Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

What evidence is there now, or was there in the past that the earth is flat? In one day you can walk beyond the horizon and dissapear, and come back the next day and convey what you saw out there 'over the edge'. A person sitting in a tower or on a hill could watch you go and come back, or watch a ship with lights on its mast dissapear over the horizon at night, one light at a time.

people used a straight stick to determine the earth is a sphere a couple hundred years BC, by measureing the angle the sun made at noon at two locations about 100 miles north and south of each other. In fact, they were able to calculate the diameter of the earth to within a few percent, using nothing but those two wooden sticks.

The physical universe exists totally independant of my mind, and totally independant of my ability to observe and understand it. When I go to sleep at night the universe does not wink out of existance

My ability to observe, measure and predict physical interactions is a measure of the accuracy of my understanding of physics. Reality can be tested and verified by independant observers, through independant experiments.

Religion (by contrast) is based on information that is handed down, handed down from a higher authority. The information is not 'true' because you have independantly tested and verified its accuracy, its 'true' because someone told you its true. In fact, in some religions, questioning the truth of it is not allowed.

And if the religion is false, then you do not end up at the same final place that science would lead you. For example, the people who believed David Korey was Jesus and took up guns to protect him are all dead now. The followers of the Heavens Gate cult who thought a spaceship was hiding in the tail of a comet, and took posion to 'cross over', are all dead now.

We have the ability to scan a comets tail optically and with radar. There was no mothership. I dont understand how you can say those dead cult members have arrived at the same place, or conclusions as, lets say, the seven astronauts who have devoted their lives to science and engineering, who are now in orbit around the earth in the shuttle Discovery?

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

Go out side. It looks flat to me. Open up a book and touch it to your nose. I garuntee you that you won't see words. Dark blobs maybe, but no words. The evidence that you have shows that you don't have a page with words, but maybe a page that was stained with ink instead.

If you find an old book about alchemy (I'm not sure if there even are any...) you'll probably see it as too superstious. To them, however, it was the closest thing they had to science. And I'm sure you know my favorite alchemist: Newton. Just because he didn't have a knowlege of modern nuclear chemistry doesn't mean that he was wrong. He did the best he could given the information he had, but he didn't have the correct answer. I refer you back to my dark sucking candle. The evidence supports it, but it isn't right (at least I hope not...that would destroy my argument).

Let's assume for a minute that Jesus did perform these so called miracles as described in the Bible. Let's also assume that he had access to advanced technology that was on par with today's (maybe he was a genius, maybe he was a time traveler, maybe he was an alien, it doesn't matter how he got it...). Water into wine? Go to the grocery store and get some Kool-Aid. Walking on water? Maybe some sort of clear pontoon shoes. Reviving the dead? CPR. Anything that people of the time could't explain was a miracle or an act of God. We can't condemn them for not having the knowledge that we do today.

If I wanted to be really persistant, I would ask you to prove it, but I won't. While the universe is still around, your individual perception of it does go away...well, probably closer to changing drastically than disappearing.

When's the last time you personally got some gold foil and an alpha particle source to verify Rutherford's findings? You're going on the word of the people that came before you that it's correct and that it even happened at all. A few hundred years from now, someone might pick up a copy of 1984 and think it was a history book that chronicled what happened to some guy named Winston Smith in 1984. If they find nothing else, they might have to assume that it is.

They were looking for the same thing that we are right now, weren't they? They wanted to know the "truth". What the universe is about and what's going on - the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Those individuals didn't make it to the end of the journey, but those that come after them are one step closer. Lesson learned: comets aren't spaceships. Just because lots of people died during the construction of the great wall of China doesn't mean that it didn't get built. They may not have seen the end, but others finished the journey for them. Scientists have been working on the theory of everything for decades. It will probably take many more decades and at least a few generations. Hawking and company will probably be long dead before it is found. They probably won't see the end themselves, but they will help others along the way.

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

I cant say for certain what the people in the heavens gate cult were looking for? I dont know what drives a person into a position like that to the point where someone starts handing out dixie cups of Guiana Grape coolaid, and you drink it obediantly and without question

Personally I think they were looking more for a sense of belonging, something to make them feel important or special. Also I think people like Applegate knew that he was not god, or an alien, or a prophet - he knew full well that he was taking advantage of his followers, deceiving them, using them.

