Alien, I mean really Alien.

[PvK]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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I don't really follow your example of alien dolphin-like animals, either. Of course scientists would study the heck out of any alien life form. Scientists study dolphins, too.

My point is that we assume dolphins aren't sentient because we have thousands of years of history defining them as 'dumb animals'. SUppose dolphins didn't exist on Earth, but on planet Blarg. Now suppose we sent a spaceship to Blarg and discovered the dolphins, frolicking and singing to each other. WOuold we say "they're just a bunch of clever but sub-sentient animls" or would we start with the assumption that they might be sentient and work our way up? And if we did the latter, what would we find?

I guess what I'm saying is, we take the various life forms we already have for granted. If we were to look at them with fresh eyes we might be surprised.

But I can't remember what this has to do with xenodiversity. someone remember to ask me when I sober up.

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Ok. I'll also ask what the disagreement with what I was trying to say was, because I entirely agree with you on this. In fact, the humans that assert that animals (from dolphins to rats) are "not intelligent" or "sub-sentient" are either just plain wrong, or are framing their questions in ways that I think are rather off.

PvK

[dogscoff]

hmm, I seemdd to have generated some replies. If only I could rememebr what the hell I was talking about. But, to reply to everyone at once: Yes/no/thanks/of course/sorry/curses!/oops (delete as appropriate)

[Atrocities]

There are no aliens living on other worlds. It is mathamatically improbable that sentient space faring life could have evolved on another world given the absolute uniqueness that spawned life here. The chances for another life giving planet are so astronomically rare that if you could explore space in its entirety in one day it would take you a trillion years to find one planet like Earth. We are it and until one lands on this planet and proves me wrong, I am going to stick by this narrow minded concept.

[Captain Kwok]

Atrocities:

I'll give you the chance that Aliens visiting us here is next to nothing, but I sincerely doubt your assertion that there is no alien life elsewhere in our galaxy. Once we have better tools in place, we'll start identifying planets much more like our own than the ones they've found so far.

[Atrocities]

CK I have to tell you that our being here is an accident of epic proportions. The simple fact that life evolved on Earth is such a rare event that chances of it occuring twice or more in the universe is so great that if you took the number 1 and put 0 behind it to the point that it could circle the universe a centrillion times to the billionth power you might be within 1% of the chance.

This planet is so rare that it equals 1 10th of a grain of sand compared to the entire galaxy. And we are wasting it away.

No CK, life does not exsist "out there" it only exsists here.

[Randallw]

Wow, did this thread take off. I bow to Captain Kwok and others superior knowledge, as I explained I am no expert I was simply trying to put forth some limited knowledge I had. So my numbers might be wrong but I seemed to remember it was a proportion such as 5 out of 20. It could well be 3 out of 15, but I'm pretty sure the number of fossils was less than 20 "types". The types I was referring to are (using my simple example)
1. creature with a backbone and 4 limbs.
2. creature without a backbone.
3. Creature with a backbone but 3 unsymetrical limbs spaced around torse (like Cygnans from Jupiter theft).
4. Creature with 20 legs and backbone (sort of like a centipede but not an insect).
5. creature with a tubular body and circular mouth studded by teeth in 3 sets (like a lamprey).
6-20 various other types.
basically think of 20 really alien variations on possible forms, but only (in my example) 5 survived.

I read this in a magazine many years ago and it stuck in my mind. The magazine could have been Popular Science, National Geographic or Time for all I know. I apologise for being unable to provide links or detailed information, really I was hoping for someone with more knowledge to elaborate on what I knew. For the person who wanted to know the 3 types of Monotremes, they are 1 type of Platypus and there are 2 type of Echidnas.

[Captain Kwok]

...and what do you base this on? Your own pessimistic view?

Nah, I'm hoping that one of the Mars rovers will accidently stumble upon some microfossils to spite you.

All in good humour of course.