Aliens Probably Smarter Than Us

Amirani

If aliens come to visit, they'll probably be much cleverer than us

Astronomers are always on the lookout for any sign of an alien civilisation in space. But what would we do if we found one?

HUMANKIND’S first contact with an alien civilisation, if it ever happens, will be the biggest milestone to that date in the history of civilisation. First contact will almost certainly not involve the sudden arrival of “little green men” but will probably be the detection of a clearly engineered radio signal from outer space. In that event, what will happen next is discussed by Tim Folger in the January 11th edition of Scientific American.

Science assumes that life spontaneously arose on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago from lifeless chemicals. Our sun is only one star among 200 billion other stars in our galaxy, a significant fraction of which are also orbited by planets. There is no reason to assume that what happened on earth couldn’t also happen elsewhere and, on that basis, it can be calculated that there could be 10,000 detectable civilisations in our Milky Way galaxy.

The organisation Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) has been scanning the skies since 1985 (sporadic searches by others have been conducted since 1960) looking for radio signals from alien civilisations, so far without success. The rate of scanning to date has been slow but advances in computer power over the next 20 years will allow astronomers to scan enough stars in our galaxy to give a very good chance of detecting a signal from an alien civilisation. If no signals are detected, then the basic assumptions behind Seti will have to be re-examined.

What will happen if a signal is detected? The detecting observatory will first ask a sister observatory to check the signal and, if the validity of the signal is confirmed, observatories around the world will be alerted through the International Astronomical Union network. If widespread observations continue to verify the signal, the United Nations and world leaders will be informed.

Seti scientists expect that such a signal will be narrow-band, with a lot of energy packed into a few frequencies, as otherwise it wouldn’t stand out from background cosmic radio emissions. Natural phenomena such as pulsars and gas clouds send out radio emissions at many different frequencies, so a narrow-band signal coming from deep space would almost certainly be artificial.

Detecting the signal should be relatively easy, but decoding the message in the signal would be an entirely different matter. The message would be buried deep within the signal in the form of amplitude and frequency modulations. (The signal is a wave – if you think of a water wave, amplitude is its height and frequency is the number of times a boat bobs up and down on it per second). Resolving and processing the fine detail in the signal would require an antenna far more powerful than the world’s largest, the 305m dish at Arecido, Puerto Rico – perhaps 10,000 times larger. Tim Folger thinks this will probably be constructed in the form of many hundreds of antennae spaced over a large area and linked electronically together.

It is assumed that the logic of physics and mathematics is the same everywhere in the universe and that the commonality of this underlying science could be used to decode the message. However, we cannot be sure about this. It may transpire that the message will be impossible to decode.

Then there is the matter of whether or not we should respond by sending back a reply signal. This would signpost our location in the universe and allow the alien civilisation to visit us if it felt so inclined and had the technological capacity to undertake the trip. It is likely that the aliens would be far more technologically advanced than us.

Stephen Hawking has pointed out that our earthly history of technologically advanced cultures discovering simpler cultures is a litany of unhappy experiences for the simpler cultures, eg Native American history subsequent to the discovery of the New World by Columbus. On the other hand, we might do the aliens more harm than they would inflict on us!

In fact, we have already broadcast a number of messages into space. In 1974 scientists from Cornell University broadcast the first deliberate message, using the giant radio telescope in Arecibo. The message contained some crude details in mathematical code about who we are, what we look like and what we are made from. The message was beamed at a cluster of 300,000 stars in the constellation of Hercules, 25,000 light years away. So, we may get a reply 50,000 years from now!

One reasonable deduction we could make if a signal is detected is vividly described by Seti astronomer Alan Shostak: “If Seti succeeds, then intelligence happened in at least one other place. So it probably happened in lots of places. In astronomy the only numbers are one, two and infinity. So if you get two, there are probably lots more. It’s like finding two elephants.”

