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/sci/ - Science & Math

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15703866 No.15703866 [Reply] [Original]

Why is the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist, when the evidence is to the contrary?

My guess is that we are the most advanced beings in the galaxy, and the really troubling thing is that no external galaxies show signs of massive advanced civilization, so if we ever reach that stage we will be the most advanced beings in all of causality, all alone.

>> No.15703875

I used to be so bullish on life elsewhere, but the more I have learnt the more it seems every step on the road to us was inconceivably unlikely and that we could be the only ones ever.

>> No.15703878

>>15703866
Because the idea of being alone in the universe, or that our existence is an impossible fluke, is scary.

>> No.15703901

>>15703866
>Why is the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist, when the evidence is to the contrary?
Because your idea of a "scientific consensus" is informed by pop culture and redditor opinions.

>> No.15703907

>>15703866
I'm a believer in the idea that "when the time is right we'll achieve it". So what if we can't detect aliens now? We're not ready for it. Most countries can't even get to our nearest celestial body. Maybe a thousand years from now we'll figure it all out.

>> No.15703929

>>15703901
I've never been on reddit in my life. Do people in the field actually not beleive that there are advanced civilizations out there?
>>15703907
Its possible that in 1000 years we will find extra terrestrial life on a far off star system by sending probes there, but if there are advanced life forms using high amounts of energy and communicating using lasers or radio then we should have already met them, unless they are beyond the center of the galaxy on the other side.

>> No.15703931

>>15703929
>I've never been on reddit in my life.
Your whole life is reddit. Imagine thinking aliens are some kind of scientific consensus.

> Do people in the field actually not beleive that there are advanced civilizations out there?
>in the field
The field of what? Alien research?

>> No.15703948

>>15703931
I'm obviously saying astronomy when I say 'the field'. God, do you have to be a smart ass to make up for your inferior life?

>> No.15703958

>>15703948
>I'm obviously saying astronomy when I say 'the field'.
Do astronomers study aliens?

>> No.15703962

>>15703866
>and the really troubling thing is that no external galaxies show signs of massive advanced civilization
what signs would that be? dyson spheres around every sun? why would anyone do that? what would be the point? what would you need all that energy for? for creating anime? for powering vr porn? for sustaining an infinite number of individuals?

>> No.15704078

>>15703866
>the scientific consensus
Money

>> No.15704150

>>15703962
>for sustaining an infinite number of individuals?
Bingo.
Why would you be gay and not minmax?
Humans got to where we got through pumping our use of energy by all means necessary, if we were all faggy woman brained morons then we would still have a global population of under a million. If humans are the only advanced form here we should take over the galaxy and one day others too, and even if we are not the only advanced form we should wage total war against all aliens and take all the galaxy. It may seem ridiculous that we would ever require that much energy, but take anyone from our entire history and show them the energy we consume today for a reference.

>> No.15704154

>>15703958
they don't study aliens because we have zero contact with aliens. Are you crazy?

>> No.15704160

>>15704154
>they don't study aliens
Ok. Do they at least study molecular biology, abiogenesis, evolution and anthropology? No? They just study space dust? Ok, then what the FUCK kind of "scientific" consensus can they possibly pose on aliens?

>> No.15704166

>>15704154
Do you really want me to say astrobiologist just to validate you? which are a subset of astronomers by the way. Any astrobiology is astronomy because that's the only means to observe extrasolar aliens.

>> No.15704169

>>15704166
Still waiting you to answer some of my questions here: >>15704160

>> No.15704175

>>15704166
I'm not going to get an answer, huh? When you talk about the "scientific consensus" on aliens, you're actually talking about the opinions of a tiny subset of people who base their entire fucking career on the premise that reddit scifi is real in the first place, and then set out to prove it. Why do you pretend their opinions matter? Why do you pretend they are experts in a dozen different fields that each one would take a lifetime to build real credibility on?

>> No.15704177

i just hope aliens are small cute and funny

>> No.15704189

>>15703866
yes, we'll be the aliens for someone else.

>> No.15704192

>humanity
>Advanced
>Still using primal era tech at maximum

MUHAHAHAHA YOU REALLY CALL HUMANS ADVANCE

bootel, now

>> No.15704199

Caveman could have done computers. But didn't. Shame. That's the only noteworthy high end primal era tech man made

>> No.15704203

Humans never break the box of thought. They don't even have era 1 ion cannons

>> No.15704206

Their best weapon, if used, also wipes out the whole species. Now that's thinking.

