How can anyone believe that we are alone in the universe?

Question

A big question, I know. Expand your thoughts...insight is good..

Answer 1

I'm going to start with the premise that life, reduced to simplest terms, is chemicals trying to replicate themselves using whatever is in their environment, and with the assumption that the DNA molecule is the only such molecule that can do so. The DNA molecule requires certain chemicals in its environment, among them water.

For such life to form spontaneously, which it must, requires lots of variables to be just right and remain just right for hundreds of millions of years just to get started.

The star will most likely have to be a single star, to maximize chances of having planets that have a relatively stable climate. The star must be of the right size. Too small, and the water on any planet will either freeze or boil, there is no middle ground. Too large, and the star will burn out before life has a chance to prosper. The planet must be of a minimum size (to hold an atmosphere) and of the right composition (need the chemicals for life.)

Then, given the right conditions, the first self-replicating molecule has to form spontaneously from random chemical reactions.

The odds that all these factors should come together at any given solar system are very long indeed, but they are non-zero (it happened here!)

Once these obstacles are overcome, it becomes much easier. The hardest part is going from nothing to something, but once the rudimentary life establishes itself and spreads, it will be almost impossible to eradicate. Given a certain variety in the composition of life and the changing environment, life will adapt itself through Darwinian evolution into more advanced forms, perhaps even intelligent forms.

This brings us to another reason why we might well be alone - time. It took life billions of years to reach the advance of multicellular organisms, another billion or so to pull itself out of the oceans and onto dry land. It took only half a billion years thereafter to reach the advanced and diverse state it had at the dawn of Man; only a few million years for man to attain civilization, and only a few thousand for that civilization to discover weaponry capable of destroying almost all life on Earth at the turn of a key.

Since greed, lust, competitiveness, and other undesirable characteristics are burned into life forms by billions of years of evolution, and the laws of physics and chemistry are the same everywhere, it's reasonable to assume that any alien civilization is as petty, cruel, and vicious as man, and might well have destroyed itself within a few thousand years of coming out of the caves. It's possible that somewhere in the universe, an intelligent civilization appeared a few millions of years ago, or even hundreds of millions of years ago, and nothing remains of it except ruins fifty thousand times older than Troy.

I am inclined to believe that the odds of spontaneous formation of life are too long for it to have happened anywhere but here, and here being a freak accident. However, I am ready to reverse my position upon conclusive proof that even the most rudimentary life appeared anywhere else, even on Mars, independently of Earth.

It's even less likely that any intelligent culture is in existence at the same time as us - but as stated, the chance is non-zero. You never know....

Answer 2

Because mankind fears the existance of another species in our Universe, maybe because they saw the Clingons on Star Trek. But it is also because mankind is arrogant and egotistical, in believing we are the only ones makes them feel superior, like if they buy a mercedes and their neighbor has only the Esplanade Cadillac SUV. However we are living proof of another species since our very own government has admitted as of 4 years ago our human race is not from this planet and that we are funding the billions of dollars for our NASA projects to find out where we do come from originally. The meteors that crashed here are the first inkling that the theories were true about aliens, but to find out the truth we are the only Aliens to this planet, and if there are more of us out there in different forms we are a long time from finding them. If the area 57 project is a crashed space ship that might be the answer to our technology climbing so rapidly within the last 60 years. But who knows for sure until they have physical evidence of such we can only Search Where No Man has Ever Gone.

