IAP Political Forum

By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: October 11, 2007
Call it a small step for E.T., a leap for radio astronomy.

Astronomers in Hat Creek, Calif., are planning today to switch on the first elements of a giant new array of radio telescopes that they say will greatly extend the investigation of natural and unnatural phenomena in the universe.

When the Allen Telescope Array, as it is known, is complete, it will consist of 350 antennas, each 20 feet in diameter. Using the separate antennas as if they were one giant dish, radio astronomers will be able to map vast swaths of the sky cheaply and efficiently.

The array will help search for new phenomena like black holes eating each other and so-called dark galaxies without stars, as well as extend the search for extraterrestrial radio signals a thousandfold, to include a million nearby stars over the next two decades.

Today, 42 of the antennas, mass-produced from molds and employing inexpensive telecommunications technology, will go into operation. “It’s like cutting the ribbon on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria,” said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the Seti Institute, in Mountain View, Calif., who pointed out that this was the first radio telescope ever designed specifically for the extraterrestrial quest.
--http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/science/11seti.html?hp (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/science/11seti.html?hp)

SETI is very much an ingenious way of trying to "spot" ET.  I just wonder if ET would be communicating using methods that we could detect.  You would have to be lucky enough to get a civilization that is about as advanced as we are, maybe slightly more, but not much more.  Already, we are experimenting with methods of communication where the signal is indistinguishable from noise.  By spreading out the signal power over a large range of frequencies, you still have the same energy, but no longer the obvious "spike" at some center frequency.  And, this ultra-wideband technology allows for far better throughput and is immune to many of the physical destructors of narrow-band communications.  It is also more secure since the signal exists below the noise-floor.  It seems like ET would have figured this out at some point, understood the benefits, and quickly adopted such a technology.

So after that bit of useless information, I would imagine that SETI would have a low probability of finding a signal they could recognize.  But then again, if there are a lot of industrial-age civilizations out there, perhaps we will hear something.  On the other hand, there are a lot of very gifted engineers out there and I'm sure they know a lot more about detecting such things than I do........

Maybe we will hear about something exciting in the coming years.

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

It's hard to believe we'd ever contact another civilization any other way than via radio signal. I love science fiction, but fast-than-light travel seems pretty far-out.

The really amazing thing about SETI is how big a failure it has been. Decades of searching with no results. It has made more than one scientist speculate that we may be the first. The first in all the universe. Even if E.T. civilizations had become extinct through massive scale war, there still would have been detectable signals of that civilization. And the odds are that not every E.T. civilization would have blown itself up, if there were any out there in the first place. So the utter silence out there starts to suggests, not only are we alone but possibly the very first.

Great story but journalists are poo-poo heads:


There is no such thing as "unnatural phenomena" in the entire universe. The universe is, by definition, all phenomena and there is literally nothing unnatural anyhere....there is only...
Which isn't really new, so much as simply undiscovered by the ignorant carbon mold stuck to this planet called humans.


Sorry. Great story, just a semantic pet peeve here.
Ahk

How do you figure it's a failure? The idea is simply to put your ear to the sky and listen. Considering messeges or transmissions could take hundreds of years to get here how can 'not hearing anything' be construed as a failure, or proof that there's no "ET"?

Dont get me wrong, if you just kinda think it's a waste of money I could definately see your point, but failure? It never had much chance at 'success' in terms of finding aliens, but it is a success insomuch as the system works -- it is listening. It just seems to me that 'failure' in this case is definied as not winning the lottery when the only idea ever was to play.


Ahk

I agree with all your points, I meant failure only in relation to it's mission of searching for  intelligence. It has failed to find any signs of that. And at the time of it's inception, there was far greater optimism for it's success in this endeavor. A big factor for that being the Drake equation, that postulated advanced extraterrestrial civilizations throughout the galaxy and universe. Today the Drake equation is seen as fundamentally flawed, primarily based on the real data generated by SETI and it's failure to detect ANY civilizations.

SETI to me is in a situation where even a "failure" to find something should be considered success. 

Think about it.  If SETI hears something, then the idea that we are not the only intelligent species in the universe will be Earth-shattering (figuratively speaking hopefully).

But to me, a realization that we are the only intelligent species in the universe is far more profound.  If we are "alone", perhaps we now know what our purpose is - to spread life around the universe.  If it is just us, and intelligent life exists nowhere else - then SETI gives us some small bit of evidence that what we have here is so unique, and so precious, that we can't afford to squander it. 

If you believe absense of evidence is evidence of absence, then the failure of SETI should give humanity pause and we should be rethinking our priorities.......

My concern about SETI is...

Let's say you want to contact anyone, randomly.

Back in 1500, that would mean to send a messenger.
Back in 1850, you would send a letter through post.
Back in 1920, you would phone him.
Nowadays you would send a SMS or an e-mail.

Problem is, what if the recipent still expects to get a messenger... and can't be contacted otherwise? Would you bother to send messengers? Or woudlld stick to people advanced enough to have an e-mail?


Similarly, let's say you discovered The Mother Of Long Range Communication... would you still use pitiful radio? Of course, maybe the only guy around still uses radio... but TMOLRC is so good that your chances to contact are much better, so you sacrifice poor lil' underdeveloped radiowave diggers for a faster search of advanced guys who got TMOLRC at least...