Bootel now retard and I'm being serious. You need it

>> No.15704246

>>15704160
Bro by scientific consensus I mena the opinion if scientists, not the number of published papers or whatever the fuck. Are you high?

>> No.15704247

>>15704246
>Bro by scientific consensus I mena the opinion if scientists
The opinions of "Social Scientists" may be that Biden was a great president. That doesn't make it a "scientific consensus".

>> No.15704249

>>15704206
mentally ill logfag.

>> No.15704257

>>15704249
I'm just... Trying to help... You advance. Old man

>> No.15704279

>>15703866
>when the evidence is to the contrary?
We don't really have ways of detecting advanced ayys unless they build meme megastructures.

>> No.15704290

>>15703866
the chances of it happening exactly once are basically 0
that's pretty much it

>> No.15704291

>>15704290
>the chances of it happening exactly once are basically 0
How do you know?

>> No.15704309 [DELETED] 

>>15704291
He doesn't. he's a nigger

>> No.15704389

>>15703866
>Why is the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist, when the evidence is to the contrary?
Because there doesn't seem to be any obvious blockers for it emerging in a ton of places and yet there's no sign of it, but then again we can't really study most places in much detail.

>> No.15704492

>>15704389
>there doesn't seem to be any obvious blockers for it emerging in a ton of places
The processes that led to life are unknown and of those that are 'known' they have not been successfully replicated in a lab because they are so rare, and a planet can be perfect but just so happen to have too much of one toxin and then whoops it's sterile.
That's not to mention the fact that humans I explicable emerged only a few hundred million years before this planet becomes inhospitable. Why did we emerge now and nothing like us emerged before? nobody knows. The fact that we don't see aliens points at the very least to the idea that evolution takes too long in most cases.

>> No.15704523
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15704523

>> No.15704639

>>15703866
>Why is the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist, when the evidence is to the contrary?
First of all, I'm not sure that is the "consensus." But I imagine most real scientists do entertain the possibility that it COULD exist, because there are good reasons to believe it:
-The laws of physics seem to be the same everywhere
-The chemistry and relative proportions of elements seem to be the same everywhere
-Exoplanets are common
-Evolution is extremely well supported and provides a simple mechanism for complex life to arise
-Convergent evolution is well documented/understood and suggests certain inevitabilities given particular environments
-Amino acids can form abioticly in a lab, in a jar, on a timescale of mere years
-The universe is VERY big
-The universe is old

After a certain point, the burden of proof shifts from "Why should aliens exist?" to "why shouldn't they exist?"

That said, I think public intellectuals who go all-in on the alien stuff are more interested in space/physics/engineering than biology, and biology is where all the best counter evidence is. Accordingly, people tend to privilege the human condition in how they think about things: Millions of years is an absurd amount of time for a technological civilization to get stuff done, but very little when comparing how long it took Earth life to become multicellular. Humans have demonstrated unparalleled potential, but that potential hasn't been tested against time like sharks and ants have.

Also, a lot of it is just a reaction against christfags; people want to believe the opposite of what creationists do.

>> No.15704647
File: 31 KB, 694x968, soyence bingo.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15704647

>>>/lit/sffg/

>> No.15704651

the Fermi paradox is retarded, and an example of why thoeritcal/nuclear physicists should never talk about life sciences

>> No.15704656

>>15704651
theoretical*

>> No.15704661

>>15703866
>>15704639
>no external galaxies show signs of massive advanced civilization
But if it turns out that human-like intelligence really is a long-term, viable, 'game changer' for what living things can do, AND technology continues to grow exponentially (like it has for us) without limit, then it might take less than a few hundred years for a civilization to go from discovering electricity to near-light-speed travel. If that's the case, then the aliens out there are travelling as fast as they can even be seen. We literally can't even see them coming until they get here.

>> No.15704676

>>15704661
Aripriprizole, now

>> No.15704697

it's especially hard to speculate what exactly are the implications for certain tech. we can't even properly draw general lines about what RTSC would imply for us without knowing specific details, is it cheap, is it durable, there's a bunch of factors that contribute to how a particular RTSC would affect human species.
humans trying to figure out what aliens would do, with very advanced tech, is basically retarded. you have your midwits talking about aliens coming out of ufos on earth surface conditions, like they SHOULD match, then you have smarter futurists who try to take physics into account, yet they still majorly fuck it up. you cannot reason how new tech will influence a species without having the perspective already. it's just random guessing nothing else.
we have no idea if tech allows for some kind of consciousness upgrade which completely changes what we thing aliens would do.
we don't know if we ourselves won't upgrade to such a type of consciousness and join the galactic federation of exactly the same type of things which emerged from random places in the universe. and even this is pure bullshit, I really have no idea, neither does anyone else.
earth surface conditions compatible aliens, here on earth, coming with their retarded ufo is crazytalk. at the very least they send a very small probe at very high relativistic speeds, and that shit starts unpacking "the aliens", printing shit until it starts assembling them from raw materials mined at some safe distance. and even that is really retarded, really needs a serious purpose and reason.

