Poll do you think there is life out there

[jinglesassy]

dont start a flamewar here about if humans are animals or whatever i upgraded to a rifle and a stick of tnt :hunter::dynamite:

 

[bujin]

That is if you consider technology to be a trait that's outside of evolution. Is a beaver dam, birds nest, termite mound technology? All of those organisms have successfully done technologically what no other organism has done before. We are not unique to life, rather another link in the chain of uniqueness that is life. I would generally agree with you though.

I'll certainly concede this point.

No.
I'm not cheating by saying humans are the most successful members of the clade Animalia, I'm just saying they're the most successful members of that particular clade.

Fine. I would disagree with you still based on the "survival" definition.

The problem is that we tend to define "success" by human standards. It's very easy to win a competition if the winner defines all the rules.

They haven't colonized biomes, just humans.
And they are totally irrelevant as they are not animals nor are they multicellular or macroscopic.

Life is life, regardless of how complex it is. And I would say that bacteria has colonised pretty much every land mass on the planet inhabited by other life forms - and did so long before any of us did!

Wrong. Humans can survive many things that would kill many other animals in seconds, using technology developed using their particular evolutionary adaptation.

And some animals could survive many things that would kill humans in seconds, using nothing but their own evolutionary adaptations - they don't need to resort to technology.

Humans have colonised almost every land biome on the planet, profoundly changed the landscape and animal fauna, have a major effect on the climate and whose actions are visible from space.

Name one other animal species that has done that.

Having a major effect on the climate can't be classed as being a "successful" trait - we are also a profoundly short sighted species in that we can see the harm that we are doing, but are leaving it ridiculously late to do anything about.

As for profoundly changing the animal fauna, I suspect many other species have done that throughout the existence of life on the planet. The introduction of a non-local species will often have a profound effect on local species.

Humans are neither animals, nor is the humanly consciousness comparable to the rudmentary consciousness of a few animals. The humanly consciousness makes the first dramatic distinction, because it includes sensation of mental conditions and the ability of deliberation, evaluation, planning, conception and attentiveness. As a result of it, culture, language, our thinking and behaviour makes the second dramatic distinction.

But are these facets of human consciousness not just more advanced and evolved versions of the consciousness other species of animal? It doesn't make us any less of an animal. We've all come from the same source.

---------- Post added at 10:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:27 PM ----------

dont start a flamewar here about if humans are animals or whatever

I wouldn't call it a flame war. I'd call it a discussion.

 

[jinglesassy]

right now its discussion but at the rate it was going it could start a flame war so just warning them not to start one you can discuss just dont start yelling at each other.

 

[MAraujo]

Just a funny fact that kind of trumps the whole human vs. other organisms debate...

There is absolutely no life on Earth that is not bacterial...
no opinion here...its a fact that anyone who has studied any type of micro or molecular biology already knows.

Mull that one over and serve it to your grandma!

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Just a funny fact that kind of trumps the whole human vs. other organisms debate...

There is absolutely no life on Earth that is not bacterial...
no opinion here...its a fact that anyone who has studied any type of micro or molecular biology already knows.

Mull that one over and serve it to your grandma!

That's interesting...

Just a thought for clarification.

Is a virus considered a form of life? It is even less complex than a bacteria, I believe (I am assuming that the "bacteria" statement goes after the idea of more complex life forms being simply compositions of more basic organisms, in a sort of Brian Aldiss "Hot House" fashion way).

 

[jinglesassy]

i consider viruses living.

 

[Moonwalker]

That huamans are animals is a debate on principle that is almost as "useful" as nihilism to be honest. I can only hope that some do not feed young people/schoolkids with such a nonsense. But even schoolkids would disagree and feel pranked because the fundamental differences are more than quite obvious with the naked eye.

People may want to denie fundamental differences between animals and humans directly or indirectly. They may want to split hairs on definitions. May some feel to be as much animal as they want. But I'm sorry that my life time honestly is just too important for me to waste it on something like that and to feel like an animal.

Best Regards / Moo / Woof / Miaow ...

 

[Hielor]

That huamans are animals is a debate on principle that is almost as "useful" as nihilism to be honest. I can only hope that some do not feed young people/schoolkids with such a nonsense. But even schoolkids would disagree and feel pranked because the fundamental differences are more than quite obvious with the naked eye.

