces separating us from even our neighboring stars are insurmountable.










[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 12:28 AM. Reason : ]

7/28/2008 12:20:36 AM

Quote :

"we're in a vast galaxy full of potential life, but the even larger vastness of the empty spaces separating us from even our neighboring stars are insurmountable."

dude, you're falling right into his trap. This is the part where he says you're being closed minded and cannot fathom that other civilizations may have discovered other laws of physics that we're "too blind to see", blah blah blah

7/28/2008 12:32:00 AM

i guess what we need now is one of those beret-wearing comic book collectors who dropped out of sophomore year because the Physics Department in CALS is "full of tenured tools who are married to the status quo in order to sell their textbooks."

oh well, I'd love to stay, but ive got to log into my Eve Online char and train up my battlecruiser nav skillz.







[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 12:51 AM. Reason : ]

7/28/2008 12:42:06 AM

Quote :

"you're being closed minded and cannot fathom that other civilizations may have discovered other laws of physics that we're "too blind to see" "

Thanks...saved me some typing

7/28/2008 12:49:55 AM

aha, there he is. nice beret, dude. did you ever get that X-Men #370?

7/28/2008 12:52:06 AM

Quote :

"but I'd like to know how you people think they're going to cross distances of hundreds or thousands of light-years just to come and wave their spindly little arms at us and say 'hi' -- given what we know to be true about relativistic time dilation that occurs when speeds of just a fraction of the speed of light are approached."

joe_schmuck

The space-time continuum, you buffoon. Just watch this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vkRYKMPKLQ0

7/28/2008 3:42:59 AM

7/28/2008 4:22:34 AM

^^ i see our resident jailer turned english lit major and part-time theoretical astrophysicist, ufo hunter, and defender of Faux News, scourge of the liberal mamby-pamby conspiratorial media moguls has finally returned to defend his new favorite thread.

7/28/2008 11:27:20 AM

I'd just like to throw out there that this same conversation was being held on message boards 7 hundred years ago. See how that turned out?

Any of you nay sayers out there that can explain the pyramids and several other inconsistencies on earth, I'll listen to you. Until then I'm not even going to consider the implausability. Technology expands exponentially with time. Soon we will look back on todays spaceships as we look at hang gliders compared to f-22s.

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 11:32 AM. Reason : evolution]

7/28/2008 11:30:13 AM

Quote :

"marko Tom Joad 62355 Posts user info edit post THEY HAD MICROWAVES IN ANCIENT ATLANTIS!!!1 THE MAYANS HAD AIRPLANES!! 7/27/2008 2:11:35 PM"

7/28/2008 11:34:48 AM

Quote :

"Any of you nay sayers out there that can explain the pyramids and several other inconsistencies on earth,"

plz to expand on your point.
this should be funny

7/28/2008 11:42:52 AM

paging Zecharia Sitchin

your thread has been found.

please report to the nearest T-Dub terminal.

7/28/2008 11:48:15 AM

f-22's didn't evolve from hang gliders. People didn't fly around on hang gliders then think "oh I could put an engine on this and make a plane."

You can't seriously believe the Pyramids are alien can you? haha

7/28/2008 12:07:28 PM

why not
just the fact that they were built aligning on true north, south, east and west is enough for me

do you really think the egyptians that built them understood that or is just a coincidence?

i bet they just got lucky

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 3:28 PM. Reason : xzc]

7/28/2008 3:26:42 PM

the wright brothers were pretty much just a glider. They have evolved into f-22s. Thats nothing though, you can have that because only until the last few thousand years we were chasing animals then all of a sudden massive cities and elaborate languages and civilization popped up out of nowhere so what after tens of thousands of dormant years all of a sudden made things so easy a caveman could do it? We didn't even go from lukewarm to hot. It all started with the building of all these great architectural master pieces many of which purposes are still a mystery.

