Seeking extra-terrestrial life; an worthy pursuit?

[dawson]

Prompted by a brief article in astronomy now (august 2013), do you think research money should be spent on looking for extra-terrestrial life?

James

[Brantuk]

Let ET spend the budget looking for us I say lol

[Tibbz2]

I don't think we'll ever get in contact with another intelligent form of life, so I'm not convinced by looking for signals etc... But for stuff like Curiosity and finding exoplanets that are possibly life supporting etc that is well worth it... I don't see any benefits in looking for intelligence when the chances are so slim, may as well be put forwards into more beneficial areas of physics/science.

[Perkil8r]

In a word no. Even if we found it, then what? We know the chances are that it's out there somewhere, but what can we do about it if we find life out there? All we'd end up doing is trying to invade them, or ruin their habitat as we have our own. Put money into watching out for incoming threats yes, but the money is better used to learn and develop ways to try and prolong our own future habitat, either here or elsewhere.

[Tibbz2]

Also chances are if they're more intelligent than us they're more likely to find us before we find them... Like Mike says we're just likely to panic and attempt to kill them or something stupidly human. Also if we do find them the whole population of Earth will probably go mental, it would probably have quite a negative effect on us as well as any possible benefits.

[Sheila]

not sure i agree with this.  Its always good to search for new stuff, no one thought going into space would give us some of the things

we have now, but it fathered lots of inventions.  searching and acquiring knowledge is what we are about.  some discoveries come when you are 

looking for one thing but find something entirely unexpected.  

 

you never know, if we do find anything...something very good could come of it, and if we dont well we dont.

[cosmic dave]

Im with Sheila on this its human nature to discover as much as possible so looking for et is a given, I suppose it's like scratching an itch and like Sheila says you never know how it could benefit mankind.

[Guest peepshow]

Mankind has this insatiable curiosity that will lead him to the stars eventually.

He/she wishes to know how it all started, how life began both here and anywhere 

else.   To find life elsewhere would be the biggest discovery ever made,

so please, carry on searching.

  "To  boldly search where no man has gone before."

[tuckstar]

There's no point looking for intelegent life, there's hardly any on this planet, and if they are clever enough to find us, they'd be clever enough to keep on going straight by before we try to kill them.

Microbial life in our solar system I think we have to continue searching, its human nature to wonder about our origins, and if there is any type of life out there it would change everyone perspective on our world. We would finally know were not special or unique.

[Perkil8r]

Don't get me wrong, we should explore yes, but to find intelligent life? I doubt we will ever find it, and if we do we're never likely to develop the technology to go visit. And if we did visit? Imagine this scenario for a moment:

 

The U.S. spots something heading for Earth at a rate that will have it on a "collision" course to arrive in 12 months time. Do they: 1, start planning a massive party to welcome the unidentified object to Earth, 2, Try to intercept it to welcome it to Earth, 3, get all the weapons it can find incase it's hostile so they can blow it up as soon as it arrives, 4, send something up in an attempt to stop it landing on Earth?

 

I'd have my £1 on it not being 1 or 2. The issue here is if "they" came to us we would be scared it was going to be hostile so would want to defend ourselves. The same is most likely true of them, they would probably be worried we were going to them to be hostile.

 

I have no doubt that at some point in the future, assuming we find a new home and humans survive long enough into the future that we will find some evidence of intelligent life, by which I mean beings of equal or greater evolution of a monkey, IE able to hunt, make tools, use tools, etc.. The important part of that statement though is that humans need to survive long enough to do that. I doubt that will happen before we need to find a new place to call home, we will have wrecked this one long before then, or else something outside will have distroyed it.

 

Invest in exploration to better our chances of survival first I say, then worry about trying to reach out to others. What if we are the most advanced in the Universe? We go there and say: "hello, we are the humans, we come in peace from Earth, come look how we have jeopardised or own future by ruining our planet. Oh by the way, awfully sorry we flattened a few of your trees on the way in, you'll get used to it, it's progress."

[Sheila]

i think that is a very pessimistic view, humans can sometimes be very surprising.  They are not always hostile.

Also if they were more advanced than us they have probably developed a better system and would not be so hostile to us and we would not have the capability

to inflict hurt on them.  Other scenario is a peaceful meet and transfer of technology to allow us to leave this planet to find another home before this one packs up.

 

Most likely scenario is we will not find them before something gets us.  Any species seldom survives more than a few million years... extinction is our

most likely fate.... sorry

[Guest Kheldar]

 

Most likely scenario is we will not find them before something gets us.  Any species seldom survives more than a few million years... extinction is our

most likely fate.... sorry

 

Now who's being pessimistic

[Sheila]

Now who's being pessimistic

no that empirical evidence based on previous species extinctions...... science

[Guest Kheldar]

no that empirical evidence based on previous species extinctions...... science

 

As I said, pessimistic

[Sheila]

As I said, pessimistic

nope just using scientific facts  pessimistic to me is picking the worst that can happen every time without much basis in fact.  State of mind more than

anything

[xanthic]

Have previous species had the level of adaptability of humans? We are not aware of any other species which adapts to and adapts its environment to suit its own needs to the degree that we do. That does give us a better chance. 

[Guest]

I would certainly wish to continue searching for extra-terrestrial life but consider the chances of meeting intelligent life are remote. I think we should be cautious about actual contact because a more intelligent (us or them) society meeting a less advanced one usually leads to exploitation or even extinction.

[Tibbz2]

Have previous species had the level of adaptability of humans? We are not aware of any other species which adapts to and adapts its environment to suit its own needs to the degree that we do. That does give us a better chance. 

 

I don't know, there are species on our own planet that are better at adapting to their environments than even we are!

[dawson]

Crocodiles

[xanthic]

I don't know, there are species on our own planet that are better at adapting to their environments than even we are!

I meant we are able to tolerate a massive range of environments, by way of being able to clothe ourselves and build appropriate shelter. We have peoples living in the deserts, rainforest, mountains, plains and artic. You won't see many other species capable of that.

[Tibbz2]

I meant we are able to tolerate a massive range of environments, by way of being able to clothe ourselves and build appropriate shelter. We have peoples living in the deserts, rainforest, mountains, plains and artic. You won't see many other species capable of that.

 

Ah yes sorry thought you meant genetically, but yes we can live just about anywhere on Earth that's true

[dawson]

You whinge about living in Boston Tibbz

[Sheila]

I meant we are able to tolerate a massive range of environments, by way of being able to clothe ourselves and build appropriate shelter. We have peoples living in the deserts, rainforest, mountains, plains and artic. You won't see many other species capable of that.

its our numbers that will cause the problem... bit like a virus we reproduce too successfully and the planet will eventually not sustain that, climate wise or resources wise

[Tibbz2]

You whinge about living in Boston Tibbz

 

Living close to it*

 

Don't think I could live there for long, then again I can't live anywhere for long because I don't like having neighbors!

[xanthic]

its our numbers that will cause the problem... bit like a virus we reproduce too successfully and the planet will eventually not sustain that, climate wise or resources wise

I fully agree with that. We are going to have to be smarter in the future to live within our resource levels.