Conor_M1990

Well to develop the technology to fly half way across the universe they would want to be. maybe one of them could write for the Irish times

ScumLord

I always find all these Hollywood films about aliens attacking earth for our resources laughable. There is nothing on this planet that isn't in abundance everywhere else in the universe, even water. The only reason they'd have for coming to earth is for a cultural exchange.

I think it's quite likely they know all about us (given the time span before our solar system even came about) and are just leaving us to our own devices so we can sort ourselves out first.

Savage Tyrant

All was going well.....until....

niallsparky wrote: »

It’s like finding two elephants.”

Seriously? WTF?

Saila

they are already here, have you not seen the event?

Savage Tyrant

My opinion is that there are thousands (millions even) of other civilisations in the unverse, all in various stages of evolution. The chances that many of those civilisation do travel between each other like people from different countries do here.
But until we are capabale of doing the same ourselves, we are of no value to them other than an observational curiousity at the moment.
Also the likelyhood of traveling between galaxies is very slim. The vast distances involved would take something that humans probably can't concieve of. (yet)

Amirani

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

All was going well.....until....



Seriously? WTF?

Proof by induction. If you can prove that every pair of said creatures are elephants, then it can be induced that every one of said creatures is an elephant.

Rabble Rabble

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

My opinion is that there are thousands (millions even) of other civilisations in the unverse, all in various stages of evolution. The chances that many of those civilisation do travel between each other like people from different countries do here.
But until we are capabale of doing the same ourselves, we are of no value to them other than an observational curiousity at the moment.
Also the likelyhood of traveling between galaxies is very slim. The vast distances involved would take something that humans probably can't concieve of. (yet)

Travel between stars is unlikely. I think we are a cosmic fluke.

Saila

If you had an infinite amount of monkeys and typewriters and an infinite amount of time they would reproduce the works of james joyce

jive

Not ****ing hard to believe is it? Look around you

Senna

I'm guessing if we ever do make contact with aliens, it'll be a huge let down. We might get a message, then it'll take 100 years before they receive our message, so after the big excitement of a message, we'll be all dead before another one arrives.

Or if aliens arrive, their only major technical advancement with be space flight, but what ever fuel they use wont be available here, so we wont benefit anything form them.

Life has taught me to be cynical about everything.

ScumLord

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

Travel between stars is unlikely. I think we are a cosmic fluke.

We are a fluke, no doubt about it. But it's just as likely that fluke has happened over and over given the vastness of space and the time frames involved.

I think there's bound to be countless thousands of planets bursting with life, but only a minuscule amount of those would have had the further fluke of developing an intelligent form of life like us. Even so there are some very intelligent animals on earth as proved by the crows videos in the your internet videos thread.

Intelligence seems to be highly valued in the animal kingdom I'd even say animals get more and more intelligent as time passes because it's just such a winning strategy. Maybe once live starts it's only a matter of time before you end up with something like us.

Amirani

Saila wrote: »

If you had an infinite amount of monkeys and typewriters and an infinite amount of time they would reproduce the works of james joyce

You can go one step further and say that they'd reproduce the works of Joyce an infinite amount of times. This would be the case even with one monkey/one typewriter.

Spunge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Interesting link related

Senna

ScumLord wrote: »

but only a minuscule amount of those would have had the further fluke of developing an intelligent form of life like us.

Given enough time, i don't think intelligent life is such a huge fluke and considering the young age of our solar system compared to the rest of the universe, its probably quite likely that two or more intelligent life forms could developed on the same planet at the same time.

Hank_Jones

They haven't got Randy Quaid though.

Hank_Jones

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

My opinion is that there are thousands (millions even) of other civilisations in the unverse, all in various stages of evolution. The chances that many of those civilisation do travel between each other like people from different countries do here.
But until we are capabale of doing the same ourselves, we are of no value to them other than an observational curiousity at the moment.

So, it's basically Star Trek: Generations.

Until we can reach warp speed, they will leave us be.

