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Honestly, if someone were to look at at all the science and evidence objectively it would be scientifically unsound to conclude that intelligent life doesn't ex

Honestly, if someone were to look at at all the science and evidence objectively it would be scientifically unsound to conclude that intelligent life doesn't exist elsewhere in our own universe or even outside it.

revscat 7y ago
Explain, please. The only justifications for life elsewhere to exist that I am aware of are statistical, not evidential.
- microwavecamera 7y ago
  It's an involved topic. More than I can just briefly summarize, but what's the scientific argument against it?
- AlanSE 7y ago
  I see the fallacy in the parent comment just a little differently. It suffers from the "can't prove a negative" problem. The comment never argued in favor of life elsewhere, and certainly not in any concrete form. It only said that we can't conclude that it doesn't exist. There is only an emotional suggestion that it does exist. So it just boils down to an unhelpfully weak statement. Virtually all scientific minded people agree with the statement. The suspiciousness (like with religion) is placing such a weak statement about the general proposition in the middle of a discussion about a specific proposition (reptiles, interbreeding, etc.), and that doesn't make much sense on closer inspection. Why bring the straw-man up THEN if not suggesting a stronger form of belief?
  - microwavecamera 7y ago
    > n the middle of a discussion about a specific proposition (reptiles, interbreeding, etc.) Reptiles? Who said anything about that? If we're just refuting David Icke here, than yes, he's a crackpot and should just be ignored. Seriously, that guy is a lunatic at best and a scam artist at worst. Probably some combination of the two.
- wizeman 7y ago
  Humans have historically had an inherent bias in thinking that we as a species and everything around us is somehow special, only to later discover that it was never true all along. For example, for a long time we've thought that we are the only species that have intelligence, language, emotions, morality, culture, ability to use tools, etc. Also see tribalism, racism, nationalism, geocentrism, or the fact that a significant number of people until a few years ago (when we finally were able to get evidence) didn't think that there were many planets in the universe (i.e. our solar system was special). Or perhaps they thought that our planet was particularly unique in the universe due to having its orbit in the habitable zone. I'm sure most people thought that our sun was special too (they didn't think think that stars were suns), until a few centuries ago. I wonder if there is a name for this bias (I bet there is but I can't recall ATM).
  - gruez 7y ago
    That doesn't really address his question. >The only justifications for life elsewhere to exist that I am aware of are statistical, not evidential Everything you just said pretty much sums up to "we were wrong before!", which still isn't empirical evidence. Besides, just because there's probably alien life somewhere in the universe doesn't mean there's alien life on earth right now, given how vast space is.
    - wizeman 7y ago
      We know there is life in the universe (on our planet), there is empirical proof of that. So the question now is whether there is also life on other planets. If you don't think there is life on other planets then you must think our planet is somehow special / extraordinary among all others. However, given the cosmological principle, then the more planets there is, the harder it must be to justify that our planet is special. The fact that there is an unthinkably huge number of planets in the universe seems to make that extremely unlikely. The GP dismisses statistical arguments in favor of empirical evidence, but much of what we accept about physics or the universe is the result of statistical processes. Since our universe is stochastic, strictly speaking we never really know anything for certain, we just deem something is accepted as true when it reaches an arbitrary statistical threshold. Also, just because you don't sense something directly it doesn't mean that you can't infer that it exists based on statistical arguments alone. For example, when estimating the number of species on Earth, there is no evidence that there are more species than the ones we already discovered, but we infer there are because we are discovering new species all the time, which means it's extremely unlikely we have discovered them all already. The cosmological principle itself is a statistical argument more than anything... there is no proof that Earth isn't at the center of the (entire) universe, but almost nobody thinks that nowadays. Note that in this thread we are only discussing whether there is life somewhere else in the universe, not whether there's alien life on earth right now, which obviously is harder to justify.

revscat 7y ago

Explain, please. The only justifications for life elsewhere to exist that I am aware of are statistical, not evidential.

microwavecamera 7y ago
It's an involved topic. More than I can just briefly summarize, but what's the scientific argument against it?
AlanSE 7y ago
I see the fallacy in the parent comment just a little differently. It suffers from the "can't prove a negative" problem. The comment never argued in favor of life elsewhere, and certainly not in any concrete form. It only said that we can't conclude that it doesn't exist. There is only an emotional suggestion that it does exist. So it just boils down to an unhelpfully weak statement. Virtually all scientific minded people agree with the statement. The suspiciousness (like with religion) is placing such a weak statement about the general proposition in the middle of a discussion about a specific proposition (reptiles, interbreeding, etc.), and that doesn't make much sense on closer inspection. Why bring the straw-man up THEN if not suggesting a stronger form of belief?
- microwavecamera 7y ago
  > n the middle of a discussion about a specific proposition (reptiles, interbreeding, etc.) Reptiles? Who said anything about that? If we're just refuting David Icke here, than yes, he's a crackpot and should just be ignored. Seriously, that guy is a lunatic at best and a scam artist at worst. Probably some combination of the two.
wizeman 7y ago
Humans have historically had an inherent bias in thinking that we as a species and everything around us is somehow special, only to later discover that it was never true all along. For example, for a long time we've thought that we are the only species that have intelligence, language, emotions, morality, culture, ability to use tools, etc. Also see tribalism, racism, nationalism, geocentrism, or the fact that a significant number of people until a few years ago (when we finally were able to get evidence) didn't think that there were many planets in the universe (i.e. our solar system was special). Or perhaps they thought that our planet was particularly unique in the universe due to having its orbit in the habitable zone. I'm sure most people thought that our sun was special too (they didn't think think that stars were suns), until a few centuries ago. I wonder if there is a name for this bias (I bet there is but I can't recall ATM).
- gruez 7y ago
  That doesn't really address his question. >The only justifications for life elsewhere to exist that I am aware of are statistical, not evidential Everything you just said pretty much sums up to "we were wrong before!", which still isn't empirical evidence. Besides, just because there's probably alien life somewhere in the universe doesn't mean there's alien life on earth right now, given how vast space is.
  - wizeman 7y ago
    We know there is life in the universe (on our planet), there is empirical proof of that. So the question now is whether there is also life on other planets. If you don't think there is life on other planets then you must think our planet is somehow special / extraordinary among all others. However, given the cosmological principle, then the more planets there is, the harder it must be to justify that our planet is special. The fact that there is an unthinkably huge number of planets in the universe seems to make that extremely unlikely. The GP dismisses statistical arguments in favor of empirical evidence, but much of what we accept about physics or the universe is the result of statistical processes. Since our universe is stochastic, strictly speaking we never really know anything for certain, we just deem something is accepted as true when it reaches an arbitrary statistical threshold. Also, just because you don't sense something directly it doesn't mean that you can't infer that it exists based on statistical arguments alone. For example, when estimating the number of species on Earth, there is no evidence that there are more species than the ones we already discovered, but we infer there are because we are discovering new species all the time, which means it's extremely unlikely we have discovered them all already. The cosmological principle itself is a statistical argument more than anything... there is no proof that Earth isn't at the center of the (entire) universe, but almost nobody thinks that nowadays. Note that in this thread we are only discussing whether there is life somewhere else in the universe, not whether there's alien life on earth right now, which obviously is harder to justify.