People may want to denie fundamental differences between animals and humans directly or indirectly. They may want to split hairs on definitions. May some feel to be as much animal as they want. But I'm sorry that my life time honestly is just too important for me to waste it on something like that and to feel like an animal.

Best Regards / Moo / Woof / Miaow ...

The biological difference between an ant and a chimpanzee is far greater than the biological difference between a chimpanzee and a human.

Yet, both ants and chimpanzees are animals.

I'm sorry that the scientifically accepted method of classifying forms of life is insufficient for you. If you would like to propose another method of classifying life, I would suggest that you write it up and submit it to peer-reviewed journals.

I think the problem here is that you're seeing "animal" as a derogatory term, as in "less than human." That's not the scientific meaning, which is far closer to "not a plant." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal may explain it for you.

No one is arguing that humans aren't more advanced than nonhuman animals. However, you would be hard-pressed to argue that humans are biologically a completely separate form of life than animals.

 

[Lucy]

Are we talking about life "out there" or are we holding a debate about life "down here" now? A little off topic, perhaps... nevertheless, I will join in

Humans are animals. Biologically, scientifically, etc. etc. It's one of those things people forget, like (although this will probably not be correct for this environment) the fact that the sun is a star. Yes, humans are arguably more intelligent than most if not all other animals on Earth, yes, we have this rather interesting habit of exploring our lush, green paradisical planet and concreting over it, yes, we have sciences, art, music, sports, et cetera ad nauseum. Humans are still animals, though we may be separated from other animals by merit and achievement.

No other animal has been into space unless it was sent there by us (from this planet, anyway). Humans have, as perhaps we have always done, ventured into an inhospitable environment like space by adapting the environment around them, rather than themselves. True adaptability would be to change yourself to suit your environment - this is not what we as a species do. We go into various places and adapt it to suit us... sometimes not necessarily successfully, mind you.

And we have this dominance over all other species. To the extent that we create stuff (cigarettes) and then, to prove that it's harmful, test it on them. (It happened in the 50s. Animal testing debates elsewhere, I am against it, just stating facts.) We are the top of the food chain, though occasionally some Darwin-award candidates get eaten by lions or similar - and we, as a species, have kinda settled for this now. Progress seems to be limited now to arguing amongst ourselves about research that was hailed as "breakthrough" two years ago or similar. We keep other animals locked in zoos for our own amusement, a habit dating back a good few hundred years. We found something completely exotic and captured it, took it out of it's native habitat, and caged it, to be gawped at for the remainder of its life by our children.

Now, as a species, we don't need to travel the world anymore - though it is still necessary to travel, the majority of the time, the world comes to us. Sat here in the UK, I can bring images of the west coast of the US, the savanna, the outback of Australia, et cetera, all to me, even though said images are on computers in vastly different countries. We have conquered geography in this manner, in a way at least.

And now, finally, it looks like we're finally ready to start going back to places further than our own orbit. We will be re-visiting our moon, and further, and all of it will be done by humans, and the computers and other machines we have created. True dominance of the planet seems to extend to our ability to leave it.

My point is fairly simple - if we, as a species, have done/can do all of this, and have achieved such dominance over our home planet - why can not the same be true for one of the other planets out there? Odds are supportive, really, given the unimaginable number of planets that could support life in only slightly different forms than it became here on Earth. Why is it that people believe there are only alien life-forms in the form of microbes and bacteria present in the entire of the rest of the galaxy, or universe, or multiverse?

/rant. Sorry about that.

 

[jinglesassy]

well said xyon and he is right it isnt about whether humans are animals or not its about if theres life out there

 

[Moonwalker]

I'm sorry that the scientifically accepted method of classifying forms of life is insufficient for you. If you would like to propose another method of classifying life, I would suggest that you write it up and submit it to peer-reviewed journals.

No serious human biologist / paleoanthropologist plainly claims that humans are animals.

What you and others tend to do here is nothing more than hair splitting on definitions and play of words. It does not have a lot to do with serious science. It is nothing more than a debate on principle.

However, you would be hard-pressed to argue that humans are biologically a completely separate form of life than animals.

Humans are animals. Biologically, scientifically, etc. etc.