And there they go your chances to be contacted, lonely Earthling radiowave digger... ;)

Major Zee Lee the premise of SETI is a little different from how you have framed it, in terms of a message. Radio waves are light speed transmissions, their use for communication is supposed to be a very probable in any advanced society at some point in it's development. SETI is not aimed at capturing focused or directed signals. It is trying to pick up evidence of the use of radio waves anywhere in the universe. But the sky is utterly quiet. No noise. No radio waves anywhere. This is considered to be very significant. Very improbable based on our previous assumptions about the ubiquitous presence of intelligent life in the universe.

I think the SETI failure is expected, even by the people doing it.  The decision to proceed is that even though its against all odds, if they were to get contact it would be hitting a magnificent lotto.
The SETI program is cheap, considering the potential payback.

Considering we have only been looking for other intelligent life for... less than 100 years I think it is too early to call it a failure.

Another relevant issue with SETI could be found in the realm of Sci-Fi.

If we do contact intelligent life within the next 100 years they(ET's) would certainly be vastly more scientifically advanced than we. Given the rate of scientific advancement in the last 100 years it would be a conservative estimate to suppose an alien civilization would have technology we couldn't understand. This supposed civilization would likley have to be spacefaring to an extent we haven't achieved and would have an understanding of energy that we are centuries away from(if not more).

This being the case it could be a dangerous situation if we made contact with an alien civilization vasty more powerfull than us. If they had a similar evolution or history then it is also likley they would have experienced war. The danger of this possibility should be obvious.


For example, take what happened to the Native Americans. They were "discovered" by a scientifically superior culture with technology that to the Indians was indistinguishable from magic. They were nearly wiped out. Europeans had been less than 3,000 years more scientifically advanced. Imagine the conflict if we were to meet a civilization 10,000 to 1,000,000 years more advanced than us.


It's the stuff of Sci-Fi, but it's a possibility. Scary :D

I have no idea how my refrigerator works, but I really never considered worshiping the guy who gave it to me. On the scale of our solar system the earth holds chumpchange resources, 20million lightyears is a long way to go just to pick a fight.

We've been looking for et radios for a few decades, but we've checked only a tiny percent of the sky. And it's certainly not the darkest hole we're throwing money down.

on Cryptomainac's point about not sending recognizable signals; We are sending out am and fm raidio and tv signals without compression or spread spectrum so they would look like signals.

Very true, if there was a civilization a millenia more advanced than us they would likley be more interested in the resources of Saturn, Jupiter and the Sun than our small blue dot.

New phenomena. That's a real knee slapper.

We can already "hear" very far into space. In fact, we hear so far that many of the things we hear happened a very, very long time ago.

If anything, this new radio telescope will help us hear older phenomena.



I think this is great though. As has been said, this isn't just about searching for a signal from intelligent beings. We can also use this technology to map outer space better.

As to actually finding intelligent life, we'd be lucky if the industrial age culture that sent out the signals was still alive by the time we could respond. It's not a bad idea to check though.



Also, Crytpo, Don't you think that advances in technology allowing us to receive and decode signals (as well as detect very subtle patterns) better is inevitable?

It seems logical that new algorithms will be constructed for detecting smaller and smaller variations from noise, and that more sensitive equipment will be developed.

This is a fun video created by NASA about our closest encounter to Iapetus, one of Saturn's moons. The video is Backstage Pass to Iapetus.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/anon.nasa-global/ccvideos/Griffin91707.asx# (http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/anon.nasa-global/ccvideos/Griffin91707.asx#)

ahhh geez....haven't you guys watched heroes at all? Everyone knows that if "aliens" could communicate with us, they'd have figured out a way to bend the space/time continuum, and are probably already here among us.'''--===



in other news, another ice cap melted today :D

I was talking about us recognizing how the ET civilizations were communicating.

Right now, we look for a "spike" at an arbitrary center frequency to determine if the signal is natural or artificial.  There is of course more to it than that, but that "spike" is the first giveaway.  The point I was trying to make is that now (2007), we Earthlings are already working with transmission schemes that are devoid of any center-frequency spike - if you look at the medium with a frequency analyzer, you will see only noise, even though communication is taking place.  This is only about 80 years after the development of radio transmission.  So, if we are perhaps, say, 20 years from using such a scheme for the majority of our communications, then that would have been 100 years of sending "spikes" at certain frequencies.  If ET is as clever as us, they too would have probably only sent those signals for 100 or so years.

Long story short, intelligent civilizations COULD be everywhere.  But in order for us to hear them (in the way we are listening), we would have to eavesdrop at the perfect time in their technological evolution.

No doubt about it.  Detection, correlation, decoding; all of these things will continue to evolve.  We are a very clever bunch of monkeys for sure, but we've only scratched the surface.

My point was really to say that for us to hear something today, we would have to be lucky enough to be listening during a very particular time in an alien civilization's development.  The technology advances so quickly that we would have to be extremely lucky to hear something at that particular stage in the alien civilization's technological evolution.

