The Reason Life is Rare in the Solar System

[inphanta]

Life takes on many forms. I believe there is life in the solar system, just not as we know it...

[devol264]

here is an interesting thing i cannot understand, how come people look for life but at the same time those same people will refuse to believe that there are aliens more advanced then us or even the possibility that they watched over us and helped us? how come people believe that earth does not have the only life in the universe but they refuse believe that another planet could have a civilization of beings walking around and talking and having fun.

[Y0ts0]

if there are aliens those christians will embarace us with jesus storys. do aliens go to hell or do they got spacejesus and spacemohamed?

[1moreAtheist]

lol yea i was asking that too

[romainelettuce2]

l0l

[codarkstarxx13]

what makes you think that life is rare? do you know what percent of the universe is know to mankind? the number would not fit in this comment because of all of the zeroed decimal places. our knowledge is simply desolate and we just plain out do not know. so it may be rare. maybe we are very alone despite the unexplored regions of the cosmos. but maybe we are so unaware, that BILLIONS of other planetary systems have contacted?

[mitchddamn]

why human always ask question that no one have answer for it.

lets say that the human brain is like a cup of water and the mighty God is the ocean

how could the man undrstand or contain anything about God with the very small lemet of knowlidge , it does not matter how far man try to know he will never undrstand

and thats why God called the human as injustice and ignorent

[romainelettuce2]

pick up a dictionary, learn to spell.

[kingkong8974]

@mitchddamn if man bore enough children, they will eventually suck the ocean dry of it's knowledge. Bad analogy, move along.

[chriscass1982]

I belive it is a matter of prospective...life seems rare to us because it is far away but if you zoom farther out and look back it would seem much closer together .Look at all the variety on this planet..ultimatly God loves that...why would he make a universe so vast and put just us in it? the idea seems luducrious.

[1moreAtheist]

RICHARD DAWKINS

= HAS THE ANSWER

[andvil01]

No he hasn't, but he likes to look for it instead of read a fairytalebook.

[romainelettuce2]

hehe.

[bmskater93]

you know, planets do exist other than earth.

there is a scientific explination for how planets are formed, and we can tell that different space particles and rocks were fused together, thus forming earth. if god just made it "appear", then how could we know so much about its actual creation, and the different factors that attribute to a planet's formation? believing that planets just poof like magic into existance is far more ridiculous than believing what we can actually observe.

[wolfwing1]

Heh as I mentioned before, not sure if you get the updates, apparently a planet has been fuond just 10 or so light years from us in a inhabitable goldilocks zone, it's just the right distance, only problem is the mass of it appears to be gass giant, and won't know till it gets closer to the sun and can be seen better, but it at least shows that pretty close by some of the criteria have been found.

[DaddyOD13]

I have no respect for creationists.

They not only believe things that are completely absurd.

They believe things that the Bible doesn't even teach.

Their teachings remind me of when Christendom's believed the Earth was the center of the universe.

But I have to admit, scientists can not be relied on all the time to teach us the truth either.

It seems that what's considered fact now will be proven wrong in another 25 years.

[julzabro]

many religious folks believe that there can NOT be any other life in the univerese because the bible doesn't mention it....lol! Think of the apologetics necessary if we DO find life elsewhere!!!

[recruit101]

haha that would be funny

[Nalrunus]

Hahaha!

[mortensjoegren]

Thanks, now I really hope we find evidence for life on other planets in our lifetime, just so I can enjoy their reactions. :)

[julzabro]

lol...;)

[trev8908]

than I do if you believe that all this was by random chance. Also, God doesn't call us to understand all of him, understanding is not a prerequisite for belief.

[fardrum]

Hi Gentlemen, I would like to take an even more radical approach, and point out that rarity of life in the Solar System or in the Universe is not at all an indicator or an argument in favor of the existence of life. Our judgment of this rarity is biased by the so called: anthropic principle (look it up on wikipedia if it is unknown to you).

