Humans likely alone in universe, study reports

Discussion in 'Science' started by Durandal, Jun 26, 2018.

  1. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    ... and so they support what I quickly concluded qutie some time ago and have been saying - that the odds of life resembling us being anywhere near to us in the universe are actually exceedingly remote.

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    A team of international researchers have found evidence that humans are the only intelligent life in the known universe, according to a new study published online.

    For the research, the team analyzed the so-called Fermi paradox that shows, while there are millions of celestial bodies throughout the cosmos, there is no concrete evidence of alien life.

    They broke down the equation initially proposed by Frank Drake in the 1960's that states the vast size of the universe inherently suggests other intelligent life must exist.

    However, when the team behind the recent study incorporated new elements into the equation they found it is open to both uncertainties and bias. As a result, it is likely not as accurate as previously believed.

    "When the model is recast to represent realistic distributions of uncertainty, we find a substantial ex ante probability of there being no other intelligent life in our observable universe, and thus that there should be little surprise when we fail to detect any signs of it," wrote the team in the research, according to Fox News. "This result dissolves the Fermi paradox, and in doing so removes any need to invoke speculative mechanisms by which civilizations would inevitably fail to have observable effects upon the universe."

    Their research revealed there is a 30 percent chance that humans are alone in the Milky Way galaxy. In addition, the team also found evidence that, should extraterrestrial life exist, it is likely less advanced that what we have on Earth.

    ''One can answer the Fermi Paradox by saying intelligence is very rare, but then it needs to be tremendously rare," explained lead author Anders Sandberg, a researcher at Oxford University, according to International Business Times. "Another possibility is that intelligence doesn't last very long, but it is enough that one civilization survives for it to become visible."

    While this suggests humans are alone, the study is not definitive. Many more processes need to be analyzed before that idea can be fully confirmed in one way or another.

    ---
    https://thespacereporter.com/article.php?n=humans-likely-alone-in-universe-study-reports&id=153602
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
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  2. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    The odds that humans are alone are slim. What is not slim is the distances in the universe. If there are other intelligent beings in the universe we will never learn of them nor will they ever learn of us. The distances are simply too great.
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2018
  3. VotreAltesse

    VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    @Durandal There is two problems in what you wrote :
    The absence of proof isn't the proof of absence. It's very hard to prove that something is absent. There is no evidences of alien life found. Does it really mean there is no alien life ?

    Furthermore, we probed very few places. The milky way galaxy is just a galaxy among so many others.
     
  4. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    This is my position also. It's not that I doubt that something intelligent has existed, exists now or will exist as we do here, but that it's actually not very common at all, even having so many potentially habitable worlds, due to the vast number of variables involved, including of course actual distances and time scales involved. We would be hard-pressed to find out even about a civilization on the other side of our galaxy, let alone one in another galaxy. Andromeda could have a galactic empire all over it right now and we still would not know, because we see it as it was about 2.5 million years ago, and that is the nearest galaxy to us. The Borg could be living on the other side of our galaxy (like they were in TNG and DS9), and we still would have no indication of them from here. I don't think we are even able to see stars that far away due simply to the sheer volume of dust blocking the way over such a distance.

    On the other hand, we will probably want to be quick to develop our own space exploration and settlement, so that if something is out there or eventually comes to exist, we hopefully won't be caught at a disadvantage. :D
     
  5. Durandal

    Durandal Well-Known Member Donor

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    I didn't say that we had proof of absence, but I do think that it's unlikely that intelligent life exists very near to us, because even overlooking distances and time scales involved, the path to intelligent life is not an easy one, even relative to the evolution of life at a basic level. To get from simple, microbial life to a human is a very lengthy process, and we know that our evolution was guided by a combination of environmental stability and disasters that allowed new varieties of life to evolve repeatedly. If Earth itself or our sun had been less stable, we probably would not be here, yet if the dinosaurs had not been wiped out and any number of other such disasters had not occurred as they did, this also probably would have left Earth's population looking entirely different, because mammals may never have taken over as they have.

    We must remember that life does not have some kind of a mission to become human-like, either. It evolves to survive as best it can. Our primate ancestors happened upon mobility, dexterity and intelligence in ways that made humans a possibility. A bird could not evolve to be like a human due to its physical limitations, leaving the evolution of human-level intelligence in their line less likely due to less advantage coming of it. Other tetrapods are very far off yet from being very near to primate and human level intelligence and dexterity.
     
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  6. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Given the assumptions required to construct a reasonable hypothesis of the possibility of intelligent life in the universe and the nature of this study's approach, I consider this nothing more than an interesting thought exercise, appropriate for an academic paper.

    Seems to contain the rather gross conceit that there can only be one kind of biology that can produce intelligent life. (perhaps sapient is a more apt term).
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2018
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  7. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Considering a few FACTS:
    1) Human communications have now reached about 80 light years distance.
    2) To hear these would require an extremely large antenna or radio telescope.
    3) Human communications are one of thousands of possibilities and primitive.
    4) Any return communications would face much the same limitations.
    5) It is only in the last decade that humankind has even noticed extrasolar planets.
    6) The Galaxy in extremely vast and the Universe more so.

    There must be alien life and we will probably never know.
     
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  8. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    We've probed only a small section of the sky equal to a small constellation and only out to a distance of about 100 light years. Even compared to the scale of a single galaxy--ours; the Milky Way--this is an infinitely small piece of the whole, and very little to draw conclusions from. Alternatively, there is considerable evidence on certain YouTube sites showing videos & photos of extraterrestrial visitation that are worthy of consideration.
     
  9. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Meanwhile, back in the jungle . . .
     
