Chance Of Alien Life Increasing
from the says-who? dept
I know a little about statistics, and I don't buy the arguments put forth in this article about the likelihood of life forming on Earth-like planets. While most scientists have said it's still a very small chance, some researchers are now saying that on an Earth-like planet, over the course of a billion years the chances are more like 1 in 3. I'm not really sure how you can determine such things, considering the fact that we really just have a single datapoint.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
/. Crowd
I rather like this article, sure it has nothing to do with computers, but it has everything to do with technology. Remember, the tech will someday allow us to go to distant planets, and I believe that is what tech dirt is all about.
I believe the numbers in this article are much more accurate than most of us want to believe. After all, building the basic building blocks of life are relatively easy to accomplish, easy enough that mother nature could do it...so what makes this so difficult for us to believe. It is because we don't see the life on distant planets...if we could, the 1 in 3 statistic would be a lot more digestible. So, if life is so abundant in the universe, why haven't we been visited or atleast heard something by now? Well, life itself isn't too difficult, intelligent life on the other hand probably is. It took a lot of evolution to get where we are today, and if we aren't careful, our own intelligence could kill us very easily. So there it is, if intelligent life does exist elsewhere, they haven't achieved the capabilities to travel the great distances, they haven't been able to detect or understand our communication, they haven't been able to respond to our communication because we aren't able to detect or understand theirs, or they have chosen to ignore us until such time as we prove ourselves worthy enough to communicate with them.
Of course, there are some of us who say they are already here...but I am not a great fan of X-Files....liked the series finale though...
[ link to this | view in thread ]