The pyramids for example would be nearly impossible to reproduce even with todays technology. They are oriented exactly with the earths magnetic field and spread apart such that the sun rises between them. This is just a preview. This is nothing. Theres so much more I will get into in the next few hours.

7/28/2008 3:26:43 PM

let me save you some time

http://www.amazon.com/Orion-Mystery-Unlocking-Secrets-Pyramids/dp/0517884542

http://www.amazon.com/Chariots-Gods-Erich-von-Daniken/dp/0425166805/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217274130&sr=1-1

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 3:42 PM. Reason : +]

7/28/2008 3:41:00 PM

Quote :

"The pyramids for example would be nearly impossible to reproduce even with todays technology."

7/28/2008 3:44:25 PM

Quote :

"just the fact that they were built aligning on true north, south, east and west is enough for me do you really think the Egyptians that built them understood that or is just a coincidence?"

i don't think that anyone has suggested it was a coincidence.
and i also don't think you're giving the Egyptians (and other ancient civilizations) quite enough credit. Archeologists have found tons of crazy tools and methods they used for very complex math and space/sky observations.

I mean if there was ever a case of Occam's Razor, this has to be it. You guys are truly suggesting that it's more likely that beings from outer space visited earth just to stack some sandstone rocks on top of each other, and bury Egyptian pharaohs underneath them while they were at it? It's that really a simpler explanation than a very rich empire using thousands of slaves to accomplish the same thing?

7/28/2008 3:45:13 PM

yea.

while I agree that the pyramids are wonders given the time period they were constructed, saying that they would be nearly impossible to construct today kind of discredits someone in my opinion.

I have a hard time believing that we can build something like the Burj Dubai and things like the China Central Television headquarters but couldnt construct a pyramid. Yes, I think they are pretty awesome pieces of history, they were one of my favorite things to study in History. But still...

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 3:56 PM. Reason : ]

7/28/2008 3:54:31 PM

7/28/2008 3:57:00 PM

^^ now, if something akin to the Burj Dubai towers, made of machined metals and composite material like concrete, was found buried under thousands of years of sand, I think we'd have something to go on here. But to suggest that an alien civilization, with the technology to travel thousands of light years, would come to earth and make big 3-D triangles in the sand made of simple cubes of the most abundant rock available is absurd.

7/28/2008 4:05:57 PM

Quote :

"I mean if there was ever a case of Occam's Razor, this has to be it. You guys are truly suggesting that it's more likely that beings from outer space visited earth just to stack some sandstone rocks on top of each other, and bury Egyptian pharaohs underneath them while they were at it? It's that really a simpler explanation than a very rich empire using thousands of slaves to accomplish the same thing? "

I like how wethebest is saying out of one corner of his mouth that humans have done some amazing things, while at the same time saying humans couldn't possibly have made the pyramids.

The entire reasons pyramids are pyramids is because ancient man didn't have the knowledge or technology to make a structure stand that tall without having such a wide base (try to build a tall structure out of blocks/cards/whatever and pyramids are far easier than towers). Several civilizations came up with the same design, because with their technology, they couldn't do it any other way. Aliens would have been much more creative than a practically solid block of rock.

7/28/2008 4:07:17 PM

I'm going to get into this for real later (boy are we gonna have a fun night/week) but for right now I'm not saying aliens built the pyramids but they definitely played a huge role in that and the rise of mankind from the cave. Its not like man just woke up one day and was all of a sudden smart.

7/28/2008 4:31:38 PM

i really dont see huge continuity jumps in our history. If you follow technology/science through history it really makes a lot of sense and there arent huge loopholes where you are left going "waiiiiit a second! how did we get from point A to point B in just 50 years!??". so im quite interested in seeing what you think you can prove....


^^^ for sure

7/28/2008 4:41:46 PM

Quote :

"Its not like man just woke up one day and was all of a sudden smart."

haha, you have not been following recent biological research.

