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Milky Way Inhospitable?
tdfunk writes "Space.com reports that life in the universe may be more rare than previously thought.
In an article published today, Space.com quotes Guillermo Gonzalez, an Iowa State University researcher, who has studied the structure of our galaxy and has concluded that life may not be as common as we may have believed. Apparently, conditions around the Milky Way Galaxy are generally less hospitable than once thought.
We may, it turns out, be very lucky to be here.
Luck had nothing to do with it, in fact, if you are an intelligent life form, there is a 100% chance you were born on a planet that is capable of supporting intelligent life!
And besides, suppose there is one planet capable of supporting life per galaxy, taking this researchers findings to the extreme. It is believed there are billions of galaxies. Billions of planets full of life doesn't sound too "alone" to me.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The rationale for there being life elsewhere in the universe often goes like this:
1. There's life here
2. Well, we seem pretty normal and possible to me!
3. The universe is a many-splendored thing. There must be other neat planets like this out there.
4. Since we seen pretty easy to please, there must be life on those other planets!
People don't realize that it actually works the other way around. If there was going to be intelligent life just one place, well, wherever it was would have the intelligent life! To rephrase: just because we're intelligent and here doesn't mean that there are other intelligent beings elsewhere. That we're intelligent and here means that we've got good conditions for that, here. We (the intelligent life) are here and not on another planet because this planet is uniquely suited to us. About the other potential places that could harbor life-- well, who knows? The universe may be inhospitable. It may be hospitable. The fact of the matter is that we've just managed to find out whether one of our nearest neighbors has water on it. What do we know of the rest of the galaxy, really?
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... until we went there. The quality of your presumptions weigh heavily in the strength of your hypotheses...
Guillermo Gonzalez is also well known as a proponent of "Intelligent Design," the pseudoscientific creationist idea that An Intelligent Designer (read "God") must have made our universe because everything in it is so perfect for human life. (Do a Google search on "Guillermo Gonzalez intelligent design" if you don't believe me.) It's not surprising that ID and Rare Earth-ism go hand in hand; if intelligent life is common in the universe, it makes it less likely that humanity is the product of a Divine Plan -- at least to the degree that the limited minds of ID'ers and other creationists seem to be able to conceive divinity.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
if we are in one of those "precious" zones, aliens might be closer than we thought, though less of them...if each galaxy has only certain zones that can have life, that doesn't matter quite so much, as there are billions of galaxies...
To think they don't exist is silly, spending money on finding them, even if rare, is about the most important thing I can think of to spend money on - that and anything else, anything at all, even a mission to Mars, that makes us smarter about leaving before the next big one hits...we need, as humans, to concentrate all of our energies on leaving this rock.
It has been my experience that creationists such as Guillermo Gonzalez can be divided into 3 catagories.
1) Those that do not know any better. These people believe that God created the earth and everything on it in 6 days because that is what they have always been taught. They are largely ignorant and have no real interest in looking into the facts. These people can be found in almost any church.
2) Those that believe that God created the earth in 6 days because that is what the bible says and that is good enough for them. These people are completely unwilling to even consider even the consider the possibility that they are wrong. Often they ignore sound science and instead rely on sudo science to try and convince otherse and themselves that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They ignore all contradictory evidence and are as unscientific as can be. Thse people do both thier faith and their theories a disservice. These people can also be found in most any church and are very vocal. Often people beleive that this group are the only proponants of Intelegent design or creationism. An example of this group can be found at www.icr.org
3) Those that beleive that God created the earth and all life on earth but not neccisarily in 6 days(as we would know them). These people "assume" (they do not really assume rather these they rely on these "assumptions" based on other evidence and experiences) that both the scientific record and the bible are 100% correct. Therefore, there should be complete agreement between the two. If there is an aparent disagrement either the scientific record has been interpreted wrong OR the bible has been misinterpreted or mis translated. This group is generally willing to examine its theories for weakness and to modify its theories to better fit the available facts. This group is as scientific as any evolutionist group and if more creationists were like them perhaps they would not be seen in such a bad light. Unfortunalty, this group is rather small but growing. An example of this group can be found at reasons.org
Likewise, evolutionists generally fall into one of three parallel groups.