[trev8908]

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

[fardrum]

sound is what you name our perception of an event that produces waves in an atmosphere. These waves then his our tympanus producing what we call sound. The answer is therefore yes, those waves our produced anyways, but no one is there to hear any sound

[fardrum]

Sorry for the errors I meant

sound is what you name our perception of an event that produces waves in an atmosphere. These waves then hit our tympanus producing what we call sound. The answer is therefore yes, those waves are produced anyways, but no one is there to hear any sound

[trev8908]

Link that back to the "anthropic principal". If you can figure that out, you're getting somewhere ;-)

[fardrum]

I am an atheist, or if you prefer an agnostic who thinks that the probability of God is 0.00000001% (call me as you wish)

is the "anthropic principal" a guy you dealt with in your school times?

[trev8908]

principle.

[trev8908]

Purely out of curiosity, as you seem to be a person who is at least slightly into probability, what do you feel the mathematical probability of nothing exploding into everything is? Obviously greater than 0.00000001% i guess?

[fardrum]

no , but we have no means to prove that the probability of a God who intentionally created anything is greater than that.

we know nothing (yet) about how matter came into existence, we now almost everything of what happened 0,01 seconds after the Big Bang. This is enough to assume that if some sort of god created matter it surely didn't create us with a purpose but only 4 laws of physics that eventually drove matter to forms of organizations.

Sorry this is not enough to start thanking anyone.

[Nalrunus]

I believe that a spirit, or force exists in everything organic and in-organic, atoms and physics, what drives it to work all the time without breaking its law. Some call that nature, force, or spirit, God. We all believe in something, even nihilists believe in not believing lol.

[fardrum]

I fully agree with your last sentence, the problem here is, how much are you willing to give up in the quest for an understandable truth to comply with your belief system?

I don't want to understand God, I want to understand why I am here, and to make up an answer based a "prerequisite of non understandability" does not satisfy me at all. If it satisfies you, it's ok, no problem with me.

[trev8908]

The real question is, how much are you willing to give up to live without a system of belief? Just for clarity's sake, so you're agnostic? Not atheist? Atheism asks how we're here, not so much why... I would love to talk about why you're here, if that's what you really mean :-)

[trev8908]

I think it's fair to liken the Earth to an intricate puzzle, in that, one may only see the complete picture in the end, it only works, if all the pieces fit together just so, and in the same way life is only sustainable because of all of the exact conditions that we have. No matter how exact the hundreds of conditions are on Earth, if only one is changed by a few "degrees", it makes all those others pointless-- no life on planet Earth. Kinda a scary thought huh? It seems like you have more faith

[trev8908]

fully understanding of your God, then you have a small God. A god that is not God in fact. How could finite minds comprehend the infinite? By the definition of those two words, we could not.

[azsuperman01]

trev8908 - Why would a God create beings incapable of comprehending him, then punish them when they fail to believe the incomprehensible?

[GanEdenAustralia]

@azsuperman01 SIN.

[trev8908]

something, and not only that, but forming into something that can sustain delicate human, animal, plant, and even bacterial life is less than astronomically small. The chances, mathematically less than zero. Some might even use the word impossible. Christians believe in something that is uncreated, God, who lives and can operate outside of our Newtonian understanding of reality, time, and existence. Something much bigger, unexplainable even. If you can explain with science, or even claim to be

[trev8908]

No matter how many times you drop a puzzle on the ground, it will never "accidentally" put itself together. The requirements for life on planet Earth are astounding, there are literally hundreds of seemingly fine tuned "settings" if you will that are sustaining life on Earth. Google "science of fine tuning". Or watch Rob Bell's video called "everything is spiritual, he speaks a bit on it. If you want to go by math.. Solid math.. 2+2=4 stuff. The mathematical probability of nothing exploding into

[azsuperman01]

trev8908 - You're assuming the world was designed with the end in mind - like a puzzle is... but if that's not the case, you're entire premise is wrong.

[bobplatypus]

@azsuperman01 duuuude, I bet lf Earth was a puzzle, it would totally be messed up or something (not put together)

[wolfwing1]

funny we already found a planet with some of those criteria within 10 light years, protected by bigger planets, in the goldilocks zone, unfortunetly it's mass says it's likly a gas giant, but if a planet that close has many of them...then pretty good chance others are around.

[quietAtheist20]

i hope there is life in or outside the solar system. And i hope there's intelligent life too. and i hope they have some answers to philosophical questions in relation to a creator(s).