>> No.15704705

>>15703866
Maybe advanced life forms don't need to industrialize galaxies?
I bet most of highest evolved beings in the universe don't even live in houses. Why would they?
Humans are evolutionary cripples, which is the only reason we spend all our time working and trying to terraform our planet rather than simply living the way all other forms of life here exist.

>> No.15704708

>>15703929
>Its possible that in 1000 years we will find extra terrestrial life on a far off star system by sending probes there, but if there are advanced life forms using high amounts of energy and communicating using lasers or radio then we should have already met them, unless they are beyond the center of the galaxy on the other side.
Maybe they only used those technologies for about 2-300 years before discovering something way faster and better?

>> No.15704731

>>15704676
Is the speed of light skitzo now?

>> No.15704771

>>15703866
>My guess is that we are the most advanced beings in the galaxy, and the really troubling thing is that no external galaxies show signs of massive advanced civilization, so if we ever reach that stage we will be the most advanced beings in all of causality, all alone.
And what makes you think there isn't life as advanced or less advanced than us on other habitable planets?

>> No.15704789

Earth is an experiment in heat dissipation.
Space is hot; the problem is organizing a space cool enough to support genetic reproduction without massive errors in DNA transcription / copying
Earth is the only place where biological life can reproduce without MASSIVE errors in copying genetic code

>> No.15704885

>>15704771
>And what makes you think there isn't life as advanced or less advanced than us on other habitable planets?
I said there could be life less advanced than us. If life is rare then another life form being exactly as advanced as us would be a bizzare coincidence.

>> No.15704897

>>15704789
>Space is hot
explain

>> No.15704906

>>15704708
why do you assume that technology goes on forever when it doesn't? there are laws of physics and when a field reaches the physical barrier it no longer advances. Computers for example have a long way to go but one day computers will be like houses in that you can have one that's 100 years old but basically as good as the new ones. Chenlmical rocketry is one example of a field that reached the physical limit decades ago

>> No.15704956

>>15703866
>when the evidence is to the contrary?
The piling mountain of UAP data doesn't disappear when you choose to close your eyes holding your ears.

>> No.15704972

>>15704956
>UAP
what you mean like that duck that fravor caught on his gun cam? lol

>> No.15704974

there's no proof civilization would result in many individuals.
as far as we are concerned, we seem to need individuals less and less as technology advances.
seeing our local solar system psychos, to me it clearly looks like only one of us will finally end up controlling everything. it's quite possible that the way life evolves in this resource based environment implies and end individual/entity type thing with the power of its whole civilization.
such a techno-god would not generate much "universal noise", would "move around" rather stealthy and could explain what we are seeing on the skies.
such a technogod can be what primitive humans call god, here on earth.
btw, soon this race to a single winner might pick up pace with technological breakthroughs. at some point they will allow for a single individual to control everything.

>> No.15704987

>>15703866
>Why is the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist, when the evidence is to the contrary?
There is no evidence that they could not exist.

>> No.15704990

>>15703866
As a person who knows that we are not alone.
I acknowledge that this would be a somber prospect.
However, we are very much not doing a solo run of existence.
It's not really possible to discredit their existence, on lack of current evidence.
Not without sticking your head up skepticism's ass.
1. We have no idea what the great filter is. (If that even truly exists, probabilities and time scales make nothing impossible, just improbable, but again, that's a problem for time scales and probability.)
2. We haven't been looking very long, relative to the age of existence.
3. We haven't even been looking very far. (High quality sensor information that we have obtained of individual star systems is negligible for anything beyond just a couple dozen light years.)

To suddenly doubt? Is just human anxiety.

We know the numbers.
Trust the math on this one.
Someone is OR WAS out there, somewhere.

>> No.15704996

>>15704154
they study dark matter

>> No.15705003

>>15704987
but more importantly there is no evidence that they do exist, so to say they exist you need to invoke brain twister like
>>15704974

>> No.15705016

>>15704990
>Trust the math on this one.
but you don't know the variables. it's possible that we are the only multi cellular life forms in the galaxy. Humans evolved right at the tail end of Earth's habitability. If some slight derivation happened in our evolutionary history then life would simply go extinct in 300 million years and all traces would be gone forever. And it won't even get better as time passes because peak starts formation is behind us so the potential fertility of the universe goes down with time.