That humans are a completely separate form of life is as wrong as humans are animals (again: play of words). Humans are not completely different but yet party significantly: hidden ovulation for example, which makes it almost impossible for both human genera to realize fertility. Well, breasts indipendent from lactation, the colour of the nipple-region as well as the size of the areola is something that is unique among mammals. Just to name a few things.

But I'm not willing to further contribute to the play of words and hair splitting anyway. That humans are principally not animals, especially when we talk about culture, art and much more properties only humans have, is quite obvious even to ignorant illiterates who work on a farm.

 

[Lucy]

Moonwalker, I appreciate your point of view.

For clarification, I am not, nor do I believe is anyone else here, trying to argue that humans are the same as animals. The argument is simply that the species belongs to the Kingdom Animalia, and because of this, humans are animals.

My previous post emphasised this point by illustrating the difference between and the dominance of humans over other animals.

 

[Hielor]

No serious human biologist / paleoanthropologist plainly claims that humans are animals.

What you and others tend to do here is nothing more than hair splitting on definitions and play of words. It does not have a lot to do with serious science. It is nothing more than a debate on principle.

That humans are a completely separate form of life is as wrong as humans are animals (again: play of words). Humans are not completely different but yet party significantly: hidden ovulation for example, which makes it almost impossible for both human genera to realize fertility. Well, breasts indipendent from lactation, the colour of the nipple-region as well as the size of the areola is something that is unique among mammals. Just to name a few things.

But I'm not willing to further contribute to the play of words and hair splitting anyway. That humans are principally not animals, especially when we talk about culture, art and much more properties only humans have, is quite obvious even to ignorant illiterates who work on a farm.

You're the one attempting to split hairs here and using a nonscientific definition of the term "animal."

If you use the layman's definition of "animal" which is basically "non-human creature that isn't a plant or microscopic" then yes, by definition humans are not "animals".

The scientific definition of "animal" includes humans.

Forgive me for using the scientific definition.

 

[vejiita]

Hum, ok, back on topic shall we ?

First I must /bow to Xyon and his almost perfect way of reminding us what we (as in the specie) have done, both good and bad.

Then I want to excuse my English, I'm from Montreal Canada and normally speaks French.

Thirdly I would like to say (keeping in the original spirit of the thread) that I voted "Yes" to the question. I do believe there is life somewhere out there. Hard to think otherwise when we now know there is billions of galaxies each having billions of stars.

Is there advanced life out there ? Once again I'll say yes. Is there advanced life close enough of our solar system to be detected ? Now that's something else.

We know that light goes to 300'00 km/s (if I'm not mistaken) and any signal sent our way (voluntary or not) will take a lot of time coming here. May I suggest a few things that might get in the way between us and them ?

- Distance: They might send it right now as we type, and we'll all be please to know that we will receive it... in a few millions years.
- Time: They might start their broadcast tomorrow, or we received the last transmission when the dinosaurs were dominant (is that why they left ?.. kidding ).
- Gravity: Yup, massive stars, black holes, massive galaxies... all those things that might divert or even stop any communication sent to us... even light communication...
- Technology: Dunno about you guys but I left my sub-space communicator at home. We might have one in the work, but we're not there yet. Are they trying to broadcast by means we are not able to receive yet ?
- Nature: We use waves (usually sound) to communicate. Bees use dance and Ants smells (might be wrong on this one, but you get the point) so even if they want us to get the message, and even if we all help with the SETI program (I know I am) maybe we simply cannot get the message.

And what if ? Sure I want to be told in my life time that we know there is (or "were" thinking of the time it will take to get the messages) life out there, are we really ready as a specie to learn that news ? I mean, look what we did in the last 100 year. 3 or 4 major wars about land ownership and religion ? What will be the reflexes of humankind versus another life form ? Especially about the look of that alien form. No bipeds with two arms and a head I'm pretty sure of that (sorry guys, I know those Venusian chicks were cute on TV but...)

Think about it. What we call 1.0 G might be a million G for them, or on the contrary, they might be used to Jupiter's gravity for all we know. Would such people (using the term loosely) be able of space exploration ? How about a non-carbon base life ? Or some life that would die if they come in contact with, say, Oxygen or Hydrogen, two of our most proliferate gazes out there. Our planet might be doom for them. Or maybe our sun is too cold/hot or... or... or...