On the other hand, if ET is clever, and half as curious as we Earthlings, it stands to reason that they would predict more primitive civilizations attempting such a thing and continue transmitting some recognizable signal as a beacon - in a way, leaving the light on for us.

For sure, the odds are very, very slim.

Yeah Crypto, I hear what you're saying. In 13.7 billions years of history since the Big Bang, how long have we been techologically capable of receiving a signal from space? Less than the blink of an eye.

And how to tell how long we will continue to be capable of this? For thousands of years to come, or will we blow our civilization back to the Stone Age, and then cycle back and forth?

And what is the common experience out there in the Cosmos? One of the most disappointing things about life is that I'm sure to die with all these wonderful questions unanswered.  :-[

I don't know that this is accurate.

These telescopes hear transmissions across a wide spectrum. In fact, aside from advanced ultra-narrow band trnasmissions, it should be able to hear just about anything. Plus, chances are good that whatever life we ARE looking for is very far away.

As a result, their transmissions (much like ours) will be delayed. Basically, we'll hear all the early transmissions of ET life.

There IS life out there. To say otherwise denies logic and statistics.

This universe is bigger than anyone can imagine.

Just look in the sky. Each star you can see has a planet, some more than one. And those are just the stars you can SEE. And that's just OUR galaxy. We can't concieve how large this universe is, and to think that we are just some singular instance of life is presumptuous.

Maybe I'm just as crazy as Kucinich...

There may not be life out there.  We don't know how life from non-life begins so you would have to presuppose something on this point.  I don't see how you can come to your conclusion with only logic and statistics but with no presupposition. 

Without presupposition and if we bring in the empirical information we have gathered on life and the requirements for life, and we restrict causation to only material causes, we should conclude that life could not originate anywhere in this universe because the odds of spontaneous generation of even one self replicating biopolymer is so poor relative even to the total number of atoms in the entire universe (10^81).  I am getting ahead of you though.  Perhaps I am missing some empirical fact (please refrain from speculation and presupposition).

If on the other hand you presuppose life is easy to get started even in a wide range of conditions, then you would conclude based on your presupposition that there is life out there.   Do you think it would be more accurate if your words were, "to say otherwise denies presupposition".


The universe is unimaginably large, that is true.  But to have a thought that life exists or does not exist out there somewhere is presumptuous either way.  When one steps away from presumption and relies only on available empirical data, one can only conclude that life should not have started anywhere in this universe by material mechanisms.

You can answer this by saying we have not completed an exhaustive search for all the ways self-replicating biopolymers might have originated from non-biological chemistry.  But this does not add any empirical evidence and only sends us off to begin speculation and to construct presupposition again.


I doubt it.

Who said life had to be carbon based? Who said it had to be as frail as us? Who said it had to be as strong?

Our conditions are unique, yes, but as a result, we have a planet where mammals rule the planet. Perhaps, on a hotter, drier planet, species evolved to be more reptilian. Just look at the bottom of our oceans, places one would NEVER think life could begin... but there they are.

The possibilities for life go far beyond us.


You're right, it's a theory.

But leaving the possibility of life elsewhere respects the size and scope of this universe.

I was wrong in saying aliens exist. I should have phrased it like this: "I don't know, but this universe is too damn big to think we're all alone in it."

I guess I should mention that one of my favorite movies is "Contact" with Helen Hunt.


Thanks ;) .

Abraxas wrote, asking why life has to be carbon-based?
And I think he's right--it doesn't.
However, it probably is. Here's why: carbon has the not common properties of being
a) relatively abundant and
b) able to bind with many other elements.

Another element which enjoys those properties is silicon, which is why science fiction occassionally features silicon-based creatures. However, another (unfortunate) property of silicon is that it tends to have a very rigid structure, and it's hard to imagine intelligent rocks.

Reasoned Faith wrote: "There may not be life out there.  We don't know how life from non-life begins so you would have to presuppose something on this point.  I don't see how you can come to your conclusion with only logic and statistics but with no presupposition."

I think logic and statistics alone can give us a pretty good start. We can compare the chances of intelligent life evolving to the number of opportunities in the Cosmos.
Of course there are many unknowns when trying to calculate the chances of the evolution of intelligent life. But we can spell them out and speculate.

No one knows the answer, but one does not have to suppose anything to say that there is a reasonable chance that intelligent life has evolved somewhere other than Earth.

Nitrogen, as well.

Of course, who says we have to have discovered it yet?

Eventually all these 120's will have a stable nucleus and a half life longer than 14-year-old-jane's ability to hold an erection (i.e. mere milliseconds).

Nitrogen is an inert gas. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. It constitues over 70 percent of the Earth's atmosphere.

Very good point. Also, there is the possibility of other elements being more abundant in different places.

Nitrogen forms proteins.

Granted, it can't form long chains without becoming unstable, but it's entirely likely that life outside our solar system and possibly our galaxy are differently composed.

I believe the state of Astronomy is too far advanced for that to be the case. Astronomers have direct evidence of the disposition of elements in the Cosmos, through spectral analysis and other means.
Astrophysicists have elaborate and well established theories of how the elements were created, which may be wrong, but it's unlikely, especially since the theories cohere so well with direct observations.

Are you suggesting that chemistry and physics work differently somewhere "out there"?

I'm suggesting that DNA is largely influenced by Nitrogen.