Man evolved and the evolution of our brains is what caused us to move out of caves and to be civilized (some scientist theorize it was when we first started eating meat that our biology had what it needed to evolve the brain we know today).

So it IS almost that we woke up and became "smart." That's the essence of evolution. Once we had society down, our ability to learn and culture and growing populations caused a "boom" in discoveries.

7/28/2008 4:45:07 PM

hey, wethebest, i see you haven't had a single university-level science course.

by the way, have you met hooksaw? i think you guys would get along swimmingly.

7/28/2008 4:50:11 PM

wethebest -
you were just the one who said "Technology expands exponentially with time"
do you understand what that even means? Don't you understand that if you go backwards exponentially from our current day technology, that you get to, effectively, "zero", a lot faster than you might otherwise intuitively think we would?

To be sure, there have been various "explosions" of technology over certain decades/centuries/mellinia, but they were all enabled by relatively small advances. I'm not an anthropologist, so I can't speak of all this intelligently, but think of small advances that would enable other technological leaps. Harnessing fire, "inventing the wheel", creating agriculture (manually planting seeds, instead of just foraging), discovering the earth's magnetic field (by, most likely, simply observing the behavior of metal floating in water), inventing the telescope by simply looking through curved pieces of glass - these were all small stepping stones, but they each lead directly to explosions of discovery and invention that far exceeded the initial technology.

[Edited on July 28, 2008 at 4:51 PM. Reason : .]

7/28/2008 4:51:16 PM

Quote :

"Man evolved and the evolution of our brains is what caused us to move out of caves and to be civilized (some scientist theorize it was when we first started eating meat that our biology had what it needed to evolve the brain we know today). So it IS almost that we woke up and became "smart." That's the essence of evolution. Once we had society down, our ability to learn and culture and growing populations caused a "boom" in discoveries."

I agree with all of that. Also it's fair to point out that any society won't progress until it produces enough food to allow some members to live lives not wholly devoted to hunting/gathering. Primitive societies have to reach that point before they can grow into anything else and achieve notable progress.

7/28/2008 4:57:17 PM

here's some past threads if anyone gets bored

some of the same people in this one were in those too

message_topic.aspx?topic=508929
message_topic.aspx?topic=526368
message_topic.aspx?topic=434078
message_topic.aspx?topic=433745
message_topic.aspx?topic=367670

i coulda swore there was a plethora by salisburyboy, but i guess i can't find them

7/28/2008 7:17:26 PM

I didnt read this thread but all i have to say is that people who sit around and wait for credible evidence when there are signs all around them usually dont survive.

7/28/2008 7:40:50 PM

so what you're saying, then, is Jesus was from Outer Space?

7/28/2008 7:47:58 PM

Quote :

"Theres so much more I will get into in the next few hours."

still waiting for you to blow our minds

7/29/2008 6:58:11 AM

lol

7/29/2008 7:26:06 AM

looks like the Bad Astronomer has been having nearly the same conversation over on his blog.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/07/30/followup-ed-mitchell-and-ufo-believers/

Quote :

"All I want is actual, y’know, evidence. I don’t want eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. I don’t want shaky footage. I don’t want fuzzy pictures. I don’t want claims of redacted documents, or government seizures of evidence, or anything I can’t hold in my hand and examine. You know. Evidence. So I make this civil, intelligent, and reasonable request. What do I get? 1) Ad hominem attacks. While accusing me of being a debunker folks, you should understand that you can’t be a debunker without bunk to debunk. And after the insults, I ask, where’s that evidence I asked for? 2) Appeal to authority, which slays me. I am specific in my statement that just because someone walked on the Moon doesn’t mean they have any better claims about UFOs. So I ask again, where is Mitchell’s evidence? 3) Weird analogies. One commenter asked how we know tornadoes exist, making some really stretchy metaphor for UFOs. Um, really? Evidence for tornadoes? You mean like the tens of thousands of clear pictures, thousands of hours of detailed footage, documented examination of the aftermath, the scientific antecedent, and the close study by hundreds or thousands of scientifically experienced researchers? That’s evidence. Now, please, show me the equivalent for UFOs. <crickets> 4) Claims that the military has this evidence. OK then, show it to me. This is up to you to show me this, to verify it, and to show me why you have eliminated every single possible terrestrial mundane explanation, including hardware glitches, mistaken conclusions by the people involved, and advanced military craft — things we know exist and are common. Then and only then can you begin to postulate something more exotic. I don’t think I can be more clear than this. I want good, solid, examinable evidence. What I get are insults, bad logic, and vaporware. That’s not helping your case, folks."

