Aug 18, 2021 05:38 AM
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/...e-universe
KEY POINTS: The debate over extraterrestrial life has shifted from fringe to mainstream. The belief that humans eventually will encounter aliens is based on two assumptions: (a) life evolves easily, and (b) interstellar travel is possible and practical. Neither of these assumptions is likely to be true.
EXCERPTS (Alex Berezow): When I was a kid ... outside of popular culture, few serious intellectuals took the notion of aliens seriously. ... Today, the exact opposite view prevails.
Thanks to advances ... most of the scientific community [...concludes...] that life probably does exist elsewhere in the universe. Those who do not believe so are now considered the kooks. And while alien abductions are still not in the mainstream, UFOs are — so much so that the U.S. intelligence community just issued a report on them.
The academic debate now is not whether life exists but in what form. [...] I suppose this is all fun to think and talk about, but the alien debate suffers from a serious lack of perspective. If there is any chance of humans encountering alien life, at least two extremely unlikely things must be true:
Life evolves easily. Decades of research have yielded little in the way of identifying the mechanism of abiogenesis — the formation of life from non-living matter. [...] In the laboratory ... scientists have yet to come even close to reproducing life in the laboratory. This strongly implies that life does not evolve easily. But even if we were to cede the point that life can evolve easily given enough time, there is another problem: the vast majority of exoplanets are inhospitable to life...
Interstellar travel is possible and practical. This, in my opinion, is even more unlikely than the easy evolution of life. [...] we have no idea if interstellar travel is possible. Sure, we could get on a spaceship today and head for a planet orbiting the nearest star, Proxima Centauri ... it will take about 6,300 years to get there.
The notion that we will develop (or that some advanced alien civilization has already developed) the ability to easily traverse the galaxy is pure speculation. It is physically impossible to travel at the speed of light, though it may be possible to travel at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. [...] the distances between stars is nearly unfathomable ... Sci-fi enthusiasts note that unknown technologies may develop ... But again, these suggestions are purely speculative.
Putting all this together, the sobering conclusion is that it does not matter if intelligent alien life exists elsewhere in the universe. We will never find them, and they will never find us. In other words, we are effectively alone in the universe... (MORE - missing details)
KEY POINTS: The debate over extraterrestrial life has shifted from fringe to mainstream. The belief that humans eventually will encounter aliens is based on two assumptions: (a) life evolves easily, and (b) interstellar travel is possible and practical. Neither of these assumptions is likely to be true.
EXCERPTS (Alex Berezow): When I was a kid ... outside of popular culture, few serious intellectuals took the notion of aliens seriously. ... Today, the exact opposite view prevails.
Thanks to advances ... most of the scientific community [...concludes...] that life probably does exist elsewhere in the universe. Those who do not believe so are now considered the kooks. And while alien abductions are still not in the mainstream, UFOs are — so much so that the U.S. intelligence community just issued a report on them.
The academic debate now is not whether life exists but in what form. [...] I suppose this is all fun to think and talk about, but the alien debate suffers from a serious lack of perspective. If there is any chance of humans encountering alien life, at least two extremely unlikely things must be true:
Life evolves easily. Decades of research have yielded little in the way of identifying the mechanism of abiogenesis — the formation of life from non-living matter. [...] In the laboratory ... scientists have yet to come even close to reproducing life in the laboratory. This strongly implies that life does not evolve easily. But even if we were to cede the point that life can evolve easily given enough time, there is another problem: the vast majority of exoplanets are inhospitable to life...
Interstellar travel is possible and practical. This, in my opinion, is even more unlikely than the easy evolution of life. [...] we have no idea if interstellar travel is possible. Sure, we could get on a spaceship today and head for a planet orbiting the nearest star, Proxima Centauri ... it will take about 6,300 years to get there.
The notion that we will develop (or that some advanced alien civilization has already developed) the ability to easily traverse the galaxy is pure speculation. It is physically impossible to travel at the speed of light, though it may be possible to travel at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. [...] the distances between stars is nearly unfathomable ... Sci-fi enthusiasts note that unknown technologies may develop ... But again, these suggestions are purely speculative.
Putting all this together, the sobering conclusion is that it does not matter if intelligent alien life exists elsewhere in the universe. We will never find them, and they will never find us. In other words, we are effectively alone in the universe... (MORE - missing details)