As you admitted, Silicon can replace Carbon's contribution due to it's ability to form long, unbroken chains.


If you have any literature on this, I would like to read it. I'm not antagonizng, I'm just curious.

I hope it's dumbed down some. I'm neither an astronomer or geologist.

For me to follow it, it definately had to be dumbed down some. I'm not an astronomer either, or even a scientist. I have enjoyed following astronomy as a non-scientist all my life.
The information specifically about the likelyhood of complex life evolving from an element other than carbon is discussed in Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution. I found the book to be an excellent balance between being sufficiently detailed and still understandable.
Here's the website of the principle author: http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/index.php (http://research.amnh.org/~tyson/index.php)

Well nearly any organic chemist will dispute you for hundreds of reasons I won't go into, but in any case yours is speculation and speculation is entirely different than concluding there is life out there and to deny it is counter to reason and logic.


I respected the size of the universe when I mentioned that there are about 10^81 atoms in this universe.


Fair enough, but the problem is that as large as it is, it is nowhere nearly large enough to overcome the improbability of forming self-replicating polymers from inorganic chemistry.  I don't think you grasp the difficulty of an event like this by chemic evolution.

The response to your quote is an easy one: I don't think you grasp the enormity of the universe (despite your noting the number of atoms).

The fact of the matter is that we simply don't know. The odds are long against intelligent life, but at the same time, the opportunities are almost endless.

So it boils down to almost infintessimal possibility confronting almost infinite opportunity.

Easy responses are not always correct.


This universe isn't even close to generating infinite opportunity.  Since the events we are speaking about are macro-events, as all chemic events are, we have 10^81 atoms and plank time giving us up to 10^45 macro events per second and then considering that this universe may be 14 billion years old we have less than 10^150 total macro events that could ever have possibly occurred.  Now if anything has a likelihood of occurring that is more than a couple of orders of magnitude less than the reciprocal of this, we can conclude that it should never happen in this universe.  Based on our current understanding of chemical laws, the nature of chemical reaction equilibrium and kinetics driven by random Brownian motion we get the odds of spontaneous generation of the most simple self replicating polymer at far less than than 1 in 10^400.  This universe is big but it does not appear to be nearly large enough to account for life from non-life based on what we currently know.  You can speculate, but you cannot cite logic and reason.  To believe life in this universe happened randomly by material mechanisms requires a huge leap of faith.

Oh.

So all those astrophysicists who say that there's a reasonable chance that there is intelligent life in the universe (like the one I mentioned above) are wrong because they don't share your keen insight into chemistry and physics.

Right.

Or maybe you don't have a clue what you're talking about, or how that relates to the origins of life.

Your very last sentence suggests that you have an agenda behind all your "reasoning"--something to do with the necessity of a "supreme being," bringing all this to pass, perhaps?

Your last sentence is also ironic, since believing that life began any way other than through natural mechanisms is what requires "faith."

Too bad. We were having a nice little discussion of the science behind this puzzle until the Bible-thumper showed up...

Just a random thought. We are quickly developing the abbility to find planets around distant stars. With time we will detect smaller and smaller planets. This means it's a matter of time until we can detect planets the size of Earth, around stars the kind of our sun. And then, that will open the chance to detect an oxygen-rich atmopshere on one of such planets... and then we all know what it means an oxygen rich atmosphere. The only thermodynamic device that can liberate massive amounts of oxygen into an atmosphere and keep the levels high is Life. Just the reduction of a methane atmosphere would be a clear sign.

This means that we may perfectly find out evidence of extraterrestrial life far earlier and easier than finding out intelligent life. All in all, we used to think that intelligence was the most conspicuous proof of e.t. life... but now we are in our way to just look at indirect eivdence of it. Think of the consequences... and think that it could perfectly happen during our lifetime... :o

If you read their material you find those who believe there is a reasonable chance base it on presupposition of the ease of creating life.  Perhaps you should investigate their basis rather than presume one.


May I ask what credentials you have on this topic since you seem able to opine on it.


We all have biases. I don't hide mine.


I have faith in many things.  Anyone with a belief about how life started has faith.  Those who hold to chemic evolution have far more faith than I.  The probability numbers don't lie.  I'm sorry for injecting some reality into this topic.

I agree that searching for oxygen on a planet would be a good way to look for life.  Not sure why you think it might be likely that we find it though.

Great thought. I've read that oxygen is a dead-certain indicator of life. I think methane also indicates life. The only thing is, I don't know if we're necessarily on an inevitable course to being able to detect smaller planets. There might come a point where it's just not possible to pick up enough light below a certain intensity to run a spectral analysis, especially when it's close to a star.

Hope so!

I have read their material. Like the book I referenced above. And they do make a presumption of the ease of creating life, based on their advanced knowledge of chemistry and physics. A knowledge, I am comfortable in supposing, that is far more advanced than either yours or mine.

Sure.
1) The ability to read well.
2) Common sense. The ability to understand that an astrophysist writing about this has fewer axes to grind or ideologies at stake than, say, some anonymous source posting on a political chat forum with the chosen name "Reasoned Faith."
3) A lack of a pre-existing ideology that I desperately want to be true, to the point of it blinding me from seeing anything that might "endanger" that ideology.