Saila

niallsparky wrote: »

You can go one step further and say that they'd reproduce the works of Joyce an infinite amount of times. This would be the case even with one monkey/one typewriter.

you would be waiting A LOOOOOONG time for just one copy if you did it that way

mickrock

Saila wrote: »

If you had an infinite amount of monkeys and typewriters and an infinite amount of time they would reproduce the works of james joyce

If you gave one monkey a typewriter for a few months he'd probably come up with something as readable as Ulysses.

OutlawPete

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pFTFanuNuU

ardinn

I thought they plan to slow peoples metabolism down to a fraction, and using a device that is constantly speeding up (solar thing they made) we would eventually be able to send people light years away while they age very slowly (or something!)

_Cato_

ScumLord wrote: »

I always find all these Hollywood films about aliens attacking earth for our resources laughable. There is nothing on this planet that isn't in abundance everywhere else in the universe, even water. The only reason they'd have for coming to earth is for a cultural exchange.

I think it's quite likely they know all about us (given the time span before our solar system even came about) and are just leaving us to our own devices so we can sort ourselves out first.

We've done one hell of a job thus far.... :rolleyes:
I for one, welcome our new alien overlords. They might even be smart enough to help us get rid of the Corporatists in Dail Eireann.

johnmcdnl

ardinn wrote: »

I thought they plan to slow peoples metabolism down to a fraction, and using a device that is constantly speeding up (solar thing they made) we would eventually be able to send people light years away while they age very slowly (or something!)

well that article says that it could take 25,000 years to send a signal to another planet... and that signal is travelling at light speed... so they're going to have to do a hell of a job to slow metabolism down to be able to send people out there...

that's before you even start thinking about how that's going to affect people mentally - being stuck on a spacecraft for 25,000 years (these people will basically have to be immortal or frozen or something sci-fi like to be able to get out there)

this is of course taking that the space craft could travel at almost the speed of light.. so i dunno what the realistic figures would be but i'd say in the couple 100 thousand years brackets if not millions... basically we're going to have to figure out wormholes and make one or it won't be feasible at all

by the time they got arrived at the alien planet nevermind got back to earth we'll all be extinct due to some natural disaster or because we decided it was a good idea to have a nuclear war to show which country is the best militarily or something to this degree...

really would love to see it happen but i don't think human's will be able to last long enough to see it happen

Podge_irl

johnmcdnl wrote: »

well that article says that it could take 25,000 years to send a signal to another planet... and that signal is travelling at light speed... so they're going to have to do a hell of a job to slow metabolism down to be able to send people out there...

that's before you even start thinking about how that's going to affect people mentally - being stuck on a spacecraft for 25,000 years (these people will basically have to be immortal or frozen or something sci-fi like to be able to get out there)

It's 25,000 years in our reference frame. It would be significantly less in theirs.

dlofnep

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

Travel between stars is unlikely

No it isn't. We've only come 100 years since man first flew. We have since then put man on the moon, and sent satellites into the deeps reaches of our solar system. We've landed robots on mars, and took high resolution images of most of the planets.

We accomplished all this in 100 years. Imagine what we could accomplish in 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or even a million years. The chances are, a civilisation will exist that is far superior to us. To use our understanding of space travel is the measuring stick for what is possible would be extremely naive.

Travelling from star to star is not only possible, it's highly probably.

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

I think we are a cosmic fluke.

Of course, but with a possible 500 million planets in the habitable zone in our galaxy alone and trillions of other galaxies out there, the chances of this fluke occurring on other planets becomes far more likely.

Plug

Im agreeing with dlofnep:cool:

Anyway lads and girls the fact is, its not a matter of if but a matter of when.

Cú Giobach

johnmcdnl wrote: »

well that article says that it could take 25,000 years to send a signal to another planet... and that signal is travelling at light speed... so they're going to have to do a hell of a job to slow metabolism down to be able to send people out there...

that's before you even start thinking about how that's going to affect people mentally - being stuck on a spacecraft for 25,000 years (these people will basically have to be immortal or frozen or something sci-fi like to be able to get out there)

Because the faster you travel the slower time passes "all" we have to learn, is how to travel near the speed of light.
Close to light speed a journey of 25,000 light years could take 5 mins for the people travelling.