All of this to say that I do believe there's life, and wouldn't be surprise to learn that there's even very advanced civilizations. But can we get the message ? Or do we want to ?

PS: Sorry, I'll introduce myself on another thread, but I just love to think about these issues and see what we could do to bypass them... I would really love knowing we are not alone out there...

 

[MAraujo]

That's interesting...

Just a thought for clarification.

Is a virus considered a form of life? It is even less complex than a bacteria, I believe (I am assuming that the "bacteria" statement goes after the idea of more complex life forms being simply compositions of more basic organisms, in a sort of Brian Aldiss "Hot House" fashion way).

Microbiologists would not consider a virus to be a life form...but there's a lot of philosophical baggage that goes along with that question. A virus cannot be killed, it has no metabolism (it doesn't incorporate matter into itself), it can be thought of as a rouge piece of DNA that does only one thing when it reacts with other DNA; makes copies of itself, that is all it does. Any differentiation between the features of one virus or another is the result of how and organism responds to such replication.
Without a reaction with DNA a virus does absolutely nothing in the same way a molecule of alcohol does nothing.

If you include a virus as a life form you would have to include a lot of other reactive compounds that essentially do the same thing. So the answer is maybe...if you want to overturn out understanding of life (which I wont necessarily shy away from)

And yes, the fact of the matter is that there is no living part of you or anything else that is not a cell.....a cell being nothing more than a bacteria that is picky about its environment (as all bacteria are).
So there are only really TWO types of life on earth:

prokaryotes - (the most basic cells with no nucleus or mitochondria)

eukaryotes - (complex cells which are just multiple prokaryotes living inside eachother)....to clarify....mitochondria and nuclei are prokaryotes that found life to be more comfortable inside another prokaryote's membrane.

So essentially all life on earth, and I mean anything that comes even close to that definition, is made of prokaryotic cells.

...and we're so used to thinking of life as being diverse!
those prokaryotes have a lot of tricks up there sleeve, including getting together in a big communal complex and writing this post.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

I am sure there is one form or another of advanced civilization out there. But I do not believe technology to be the only way for an advanced civilization to come about. Genetics has virtually no limitations for those beings who may master it's coding to the point of making technology obsolete.

Remember the Wraith ships from Stargate? They grow them if I'm not mistaken. I think it's plausible.

 

[Linguofreak]

No serious human biologist / paleoanthropologist plainly claims that humans are animals.

It would seem then, that you are the only serious human biologist on the planet.

But I'm not willing to further contribute to the play of words and hair splitting anyway. That humans are principally not animals, especially when we talk about culture, art and much more properties only humans have, is quite obvious even to ignorant illiterates who work on a farm.

I would agree that humans are not *merely* animals, but we (or at least our bodies) are quite plainly animals.

 

[Lucy]

I would agree that humans are not *merely* animals, but we (or at least our bodies) are quite plainly animals.

This. It's pretty much the point I've been trying to make too.

Also, vejiita makes some good points (and his English is better than he thinks) - what if there is a message being broadcast in a way we're not able to understand? Science fiction has touched on that, in a way - Star Trek movies are perhaps not the greatest frame of reference, but in ST:IV there is a message being (admittedly very obviously) broadcast for a species other than humans - it took a vulcan to figure it out.

 

[MAraujo]

By the way........I bring up this whole "all life is bacterial" argument, not because Im on a tangent, but because I truly believe it is pivotal to the question at hand.

We dont know what life looks like in other places, but is crucial that we at least understand how life lives here.

If all life on earth consists solely of specialized prokaryotic cell communities (in fact that is a fine definition for life, based on our sample), then our discovery of just one other life form would tell us volumes about our selves and the universe. Like, whether on not it looks like life here (more prokaryotes). Do its cells look like they evolved from som a similar ancestor to our cells? Are they the same? which would mean life is really picky about where it lives.

 

[Lucy]

It's the "life as we know it" argument, I suppose. Because there's little to suggest that on a planet completely different from ours, life would not evolve in a completely different way. Or indeed, in a very similar way. Who knows?

Carbon-based, Silicon based, hell even tin-based, perhaps. (Vulcans were supposedly copper-based, I think... hence the green blood.)