No, indeed.
And my bias? To the better argument.


Ah, that's where we differ. Scientists don't have a "belief" about how life started. They have theories. Which are strong or weak depending on how well they hold up to empirical testing.
As for your "probability numbers," they are entirely speculative and prove nothing other than how uncertain this entire line of inquiry is, which renders this line of yours; "When one steps away from presumption and relies only on available empirical data, one can only conclude that life should not have started anywhere in this universe by material mechanisms" utterly absurd.

Sorry for rejecting your transparent allusion to life depending on the benevolence of a supernatural sky-god. By the way, who created your sky-god?

Because God is generous and He loves to start life around. :angel:

And you would be spectacularly wrong once again, though perhaps not in your case.


A better argument generally requires concordance with evidence.  Your bias is your favored presupposition.


Nonsense, everyone has a worldview including all scientists and technologists.


A scientific theory stands or falls independently of the scientists that support it. 


They are evidence based on what we know about chemistry and biology.  They are the best indication we have.  You can't do much better than that.  Perhaps you can cite some better numbers supported by better evidence?


Since it is based on evidence and reason and logic it is sound.  Please support with real data where I err.  You can't.


Evidence only suggests that life from non-life is exceedingly difficult to make and that known chemic processes could not have done it.  I don't have anything to say about this sky-god you mention.

When you review this thread in total, it is amazing what speculation you folks pass as science without complaint.  Then when I come along an point out what the evidence actually tells us, you complain I am not being scientific.  What a joke.

You say I can't. You say so with so much confidence that you apparently aren't even familiar with the scholarship done in this area long before your meager attempts at it.
Francis Drake first tried to quantify the possibility of life in the Cosmos back in the early 1960s. The Drake equation "usefully orgnanized our knowledge and ignorance by separatin gthe number that we dearly seek to estimate--the number of places where intelligent life now exists in our galaxy--into a set of terms, each of which describes a necessary condition for intelligent life." The terms include

• the number of stars in the Milky Way
• the average number of planets around each star
• the fraction of planets with conditions suitable for life
• the probability that life actually arises on these planets
• the chance that life on such a planet evolves to produce an intelligent civilization

Then we multiply the product of these five terms by a sixth term, the ratio of the average lifetime of an intelligent civiliation to the total lifetime of the Milky Way galaxy.

Scientists have been puzzling over this equation for half a century. Look it up on the Internet. You'll get endless hits. Here's a good interactive site:  Nova. (http://ttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/drake.html)

But you contend that you know more than all these scientists. You uniquely understand that the whole equation is moot because one term, "the probability that life actually arises on these planets" is zero.

You don't believe that. You know it. Because you have the "facts" and "data" to prove it. You. Reasoned Faith. All by yourself posses the truth undiscovered by all these other scientists.  

The book I referenced in an above post, Origins, devotes the entire Chapter 15 to the question of life originating on Earth. The book was written by Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium. He presents several models for how life could have originated in tide pools at the ocean's edge, or superheated vents on the ocean floors. "For now," Tyson writes, "the betting is about even. Experts on the origin of life have challenged the assertion that life's oldest forms lived at high temperatures, because current methods for placing organisms at different points along the brances of the tree of life remain the subject of debate."

How odd. No mention of Reasoned Faith's devastating critique of the whole business.  

Here's what the interactive Nova website that I linked to has to say about your term:
"Scientists are divided on this question, though most tend to think that life is more likely to appear than not, given the right conditions."
Here's Wikipedia's estimate: "fi = the fraction of the above which actually go on to develop intelligent life.
Estimated by Drake as 0.01.
Some estimate that solar systems in galactic orbits with radiation exposure as low as Earth's solar system may be more than 100,000 times rarer, however, giving a value of fi = 1×10-7."

Here's another site on your term, which you have convinced yourself is zero:
My two references show the radical disagreement among scientists simply because there is a radical lack of real evidence with regard to the terms. But none of them make your claim. In fact, Francis Drake thinks you are just about 100 percent wrong. Oh, and who is he? He's professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

You?

You are only guessing about what scholarship I am familiar.




Not zero.  The number of planets and so forth are indeed inconsequential compared to the 10^81 atoms in this universe and the 10^45 interactions per second possible.  Surly you should understand that all the material in the universe and all the interactions have been considered.  If life occurred spontaneously anywhere in this universe by chance or any form of chance modified by chemic constraints. Some sort of boundary conditions have to be in play in order to remove the hundreds of orders of magnitude of possible chemical combinations most of which are far more favored than any combination that results in even the simplest known self-replicating polymer.  Without such boundary conditions material mechanisms are ruled out.


A better fact to ponder is why you do believe life is simple to spontaneously arise from non-life.  Just what evidence do you hold to support this belief.  Surly you are familiar with the known set of self-replicating polymers (bio and non-bio) in order to hold such a belief.


I have read this material. It is not based on chemical affinities or reaction kinetics.  It is not based on any chemical processes.  It is not based on any process at all.  It is a narrative supported by speculation.  Good science does not operate on speculation.  Review the material again and find for us any observation that would indicate these speculative conditions introduce chemic boundary conditions that reduce the number of permutations possible in deriving self-replicating polymers in any of these environments.