7/31/2008 7:50:20 AM

no shit, we all want evidence
maybe one day the government will actually give some of it up

7/31/2008 9:24:45 AM

1. The author should stop whining. For God's sake, who's been attacked more than those who dare to entertain the possibility that we might not be alone in the vast and almost completely unexplored universe(s)?

2. Appeal to authority? The author shouldn't complain about logical fallacies--he/she has committed appeal to ignorance and argument from personal belief. In both instances, the lack of evidence for the view that extraterrestrial life exist is not proof that such life does not exist.

3. Weird analogies? Define "weird." An analogy is either fallacious or it's not.

4. The military evidence argument is a type of appeal to ignorance, too. The lack of military evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life is not proof that such life doesn't exist. Furthermore, we know for a fact that the military keeps highly classified information from the public for a number of reasons: national security, military effectiveness, to avoid unnecessary panic, and so on. The burden of proof here seems to be a bit high for extraterrestrial life proponents.

7/31/2008 11:31:38 AM

:yawn:

From another thread:

Quote :

"Gamecat: This is still the equivalent of claiming Neptune doesn't exist because you haven't found it, yet. Granted, I'd prefer we had a museum full of solid evidence of a visit. That'd make it a hell of a lot easier for everyone. But again, consider that aliens may not leave evidence of their visit. After all, when I left the cruise ship in Alaska last summer, the only evidence I was there were financial transactions. But let's open the question properly before going over a cliff. What qualifies as good evidence? It's murkier territory than you'd think. Where do you start? What do you look for? If these questions were given the scientific scrutiny they deserved--rather than being dismissed out of hand by the academic community, as has been policy since the late 1960's--we may even have some by now rather than foolishly waiting for vacuum tube waves. Who knows?"

Quote :

"Gamecat: What types of "plausible" evidence? Who legitimately verifies evidence? I don't have any idea what you're looking for besides consensus opinion. That's never going to provide evidence of anything. Like I said, the problem here is that you have to define where to start. SETI, for example, thinks repeated patterns of interstellar radio wave transmissions work and limit their focus to that sliver of the EM spectrum. What, for instance, could a person see that would evidence alien existence? What could they hold in their hand? What could someone actually measure and rationally conclude, "Y'know, this proves an alien stood on this spot/took a shit in the woods/whatever?"

Quote :

"Gamecat: Science simply doesn't define the terms of reality because of possibilities that exist beyond its domain."

Quote :

"Gamecat: When I want evidence, I go look for it. I just want to know what to look for."

7/31/2008 11:34:40 AM

Quote :

"Who legitimately verifies evidence? I don't have any idea what you're looking for besides consensus opinion. That's never going to provide evidence of anything. Like I said, the problem here is that you have to define where to start."

The astronaut in the first post claims he had secret meetings. Asked him who he met with, and under what guise, find that person, interview them. Go up the chain until you find the secret UFO the gov. is hiding, or whatever it is the gov. is supposedly hiding in this case.

