On June 28 2010 13:16 darmousseh wrote:If by aliens you mean ozzie osbourn then yes, i believe lol.
In reality though the likelihood of life existing is really really really really small.
Here is the best answer.
Fred Hoyle calculated the odds that all the functional proteins neccesary for life might form in one place by random events. They came up with a figure or one chance in 10^40,000. (Yes that is a googleplex to the fourth power) considering there are only about 10^80 subatomic particles in the entire visible universe, the physicists concluded that this was "an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisited of organic soup"" (Hoyle Evolution from Space pg 24).
Lol that is the odds for protein to form. Now lets look at the odds for an earth like planet capable of even supporting life.
1. A system must have a single stellar body otherwise tempuratures would vary too much. So get rid of about 67% of all star systems.
2. The planet itself must be a certain size in order to rotate properly and must a certain distance from the sun in order for tempurature ranges to stay stable. Mars is too bid and venus too small. It's approximately .83 to 1.2 solar masses, so lets say possibly 1 per solar system (that is pretty high)
3. The planet must have begun by a protoplanetary disk that is short lived otherwise planets would crash into the star too quickly so that eliminates another 50% of stars.
4. There must be no large planets like jupiter with very elipitcal orbits which would destroy smaller planets.
5. There must be some large planets with very circular orbits at the right distance in order to prevent astroids from destroying life.
6. The distance from the sun must be perfect. If the earth was 5% closer or 1% farther from the sun there would be a runaway greenhouse or runaway ice age preventing life.
7. The planets mass have about 0.85 to 1.33 or the earths mass in order to make sure that spieces aren't crushed by the gravity, yet big enough to make sure that there is water vapor.
8. There must be a moon surronding planet in order to have a stable rotation around the sun. WIthout one, jupiter would pull on earth too much and cause the orbit to be impossible to sustain life. The moon is a part of an earth and an asteroid that collided that formed a perfectly sized moon. The odds of this happening are about 1-1million.
9. The crust of the earth must be just right and must stabilize the planet for a few billion years. I will link to an article in a minute.
10. Life must exist. Kinda funny but this is not a given even on a potentially habitable planet. According to Michael Hart "The simplest known organism which is capable of indepedent existence includes about 100 different genes. For each of 100 different specific genes to be formed spontaneously in 10 billion years the probability is 1 in 10^3000. For them to be formed at the same time, and in close proximity, the probability is very much lower." (Hart 222-223)
11. The probability that a spieces hasn't died off even after it formed is also pretty low, don't have exact numbers on that right now.
12. According to NASA there are about 10^12 stars in the universe. Lets take the lenient 1 in 10^3000 odds. Divided by the numbers of stars that leaves the odds at about 10^2988. Given that this number is impossibly huge, I would bet my life for a cheesburger against those odds. In essence, the likelihood of there being other life in our universe is pretty much 0.
Off course this begs this question, well then how does life on earth exist?
[Most quotes were grabbed from the book the book Show me God
http://www.amazon.com/Show-Me-God-Message-Telling/dp/1885849532 which is an excellent book if you are interested in mathematics, science, and probability in looking at the explanations of the universe.]
dude, you do know that fred heeren is an apologist, right? he is not interested in finding where evidence leads. his interest lies in demonstrating that there is a god, thus placing the conclusion before the research. you should be more careful about the kind of source/people you use to get your information from.