The interesting phrase is "tend to think".  It is pure speculation.


It is not a true statement that chemists have found even one chemical pathways to the origins of life.  This too is pure speculation.  If you disagree, please provide one that is confirmed by testing even the subprocesses (if the entire process worked, scientists would have already declared that man has made life from scratch).  Remember the scientific method requires observation, testing and repetition and not speculation.   

In contrast, observation, experimentation and testing of chemic processes will lead the chemist to conclude that the probability of life arising from non-life spontaneously is far less than 1 in 10^400.  It will remain this way until and unless we find some boundary conditions that constrain the range of chemical combinations derived in each of the vast number of required steps.


This statement is the presupposition that drives the speculation you so blindly accept.  It is unimaginably simplistic and spectacularly false.



What is the basis of this consensus?  I will tell you, there is no basis.  It is a conclusion that follows directly from the presupposition above.


And the key is that he thinks I am wrong.  He can offer nothing to demonstrate is prejudice.  tell you what, let's have a look at just one of these supposed chemical pathways mentioned above.  I will show you just how the narrative is nothing more than a house of cards at this stage.  You choose the pathway.


I have degrees in Chemistry and and Chemical Engineering.  I have completed extensive studies in organic and biochemistry and biology.  I have substantial training in mathematics, physics, physical chemistry, and computer science.  Dr. Drake likely knows a great deal more about astronomy, astrophysics and physics but that is likely where it ends.

So you don't even have, say, a Masters? I might have known.

I have not said what level of degrees I have.  Do you know that I am not quallified to discuss this topic in the same way you know that you are and in the same way you think you know that life from non-life is a simple and inevitable matter of water, organic chemicals and the right physical conditions? 

As far as science can tell us this roughly is the case and as our understanding of it advances so does our understanding.

No, actually there has been a great deal of work done with regard to the concepts of chemic evolution and science is able to tell us a great deal about how difficult it would be for chemical processes and physical constraints to generate even simple self-replicating compounds.  Science indicates that the probability of generating such a molecule by chemic evolution is so small and the number and span of right conditions required are so large that the word miracle is the best description of life from non-life.  If you doubt me let's have a look at what you say is the most promising possibility.

No matter what the odds, it happened, RF.

You say it was unlikely that it happened unless someone did it. Yet as far as we can know, our reality would be exactly the same if it just had happened randomly and against all odds.

That it was hard does not mean it could not happen. It could happen, and it happened... and what we can observe and know would be exactly the same even if "someone" did it, as that "someone" did not left any other evidence of its existence but being able to do the same as randomness could do.

This is not a debate about about whether or not life emerged on earth.  It is a discussion if its relevance to  to the presumption that life from non-life by material processes is a near given wherever one finds water, organics, and appropriate physical conditions.  The science of chemic evolution tells us it is not.


The chemical characteristics and the huge number of permutations conspire against chance and physical laws to put it out of reach.  On the other hand, intentional design can and has easily constructed self-replicating polymers.
 
 Yet as far as we can know, our reality would be exactly the same if it just had happened randomly and against all odds.


You have incredible faith Major.  You have just suspended the scientific process and and embarked on imagination.


I suppose you have a point Major but I am at a loss to reason through it.

Man, you're used to make things complicated...

Take 2, another approach:

A force that started life in spite of low chance would be more complex and so less likely to happen randomly than life itself. Thus it is more likely that life happened by chance than it was created by an outer force (whose chance to happen randomly would be always lower than that of life).

You can't claim that the explanation to a low possibility event is another event whose possibility to happen is even lower. :police:

Indeed, and therefore just as it is unreasonable to conclude life from non-life occurred by chance chemic processes, it would be unreasonable to conclude the cause of the cause of life occurred by chance processes.   You are assuming that at the end of this regression there must necessarily be a material chance process.  What is the basis of that assumption?  What happens when you remove that assumption?


Agree I cannot and still claim to be reasonable.  I do not claim that the ultimate cause was a random event.  However discussion of such departs from science since it is not currently testable etc.  Science insists that we consider only the evidence we have in front of us.  The evidence in front of us puts chance as an explanation out of reach.

Why? The evidence (according to you, btw) would say that chances are very slim, but it does not rule out that life could start by chance.

In such scenario, we may speculate that we still can't judge properly what chance there is that life starts by matherial mechanicsms alone. If we found evidence of E.T. life, that would mean that chances are high enough for life to happen twice at least (a reason why it's so important to look for earthlike planets). Once again, we can't rule out life in the universe outside Earth just because we calculate that life on Earth has low chances to happen randomly.

What we can't do is what you do -claim that Science puts random events out of reach. Because as far as we know that's exactly whay could had happen as, all in all, life EXISTS.

Something has happened and life started. Assuming that it was a matherialistic random chance is our safest and simplest bet as any additional degree of complexity just would make life even less likely to happen at all. And once you leave matherialism you just throw simplicity out the window. There is nothing simple in what can't be defined or analyzed matherialistically. Actually, it can't even be checked from a probabilistic point of view.

