Why are there so many Doubts About alien Life.?

Question

Look. Alright I was sitting in Science class one day and I got reallly into alien life. Out of the 92 natural elements. Only 1 planet that we know of has Oxygen in its Atmosphere( Earth the only place with oxygen ). Oxygen is needed for life. Out of the 32 billion planets in the Universe. 1 could hold Oxygen Giving it the ability to hold life to organsims as to germs and bacteria. Why would they doubt?

Answer 1

Not true. And even if it was, not all life has to be dependent on oxygen for its existence.

Answer 2

People have doubts because human from a very early age discover that reality often doesn't meet their expectations.
This is the basis for calculating probabilities. Since people don't like the disappointment and feeling of being foolish, some prefer not to accept any expectation which is not immediately evident to their sense. This is course silly because it is still an expectation of reality just a slightly more confirmable one. But people can still be delude even by their own senses and this is far more severe feeling of foolishness.
I don't know what set of hypotheses you base your calculation of 1 in 32 billion planets having oxygen atmosphere. But I am sure they are quite reasonable. It quite reasonable to propose other hypotheses to test via probability theory. The smaller the probability the less chance one has of testing the set. Scientist usually seek sets of hypotheses that have larger probabilities because these are more likely to be testable and confirmable and after all that is what science is about.
Fermi made the conjecture that the universe was devoid of life via the question "If there is life in the universe where is it?"
This is easily refuted by the answer Earth. So if life exist here and there really is nothing special about it, then it should exist elsewhere in a universe of this size. Whether we can overcome the technological problems to talk to it or even understand it is a challenge for the future.

Answer 3

fruitsnacks, if in your science class they told you that only one of 32 billion planets was able to hold oxygen on it's atmosphere, they lied to you.

First off, we don't even know how many planets there are in our galaxy. A good estimate would be 4 trillion. Now multiply that by 125 billion galaxies, and you get an estimate of how many planets there are in the universe. It gets worse if the universe turns out to be infinite, since then there would be an inifinite number of galaxies, and therefore an infinite number of planets.

Secondly, we have no way to tell if any other planet has oxygen on it's atmosphere or not. Out of the possible 4 trillion in our galaxy, we have only detected about 200, and none outside our galaxy.

So how can you say that 32 billion planets don't have oxygen when we haven't even found them?

Also, why would an alien life *need* oxygen to live? Just because humans need oxygen doesn't mean other organisms need it to survive.

Answer 4

Oxygen is not the key to life according to most scientific opinions. Water is the one key element that supports life. However, you could also argue that there is a possibility for life on a planet completely void of good ol' H20! Our very basic human understanding of "life" comes from what we see here on Earth. Life could very well exist on EVERY planet and we just don't have the technology or understanding yet to "see" it.

That being said, the main reasons for doubts about alien life is the closed mindedness of people. There are also several religious problems that would arise if life was found outside of Earth.

And how about the human ego? Many people want to believe that we are special and that we are the only ones in the whole universe.

As for me, I believe that life outside of Earth is inevitable and will be found within a 100 years or less.....but that's just my educated opinion ;-)

Answer 5

I think it all depends on who you ask. Some people don't believe in it because they have seen no proof in literature or science education. Others just choose not to believe simply out of fear or perhaps religion. The doubts also come from the media. There are many movies that over-do the alien thing making them seem funny instead of real. Though this is not the most scientific answer, it is probably the one that hits the target of blaming the media for over exaggerating the ideas of Aliens. What if they are nothing like that? What if they simply do not care to find us? What if their brains have different priorities and do not spend eternity searching for other life? So my answer to why there are so many doubts, its because of what we watch and read that is obviously fake, and makes us exhausted to try and think of anything more intelligent so they result in a simple answer, even though I bet deep down, they just dont really know.

Answer 6

the universe is a huge place, so yeah, chances are one more planet (at least) could indeed support life.
One reason (i think) that people doubt the existence of "alien life" is misinformation. The media has so firmly embedded images of little (or big) green men into the minds of most people that they don't even think about what "alien life" means: it could just be microscopic stuff in a puddle on another planet, hardly capable of piloting a flying saucer. But it's still alien life.
Very good question, there's my two cents.

Answer 7

Many people doubt alien life because no planets show any relativity to ours, the only known planet to carry life. While I'm sure it's possible for some sort of life to survive in conditions different from ours, it's yet to be proven.

For several years, we've also been sending out many different radio signals into space hoping for some sort of response, we've yet to receive one.

It's also believe that Mars once harbored life because we've find traces of water upon it, the greatest necessity of life.

There have been recent news that believe the red dwarfs are more likely to support life as opposed to yellow sun that we live off of, and in light of that idea we've changed our search from solar systems like ours to that of red dwarfs.

Also recently there has been a planet discovered greatly similar to that of our own, however, it orbits a red dwarf. We've been observing it but it's distance between us and it makes it difficult to fully understand it. It'll be several years, I'm sure, before we can confidently say whether it has life.

Of course, we're no where near exploring all the planets that riddle our universe. I, personally, don't believe that we are the only life within our universe. It's so vast and large, the likelihood of there not being life elsewhere is slim.

But, in layman's terms. People doubt, because there is no proof of life.

Answer 8

They would doubt because scientists haven't studied all 32 billion planets. Not even a million. Or 100 thousand. There is much, much, much about our own galaxy that we don't know about, let alone other ones. And plus, there are organisms on earth that don't need oxygen to live. Google it ;)

Answer 9

i don't think aliens need oxygen to breathe there was a documentary thing a video i saw it was real too or it seemed real but it was some story with a alien and a girl and the alien needed sperm (im serious i am not lying) and it needed babies cause there planet is suffering then the lady said let me bring it to my planet (earth) then the alien said no cause it wont survive in that atmosphere.

Answer 10

Just because a planet has a different chemical makeup doesn't mean that alien life is non-existant. Maybe aliens need a different combination of elements to survive. I think the reason that people doubt alien existance is because there is so much close-mindedness in society.

Answer 11

You have a very valid question. If we were to ever find life out there I personally think that we would not just find germs and bacteria and little grey men with large black eyes but I think that we would find a whole eco system. Bacteria needs a host, undoubtedly a much larger one, right? this much larger host would need to feed on other living things, right? and those other living things that the host feeds on would need their own food. See where I am getting at? And these living beings would need not only oxygen but sunlight which, itself, is an ingridient of life. What I am trying to say is that if we ever find a planet out there capable of holding life I think that it, if not identical, would be extremely similar to our own.