There is nothing honorable about a false religion, and there is no usefull knowledge gained from those peoples deaths. We knew there was no mothership behind that comet. Those people died for no reason.

Any one of those people could have looked for information from someone besides Applegate and saved himself from that fate. I dont think they really wanted to know the truth. They wanted to continue in their genuine self delusion, even at the cost of their own life.

That type of mentality has nothing to do with science.

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

If you are designing a circuit, it's implied that you understand the unique properties of each component. You know what the expected behavior of a resistor, capacitor, transistor, transformer, etc. are. You know the operational parameters of each component. You can design your circuit based on the known properties of each piece. If something didn't work right, you can observe and measure values from each component to find out what the problem is.

It's easy to correlate this with our understanding of the universe, but that would also imply we know everything about how the universe operates. We don't. We can see through telescopes, and calculate trajectories, distances, speeds, etc. using our understanding of physics, but there are still many unknowns. We don't know what causes certain motions, we can't explain why certain stars are accelerating as though there's an unseen/undetectable mass present somewhere, we don't know precisely what causes gravity, we don't totally understand black holes, we don't know whether or not wormholes or exotic matter exist, we're only beginning to study quantum physics, and only starting to physically explore general relativity. In the electronics analogy, that would be like building a circuit without understanding what a transformer does, even if you know what voltage and current are. Without understanding what a certain piece of the puzzle does, or where it goes, it becomes far more difficult to troubleshoot the problem.

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

I understand what you're trying to say, but you're choosing poor examples. When I used to ride a bicycle regularly, I got constant experience telling me that the earth was not flat. Knowing that, I can look beyond the superficial near-flatness and easily recognize the ubiquitous curvature. Indeed, living in north central Indiana where there are few hills or valleys actually makes it easier to for me to see the fact that the ground curves "downward" and over the horizon. Cellular telephone towers make a good analog to ships' masts; you can see that the bottom gets hidden behind the earth's curve before the top disappears from view.

I just held a book to my nose and not only saw words but read them. So the particular evidence you say is not there most certainly exists when I look.

Your point might be better made by mentioning the wave-particle duality of matter and energy, or the Van Allen radiation belts, or the shrinking of an object in the direction of its motion due to relativity. None of these are directly experienced in everyday life; it takes specific experimentation to demonstrate them. But a round earth, or printed words on an extremely close page? Sorry, I see them without even trying hard.

As for the original question of life being either vanishingly rare or commonplace in the universe, I will comment on one important fact and then withdraw from discussion. It is true that we have direct evidence of only one life-bearing planet. But we have evidence that life has existed on this planet since almost the moment such life was possible. Earth is the only place we have closely examined in which liquid water is commonplace. It is not reasonable to conclude that only Earth supports life, because we have never seen another planet having a similar environment that we can use as a comparison. Fermi's Paradox ("If there is life elsewhere, why isn't it everywhere?") is not a true paradox; call it Fermi's Question and it has many answers.

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

Ripples...

Like a stone in a pond, every event has ripples. Along with these ripples (and the original event, I suppose) comes a new understanding of the way things work. Everything that happens, good or bad, changes the way we look at things. Everything we learn is a step along the way to understanding the universe.

Take war for instance. WWII lead us to develop nuclear technology. While the original application of this technology was bad, the successive developments furthered scientific knowledge. From a more religious/moral standpoint, we learned that modern warfare would be more devistating than ever before. With the power of current weapons, the next world war will probably be the last war. If played correctly, this may finally lead to peace.

New York, a place generally known for a lack of friendship and community was brought together on 9-11. In the wake of a disaster, they pulled together. People helped each other get through it. They banded together and did things that they normally wouldn't have done otherwise.

You're right, they chose the religious route.

Re: are we alone in the universe?
 

i love how threads tend to take on a life of their own. i would just point out that all our arguments are just conjecture as we truly don't know enough of the universe. I would say however that what ever you say is going to be wrong to some extent. reading your posts i could spend hours pointing out holes as you all have been doing to each other. i don't mean to discourage either of you as this type of debate inspires creativity. I seriously recommend reading Jentry's Envy or the Phoenix Exultant as these both while being great scifi novels also go into allot of what was discussed including allot that wasn't.