60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets 943
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."
Oh Yea? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE
Pretty cool.
-Matt
Actually, it would be far more interesting to know (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Only 60%? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the other 40% adhere to the principle that Belief gets in the way of learning.
(R.A. Heinlein - "Time Enough for Love")
Why do Christians not want to believe in aliens? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Survey says, (Score:2, Interesting)
Self Destruction Theory? (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't there some theory that states that even if we did get a message from an advanced civilization, by the time we could reply they would have already destroyed themselves. In other words, by the time someone gets our messages, we'll have already nuked ourselves.
Re:What percent can prove it? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't anticipate that knowing how many Americans can prove life exists beyond Earth would be particularly interesting at all. (I presume you're excluding any life in human-generated artifacts, particularly those in orbit; and Americans posessing nonconclusive evidence [ie. those involved in studying the potential and/or evidence for present or former microbial life on Mars]? If not, perhaps I'm off by a bit).
Re:Only 60%? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, how about Fermi's Paradox?
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
LIfe? Yes. Intelligent? doubtfull. (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the fact we are pretty late in the 'cosmic timeline' would lead one to think that most intelligent life has long since died out.
But space is vast.. and anything is possible if you use large enough numbers..
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly how much evidence do you have to prove that these statements are not true?
I don't believe them either, but I don't really concern myself with people believe things where there really isn't much evidence one way or the other. I'm a lot more worried about people believing things that are provably untrue, like, say, that the Earth is only 6000 years old...
Of course life exists elsewhere... (Score:2, Interesting)
When you ask if people believe in "life on other planets", you'll get two camps (usually): 1.) The religious nutters who believe God created man once, and broke the mold, and 2.) Abductee nutters who believe aliens are living among us already.
All kidding aside... life exists elsewhere, its how WE came to exist HERE, in this time. It may not be bipedal, humanoid life, but its certainly life. Single-cellular organisms living at -400F on some distant planet is still life. Just because it isn't hovering around in a little saucer causing traffic jams in Mexico doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also.. even if there was intelligent, bipedal humanoid life elsewhere, why would they be interested in us?
Maybe they're just as prehistoric in their space travels as us. Maybe they're so far ahead of us that they see us like we see an anthill in Africa. Who knows..
We also seem to keep trying to find life in places "similar" to our own. Why is it impossible to believe that a planet billions of light years away from the Sun could house intelligent life? Maybe they don't seek us out, because "Nothing that close to the Sun could survive...", just like we don't believe life could exist so far out in the blackness away from the Sun.
Imagine what a society of cells, left to evolve undisturbed for 2 million years (WITHOUT any Ice Age to reboot the process), would evolve to... Imagine what our society could do in the next 2 million years (if we don't blow ourselves up first)
Carl Sagan, a brilliant astronomer, was also a devoutly religious person. He believed in life on other planets. There's even a great mathematical equation [voyager.net] (Drake's Equation) that sums it up really well.
Lastly, for those who haven't READ it, grab a copy of "Contact: A Novel [isbn.nu]" by Sagan. Its quite different from the movie... and well worth the read for how in-depth it goes into the interesting paradox about Religion, Science, Extraterrestrial Life and many other issues. Its worth the few dollars to read, if you're interested in debating this topic from any angle.
In short, life DOES exist elsewhere... but are we prepared to find it? Are we prepared for it to find us?
Re:Um... No... (Score:4, Interesting)
Suicide is killing yourself. A lot of smokers have underlying mental problems, and smoking is a form of "self-medication". Google for smoking mental illness self-medication.
here is just one result [smokefreedom.net]
... it makes sense - you have to be nuts to smoke.Re:Yes, but.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:LIfe? Yes. Intelligent? doubtfull. (Score:3, Interesting)
Your logic is flawed, and based on comparing the lifespan of "intelligent life" with the lifespan of human life.