[K2Tanner]

It would be more amazing if there isn't life elsewhere in the universe. The shit you need for life is out there and the universe is so vast.

[kcricketer198]

i think you more or less summed it up! Its jsut a matter of thinking outside the box to begin with, jut becasue we need oxygen and water does not mean other lefe forms do - as you did highlight.

Interesting watch to that

[sumadartsan]

Considering that there a 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy, and that our galaxy is one of billions of other galaxies, it is estimated that there could possibly be somewhere in the order of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in existence. Even if there was only a 1 in billion chance for life on a given planet, by these numbers there would still be a billion planets containing life. So it could be hard to find, yet very plentiful.

[commerceskate]

didnt watch the video but a thought just came to me so i shall post it

christians say that "something cannot come from nothing therefore god must have created everything" well if something CANNOT come from nothing then how did god create something from nothing?

[jreed136]

And where did their god come from? Nothing?

[commerceskate]

haha very nice point. god himself could not just come from nothing, BECAUSE THATS NOT POSSIBLE CHRISTIANS.

[KingTheist23]

I have to say this was a good explanation of why we only are searching for criteria that matches Earths (that we only have Earth to base our knowledge on.) Thank you for the well thought response!

[Arghira]

for life is need energy (a star) wather H2O and proteins organic molecules wich are almost every were... It will be a great discovery if phoenix lander will find life on mars.(I have a champagne bottle for this event ;) )

[ZoliGraves]

You have to question whether or not Christians really believe that space is actually out there. I know it sounds ridiculous, but these are the same people that will tell you that fossils are put there by god to test your faith.

[robsmith49]

If this is the only planet with life on it, and if God created it, What an amzing waste of space!!!

[Philos2006]

Superman :If you are not a teacher, you should be. Simple ,logical, easy to understand, explanation.

[FinnHawk]

there's a lot of people who should be teachers who aren't AND there are a A LOT of teachers who shouldn't be teachers (especially many university professors, at least in my own experience).

[kristin7858]

life may be rare in the solar system, but the solar system is just a microscopic speck in the universe so who knows, life maybe a very common occurance in the universe (thats what i think anyway)

[OccamKant]

I suspect that one of the "magical" things about earth is that the temperature ranges commonly experienced here allow for a good deal of natural chemical processes to occur.

Liquid methane is really cold. I don't think there are a lot of chemical interactions happening at that temperature.

[LordJereth]

Very astute. It's a common theory called the "Goldilocks Zone", ie. not too hot, not too cold. Our planet is in the perfect spot in relation to our primary, Sol, to get just enough heat, radiation, gravitational pull etc. to allow life as we know it to flourish and mutate.

The theory postulates that if we were to someday find a planet in a same or similar G*Z*, that we would have a good chance of finding life due to the fortuitous factors.

LJ

[orgotloth]

this is only relevent to life like ours, creatures that need the same elements to support life as we do, if some other life had different criteria, the goldilocks zone would be different for that life form.

[LordJereth]

Agreed. Hence why I used the words, "...life as we know it..."

LJ

[orgotloth]

i realised, it was more a clarification for others. :P

[wolfwing1]

Well only about 10 light years away such a planet has been found, a bit too big possibly to be anything but a gas giant, but if there is even a non life supportign planet within a goldilock zone so close with the universe trillions of light years cubed...then :> Has to be at least some planets that fit the criteria when one so near us.

[elliottcooke]

I heard that on neptune it actually rained diamonds.

[azsuperman01]

elliottcooke - Actually, I believe you're right. I think there was a SciAm article about that not too long ago. I stand corrected. Microscopic diamonds could be formed from the pressure and heat in the atmosphere. They wouldn't be like the large diamonds which are created in the Earth's crust, but they would still be diamonds non-the-less.

[VColossalV]

fucking awesome man, keep it up

[lazyperfectionist1]

Well of course, the main reason life is not abundant all througout our solar system is that the events of the Universe are not guided by an all-powerful, all loving being.

[SilentSlayers]

Excellently worded.

[GanEdenAustralia]

@lazyperfectionist1 Your one dimensional opinion of course.

[xXAkridXx]

Did he suppose that all naturally occurring process should be common? Who made that rule?