Yes, it's time for a new poll

[kenberg]

I see it as more or less impossible to have a serious discussion of whether there is life elsewhere. The posed question was what I believe, not what I think I could defend in a scientific marketplace. Some form of life somewhere seems likely, more or less on the argument that the existence of life somewhere establishes the possibility, and it's a big universe. Any sort of scientific estimate of probabilities seems totally out of reach to me. I wouldn't expect humanoid life, too specialized, but some sort of intelligence seems possible and maybe likely. My dog is definitely intelligent, I think robins are intelligent, perhaps worms are intelligent, it all gets a bit into semantics.

 

I probably would not have responded at all since I think the question is simply "what do you believe?" and I am free to believe what I choose, but Lobo compared it to the Q about Noah's Ark. That got my attention. In some ways I think I approach these things similarly. Flood? Sure, we have lots of floods. Some sort of Ark used as a rescue plan? Could be. I wouldn't assume a heavenly weather forecast but maybe the rains are getting heavy and frequent. Got to be prepared. Lots of people built fallout shelters. Animals two by two? Not really. I see that as sort of like asking for humanoid life. Too specialized and demanding to expect it to happen even if you could settle on what all species have to be included. Two mosquitoes? Maybe the answer is in Genesis. I don't care.

 

In neither case do I regard the answer as helping me to guess the location of the queen of trump or other critical issues. My mind is full of beliefs that don't really much matter.

[Gerben42]

. The posed question was what I believe, not what I think I could defend in a scientific marketplace. Some form of life somewhere seems likely, more or less on the argument that the existence of life somewhere establishes the possibility, and it's a big universe. Any sort of scientific estimate of probabilities seems totally out of reach to me.

 

I may be an outlier here, but I believe things because they are scientifically plausible to me. The statistical argument in favour of extraterrestrial life is the only reason for my opinion that it's likely that there are others, but that they are far away.

 

Sadly enough, this also means that we will not find a way to bypass the speed of light. After all, there will be species that are millions of years ahead of us and they haven't made it to our place. So we won't make it to theirs either...