>> No.15705028

>>15705003
since we exist they can exist. we are clear proof that life is possible in this universe, what the fuck. we don't know if they exist, but it sure looks like they CAN exist. saying they couldn't exist implies you should show some proof of that.

>> No.15705035

>>15704996
your dad studies my dark liver spotted cock

>> No.15705037

>>15705028
this is just semantics. If there is no proof of something it should be assumed not to occur.

>> No.15705048

>>15705037
what do you mean? are we not proof for life existing in this universe? it's clearly possible. you really need to argue why local conditions are impossible in any other part of this universe.

>> No.15705057

>>15703866
It's simple logic.

The universe is virtually infinite.
There is a probability for conditions to align so that life can exist (I.e. earth for example)

Therefor, by virtue of infinity, you sort of brute force the probability to become 1 if there's more life in the universe than us.

>> No.15705066

>>15703866
same reason your parents still hold onto the hope that one day you'll say or do something smart

>> No.15705160

>>15705048
as far as we know there are thousands of variables needed for complex life to occur on earth, any one of them being different resulting in no life. On top of that there are the unknowns of how rare the formation of life is despite all the necessary conditions being present. On top of all that there is the fact that we find no signs of intelligent life, so while we can't say life doesn't exist elsewhere at all, whe can at least say intelligent life is not common enough to occur twice within our region of the galaxy. We exist, but one data point says nothing about how likely we are. It's just as likely that there are countless inhabited words that it is that we are alone in the galaxy and perhaps many galaxies are completely empty.

>> No.15705163

>>15705057
I'd the universe is infinite then there is infinite life, but its better to ask if there is life in our bubble of causality, and it's possible there is not since the bubble is not infinite.

>> No.15705166

oh wow duuuuuude, like aliens, whoa. just like in star wars, that would be like, so cool and stuff, maaaaaaaaannn. omg what if the aliens had talking robots too.

>> No.15705200

>>15705066
Can you suck my cock?

Thanks:)

>> No.15705205

>>15705200
you seem upset, the comment you replied to must've hit a little too close to home.

>> No.15705212

>>15705205
I don't like it when people are mean.

>> No.15705223

>>15705212
you feel entitled to have everyone obey your standards of behavior, standards with you don't uphold yourself and you chimp out and turn into an emotional basket case whenever someone doesn't behave the way you want then to.

>> No.15705230

>>15705223
Can you suck my cock please?

>> No.15705235

>>15705230
you seem upset, the comment you replied to must've hit a little too close to home.

>> No.15705241

what the fuck are these bots stuck in a loop?

>> No.15705242

>>15704523
Lol

>> No.15705277

>>15705235
Oh great, can you suck my cock please?

>> No.15706020

Suck my toes

>> No.15707939

>>15703866
Because it's not scientific

>> No.15707993

>>15703866
>the scientific consensus that advanced aliens must exist
source?

>>15704246
>I mena the opinion if scientists
Where are you getting your facts that there is a consensus among scientists opinions?

>>15704290
You don't have statistical data to infer any number, so the chances of it happening exactly x amount of times is also zero based on the available data.

>> No.15708390

>>15704906
Houses have always been like that, we are still discovering cave art in caves that could just as easily be inhabited today as they were way back then.

>> No.15709206

test

>> No.15709222

Look at it like this.

We have example of life = 1

Example of K scale civilization = 0

To look at the cosmos and conclude that life cannot exist elsewhere because you see no examples of a civilization model that we have no evidence of existing is bad logic. Its far more likely life is abundant and the myth of progress is severely broken. Maybe engineering is not a gift that keeps on giving until you're harvesting stars.

>> No.15709268

>>15703866
>My guess is that we are the most advanced beings in the galaxy
literally no way to tell retard

>> No.15709399

>>15703866
>the evidence is to the contrary
what evidence? that we know like a 0.000000000000000000000000000000001% of the entire Universe? or that we are the single known instance of intelligent life in a single galaxy of hundreds of billions? or is it that our nearest major galaxy is 2.5 million light years away, showing us that the speed of light is the limiting factor on the gathering of such evidence on advanced alien civilizations?
The thing you call "scientific consensus" is just each scientist's feelings and opinions on a matter we don't have validating or rebutting evidence of.

>> No.15709587

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxMDnY-iCZk