1) Those that do not know any better. These people believe that man evolved by natural processes because that is what they have always been taught. They are largely ignorant and have no real interest in looking into the facts. These people can be found almost anywhere.
2) Those that belieleve in evolution because they are unwilling to consider even looking at any evidence that perhaps there is a god. They would rather blindly believe a theory with known problems than consider an alternative. They have evolution taught in schools as fact even though it is only a theory. They do not want children to be taught that some people do not agree with evolution. These people do both their "religion" (atheism/naturalism) and their theory a disservice. These people are very vocal and are just as unsientific as a creationist in group 2. They also can be found most anywhere.
3) Those that believe in evolution (or some other naturalist theory) because they genuinly believe that it fits the facts. They are willing to look at alternative theories. They are also examine their theories for weekness and are willing to modify their theories to better fit the known facts. These people can be found inside the bona fide scientific community.
It is a shame that there are so many group 1 & 2 people in this world.
In conclusion, no theory is pseudoscientific. It only becomes sudoscience once it is conclusivly disproven yet is still passed off as scientific fact.
I'm a metallurgist, a computer programmer, and I spend a good bit of time reading about quantum physics, fractal geometry and astronomy becuase I like to. I'm also a fundamentalist Christian, and read and study the Bible, something else I also enjoy.
I don't claim to understand the mind of God. I'm personally comfortable with the idea that the God I worship - the one that I believe to be an omnipotent, omnipowerful being that exists outside of time and space - had his own reasons for creating, in six days, a universe that looks and in all respects acts as if it were billions of years old. Why? Maybe to give us something to study for a few thousand years. Maybe just to give us something to look at and wonder about in the night sky. In any case, I'm happy to study science on one hand, and argue theology on the other, without feeling the overwhleming need to reconcile what I see as two fundamentally irreconcilable subjects (something both "creationists" and "evolutionists" seem to think is absolutely essential, for some reason.)
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I haven't read any comments that point out one of the severe flaws in the implied logic of the article. Specifically, that Gonzales assumes these characteristics necessarily preclude the frequent formation of earth-like planets. The fact is, however, that such a leap of logic is unjustified. Such a claim requires more detailed explanation of how each of the identified conditions would interact with an actual solar system, down to the climate of the affected planets. We are frequently surprised both in Astronomy and on Earth by the huge impact of seemingly subtle details. The fact that this article offers few (zero) details and utterly lacks careful explorations of the interactions Gonzalez mentions, suggests that his conclusions cannot be taken as more than vague musings.
It also strikes me that Gonzales may have decided what he wants to believe, and then went looking for justification. The only problem is, he didn't actually find that justification; he just found hints that he selectively presented to bolster his assumption. He says something to the effect of "the galaxy is a scary place, therefore Earth-like planets hardly ever form." That makes for an interesting conversation, but by itself is very far from convincing.
Until we understand in great detail how planet forming processes & external factors interact, or can exlicitly look for extrasolar Earth-like planets, we can't disprove these assertions. That doesn't,however, mean we should assume, as Gonzales would like us to, that nice planets necessarily can't be common.
There are, however, hints to believe Earth-like planets could be common. Distant solar systems are, for example, discovered regularly. Unfortunately we don't have the equipment to determine if classicly habitable planets exist in those solar systems. But if we assume the presence of solar systems indicates any likelihood of habitable planets, then there's a hint that habitable planets could be common. It's far from convincing, but no less so than the assertions in this article.
(As an aside, Gonzalez also ignores the possibility that there may be certain areas of space that make Earth-like planets significantly more likely to form. For example, maybe in some parts of the outer edges of the galaxy one or two Earth like planet are the norm in one-star solar systems. The point is, we don't know and can't fairly assume either way.)