We haven't seen evidence of things (as far as we know) that we've thought of, that doesn't mean any advanced species is actually going to spend the effort to convert their planetary bodies into giant structures for a Dyson sphere/swarm.
We haven't seen evidence of things (as far as we know) that we've thought of, that doesn't mean any advanced species is actually going to spend the effort to convert their planetary bodies into giant structures for a Dyson sphere/swarm.I mean from what we've observed so far with our instruments probing the EM spectrum in our Galaxy and other galaxies we haven't observed things that can't be explained naturally. Dyson spheres and the like.
May be we will find something as more advanced telescopes are coming online but I'm not holding my breath.
True, though I think that if there is advanced technological alien life out there we should find something that is inconsistent with our understanding of how a natural universe would look.We haven't seen evidence of things (as far as we know) that we've thought of, that doesn't mean any advanced species is actually going to spend the effort to convert their planetary bodies into giant structures for a Dyson sphere/swarm.
We do, all the time, we just make up theories as to what causes themTrue, though I think that if there is advanced technological alien life out there we should find something that is inconsistent with our understanding of how a natural universe would look.
We have natural explanations for black holes though, no need to invoke aliens. Occam's razor.We do, all the time, we just make up theories as to what causes them
For all we know, black holes are actually dark matter generators that alien life has created.
With James Webb and some of the latest ground telescopes we can get spectroscopic data directly from some exoplanet atmospheres. That can be enough to get a good idea about habitability.It's not like we can even see the features of the nearest Exoplanets. Let alone distant ones.
Crazy for people to dismiss aliens because "we haven't seen".
You will never see something so distant.
To believe you would, is to unfathomably underestimate the vastness of space.
We have natural explanations for black holes though, no need to invoke aliens. Occam's razor.
But now I remembered about this strange star called Przybylski’s Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przybylski's_Star which has a very unusual chemical composition.
Here's a good video about it:
I still wouldn't bet on aliens, but whatever the explanation, we will discover something new. And I hope we find more stuff like this.
I was giving an overt example, we've seen what we believe are black holes, we've seen stellar explosions, and we've observed gravity waves which all correlate to our theory of back hole formation, doesn't mean it's correct though.We have natural explanations for black holes though, no need to invoke aliens. Occam's razor.
But now I remembered about this strange star called Przybylski’s Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przybylski's_Star which has a very unusual chemical composition.
Here's a good video about it:
I still wouldn't bet on aliens, but whatever the explanation, we will discover something new. And I hope we find more stuff like this.
When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.I was giving an overt example, we've seen what we believe are black holes, we've seen stellar explosions, and we've observed gravity waves which all correlate to our theory of back hole formation, doesn't mean it's correct though.
There are tons of other examples of physical observations that defy our understanding of the universe though, and that's just big stuff we can actually see from our vantage point.
Then they test those theories in every way they can. And they are ready to discard any theory that doesn't pan out. This is how science progresses. There is no pre-received "truth." There is only the ever-ongoing attempt to understand . . . stuff.When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…theymake up[construct] “theories” to “[try to] explain” it.
Welcome back Woolfe!The conditions necessary to produce and sustain complex life, particularly thriving biodiverse ecosystems necessary to even have a chance of producing a sentient species, are extremely narrow and unlikely. The earth is this way due to fantastic luck on a cosmic scale.
We first had an impact with a Mars sized planet early on, which worked out very well for Earth. Most of it's mass combined with Earth while both planets went molten again, and hence the new iron enlarged Earth's existing iron core, which in turn gave us a strong magnetic field that will last about 7 billion years instead of like 1 billion which is all the other rocky planets got. The field protects us from solar flares, CME's, cosmic rays and most importantly, solar winds, which would have blown away all our atmosphere and with it all our oceans. Like what happened on Mars.
No other planet or moon in our solar system, other than a gas or ice giant, has a significant magnetic field. Meaning it is a rare exception.
Second, the throw-off from the impact orbited the Earth for millions of years until it formed the moon. This weirdly over-size moon, in turn, stabilizes our axial wobble, preventing constant violent climate change. And second, it gives us gravitational tidal force which churns our oceans, which we likely could not have had abiogenesis without.
Then there's our vast abundance of water. We don't even know how we got this much as it seems comet impacts wouldn't have been enough. But this much water is unusual, including among exo-planets we've observed.
This is not even to speak of our "goldilocks" orbital position, or our lack of world killing features like Venus' over-active volcanism.
