Have aliens visited earth?

[InchoateHand]

And I take serious contention with your characterization of OOT as "mostly well educated."

Nineteen year old kids failing out of college while meeting moderate success at p*ker hardly counts as "well-educated."

[uw_madtown]

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It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

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Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

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Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

[man]

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Moreover the probability of a planet supporting life can be so small that even given the vast number of planets in the universe the expected number of planets supporting life can still be small. Say for example there the probability that planet supports life is 10^-15 and there are 10^9 planets in the universe. It doesn't matter how close these numbers are to the actual numbers the point is this: the expected number of planets supporting life is 10^-15 * 10^9 = 10^-6 = 1/1000000.

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actually I don't think this is right. it's

1 - [probability of life not existing on all 10^9 planets]

which is
1 - (99999999999999/100000000000000)^9

and my calculator can't seem to handle that business. I think it's smaller than your estimate though.

[man]

edit to my last post: it's actually

1- (99999999999999/100000000000000)^(10^9)

[Alobar]

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And I take serious contention with your characterization of OOT as "mostly well educated."

Nineteen year old kids failing out of college while meeting moderate success at p*ker hardly counts as "well-educated."

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there are tons of smart mother [censored] around here, many with degrees in physics and stuff like that. The ones who arent, are pursuing a degree.....I think that qualifies as mostly well educated when compared to the normal trailor park american. Which is what inspired this poll, I was watching a show and it said half of all americans believe in UFOs, I wondered how the smart people felt about it, not jeb and skeeter over in arkansas

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It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

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That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

[Morrek]

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That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

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Some claim this is proof that "aliens" infact have been/are here, indicating that they helped us progress scientifically a hundred-or-so years ago so that we could progress faster for whatever reason.

Considering planets could very well be many millions(billions? I'm not sure) of years old I don't see how people can believe that other planets/lifeforms haven't had time to develop into highly evolved beings a very long time ago... And to believe that we are at the top of this kind of evolution is being very naive IMO, and just another sign of that we have a long way to go before we can even imagine it.

[tonypaladino]

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That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

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The reason for the discrepancy for the increase in thechnology in the time periods x-1900 and 1900-2005 is because of a few significant discoveries in technology.

For example, the knowledge of how to produce a computer as powerful as the one you're on right now was around in the 1950's, but until the further development of transistors and microtransistors they were not able to be produced. Once transistors became smaller and smaller, it became (relitively) simple to make more powerful computers.

[JaBlue]

my views are similar to others here;

probabilistically it seems like aliens should exist somewhere else in the univerese. As to whether or not they have visitted earth or not, I am going to assume that they haven't until I'm presented with compelling evidence (not stonehenge)

[Jeebus]

this follows along with Da vinci's inventions as well as many of the ideas of the ancient Greek Scholars and others. They had the write idea on how to do things (like fly) but did not have the necessary materials to make it happen.

I actually (to a degree) subscribe to the idea that there may have been a degree of influence placed on human development by an outside source (like aliens). I see the two main examples being the shift between Neanderthals and [censored] Sapians as well as the almost overnight (historically speaking) growth of advanced civilizations from purely nomadic peoples. Think the things that happened in the fertile crescent or on the Ganges, etc.
I've read a few things on this years ago, the idea can be well supported if you assume descriptions of Gods and Crazy Miraculous things are actually attempts to explain modern things such as airplanes based on an absolute lack of experience in the technology. Think of the effect a team of missionaries has on a tribe living in the heart of the amazon. they arrive by helicopter (big flying bird) dressed in synthetics instead of furs and carrying medicine (miraculous healing). Looking at architecture and artwork can also help to affirm this idea.