Just because we're (self-rated as) the most intelligent, advanced creatures on Earth, does not mean that same scale exists across the entire universe. We could be seen as after-dinner mints to some further advanced race of eating machines. Are we ready to deal with another far-more-advanced race using us as toothpicks?
If a civilization started 2 million years before earth's first single-cellular organism, how do we know that it doesn't still exist today?
..or that life on other worlds, in other times, doesn't have a lifespan of say... 500,000 years per being? Or that they don't hibernate for 90,000 years then come back to life for 10,000?
We can't keep applying our "physics" to things we haven't yet discovered.
should it be so hard to believe? (Score:2, Interesting)
But then something happened smaller than you can know, even smaller than that.
The void became aware of itself and at that very same moment, the void split into the potential for all things. Existance and the observation, awareness of the potential. The essence of physics and nature. Existance and what can be done within it, experienced.
Suddenly existance was, and so was consciousness, the split of less than nothing.
What to do next? Survive! It's certainly better than less than nothing. It is More!
That ment expanding, creating stuff in existance.....it started out very very slow, taking almost an eternity to make the first interaction happen, time was a very difficult thing to create, but in time the momentem would built up to increase the creation of what all is existing in existance.
Of course this too goes on for what seems to be now at least a measureable eternity.
Eventually, the odds of cycling thru all possibilities on what existed in existance a spark of life would be found, and the awareness became aware of another perspective, one within existance. A very small and limited awareness that was, at that moment, understood to be a way to forever increase the experience ability of what all exist in existance... to forever increase the rate and complexity of creation and experience.
And forever beyond eternity the expansion happens, and at all moments, the all of existance, what is in it and it's awareness, is fully aware of itself. Realizing there is nothing at all, not even existance, outside of itself. So to survive, to exist, it forever expands and has been doing this for a long long time. etc.....
But what of us, mankind? What's our part?
Well besides the obvious being that we are like sensors, cameras, recorders, communication senders, witnesses of the experience of what existance presents us, we are also intended to assist in the expansion of existance and what exist in it.
A matter of survival, you understand. However, we were not given a full set of the perceptions of all things, for we are within what exist in existance, and therefore inherently limited in our perception. But being given the ability to create, we are given the ability to overcome these limitations. And we are not alone, far from it.
To follow the rest, requires a break, a look back at our history, mans history, our evolution, our creation, and realize how far we have come, while projecting where we will go in our future based upon the path of our past.
At some point in the future, maybe not so distant, we will come to understand physics and nature so well that we can travel to the edge of existance or go out into our back yard and cause a big bang to happen out of nothing more than less than nothing. Perhaps take a gravity unit and collaspe it in a non-balanced manner and cause a boom before you know it, causing the all of existance to expand.
Now lets say we don't do it in our back yard, that we have the knowledge to do it on the borders of existance...boom...we create a new and unique galaxy or galaxies. And we know that it will prove fruitful, that some place in all of it we will be able to help iniate the evolution of life again. And we know that just as our history has shown us, we can help that life become conscious so to also contribute to the expansion of existance and what exist in it.
When is existance big enough? The answer is not what you might think. For that's not the real question to explain the expanding result. For the answer is, expansion is the indicator of growth, life, assurance of continuation. As soon as expansion stops or reverses, you get the indication of stagnation, enthropy, shrinkage, death. It's not a matter of what is, but a matter of which direction you are going.
There was a time in mans ev
Re:Intelligent Designs (Score:2, Interesting)
And are you really arguing that it's more likely that an alien intelligence designed life on earth? And did someone really mod you insightful for it, along with your lovely stereotypes of the majority of the population, whose religion you obviously haven't even taken the time to understand on a basic level?
GP is right. (Score:5, Interesting)
No one is threatening the rights of Christian Americans by summarily imprisioning them; the same can't be said for those of the Muslim faith in America. Don't give me the crap about the new rise of secularists in America; take a good hard look at the US Senate/House (Hint: what state is the Senate majority leader from?) and who has more sway there before you start spouting random rebuttals about prayer in schools/pledge of allegiance. After that, think hard about those new evolution stickers.