7/31/2008 11:48:48 AM

Again, this

Quote :

"For God's sake, who's been attacked more than those who dare to entertain the possibility that we might not be alone in the vast and almost completely unexplored universe(s)?"

and this

Quote :

" FORMER NASA astronaut and moon-walker Dr Edgar Mitchell - a veteran of the Apollo 14 mission - has stunningly claimed aliens exist. And he says extra-terrestrials have visited Earth on several occasions - but the alien contact has been repeatedly covered up by governments for six decades. Dr Mitchell, 77, said during a radio interview that sources at the space agency who had had contact with aliens described the beings as 'little people who look strange to us.' He said supposedly real-life ET's were similar to the traditional image of a small frame, large eyes and head. Chillingly, he claimed our technology is "not nearly as sophisticated" as theirs and "had they been hostile", he warned "we would be been gone by now"."

are not the same.

7/31/2008 11:54:04 AM

Without proper clearance, you'd never get an accurate answer. This is the nature of compartmentalized information structures. If you don't have a "need to know," you'd be denied the information.

7/31/2008 11:55:11 AM

^ You must not be familiar with how journalism works.

7/31/2008 11:57:07 AM

You're right. I'm not especially familiar with how journalism works.

Intelligence services developed disinformation strategies and tactics that reflect a rather intimate understanding of how journalism works though. They're still being used through the present day to confuse and dilute topics far less bizarre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation

7/31/2008 12:56:43 PM

That seems to be a defeatist attitudes. There is a long history of stories uncovered by journalist that were supposedly secret. There are many strategies to acquire information.

I'm a little surprised considering your prior open-mindedness that your response to how to get more information is "that's just not possible."

Plus, I can't believe that all the people at NASA that are supposedly constantly watching the skies are so well under gov. control that they would refuse to talk to a reporter. I can see even more people, ESPECIALLY at NASA, willing to covertly leak information like Bob Novak, if they had it.

7/31/2008 1:02:18 PM

I never said it wasn't possible.

In fact, I've said several times that "the secret" (for our purposes: the validity of the ET-visitation hypothesis) hasn't really been kept all that well. Witness the fact that we're even having this discussion.

My point is that you can't ultimately rely on the information you'd get from anyone up the chain since it amounts to an anecdote at best, and deliberate disinformation (i.e. falsified documents, chopped photos, and bullshit) at worst.

Disinformation's purpose is to muddy the waters by blending fact and fiction to the point they become indistinguishable to those outside of the loop.

I'm sure there are those at NASA who'd love to spill the beans. Well-intentioned nutjob Steven Greer's seemed to dig up a few of them already with his Disclosure movement.

7/31/2008 1:16:55 PM

^ The NASA guy could be part of that theory of subterfuge as well though (or he's just got a sick sense of humor).

I still don't see why a single piece of credible evidence from a credible witness has ever been found. I don't see how the gov. can cover up every single scientist who has a nice, clear picture of UFOs and keep them silent, if the phenomena is as common as they say. I can't also believe that this has been going on for decades without leaks of credible evidence. Our gov. is good, but it would unprecedented for them to do something THAT well.

And I also can't believe that aliens would have humanoid forms. If this part is actually true like the NASA guy says, then that's even MORE reason to be very skeptical of the accounts. That would not only answer questions about FTL travel, and the nature of time and space, but also help answer questions about the nature of God/gods him/themselves. In light of this, it is almost offensively flippant of you to claim that the answers are there, people just don't want to see them, or they're just hidden VERY well. The answers are there, or they are not, and at this point in time, there's no reason to believe they're there.

7/31/2008 1:53:26 PM

Quote :

"I've said several times that "the secret" (for our purposes: the validity of the ET-visitation hypothesis) hasn't really been kept all that well."

[Edited on July 31, 2008 at 9:46 PM. Reason : Please read before responding...]

7/31/2008 9:45:58 PM

Quote :

"I've said several times that "the secret" (for our purposes: the validity of the ET-visitation hypothesis) hasn'thas really been kept all that well. Witness the fact that we're even having this discussion. "

[Edited on July 31, 2008 at 9:52 PM. Reason : ]

7/31/2008 9:51:58 PM