Why do some ignorant people use such stupid defences against the existance of aliens?

Question

I know some people who believe with a pasion that aliens do not exist. Why would somebody believe such a thing? I have heard defences like "there's no proof they exist so they must not" This may be the most rediculas thing I have heard. Any person who has ever taken a science class knows that you can't prove a negative!

I have also heard people say that aliens don't exist because earth is the only one of the 9 (now 8) planets that has life. How do we know this? we haven't been to the other 7. Even assuming that they don't have life, what about all the other billions of stars? and the trillions of other galaxies? And what about the moons in our system like Europa? Scientists believe there might be life there.

Why do people use such stupid arguments? Why would somebody base such a strong belief on so little? Why wouldn't they do their homework before making up their minds on something like this?

This is just an example. People do this same thing with many other things as well. Why?

I once even heard somebody say that their is no proof that dinosaurs existed and he believes that God just put their bones in the rocks!

I can't believe ANYONE would be so stupid! I wish stupid people would stay away from making opinions, and more importantly away from the white-house :)

Answer 1

nice vent...I like the one about the dinosaur bones existing in rocks, because GOD put them there....God is a wise God, invented Paleontologists for no apparent reason at all or to confuse us....

*theme music from The Outer Limits here*

but back to your question. Because these so called "ignoramuses" dont have the same knowledge bank or depth of taught to comprehend what youre saying or even remotely relate to your train of taught. They are a different species.

Answer 2

Villifying the people who disagree with us is no way to settle an arguement either. It is people who do that who are really the ignorant ones.

You should take a look at "The Day the Earth Stood Still", a movie from the 1950s. The case AGAINST aliens is well made there; if there were aliens, why are they spending so much time messing around with people in the middle of nowhere, when they should be using their scarce resources to contact the people at the top?

Answer 3

Most likely because they can't spell defenses, existence, and ridiculous. That aside I'm with the folks who say it's arrogant/ignorant to assume that we are the only life in the universe. There are so many stars and planets that probability practically dictates the existence of many other life forms. The Drake Equation summarizes this pretty well.

Answer 4

i think it's to do with lack of awareness of both the extent and the limitations of our knowledge. for instance earth is actually only one of now about 250 known planets that has life. but also earth is the only planet that we really know anything about in any detail. one could fill several libraries with what we know about earth, maybe one could write a lot about mars, but we can't even say for sure if there's life there or not. one could say something sensible about the other planets in the solar system - as you point out europa may have conditions conducive to life. ten years ago what we knew about planets outside the solar system would fit on a postcard, and now we know of several planets but we can't actually "see" them directly.

on the other hand maybe most people just don't care very much about this sort of stuff. chances are it won't affect their lives, perhaps they are sensible not to care. they can have a two cent opinion without much danger or concern about being proved wrong.

Answer 5

It's not a matter of stupidity it's a mind set that produces faith which is illogical.
Though there is no proof,aliens must proliferate throughout the universe.
Intelligent,technological societies like ours must exist in the billions.
They probably parallel us closely in every way.
You would find that the majority conduct their lives around faith the same as we on earth.
Wars and all the other plagues of objective entities like us are based on faith.
It's not stupid it is just a fact of life.

Answer 6

Some of the responses here are unbelievable. Stupid is a poor word to use when you refer to people with a lack of education which is something that you are in dire need of. The people who refuse to believe that aliens from outer space are here on Earth are far greater in number than those who do. Thank goodness for that.

Answer 7

To me, it just seems incredibly arrogant to think that out of the countless number of planets in the cosmos, ours is the only one which can - and does - sustain life. It is irresponsible to think otherwise. I think they use these arguments because if we are not the only planet sustaining life ( I don't like to use the term "alien" because to someone on another planet we are aliens. Really we are all just different life forms.) we are no longer something special in the universe, thus less important in the eyes of God.

Answer 8

Good read. I feel the same way. There are more planets out there than there are grains of sand in every desert and beach ON EARTH! Ignorant to think this is the only one with life.

Answer 9

FINALLY SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS!!!! dude rock on my brotha, just kidding but anyways, if we're the only living things out there, then that's a hugely ginormous gigantastically big waste of space. (yes i know i got this from a movie and it's kinda corny but it's really cool) so ya that's all i had to say

Answer 10

religion causes ignorance in a lot of people.