Ok, this thread has gone WAY out of hand now.
THE PHOTO IS FAKE. I MADE A FAKE PHOTO OF A UFO. I PHOTOSHOPPED A FRYING PAN INTO A PICTURE OF THE SKY.
If you had
READ the topic, you would have known that by now.
And I'm going to form my own opinion having read the entire topic twice over and say that Rook38, you are easily the most close-minded and ignorant individual I have ever seen.
You are saying that the conditions for life to exist are too rare for there to be more life in the universe. The chances of there being another planet similar to ours is, lets say, one hundred trillion to one. I assume thats pretty reasonable, right?
Now, the Milky Way galaxy (the one we're in) contains a minimum of 200 billion stars (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way). So the odds of there being more life in our galaxy is 1 in 500 (100 trillion / 200 billion). Now, there are at least 100,000 known galaxies in the universe (
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=40). That puts the odds at now 200 to 1 that there IS life (100,000 / 500). And I'm not even considering the ACTUAL number of galaxies in the universe, just the ones we know of, AND I'm assuming all galaxies have 200,000 stars, when most of them have much, much more.
So, using logic, we can deduce that there almost definately IS life out there. To say there isn't is just stupid. Now, I know you're probably going to find a flaw in my logic somewhere, but consider this:
Human life is fragile. Alien life may not be. Just because we need to stay in a strict temperature range, does not mean that other life forms need to. There was bacteria that was found alive on the exterior of some space junk, that had survived in space with no air, water, and intense UV rays from the sun (
link here).
There are forms of life on earth that live at the bottom of the ocean, with no sunlight whatsoever. There are forms of life that live in geysers at temperatures of hundreds of degrees (
http://www.resa.net/nasa/otherextreme.htm).
Who are you to say that aliens need EXACTLY the same conditions as us? Maybe WE are the weird forms of life, because here we are, breathing this highly chemically active, corrosive oxygen atmosphere as we stumble around on only the dry parts of this planet covered mostly by water. Who are you to say that alien life needs water? Who are you to say that alien life needs oxygen? Who are you to say that alien life could not survive in complete darkness? Who are you, to say that alien life is identical to us?
It's already very likely that there is alien life on Europa, one of Jupiters moons. It is covered in ice, and underneath it is an ocean. At the bottom of the ocean are volcanic heat vents. Heat vents also appear on earth, and there is tons of life that lives entirely off the heat vents, and require no other source of enegry or food (
http://www.resa.net/nasa/europa_life.htm). There is almost DEFINATELY life on Europa, we just don't have a way of getting there and proving it yet.
So Rook, I suggest you back off. You have NO evidence to support your claims, you are making up statistics, and you are insulting other board users. So please just stop in now.
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Now Jay, first I want to say that your avatar is awesome.
That being said, I don't like the way you are shoving religion down everyones throat, and while I am NOT going to challenge your beliefs, I am going to ask you to stop trying to convert everyone else. When you try to do that you come off as nothing more then an annoying pest. So for the sake of our sanity, please stop. I understand that religion can play a role in the current topic of diuscussion, but lets try and keep it to a bare minimum, ok?
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Slash, I'm basically on your side. Though you are making your points using less-then-obvious ways. The pizza analogy, while I may have understood it, does not mean that Rook did, because by the way he is acting I'd place him in the 12-15 age range. Try to be more clear in your explanations, for everyone's sake.
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This is where I'm going to stop for tonight. If Rook or Jay decide to further this debate, I will be back in the morning to continue. Thanks for reading.