Plug wrote: »

Im agreeing with dlofnep:cool:

Anyway lads and girls the fact is, its not a matter of if but a matter of when.

The history of life on Earth and the fact that 99% of all species that have existed are extinct, leads me to believe we won't be around long enough.
In the approx 500 million years complex life has been around the slate has been wiped clean loads of times.

dlofnep

Cú Giobach wrote: »

The history of life on Earth and the fact that 99% of all species that have existed are extinct, leads me to believe we won't be around long enough.
In the approx 500 million years complex life has been around the slate has been wiped clean loads of times.

It's important to note, that much of that was because species could not adapt to a change in surroundings and climate. Humans are the first species that can truly adapt their surroundings, rather than having to try to adapt themselves as a species. That is why we stand the best chance of survival out of every species.

The flip-side is, we are more prone to self destruction. I doubt we will ever kill off our entire species, but we could destroy more than half of the world's population through a nuclear war or something worse.

I think our biggest threat comes from asteroids, hurricanes, tsunamis and all the good makings of a Hollywood disaster movie.

MagicMarker

Will we at some stage be able to travel to our nearest star? Possibly. Maybe in the next millenia, but no time soon.

Anyhoo, I'd be quite confident of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe, either now or at somestage during the past 14 billion years. It's no coincidence that we are all made up of the most common elements in the universe, so why not?

Other than that I'd suspect there's an abundance of micro-organisms even in our own Solar System.

bastados

Aliens might be cleverer than most but that wouldn't be too hard..not that I buy into the extraterrestrial thing...people just want to believe that they are not alone in the infinity of space.

Archeron

Aliens are already here, and it appears they came for the chocolate. I seriously dont think this lady is human.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3oh0pCGtE


Oddly enough, they chose Galaxy bars.......

dlofnep

bastados wrote: »

people just want to believe that they are not alone in the infinity of space.

No. People believe it because it makes sense. It has nothing to do with a desire to have company in space.

Hande hoche!

Archeron wrote: »

Aliens are already here, and it appears they came for the chocolate. I seriously dont think this lady is human.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3oh0pCGtE


Oddly enough, they chose Galaxy bars.......

Kill it with fire.

Angron

Well if they visit us, it stands to reason that they'd be smarter. I mean they mastered space travel to another (inhabited) planet like ours before we got to theirs.

bastados

dlofnep wrote: »

No. People believe it because it makes sense. It has nothing to do with a desire to have company in space.

In order to believe something there has to be a desire there for that to happen in the first place...dont think the word sense is part of that equation...our lives are full of desires and very little logic.

CreepingDeath

Senna wrote: »

Given enough time, i don't think intelligent life is such a huge fluke and considering the young age of our solar system compared to the rest of the universe, its probably quite likely that two or more intelligent life forms could developed on the same planet at the same time.

Intelligence has a couple of evolutionary driving forces, to hunt or conversely to avoid being hunted, tool use and the ability to interact in a social group.

But there's very few peaceful vegetarian intelligent species on earth, as they don't need brain power to outwit plants.

So any intelligent species probably have, at least in their past, been aggressive predators. Let's hope that they have outgrown that phase !

Bottle_of_Smoke

If it was possible to travel the colossal distances required Aliens would have visited by now.


So either they have and they're keeping quiet about it, or they've never made the trip.

Cú Giobach

dlofnep wrote: »

It's important to note, that much of that was because species could not adapt to a change in surroundings and climate. Humans are the first species that can truly adapt their surroundings, rather than having to try to adapt themselves as a species. That is why we stand the best chance of survival out of every species.

The flip-side is, we are more prone to self destruction. I doubt we will ever kill off our entire species, but we could destroy more than half of the world's population through a nuclear war or something worse.

I think our biggest threat comes from asteroids, hurricanes, tsunamis and all the good makings of a Hollywood disaster movie.

