The Fourth Kind

[OpenMaw]

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."

Arthur C Clarke

I was thinking more in the Carl Sagan territory, personally.

[Mattyoung1977]

"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

"I'm sure the universe is full of intelligent life. It's just been too intelligent to come here."

Arthur C Clarke

On the first quote, why terrifying if we are alone or not i think the general thoughts of joe public is meh! who cares.

And i agree with the second quote if there was real intelligent life out there why on earth (get it) would you come here unless its to pick up some weed or a few beers.

[SM]

On the first quote, why terrifying if we are alone or not i think the general thoughts of joe public is meh! who cares.

"Joe Public" would think differently if it turned out we weren't alone.

I was thinking more in the Carl Sagan territory, personally.

In what way?

[OpenMaw]

In what way?

Something like when he talks about The Drake Equation.

[maledoro]

The Equation works both ways in the pro- or anti-ETI argument, as there are too many unknown factors involved within it.

[SM]

"The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. [...] As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless..."

M Crichton

And he writes a lot of fiction.

Honestly, it's very interesting stuff to read about, but as Mal said, there's way too many unknowns involved for it to stand up to proper scrutiny.

[maledoro]

But in all fairness to Drake, he had only made that formula to get scientists to discuss key factors that might have been overlooked; instead of the Equation being a hard and fast rule to determine how many planets there are that sustain life.

Sadly, many think that it was the latter use he had intended for the Equation.

[SM]

So I've just read.

I don't care what people say - Wikipedia is f**ken great!

[maledoro]

Actually, Wikipedia is great, as long as one checks the sources cited.

[SM]

Goes without saying.

[Agentozzy]

actually, there is water on the moon. in the ''south pole'' theres this crater, which has always been in the shadow of the dark side. over millions of years particals from comets and such have collected there, and are still there since the suns rays have not been able to evaporate it.     now for life on other planets, check out the Drake Equation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation   which is a very good way of guessing how much intelegent life is out there

[maledoro]

now for life on other planets, check out the Drake Equation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation   which is a very good way of guessing how much intelegent life is out there

I think you missed out on this part of the conversation. You might want to start reading that part on forward to this post...