Besides, there's no need to make fun of Muslims when there's already deep-seated hatred in this country of people from the Middle East who aren't Israeli. In short, it's very different to make fun of a persecuted minority vs. a dominant majority with powerful lobbysts.
The Problem with Polls (Score:3, Interesting)
First, because I don't believe the very small sample sizes can really fully show an accurate picture of the entire population's feelings. 1,000 out of 250+ million with only a ~3% margin of error? I'm sorry, but no. (I should note that my failure to trust in the accuracy of small sample sizes, no matter how much math you throw at it, made statistics a difficult course for me).
Second, because I think polls are often constructed in such a way where questions manage to get worded so they don't really get after the original intent. I had the opportunity to work as an outside consultant a few years back for an IT build out imitative for a large public university system. As we were developing the guidelines for the build out, the powers that be brought in an polling firm. It turned out developing the questions for the survey became the most difficult and frustrating portion of the entire project. It also became very clear that the polling firm was "modifying" the intent of the questions to fit the agenda of the administration.
For example, the subject came up about putting new computers in computer labs, and the age old debate of "should we buy PCs or Macs" started up (these were non-CS labs, and it was decided by everyone against something like Linux for a number of reasons I don't want to get into).. "Aha, we'll find that out in the poll" says the administration. The question submitted to the polling company was "While in campus computer labs, would you prefer to work on a PC or a Macintosh?" By the time it went through the administration, the question became "While on campus, do you normally use a PC or a Macintosh?" A subtle difference, but important.
When the poll was finally administered, it turns out that the answer to that question reflected the percentage of PCs to Macintoshes currently on the school campuses (about 70% PC, 30% Mac). This is despite the fact that most students I spoke with would much prefer to use the PCs, but often just went to the Macs because the lines were always shorter in the Mac labs. Had the question been asked as it was written, most of us involved with the project expected we'd see more around an 85%-15%.
When I hear about polls that make statements like "60% of Americans believe there is life on other planets", I always wonder what, exactly the question they asked was. Most polls don't say this, but thankfully this one had a link where you could see what the questions actually are. The first question, the big one read:
Do you believe that there is life on other planets in the universe besides earth?
With possible answers of "Yes, No, and I don't know".
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not really. If I had been asked that question, I'd probably end up in the "I don't know" category. To me, the word "believe" implies certainty. I would say that it's highly likely that there is extraterrestrial life, but I really don't know for sure. Had there been an option of "Probably", or if the question was "Do you think it's likely that there is life on other planets in the universe besides Earth", I would have no problem saying yes, and I think the results would be different.
I mean, if someone asked me "Do you believe the 101 Freeway will be congested tomorrow morning during rush hour?" and only give "Yes", "No" and "I don't know" as options, I'd answer I don't know, despite the fact that unless something very major was going on that I didn't know about I'm pretty much sure that the 101 is going to have heavy traffic.
What gets me is I've been polled a few times by telephone, and ended up frustrating the pollsters because they often asked for "yes" or "no" answers to questions that needed better qualification. One I remember well was from a large alcohol company that made rum. After asking me about the fre
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, let me turn it around --- it is highly unlikely that physical life is NOT based on carbon. The chemistry of life is unimaginably complex and cannot be based on any other atom besides carbon. From everything we have learned about living chemistry so far, there can be no other basis for physical life. The laws of physics as far as we presently understand them preclude any other life chemistry that does NOT involve the carbon atom.
Re:Yes, but.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What's truly weird is how so many of us delude ourselves into believing that we live in democracies (ie. rule of the people) simply because we hold elections. The main function of an election is not to give the people a voice, but to periodically renew the governmental entity (congress, parliament, legislature, judiciary, whatever). It's a way of cleaning out the old and bringing in the new -- but it's always the same political parties in roughly the same mixture.