Answer 3

Despite Mr. Billions and Billions viewpoint - and I am referring to Mr. Carl Sagan - there is no evidence of life on other planets. Granted there are many hints that this may be possible. If you take a mixture of water and carbon and expose it to heat, electricity, and other forms of energy you will end up with a soup of hydrocarbon compounds that are pre-cursors to life. These same pre-cursors have been found in parts of space. Plus the fact that there are probably billions of planets. However, no one has been able to creat real life by this random interaction of organic material. If you look at what it takes to be alive it is a very complex undertaking. To keep the internal chemistry balanced in a cell is very complex. A cell's membrane is more than a barrier, it allows many types of chemicals to come in that are needed and keeps many others out that are harmful, plus it expells chemicals that are nolonger wanted. This is very complex and just one of the many things a cell must do to keep ticking. Add in the notion of reproduction and you have many new problems. DNA may be the instructions of life, but without the machinery around it, DNA is useless.
On the negative side of there being life all over the universe, is the fact that Seti Project has been searching for over 20 years for radio signals from other intelligent civilizations. They have searched over millions of frequencies and anylized signals by computer for many millions of hours with nothing to show.
As much as it would be wonderful to find a "buddy" in space - that is another civilization, the fact is there may not be many or any, beside what you see on earth. However, even as you read this life from earth may be expanding from outward. When giant meteorites hit the earth they may eject germs, viruses, and bits of life out into space which could someday find another planet to seed. Given enough time, this could happen. We may be the genesis of life in the universe - we being all DNA based life on earth. Regards!

Answer 4

Well, science does not have a answer for that, so any conclusion that we can infer should be based on faith or commom sense (which is not science at all). UFO community should (and I truly think they are) know that what they are such hopefully looking for could not exist, as how we Christian should know (of course we for personal issues deny it) that the Heaven and Adan x Eve story that we trust so deeply could not exist. So, logically, the answer for your question is as soon as there is no uncontestable proove of alien life, so UFO story are based on faith, anyone'has the right to think rather it's true or not...remember, even if UFO community finds all prooves, there will always be people who would not believe on that...Just remind that there is still a lot of people who don't believe USA's Moon discovery...

Answer 5

"Because there is no proof that says otherwise", is a poor excuse. That is like when someone who is religious, (and I am religious), says, "Because he exists.", when defending Gods existence... like wise you cannot use such a simple statement like that. Justify what you are saying.
There are billions of stars, and revolving around those stars, are planets. Even though statistically, for everything to be just right, it is not every likely... there is still a chance. I won't rule out the possibility, but I am not going to say there IS other life.
That is how you answer the question.
Or
There is a planet right in our own solar system that COULD have POSSIBLY sustained life at one point, so why couldn't there be others, that do right now.
It all boils down to what you belive in the end. Just don't use cop out answers like "because it is", or "because it isn't".
CyberNara

Answer 6

If we we all alone in the universe, it would be an awful waste of space (misquote)

I find it unfathomable to think that Earth harbors the only life in the whole universe. There has to be other life out there; intelligent life. Maybe they are waiting to see if we do or do not annihilate ourselves first before introducing themselves.

Maybe they are waiting for us to invent the warp drive or perfect deep space travel...what ever criteria it take to join the interstellar community (I personally want to be the Zefram Cochran of the 21st century.). Maybe to the, we are more like ants...or even amoebas...just not advance enough to understand who they are or comprehend their existence. (Think of the movie, "The Abyss" - our first contact could be here already)

All the building blocks for life are out there among the stars. Humans are still in their infancy. We haven't grown up enough to understand all what life is. I really think though, life on another world (not necessarily intelligent life) will still be discovered in my life time (I am 52...I have some time yet to see a lot of new discoveries.).

Answer 7

we are actually not on my own interior the Universe, its fantastically plenty a mathematical actuality, thinking how massive the Universe is there is even a raffle there is yet another Earth accessible with me answering this question on my notebook. a stable way of seeing approximately it is Drake's Equation, which in certainty supplies a formulation for determining what proportion Earth form civilization's there could be in our galaxy on my own - with the main conservative of guesses we finally end up with around a hundred Earth form civilizations. Now why have not we seen them? properly we nonetheless have the cost of light we can't get previous - that's we are all in basic terms too some distance different than for one yet another.

Answer 8

Who would have thought it could be true? This big universe and not another single living thing in it! The sentient beings on this planet were just a fluke.

Answer 9

People who do go by the bible but I like to look at it by Drakes Equation, which shows that we are unlikely the only form of intelligence in the universe.

Answer 10

I believe so we are not alone in this infinite space...
There might be more solar systems out there, more galaxies and milky ways... But because, there are still no concrete proofs for their existence, we remain believing we are alone in this universe.. And it's better that way.