Abridged:

Either life started matherialistically, an event whose possibility to happen randomly is slim (according to you), but is coherent with observed reality, or it started by causes other than matherial, which means it can't be scrutynized in any way as not even its possibility to happen can be calculated.

That is, the explanation to the origins of life would be either matherialistic, extremely unlikely and unsatisfactory, or non-matherialistic, absolutely inextricable and even more unsatisfactory... I don't feel like giving up the answer to the origins of life, and so I reject any explanation implying that it's out of our reach to know.

There are two possibilities for life from non-life.  One is that it happened by material mechanisms including chemic evolution which is a constrained chance mechanism, the other is that it happened by some design event.  We know from biology that given enough knowledge and skill design can create life.  At some point in the future it is possible that humans could possess both. 

If the odds that chemic process caused life within 14 billion years were say 50%, I would agree with you.  At some point as the odds drop from 50% the table turns and design becomes the favored choice.  For statisticians those odds generally drop to 1-30% before an alternative is suggested.  What odds do you require before you chose the alternative?  Is it 1/1000 ,1/1,000,000,000 or 1 in 10^400?   



Evidence of life does not change the odds of life by chemic processes in any way.  The existence of life does not tell us anything about how life started.


The factors that affect chemic processes are the physical laws.  Your claim if true would require that the physical laws are not constant throughout the universe.


Probability and statistical studies are routinely used to put chance causation out of reach.  It is accepted in science community and is done in nearly every clinical survey and study.

That life EXISTS is not in question.  What is in question is how it came to be and for this discussion it is how it might have come to be throughout this universe.



Based on what we know of chemistry and of genetic engineering capability, the safest and simplest bet is design not the 1 in 10^400 to more that 10^4000 odds of chemic evolution.

Please give me a logical, reasoned argument why design should be considered inferior to the odds listed above when genetic scientists are rapidly closing in on this very question using design.  Are you suggesting that it is hopeless (the best word for odds of 1 in 10^400 is hopeless) that humans might discover a way to design life from scratch?


I am struggling to understand how life by chemic processes is coherent and consistent with observation.  Explain that please. 

Also if genetic researchers succeed in making life from scratch by design are you suggesting that it can't be evaluated?


What makes you think that design cannot be discovered?

So the undergraduate still contends that life beginning without The Hand of God is basically impossible, while the Ph. D.s contend it's entirely possible; indeed, some of them contend it's almost inevitable (see my posts above).

Why is anyone taking the undergraduate seriously?

Sorry to interrupt the debate over credentials, but I thought this was interesting.

Astronomers use Lick Observatory to find planet
By Lisa Fernandez
Mercury News
Article Launched: 11/08/2007 01:37:46 AM PST

(http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2007/1107/20071107__webplanet~1_Gallery.JPG)


Link (http://origin.mercurynews.com/lifestyle/ci_7402451?nclick_check=1)

This is why I would not be at all surprised if there were life forms similar to those on earth somewhere else in the cosmos. Water is necessary for life (at least as we know it), so planets with suitable temperatures for liquid water are more likely to have life forms comparable to those here.

At this point, what we need is advance in remote sensing capabilities.

You only indict yourself when you misrepresent your opponents position.

Credentials do not make for a good scientific argument and neither does conjecture.  A sound scientific basis requires empirical data a sound explanation for the data that comports with observation and a physical basis.  Your friends with Ph D.'s don't have this information.  Your articles in the posts above don't provide this information.  Where is the empirical evidence that I am in err?  You don't have it.

Water, organic materials, and suitable physical conditions are indeed necessary for life, but they are not sufficient.  Life also requires a great deal of information in order to preserve process, development and body plans.  It is these additional requirements that raise the bar and make it so difficult for chemic evolution to be a serious contender.

Credentials establish a person's credibility. They don't necessarily mean the persons holding them are right, but it makes it more difficult to dismiss them out of hand.
"My friends with Ph. D.s" have examined the "empirical evidence" and found it adequate to the task of generating life, with no need to appeal to an Old Man and Harp Music.

I don't give your arguments any credibility. Do you have any mainstream scientific references which argue as unequivocally as you do that life can't spontaneously begin?

Here's am interesting article about some astronomers who found a star very similar to our sun.

Solar twin discovery leads to speculation of extraterrestrial life

Link (http://www.topnews.in/solar-twin-discovery-leads-speculation-extraterrestrial-life-25676)

If there are other suns out there similar to ours, it raises the question of whether there are other planets like ours.

The article goes on to talk about how these solar systems would be good targets for SETI. Seems logical.

I was reading that lithium has some interesting properties. One, not much of it was created during the big bang. And since stars have more effective nuclear fusion reactions to destroy lithium than create it, the cosmic supply of lithium has steadily decreased and continues to do so.

It's a highly useful tool for astronomers for measuring the ages of stars. All stars begin with a proportionate share of lithium, left behind by the big bang--about one in every 100 billion nuclei. After that it is steadily consumed by the star. When astrophysists look at the youngest stars, they follow a simple rule: Look for the stars with the greatest abundane of lithium. Each star's number of lithium nuclei in proportionto, for example, hydrogen, will locate the star at some point along a graph that shows how stars' ages correlate with lighium in their outer layers. Since so little lithium remains as time goes on, this method only works well for stars under a few hundred million years old.

