Saturday, January 07, 2012

The Alien Life Letdown

For the longest time it seemed obvious to me that alien life did not exist. Extraterrestrial life seems important enough to have either science or religion saying something clear about it. Then it occurred to me: what if alien life isn't a big deal? What if life on other planets exists, but it's just some simple cell or bacterial life? Or maybe if we're lucky, it's grass. Alien grass, that would be, well, something.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:50 AM

    I believe there's alien life out there, and I'm hopeful it's a life of something much cooler than grass or bacteria. It seems like incredible odds that Earth is te only planet in all of the entire universe with life. Our abilities to detect life are not quite there, much like early humans believed the world was flat. I hope I am alive when humans discover alien life more exciting than grass.

    Also: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/01/6392766-alien-life-revisited

    Alyssa

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  2. I'm honestly not sure how I'd react to the news. Thanks for the link. I've heard about these suggestions that life fossils have been found on asteroids. Very interesting.

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  3. Um, what do you mean that science has nothing to say about it? Most astronomers would tell you that it's highly unlikely that alien life DOESN'T exist somewhere in the universe. There is a whole (semi-legitimate) field called astrobiology.

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  4. Yet the main argument goes something like this: "really, I mean what are the chances there isn't?"

    I mean we put a robot on Mars. I just thought there would be more evidence for some life out there. But as this post suggests, I'm more optimistic about the possibility (just pessimistic about it being that interesting).

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You are the reason why I do not write privately. I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not.