When we look at exo-planets so far, we see very few small rocky worlds. We see lots of super-earths. They now think this is the normal development of a solar system, to form lots of super-earths out of its inner rocky material. But they think something weird happened here, like Jupiter inched in a little closer to Mars, and gravitationally pulled the super-earths from behind, causing them to lose orbital speed and spiral into the sun. The smaller amount of rocks left over formed the four small rocky planets which are the only kind that can sustain complex life. But only do under extremely rare conditions.
The point of all that detail is that it's really unlikely to have a planet with conditions near enough to earth to sustain thriving diverse ecosystems. Might be like 1 in a million to 1 in a billion planets. Though we may have about a trillion planets in the galaxy.
So I doubt there's many others out there. We might be the only ones in the galaxy, or perhaps there are 2 or 3 co-existing at a given time. But unless one of us really develops "subspace communications" and/or "warp drive" we'll never meet them or talk to them.
Sceintific theories are a bit more robust than what you are describing. At most you are describing postulates.When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.
They form hypotheses to “explain” it. Then they test them and the ones that pass testing and peer review become theories.When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.
Then they test those theories in every way they can. And they are ready to discard any theory that doesn't pan out. This is how science progresses. There is no pre-received "truth." There is only the ever-ongoing attempt to understand . . . stuff.
When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.
When scientists observe some phenomenon, they make up a hypothesis to explain it, and it has to be able to be tested.Sceintific theories are a bit more robust than what you are describing. At most you are describing postulates.
When scientists observe some phenomenon, they make up a hypothesis to explain it, and it has to be able to be tested.
They then test that hypothesis. Over and over and over and over. If they test and test and test and can't disprove the hypothesis, they then call it a theory.
And every other scientist in that particular field tries to disprove it. It will remain a valid theory until someone else can disprove it with evidence.
We call this science.
here’s little incentive for anyone to get to the bottom of misconduct. “If the most serious consequence for speeding was a police officer saying ‘Don’t do that again,’ everyone would be speeding,” Bik told me. “This is the situation we have in science. Do whatever you want. If you get caught, it’ll take years to investigate.”
Stop watching crap. It’s obviously rotting your brain.When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.
Should scientific fraud be prosecuted, especially in fields related to public health? Absolutely.I'm suspicious that that's an idealised take on the whole endevour. I mean, it's what ideally _should_ happen, but is it how actual existing science works in reality? Especially for sciences that involve studying human behaviour, rather than inanimate objects.
What happens if, for example, 'every other scientist in that particular field' shares the same underlying unexamined assumptions that characterise the entire field? Which seems to be the case for things like "IQ studies" and "evolutionary psychology".
There's also this issue (an article firefox coincidentally suggested for me)
The staggering death toll of scientific lies
From Don Poldersmans and Francesca Gino to faked Alzheimer’s data, the scientific field needs a better handle on allegations and consequences of fraudulent research.www.vox.com
But not news or politics.At first I thought this thread was going to be about Nvidia's power hungry DX11 GPU architecture. Still, this thread is cool.
But, that's a different problem. Discovery Channel is that you.When our scientists see/experience something they don’t understand…they make up “theories” to “explain” it. So many of the various TV shows about space push unfounded theories as supposition…or “fact”.
But not news or politics.
Yup, there always needs to be a fully understood starting point for any hunt for life. It must include the prerequisite that we know what to look for, if we're looking for ourselves. We know what we have made, what we're likely to make, and what we're unlikely to make, so we look for all that stuff first. There may also be sentient silicon-base rocks that communicate through vibrations or some such, but we wouldn't even know what to look for for the really unusual possibilities of intelligence out there. We barely acknowledge intelligence on this planet in stuff we share like 80% of our DNA with.In the hunt for alien life, is man truly 'the measure of all things?'
Enrico Fermi's lunchtime question at wartime Los Alamos, "Where is everybody?" has been both a gift and a problem to scientists ever since. Known as "Fermi's Paradox," it simply asks, why, since life on Earth is ubiquitous and developed very early in Earth's history, and the galaxy is very old...phys.org
Here you go - from the Google News tab.
At any rate I disagree with this philosopher. While we might not being seeing some intelligent life because it’s not in a form we can detect the original Drake Equation / Fermi Paradox said we know we can’t detect everything but we could detect a civilization like ours if it was close enough. We know we evolved so why don’t we see other civilizations like ours.
We can look for creatures made of dark matter or hyper intelligent shades of blue later when our technology and understanding gets better.
Too late.Stop watching crap. It’s obviously rotting your brain.
Discovery and the “Science Channel.”But, that's a different problem. Discovery Channel is that you.
The Science Channel bears much the same relationship to "science" that the Hallmark Channel bears to love relationships.Discovery and the “Science Channel.”