I guess this is the kind of analysis that goes on all the time, which makes astronomers concerned when the find disparities between the chemical composition of stars.

Interesting.

We can start here:

Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WCB-4DTKB55-1&_user=4420034&_coverDate=11%2F01%2F2004&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000063005&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4420034&md5=c0cca55d6a782b5a84a5ac8a814d1dfb)

and here:

Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TJ4-4H9GRDB-X&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-BB-MsSAYWA-UUW-U-AACBDYYAWW-AACABZYEWW-ECEWWUBCU-BB-U&_fmt=summary&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=20&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235300%232006%23999719995%23610539!&_cdi=5300&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=9356c1f3b8b837f53544bb476cf6b121)

and this one:

Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958)

All three of those articles seem like honest scientific inquiry. None of the three seem to me to be saying "and therefore, the spontaneous creation of life is impossible." They seem to be saying "we don't know how it happens and we need more research and inquiry."
The first two links only went to abstracts.

Nor do I.  If you review my responses you will see that I have corrected you on this point before.  I have said the odds point strongly against it. 

The articles provide an assessment of the available scientific evidence. But the conclusion follows from the assessment the articles provide.  At some point the odds become so overwhelmingly small that the reasoned person should suspend belief and adopt an alternative (at least until new evidence improves the odds).  At what point does your faith in chance and chemistry give out?

You talk of these discoveries in similar stars and planets as if they make a significant difference in the equation but you seem to ignore the magnitude of the odds.  Even if one were to calculate that there are a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion suitable planets, one has not even made a dent in the odds of spontaneous life from chemical processes.  You don't need to discover planets to revive your faith in spontaneous life from non-life, you need someone to discover unknown chemical processes.

TBH, I'm not sure how this ended up turning into and ID thread, and I'm not entirely certain that an argument about spontaneous life from non-life is an issue here.

We've found strong evidence of bacteria on Mars, so whether it would take some sort of intentional design is a fairly moot point.


http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20020802a.html (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20020802a.html)

Why don't you disclose all the facts?  Why don't you also include an article that discusses the contradictory evidence and problems the findings?  Illy you claim to have a balanced and reasoned approach to science but you don't seem to exemplify your claim.  Search for the truth must be complete and well rounded.

Life on Mars? (http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/LifeonMars.html) 

That's rich.

Where did I claim to have a "balanced and reasoned approach"? (I think I do, but I don't remeber stating as much)

And where did I violate this essential tenet of my philosphy.



If you have a problem with what I've presented, how about if you just present your counter evidence without accusing me of intellectual dishonesty.

Fair enough, I stand corrected.  Please accept my apology.  Should I no longer presume that your tenets include presentation of both sides of an argument or balance or reason? 


Understood.

What you should presume is to not fabricate statements that I have made.


BTW, thanks for posting the link. I was actually unaware of that, so before you jump to conclusions and accuse me of intentionally presenting a one-sided argument, keep in mind that I don't have your credentials.  ;)

Well, a review of the presented literature does leave me a little more skeptical about the origin of the magnetite.

Most plausible is the proof that magnetite can be caused by shock as well as biological processes.

Certainly, the debate is not yet settled.


I would note though that the presenter's (Richard Cowen) view seems to be about as biased as I was accused me of being.

Kind of ironic, no?

Cowen presented a spectrum of articles, press releases and papers on both sides of the argument, did he not?  Also he even showed where the original author of the claim has backed away from it.  To be fair, I have no problem with bias as I think it is unavoidable.  I (improperly) accused you of presenting only one side of the story, I did not find fault with your level of bias.


No, I don't think so.

# Third, the crackpot spin-offs (at least, that's my opinion of these ideas!).

Yes, terms like "crackpot spinoff" are the hallmark of unbiased science, as are sentences in all caps.

I would be interested to read where AND FINALLY, in 2004, Chris McKay gives up (without saying so)., but unfortunately, the link leads to an error page.

Ultimately, he does bring up some very good points, but I would hardly call him unbiased.

Once again, I do not have a problem with bias as everyone with a viewpoint has bias.  You have a bias, I have a bias and certainly Cowen displays bias.  I took issue with your presentation of just one side of an argument.  I note that Cowen presented both sides and this is why I don't find it ironic.

RF: I wonder if the geology class textbook you referenced is from a class you took or are taking? Is that where you're going to school, if you are still in school? http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/alien.html (http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~cowen/HistoryofLife/alien.html) I imagine that the professor's position is very attractive to you, since it would cohere nicely with your religious beliefs.

He seems to take the more pessimistic view of the possibility of life, although he later retreats from his initial
"NO LIFE OUT THERE" position to a no "complex" or "intelligent" life position.

From the beginning of this thead you have been arguing against the very possibility of any life anywhere else, intelligent or otherwise. You also brought with you an attitude that to think otherwise betrayed a lack of scientific credentials: "Without presupposition and if we bring in the empirical information we have gathered on life and the requirements for life, and we restrict causation to only material causes, we should conclude that life could not originate anywhere in this universe because the odds of spontaneous generation of even one self replicating biopolymer is so poor relative even to the total number of atoms in the entire universe (10^81)."

I believe I've provided a wealth of information that shows that highly trained an