True we can and have adapted to a wide variety of climates but our range is still pretty narrow and it wouldn't take the near destruction of our species to "cause problems", just an interuption to our technology. Just imagine the damage a large Coronal mass ejection could do to society.
With our reliance on technology we really are living on a knife edge.
I think flint knapping would be a safer bet for future tech than warp drives

CreepingDeath

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

If it was possible to travel the colossal distances required Aliens would have visited by now.

So either they have and they're keeping quiet about it, or they've never made the trip.

That's some faulty logic there.
It's "possible" for humans to go to Mars now, but no huge incentive to commit the resources.

It's more likely that any intelligent species would slowly spread themselves throughout a Galaxy over Millenia, scouting for new planets for long term expansion and checking out any "nearby" neighbours for potential conflicts in the future over territory.

Although they'd be clever enough to have a proper population control system in place, and not be forced to colonise new planets as their population doubled every 50 years or so.

clairemm

keeping the big bounce theory in mind, its likely many many civilizations existed in the past, brought to an end by the universe collapsing in on itself and then exploding outward in what we know as the big bang - creating us. and when this universe collapses in on itself and explodes again, there will be many many more. its infinite. but the likelihood of us ever making contact, given distance and time barriers, is disappointingly slim.

mikedragon32

mickrock wrote: »

If you gave one monkey a typewriter for a few months he'd probably come up with something as readable as Ulysses.

Better not give them a computer with interwebs or they might post up something as coherent as some boardsies! :pac:

:eek:

Rabble Rabble

Everybody's certain about the clever aliens building crafts, huh? Time to bring in my mate fermi. Fermi, what do you think?

Fermi: Where the f*ck are they.

Rabble Rabble

My theory is that there are 500M Earth type planets full of dumbassed Dinosaurs.

CreepingDeath

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

My theory is that there are 500M Earth type planets full of dumbassed Dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are cold blooded, so any "slight" disruption in the sunlight/temperature and they're dead.

Only the small and clever warm blooded animals who can burrow survive that sort of thing.

Wibbs

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

Travel between stars is unlikely. I think we are a cosmic fluke.

The former is at least possible(caveat later), the latter seems much more likely to me.

ScumLord wrote: »

We are a fluke, no doubt about it. But it's just as likely that fluke has happened over and over given the vastness of space and the time frames involved.

All good SL, but that entire idea is predicated on just one example. Us. That's it. Oh the vastness of time and space etc makes it more likely there are others, but until we find one off world example of life, no matter how simple, we are as far as we know unique. Even in that uniqueness, we're unique. All life, I mean every single living thing from whales to mould are related. It seems they all sprang from just one life event. There aren't even "aliens" on Earth. The Earth which by definition is ideal for life. Why aren't there more stands of life? When people talk about the inifinite universe with infinite possibilities, they forget it's really not infinite at all. Even if it was they also forget that in the infinite of possibilities us being unique is nearly as valid as us not being.

Intelligence seems to be highly valued in the animal kingdom I'd even say animals get more and more intelligent as time passes because it's just such a winning strategy. Maybe once live starts it's only a matter of time before you end up with something like us.

The guts of 3 billion years and we nearly went extinct 80,000 years ago(hence we're so inbred as a species by comparison to most large mammals). Homo Erectus went extinct, as did Neanderthal. We are all so so damned "lucky" to be able to type this out. Intelligence is not like swimming or flying or other evolutionary responses to environment. Responses that have happened time and time and time again across different species, hell different biological orders. Brains are pretty rare by comparison. Crows and chimps notwithstanding. Brains like ours? Mind bogglingly rare. Well just us. Even though Neanderthals had even bigger brains than us and were pretty damned clever they didn't have that extra spark we have. Hell we didn't have that extra spark until around 80,000 years ago. We looked like us, walked like us, probably talked like us, but in very subtle ways we weren't us. So even if brains evolve it doesn't mean they end up being technological and creative and symbolic brains. Neanderthals did really well for 200,000 years without that(they may have had symbolism though). Erectus lasted at leats 2 million years without it.

dlofnep wrote: »

No it isn't. We've only come 100 years since man first flew. We have since then put man on the moon, and sent satellites into the deeps reaches of our solar system. We've landed robots on mars, and took high resolution images of most of the planets.

