60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets

jangobongo writes "Does intelligent life exist anywhere besides Earth? Are regular churchgoers less likely to believe life has evolved on other planets? Do more Democrats or Republicans believe in extraterrestrials? And if alien life makes contact, what should we do? These questions were asked on a poll released last week that shows that two-thirds of Americans do believe that life exists on other planets, and of that group, 90% say if we receive a message from another planet we should reply. The poll was commissioned by the SETI Institute and the National Geographic Channel."

In other galactic news..

[suso]

Meanwhile, only a resounding 5% of life on other planets believes that there is intelligent life on Earth.

Mandatory Python quote

[multi-flavor-geek]

I certainly hope there is intelligent life somewhere else in space, but we got bollocks down here on Earth.
May I have your liver then?

More polls

[harris s newman]

100% of the republicans polled believe that all the life on the other planets are christian.

Only 60%?

[Zone-MR]

So 40% of the people in the US are arrogant enough to think that in an infinite universe they are alone?

The other 40%...

[richdun]

...did not see Star Wars Episode III yet.

Re:More polls

[Walterk]

100% of the republicans polled believe that all the life on the other planets are christian.

Or at the very least that it should be, and will be as soon as they find oil there.

This will probably get modded down. Hint to mods: it's funny, laugh.

Re:Only 60%?

[OverlordQ]

Kinda how like 100% of the people think we give a shit about what they think about the US

What percent can prove it?

[ewg]

What percent of Americans can prove life exists beyond the Earth? Surely, a more interesting statistic.

Re:Survey says,

[VoidWraith]

Q: Do you believe aliens exist? A: Yes, we get them from Mexico all the time.

Re:In other galactic news..

[datadriven]

It's a proven fact that 51% of voting americans are not intelligent life.

Re:In other galactic news..

[ReverendRyan]

Meanwhile, only a resounding 5% of life on other planets believes that there is intelligent life on Earth.

And we'd like to remind the viewers that this poll has a 5% margin for error.

Re:Oh Yea?

[oogoliegoogolie]

As a WOW goblin would say...Hmmmm, interesting!

Re:First question for alien intelligence . . .

[Al Dimond]

I use VS.net. Its editor is uber-sweet. Every time I want to, say, edit my modules.conf file I upload it to a remote FTP-able location, reboot into Windows, edit the file, save it again, reboot into Linux, and replace the file.

So it's official!

[Zangief]

There is life in other planets!

Democracy at its finest!

Re:Yes, but..

[77Punker]

I have stopped having experiences with aliens ever since I started using protection [stopabductions.com]!

Re:Only 60%?

[Vombatus]

40% of people in the US would be lucky to know that life exists on other continents

Re:Martian Jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, Jesus would have been an Arabic-looking guy. But go to Europe or the US, and you get a ... brown beard and hair that looks kind of like ... Stallman wearing a pure white robe.

Whoa.. now I *know* the GPL is the best free software license.

YIRMS,

Anon. Coward.

Obligatory Bill Watterson Quote

[Rick Zeman]

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
--Calvin, to Hobbes

Re:Yes, but..

[slashname3]

And all that does is lend credibility to the idea that there is no intelligent life here on Earth. :)

Re:Says something about education?

[tomhudson]

Be funny if we find out that the mistranslations were from a dyslexic, and it should be The Word of DOG, and that we should fear SANTA.

Funny how so far nobody's hit on the topic of collective intelligences, or hive minds, like termites, so far. Guess we're really into anthropomorphizing everything tonight.

Re:In other galactic news..

[tomhudson]

If we give you McNeal, will you also take McBride and the MoGTroll? Oh, and I've got first dibs on Leila.

Re:Survey says,

[Golias]

That's because absolute belief in aliens is only slightly irrational. You gotta be plum fucking loco to be under thirty and think you will ever see a dime of Social Security.

Hope you're dumping lots of money into an IRA, kids. You'll thank yourselves later.

Re:Survey says,

[Espectr0]

That's because absolute belief in aliens is only slightly irrational

Remember, only the Sith deal in absolutes

Re:Survey says,

[Anonymous Coward]

As a result, I'm recorded as just one more nut-job who believes that little green men are abducting our sheep.

I bet there are numerous other reasons why you are a nut-job.

Not a big deal

[Sheepdot]

I mean, seriously, how can you not believe in UFOs when they are so prevalent that the Illuminati can't keep them out of Google maps [google.com]?

This isn't exactly news. Nor is it really news that Iran is ordering its military to shoot them down [unknowncountry.com].

Re: Aliens quote..

[andersa]

Somebody said alien, and she thought they meant illegal alien and signed up!

Re:In other galactic news..

[LilGuy]

"This is Ann Coulter reporting to you live on MSGBC."

Re:Yes, but..

[arminw]

...it's very likely there's life somewhere in our universe in a form we cannot comprehend...

I was talking about PHYSICAL life forms, limited to the laws of physics. These laws appear to operate uniformly throughout the known universe. The SETI project is endeavoring to find electromagnetic signals from some sort of intelligent life form. Electromagnetic signals are physical means of communication that have severe limitations for communications across the vast gulf of intergalactic space. Any physical life forms, obeying the laws of physics as we know them cannot be too radically different from life on earth. The laws of physics have set rather narrow parameters within which physical bodies, such as ours can operate. The Bible and many, if not most other religions postulate a spirit realm or dimension, wherein the laws of physics, as we currently understand them, do not apply and which physical apparatus such as fancy radio systems cannot explore.

The Bible tells us that we are spiritual beings tempoarily living in physical bodies. Humans, it appears, are incurably religious. Other advanced spiritual life forms out there certainly would not use primitive, time-space limited means of communication, such as radio signals. The Bible further tells us that spiritual things cannot be explored or fathomed by physical means that our science is limited to. Since physical science and our intellect cannot explore these things by reasoning or experiment, we are left with the only alternative: that of FAITH. Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God dwelling for a short time in a human body, told us flat out that there are many intelligent, non-physical life forms beside us. No one will ever prove or disprove the existence of God, the existence of angels or demons or other aspects of the spiritual dimensions by physical means.

A more pressing issue....

[heffrey]

....is whether life exists in the White House....