Even here in Canada, in one election we wiped the Progressive Conservative party off the electoral map in 1993. But all of the Progressive Conservative policies remained intact (the GST, Free Trade, the public service cuts, low inflation policy, etc. etc). Elected governments rarely contradict or rescind the policies of the previous government. In Canada and the US after a legislative election, generally 80% to 90% of the incumbents win.
Which is good for the people in power. It gives the illusion of listening to the voice of the people but doesn't disrupt the reign held on power by the parties, corporations and unions. Elections are, in fact, essential to ensuring that the powerful maintain a fresh, strong grip on power.
True democracy is not about giving the people a choice: it's about giving the people a voice. If the powers-that-be simply give people a choice, they limit what power the people have and reserve the real power for themselves.
What would a real democracy look like?
Probably the most genuine democracy would draft their legislators at random (like juries are or mandatory military service) from all walks of life and force them to go to Washington or London or Ottawa and do their duty. Namely, if any laws need to be made, make them -- otherwise, don't. This would solve many problems such as the underrepresentation of minorities and women in government. They could even remain anonymous and we could make it a crime to reveal the identity of a legislator.
Other things that would make democracy less illusionary:
* Give the vote to every citizen above the age of zero (obviously until a child was able to claim the right to vote themselves, their parents would vote for them). In most places, there is no IQ pre-requisite to being an elector and children should have the right to be represented by their government. I suspect if kids could vote (or parents voting for them) education and health care would be a higher priority. If teenagers voted, maybe we'd actually get some movement on the environment. I wonder what promises a politician would make when visiting a high-school campus if the kids there could actually vote...
* Make voting continuous -- not just once every 4 years or whatever. Register our votes and give every citizen the right to change their vote whenever they want to. Thus an incumbent could effectively be recalled any time his/her constituents lose confidence in him/her.
But those are wishy-washy measures. As long as we have any form of voting, we dilute any power vested in the people.
They won't know everything (Score:2, Interesting)
Jesus pops to mind. Christianity didn't really take off until he was dead. Any outside observers simply wouldn't have been paying him much attention.
Or who knows - maybe the aliens were rooting for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas and concentrated all of their attention there, ignoring the rabble over in Europe.
aaaannndd...I just realized how stupid I sound throwing a fly into this most unlikely of ointments. Ah well - Submit!
Re:More polls (Score:3, Interesting)
You keep using that word [Wiccan].
It doesn't mean what I think you must think it means.
But, we've known this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Survey says, (Score:3, Interesting)
and when they raid your IRA, what then??? people in the UK have completely lost faith in the pensions industry and the Labour government doing a raid (hitting them with a "Windfall Tax") on the pensions funds didn't do anyone any favours either...
Re:frank drake (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. Too bad it's so often abused [crichton-official.com] by people who call the abuse "science." Crichton quote:
This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. 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. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
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, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.
I can't disagree.
Solaris (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a anthropocentric prejudice, similar to thinking that Earth is the center of the universe (isn't it obvious?). Also your phrase "Because the laws of physics appear to operate uniformly throughout the Universe as far as we have observed until now, the only physical life allowed must be based on carbon, just like life on Earth" is more a guess than an established fact.
Have you seen Solaris [wikipedia.org]? (the novel, not the movies). It described an alien intelligent life in the form of a whole planet: the ocean itself had evolved to react to the environment in order to sustain its existence.
That lifeform wouldn't have a need to "communicate", "feed" itself or any other action that we usually relate to life. This kind of "alien" life is what the previous poster was arguing. It has nothing to do with spirituality, the Bible or alternate planes of existence.
Re:Survey says, (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Survey says, (Score:3, Interesting)
Angels
Christian theology (as in walking on water.)
God
Aliens
Bible
Witches (that can use magic to do thins)
As far as I can tell they are all beliefs people hold without reasonable levels of proof. What in your mind separates these things?