We accomplished all this in 100 years. Imagine what we could accomplish in 1000 years, or 10,000 years, or even a million years. The chances are, a civilisation will exist that is far superior to us. To use our understanding of space travel is the measuring stick for what is possible would be extremely naive.

true, but one must also temper that by looking at previous civilisations. They come and go. Indeed the more advanced and complex the more vulnerable they are to failing. And we're the most advanced and complex ever. We could go backwards. Hell look at us today. 40 years ago we put men on the moon and did it in the guts of 5-7 years from scratch. Today? Well we could obviously go back technology wise, but we've chosen not to. The Chinese may go, but if they think lobbing a low earth orbit capsule was a bit dicey, the moon is a whole heap of pain. The moonshots, nay our entire human space travel thang may well have been a flash in the pan. A dead end. It's a luxury item so it will be the first to go should our civilisation ever get delicate, never mind collapse.

Travelling from star to star is not only possible, it's highly probably.

Hmmm maybe not. OK *mad theory alert* Maybe interstellar travel is impossible. Bear with me. OK the figures for the universe didn't add up and there seemed to be shítloads(actual scientific term) of matter missing. So the boffins came up with dark matter. This unusual matter that ya can't quite see that makes up something mad like 90% of the universe(Personally I think they got the figures arseways in the first place but I digress...). OK so this dark matter. Maybe it's not unusual at all. Maybe its just ordinary stuff. Rocks and ice and such. That inbetween solar systems empty space isn't that empty. That the planets by virtue of their gravity hoover up the normally full space and give the impression of empty space going on forever. I reckon I have some evidence too. Look at the area beyond Pluto, the Oort cloud. An area full of asterioids and comets and maybe even planets(pluto being likely ex oort cloud). Maybe that shíte keeps going until it hits the next solar system?

Think of it like this. A ship on the ocean. Around the ports there is no ice so they can scoot about at speed. but beyond that is a huge ice field with icebergs of different sizes every 100 meters, so any ship attempting to cross said ocean has to go real slow or risk having Leonardo De Caprio sink to his watery doom. That could be why no aliens, even if they exist, ever get much beyond their solar system, or it takes so much time that if they do the original civilisation is long dead by the time they get anywhere.

Another theory and this time it concerns the very technology that we reckon will get us out there. Maybe it does the complete opposite. OK the interweb is the technology of the moment, it may well die out or something else comes along as these things will... But lets imagine it stays getting bigger and better and more improved, more immersive. Gets all "Matrix" like in the movies. That every emotional and intellectual need gets answered for and provided by this global bilogical network. That this immersive experience will be so much better more than we can imagine than "real life". A silicon heaven where we all go to live. There may be some signs of that already. The cliche of the man jacking off to porn on his PC, while his naked flesh and blood girlfriend is upstairs in bed is one. Imagine that scaled up for every human experience. So why go into space, when you can be Captain Kirk having far more interesting adventures?

I've read the comparison that civilisations are kinda like far apart houses in the countryside at night. Until they have the tech to put a light in the window we wouldn't see them and we'd have to have the tech to look for those lights. Maybe they're so far away we wouldnt see them. Maybe their house burns down before we see them or ours does. Just maybe the lights are only ever on for a short while before they close the curtains and play out the rest of their night on xbox?

Rabble Rabble

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Dinosaurs are cold blooded, so any "slight" disruption in the sunlight/temperature and they're dead.

Only the small and clever warm blooded animals who can burrow survive that sort of thing.

and you think that that is inevitable on all Earth type planets, and that on all of these planets dinosaurs will die out leading to mammals? That's a massive extrapolation from a sample size of one.

