Christianity vs UFOs

[Centurion1]

UFO's are a rather ridiculous idea. Mostly peoples inability to think that the universe does not revolve around them. I at least am honest enough to say to myself, "hey maybe aliens have more important things to do with their time" I like to believe those UFO's are either fabricated hoaxes or military secrets.

[Aemilius Paulus]

UFO's are a rather ridiculous idea. Mostly peoples inability to think that the universe does not revolve around them.

Hehehe, but the same is even more true of those who completely deny the existence of alien intelligence. Do you not see how? On the contrary, the prime argument of the UFO believers is that the universe does not revolve around us and that there are other sentient spacefaring species out there.


But yes, I do see what you mean. Earth is not so special that we have all sorts of aliens fawning over us every year...

[Centurion1]

Exactly we are a rather poor example of a super race. Physically we leave much to be desired......

Im not saying its impossible i believe intelligence exists there somewhere, i just doubt the idea of a spacefaring race that spys on us.

[Hax]

Exactly we are a rather poor example of a super race. Physically we leave much to be desired......

Oh, we leave a lot to be desired mentally and politically as well.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Oh, we leave a lot to be desired mentally and politically as well.

Yeah, forget the physical aspects, Centurion, who needs that? The brain and the hands are the only two important parts for an advanced civilisation, as HG Wells said. And in brains, oh, in brains we do lack, as Hax put it in such a coldly humorous manner.


EDIT: Dammit, I am running out of space to put the Hax quotes in my sig...

Im not saying its impossible i believe intelligence exists there somewhere, i just doubt the idea of a spacefaring race that spys on us.

Yes, most likely so.

[HoreTore]

UFO's are a rather ridiculous idea. Mostly peoples inability to think that the universe does not revolve around them. I at least am honest enough to say to myself, "hey maybe aliens have more important things to do with their time" I like to believe those UFO's are either fabricated hoaxes or military secrets.

Or simply stuff we don't know what is.

I love the logic FAIL most "UFO believers" use: If something can't be explained., then it's a UFO. They don't need any proof at all that there is a UFO, they just need the lack of an alternate explanation.

[drone]

I love the logic FAIL most "UFO believers" use: If something can't be explained., then it's a UFO. They don't need any proof at all that there is a UFO, they just need the lack of an alternate explanation.

No, that is not a logic fail. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. So if it can't be explained (i.e. unidentified), it is a UFO. The fail comes from automatically assuming every UFO is piloted by extraterrestrials, instead of the sighting being moonlight reflecting off of swamp gas, or Venus, or the Aurora Project, etc.

[HoreTore]

No, that is not a logic fail. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. So if it can't be explained (i.e. unidentified), it is a UFO. The fail comes from automatically assuming every UFO is piloted by extraterrestrials, instead of the sighting being moonlight reflecting off of swamp gas, or Venus, or the Aurora Project, etc.

Of course I know that's what it stands for. But in this discussion it should be quite obvious that "UFO" refers to "Aliens"....

[Myrddraal]

I'm completely on the fence about intelligent life being out there. The argument "The universe is huge, therefore statistically there must be intelligent life somewhere in it" is flawed imo. If we're going to talk statistics, we need a decent sample size before we can make any conclusions. If we looked at this solar system, we could say that one in 8/9 planets has intelligent life on it. If we looked at the X planets we have identified as uninhabited, we could say that 1 in X planets has intelligent life on it. Whatever we choose as our sample, we only have 1 planet with intelligent life, so we don't have a sample size big enough to make any conclusions. That's not to say there isn't intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but to say that there must be because the universe is big doesn't make much sense to me.

Does that make sense?

[Aemilius Paulus]

I'm completely on the fence about intelligent life being out there. The argument "The universe is huge, therefore statistically there must be intelligent life somewhere in it" is flawed imo. If we're going to talk statistics, we need a decent sample size before we can make any conclusions. If we looked at this solar system, we could say that one in 8/9 planets has intelligent life on it. If we looked at the X planets we have identified as uninhabited, we could say that 1 in X planets has intelligent life on it. Whatever we choose as our sample, we only have 1 planet with intelligent life, so we don't have a sample size big enough to make any conclusions. That's not to say there isn't intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, but to say that there must be because the universe is big doesn't make much sense to me.

Does that make sense?