  10. DoctorWho

    DoctorWho Well-Known Member

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    Bottom line, I think it very likely that there are other planets with life.

    Also, maybe those Worlds have not yet advanced Space travel either, there does seem enough to point to visitation by extraterrestrial visitors.

    Or perhaps as the Mythical Vulcans, those Extraterrestrials only interact with "Warp capable Civilizations" not Pre-Warp Civilizations.
     
  11. DavidMK

    DavidMK Well-Known Member

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    They're are likely hundreds of billions of trillions of civilizations in the universe. That's 1-3 per super cluster.
     
  12. wyly

    wyly Well-Known Member

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    my opinion, we're completely alone in this galaxy, if anything were more advanced than us I'd think we would be aware of them...
     
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  13. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    Well say if each Galaxy of our size had one advanced human species at a given time, that is still a lot of aliens scattered about and the very large galaxies could sport two or three and small ones none. But what about less intelligent 'intelligent' life say Homo Erectus or Neanderthal kinds of intelligence that might be more common and well in our own world Homo Erectus was around far longer and more successful than we were the one advantage we have is we were more intelligent and our bodies moved more flexibly so we could hurl spears and use slings and later bows. But our universe seems to have a lot of life in it and we seemed to have arrived early in a couple billion more years more species might show up.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
  14. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why would you think that?

    We have been around and technological for about a century....so lets just say 100 light years, in a galaxy that is 100,000 light years across. Basically we only know the folks on our block in a big a$$ city....we don't even know where the Pizza places are so wanting Mexican food is a bit of a stretch.
     
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  15. wyly

    wyly Well-Known Member

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    there's no evidence about for us to assume erectus and neanderthal were less intelligent than us or that we more athletic, neanderthal bone structure points to them easily kicking our butts and they evidence suggests they were using impressive complex chemical process for attaching tools to handles long before sapiens

    time is critical...if any species were here a million years before us and still present we should be able to detect some sort of radio signals as our galaxy is only a 100,000 light years across...there could've been an intelligent civilization and it went extinct millions of years ago...or there could intelligent lifeforms developing that are destined to be intelligent but we'll be long extinct ourselves before contact occurs... intelligent need not develop at all, our development was accidental and had not the earth been smacked by a big arse rock we may never had the chance to develop....or we could be completely alone...
     
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  16. LiveUninhibited

    LiveUninhibited Well-Known Member

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    They're retarded. Or probably, hard to know since the article is so vague. A civilization would have to be much more advanced than us to be easily detectable, and even then not too far away, and would have to be both more advanced than us and really want to find us for them to even know we exist (and pretty close by, given that our early radio signals haven't gone very far into the galaxy yet). Until recently, we could only detect planets that were super-Jupiters orbiting closer to their stars. If it's hard to find a planet, it's going to be hard to find a civilization unless it does something huge in space. For example:

    https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2012/05/31/is-our-civilization-detectable/

    You don't have an appreciation for the scale of the galaxy. We're not detectable, as far as we know, to >99.9% of the galaxy given that we haven't had radio for long enough.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
  17. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    "Humans likely alone in universe, study reports"

    yes, but intelligent life other then humans is most likely

    "Their research revealed there is a 30 percent chance that humans are alone in the Milky Way galaxy"

    that means a 70% change were not... just in the Milky Way galaxy - so even the study seems to think life on other planets is very likely
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
  18. wyly

    wyly Well-Known Member

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    I do grasp the enormity we're inconsequential but any civilization that's reached our level of development let's say 125,000 years ago should be detectable... after 125,000 years of technical advancement far superior to ours I would think they should have a large detectable footprint, unless they're already long gone...
     
  19. LiveUninhibited

    LiveUninhibited Well-Known Member

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    I don't think so. Our technology led to miniaturization of devices, and having to build really large structures is something you'd only do if that way is the only way to reach a goal you have. We've hypothesized that Dyson swarms might be plausible (big things orbiting near a star to soak up its energy), and even something extreme like that would be hard to detect. Would an alien civilization even need or want to do a huge project like that? Probably not. Real power would be harnessing antimatter. Plus a smart alien civilization wouldn't necessarily want to be detected either. Better to discover other civilizations and determine if they're a threat than to try to be discovered just by making a lot of noise.

    I think the only thing we'd easily detect is a massive, system destroying war (like the death star being used to destroy a star). Such a thing would necessarily be brief and rare.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
  20. wyly

    wyly Well-Known Member

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    then we need to define intelligent life...an elephant, gorillas, dolphins and crows are intelligent but there's no reason they or similar life would ever develop(or want to) the technology to contact other galactic life forms

    I only browsed through that report, I don't recall any discussion of timeline...intelligent life needs to develop at the same time if they're going to contact each other, for all we know there was intelligent beings but they got wiped out by a super Nova or Gamma ray burst 2 billion years ago...we've only been contactable for about a hundred years when compared to the time span in earths history we're barely an eyeblink and will be gone in another eyeblink
     
  21. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Not peer reviewed or published in a proper journal - meaningless.

    I can show you archived papers on building a time machine.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2018
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  22. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    right, but the title suggests they proved we were likely alone in the universe, which it doesn't see it does by that quote

    "Their research revealed there is a 30 percent chance that humans are alone in the Milky Way galaxy"
     
  23. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I suppose 30% is "likely" when it supports your argument.
     
  24. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    That referred to previous research.
     
  25. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm convinced that crop circles are the work of aliens, as a study project to see what we make of them. I don't mean the simple ones which are obviously don't with poles and lengths of string, I'm talking about the really sophisticated ones, some of which were 3-dimensional.
     

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