The Dinosaurs are the "natural" ( as far as we know from a sample size of 1) species to dominate Earth type planets once life gets out of the sea. They were here a lot longer than we have been. That an asteroid will wipe them out, and mammals will prevail is not clear or inevitable on all ( or even any) Earth type planets. ( I dont think most planets will even get to land based animals).


The Dinosaurs prove something else too - you can dominate this planet without the intelligence that humans have . Intelligent life - of the sort to make radio telescopes - is not convergent, i.e. it doesnt happen across animal species with different evolutionary paths. Other complex systems like eyes are convergent. Human like intelligence is not.

Wibbs

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

and you think that that is inevitable on all Earth type planets, and that on all of these planets dinosaurs will die out leading to mammals? That's a massive extrapolation from a sample size of one.

+1

The Dinosaurs are the "natural" ( as far as we know from a sample size of 1) species to dominate Earth type planets once life gets out of the sea. They were here a lot longer than we have been. That an asteroid will wipe them out, and mammals will prevail is not clear or inevitable on all ( or even any) Earth type planets. ( I dont think most planets will even get to land based animals).

+2 That even the dinosaurs themselves come about is a fluke and came on the back of the biggest extinction we know of, the Permian. Lots of these bursts of "progress" are on the back of extinctions, so on a more stable planet we may have just green goo. Hell even on this planet the vast majority of the biomass is "goo".

The Dinosaurs prove something else too - you can dominate this planet without the intelligence that humans have, intelligent life - of the sort to make radio telescopes - is not convergent, i.e. it doesnt happen across animal species with different evolutionary paths. Other complex systems like eyes are convergent. Human like intelligence is not.

Exactly! Fins, wings and legs are used by very different animals and have cropped up time and time again for half a billion years. EG Fish look like sharks who look like ichthyosaurs who look like dolphins. Brains? 3 million. And that's at a real stretch. Technology brains? 100,000 years. Tops.

CreepingDeath

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

and you think that that is inevitable on all Earth type planets, and that on all of these planets dinosaurs will die out leading to mammals? That's a massive extrapolation from a sample size of one.

The larger the animal the more vulnerable it is to environmental changes.
Larger animals have a longer gestation period and smaller litters too.

Small animals are more resourceful, adaptable and with a shorter lifespan/gestation period they can evolve to the environment faster as changes happen, as they will have many more generations than a larger animal.

Shit happens on every planet, even a small/medium asteroid can cause atmospheric changes for a decade or more.
Small animals are much more likely to survive, than larger animals as they can live on less resources and go underground or in caves etc.

Granted they don't need to be mammals but could be small lizards etc, but
cold blooded animals are generally limited to temperature zones, whereas warm blooded animals are found across the globe.

So it's not just based on a "sample size of 1", but on survival probabilities given their strengths.

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

The Dinosaurs are the "natural" ( as far as we know from a sample size of 1) species to dominate Earth type planets once life gets out of the sea.

They are the first, but that doesn't mean the "natural" choice to dominate.
Fish are cold blooded, so it makes sense that whatever crawls out of the sea first will be cold blooded too.

But being cold blooded means that they are sluggish in cold weather/environments and need to warm up to move.
Warm blooded animals can move and hunt/feed in all temperatures, which is a huge evolutionary advantage for land animals.

So the dominance of cold blooded animals isn't necessarily a sure thing.

tallaghtmick

they would log onto boards.ie to get an idea of what we are all like.....then decide not to interact for fear of being blasted with piss.

also i hope if we ever do achieve alien contact i hope that religion is not brought into it, i.e trying to convert kang and kodos on a mass level.

helimachoptor

OT @ Wibbs i do really like reading your posts i must say. Always insightful.

Back on topic, yes there are aliens with all of the billions of planets in the universe and the ones in our galaxy the odds of there being no life on any planet apart from this one are infinitesimally small.

Do i think we'll make contract in the next 100 years probably not. But honestly i'd love it if we did.

bullpost

but probably not as marketable

mickrock wrote: »

If you gave one monkey a typewriter for a few months he'd probably come up with something as readable as Ulysses.