Once upon a time the question about life elsewhere in the universe was complicated by lack of basic information. From the time we knew that we lived in a galaxy and there were 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and that there were 200 billion other galaxies (so that’s, um, 80,000 billion billion stars as far as the telescope eye can see), it seemed likely that there would be many possibilities of life elsewhere.
But the unknown part of the equation was the number of stars which had planets. Then, recently, we began finding planets around other stars, but they were all uninhabitable gas giants, like our Jupiter and Saturn. Then smaller planets began to be seen as observations improved. Then smaller planets at right distance (the Goldilocks Zone – not too hot, not too cold) from stars. Now calculations show that on average every star has one or more planets. Billions of billions of stars – billions of billions of planets.
So now, almost overnight it seems, we know there are essentially infinite numbers of planets. What percentage could life have evolved on? Half? Quarter? Even if only 1% had the kinds of conditions that enabled life to emerge here we are still talking billions of occupied planets. And once you have life the Darwinian equations – variation + selection = adaptation; adaptation + isolation = evolution – mean that all kinds of interesting organisms are out there. Chances of high intelligence evolving? Very good, it has evolved many different times here.
It’s all just a matter of very high numbers and chance. Always was, but we didn’t know how high the numbers were before. Now we do there is no question but that there is a lot of life out there, and a lot of intelligent beings.
So, where are they? Well, a long way away. And unless physics is a lot odder than we think there aren’t going to be student exchanges or tourism between here and there and right over there. Certainly not before the dominant intelligent people here wreck this habitable planet (a long long way from the next one) by being unable to control their own CO2 emissions. I’m guessing there are other beings in the universe (Dolphin beings, or Octopus beings, or Crow beings, or Pig beings) who consider getting CO2 levels down as a definition of intelligence.
But hey – looking up at all the stars and thinking it’s a big lonely universe? So 2011. Now look up and picture all shapes and sizes of intelligent beings looking back at you from all directions. There, that feels better doesn’t it? But I wish there was more intelligence here too.
…Because there’s bugger all down here on Earth.
Cheers,
From one of your satellites
As you’ve noted, there aren’t going to be any student exchanges going on in the near future, so it’ll be a little tough to definitively prove your hypothesis. But, just because the numbers have become unimaginably large certainly doesn’t mean that the chance of life coming from “non-life” increases also.
No matter how many trillions of gas giants or small planets lie in the Goldilocks zone, you still need life to get life. Life never has come from rocks (inorganic molecules) and it never will.
Our universe becomes an increasingly fascinating place as our ability to peer into its deepest reaches increases. But, the % that life could have evolved on any planet is not 1%, 1/4 or 1/2. It’s zero. “Life” doesn’t evolve. Organisms evolve but life pretty much needs to be created. Inorganic never begets organic; at least not from what we know on the 3rd rock from our sun.
What do you imagine you “know” Eric that makes you think “inorganic never begets organic”? You are aware, for example, that organic molecules are widespread in space? But that aside, you know that you can easily develop organic molecules from inorganic merely using simple conditions such as water, warmth, clay, lightning, low oxygen, found on Early Earth.
I understand your mythology doesn’t allow you to know that life itself evolved, but your certainty that it didn’t and therefore couldn’t in this incredibly big universe puzzles me.
My apologies, I was wrong to state that inorganic does not beget organic. You are absolutely correct that oxygen plus carbon plus hydrogen can produce “organic” chemistry.
I stand, with Pasteur, by the statement that “life” does not come from non-life. Mssr Pasteur, and I, do not accept the charge that we are followers of mythology.
Eric you have odd habit of relying on old sources in odd way. What do you think Pasteur was talking about? Sterillising food and the sealing it. What do you think that has to do with chemical reactions on the early Earth or in space? These are two totally different things.
Old sources don’t bother me as long as they aren’t contradicted by new info. But, with current knowledge, neither DNA or RNA can not be produced without cytosine. And as far as I know, no reactions under “early Earth” or “space” conditions have come close to making anything nearly as complex as cytosine.
I’m not sure if 1999 is a new enough source for you but Gabriel Dover found “If we ditch the selfish-replicator illusion, and accept that the only known biological entity capable of autonomous replication is the cell (full of cooperating genes and proteins, etc.)… DNA replication is so error-prone that it needs the prior existence of protein enzymes to improve the copying fidelity of a gene-size piece of DNA. “Catch-22,” say Maynard Smith and Szathmary. So, wheel on RNA with its now recognized properties of carrying both informational and enzymatic activity, leading the authors to state: “In essence, the first RNA molecules did not need a protein polymerase to replicate them; they replicated themselves.” Is this a fact or a hope? I would have thought it relevant to point out for ‘biologists in general’ that not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (1024) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences (Dover, 1999, p. 218).
It takes more faith than I have to believe life happened by “accident” from non-life.
Well Dover is an odd source to choose, bit of an odd fish methinks.
The building blocks of RNA-DNA, nucleobases, have been found (I think mostly since 1999) not only in outer space but in meteorites that crashed on Earth. There are a huge number of organic molecules of all kinds in both space and meteorites.
The other day I read about (but can’t find reference quickly now) a third kind of nucleic acid – TNA, apparently an even simpler form than RNA, so the research goes on.
But as always I remain puzzled by your logic. You argue about the precise mechanism by which bundles of chemicals first became self-replicating on Earth several billion years ago, because, not surprisingly, we don’t yet know that precise sequence (while having a pretty good idea in general). Yet you must know that what is being discussed is “organisms” more primitive than even the most primitive of the single celled organisms today.
On the other hand you are quite happy, it would seem, to imagine an invisible evidence-free process by which some imaginary being brings to “life” the whole range of extremely complex plants and animals we see today.
That is a very odd piece of logic indeed.
Well, replication is a pretty big deal when you’re talking about the beginning of a sequence. Yes, I’ve read a bit about TNA; also GNA, PNA and ANA. But, there are difficulties because there is no evidence of any of these “simpler” nucleides in modern organisms. They only exist in the lab and they don’t replicate (at least as far as I am aware). Of course, more research may uncover things we don’t know about today re these “genetic” materials.
I wouldn’t describe myself as “happy” in my imaginings because I’m certainly open to learning more about this fascinating subject. And, of course, that “being” which brought all life into being is anything but imaginary.
In my opinion when you look at the evidence as observed in the fossil record,
it seems quite logical to me that whales, fish, cats, beetles and birds “evolve” into innumerably different whales, fish, cats, beetles and birds. But, there is no evidence of these organisms becoming/evolving into anything other than whales, et al.
Logically (in my opinion), there simply isn’t enough time for the “primitive” organism to evolve into the “whole range of extremely complex plants and animals we see today.”
Three and a half billion years is “not enough time” Eric? How long do you want?
And pardon me for my suspicion that you haven’t “looked at the fossil evidence”, nor have you read anything by anyone who has. Reading creationists doesn’t count.
No, I don’t think 3 1/2 billion years is enough time to evolve from a primitive nucleide to a human being.
Your suspicion is pardoned, but I have looked at fossil evidence and have been unable to detect the huge magnitude of all the transitional forms that must have occurred. The evidence I have seen (not soley “creationist”) seems to indicated abrupt appearances of different species and not any huge magnitude of transitional species.
Please direct me to records that do indicate the transitional life forms. I won’t close the door on information from evolutionists. Truth is truth no matter the source. Likewise, so are lies.