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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.
... 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.
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.