Yes, perfectly so, but it is not a scientifically valid conclusion, even if it conforms to logic - unfortunately, we make do with what we have, that is the real truth. Some things are not even remotely testable or provable within the limits of statistics, so a bit of out-of-the-box deductive logic may help. Inductive logic is more comfortable, but it is not as commonly applicable, alas.

If we are truly alone in this universe, then that means there is a God, because only that could explain how in a nearly infinite (nearly, because although the space is infinite, the question of whether matter is likewise infinite is not certain, although very likely) space there is but a single sentient species, and I seriously doubt there is a God, as proven by what happens on our planet...

Read about the Drake equation. It is more elegant than you think, although no more accurate.

[Myrddraal]

I haven't heard of the Drake equation, but I'll certainly look it up.

Let me explain my argument a little more scientifically, and looking a the question entirely statistically without bringing God into it.

We have some probability that a planet supports intelligent life which is not zero since we have Earth. As our population (size of the universe) approaches infinity, so does the number of planets supporting intelligent life. But the universe isnot infinite. It has some finite number of planets in it.

So what can we deduce about the number of planets with intelligent life in the universe? Without some notion of the probability of a planet supporting intelligent we cannot deduce anything. However big the universe may be, that probability can still be insignificant. We have no idea what that probability is, because we don't have a significant sample size.

The argument "the universe is nearly infinite so..." is flawed because the universe is not nearly infinite. Nothing is nearly infinite if it is finite, and even if we say (incorrectly) that the universe is so big it might as well be infinite, then we must come to the conclusion that there is also an infinite number of planets supporting intelligent life which is as ridiculous as it sounds.

We're talking probabilities here, so nothing in this argument says that intelligent life elsewhere is impossible. I'm just refuting the argument: The universe is very big therefore the existence of other intelligent life is likely.


On what has become a side note, the original link is really interesting, thanks!

EDIT: I just re-read your post and noticed this: "(nearly, because although the space is infinite, the question of whether matter is likewise infinite is not certain, although very likely)".

Is that so? I didn't realise that infinite matter was very likely, I thought the opposite was true. Haven't estimates been made of the mass of the universe?

If matter is infinite the argument that there are an infinite number of intelligent life supporting planets is not ridiculous at all, but I thought it was ridiculous because I thought the universe was generally thought to be of finite mass.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I'm sorry, I watched Independence Day a few days ago, and it seemed so real.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Of course I know that's what it stands for. But in this discussion it should be quite obvious that "UFO" refers to "Aliens"....

Yeah, it is a current trend to stretch/blur the meaning of 'UFO'. The game Spore, for instance, calls all player and NPC spaceships 'UFOs' even though there is nothing unidentified about them, especially when the spaceship you, as the player, designed is likewise referred to as a ‘UFO’

[Husar]

No, that is not a logic fail. UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. So if it can't be explained (i.e. unidentified), it is a UFO. The fail comes from automatically assuming every UFO is piloted by extraterrestrials, instead of the sighting being moonlight reflecting off of swamp gas, or Venus, or the Aurora Project, etc.

Well, I wouldn't call a reflection a flying object...
Other than that you're right.

And by the way, the thing in the second picture of Cute Wolf looks like a fast bird to me, how anyone would assume that is some extraterrestrial flying disc is completely beyond me...

[drone]

Well, I wouldn't call a reflection a flying object...

Well, that bit was from Men In Black...

[gaelic cowboy]

The possibility we are alone is just as likely as if were not alone if you sit for a moment and think about it.

1 Universe is infinite and a conservative estimate is around some 14 billion years ago the first stars estimated maybe as early as half a billion years after big bang possibly even earlier than that.

2 If we discard ideas of space borne life or some other exotic lifeform and stick with stars and planets for the development of advanced life and advanced civilisation we find countless chances and plenty of time for it to occur.

3 Given this large amount of time said life should be able to move to new solar system within few thousand generation or maybe less the entire galaxy can be populated on a cosmic scale relatively quickly.

4 First problem why is our galaxy not populated so best explanation is we are alone in our galaxy at the least.

5 Ideas of noble aliens avoiding contact with lesser species are unfulfilling as every advanced species in the galaxy would have to agree on this point this seems highly unlikely.

6 There may be physical limits to expansion but given enough time at least one race should overcome it resulting in galactic colonisation again has not happened.