I'm not a Sci Fi fan at all. I'm even less of a Star Trek fan (sorry, guys), so I haven't been following this thread at all. But, I did read your post, Butch, and you do pose some interesting questions, to which I have a few random thoughts.
First, one of the things that pisses me off about much sci fi that has to do with ET's is that aliens always bear such a striking resemblence to us! Air-breathing bipeds with two arms, a body, a head, a facial constellation ~very~ similar to ours. Whatever the chances of other intelligent life evolving elsewhere, I'd say chances are it would look ~nothing~ like us. But, back to the question at hand. I'd say that you're limiting yourself somewhat, Butch. You're assuming (it seems to me) that in order to be intelligent, life has to follow a similar evolution to us. Why does all life have to be carbon based? Just because we can't imagine any other way? Why does all life have to evolve from the sea? Is there no other way to manipulate materials into tools but with opposable thumbs? I'm sure there is life out there, somewhere. Probably lots of it. Some of it is likely intelligent. Whether it's intelligent enough to travel or communicate across the cosmos is another question; we've only begun to overcome those barriers in the last 1/2 century, so who knows where anyone else is. But, I'm guessing that the chances of intelligent life looking anything like us is pretty slim. I'm also guessing that they'e getting pissed of due to yet another delay in the introduction of their favourite dslr... <vbg> regards, frank Butch Black wrote: > Given the Star trek thread am I the only one with reservations that mankind > will ever find another space faring species? If you think about it. If in > fact evolution is a random series of advancement of a species, what are the > chances of developing to an intellectual scale at least as high as ours, > developing opposable thumbs necessary for tool use, create a society that > develops and innovates new,complex tools (machines) etc., etc. For instance; > what if life never leaves the sea? You might get a species as intelligent > as mankind but would never discover the use of fire, necessary for metal > working. So either evolution follows a yet undiscovered set of rules, life > on Earth was "seeded" by another species or the chance of another "mankind" > is miniscule at best. > > Personally, I believe we will find evidence of life (organic matter) outside > of Earth if not in our lifetime, then in our children's. I'm betting on > either bacteria on Mars or life in liquid water on Europa. The romantic in > me would like to believe in other human like species, but I'm not betting on > it. > > What do others think. And to keep it semi on topic, do you think we will > find extraterrestrial life before Pentax releases their digital SLR? :) -- "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
