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60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets
jangobongo writes "Does intelligent life exist anywhere besides Earth? Are regular churchgoers less likely to believe life has evolved on other planets? Do more Democrats or Republicans believe in extraterrestrials? And if alien life makes contact, what should we do? These questions were asked on a poll released last week that shows that two-thirds of Americans do believe that life exists on other planets, and of that group, 90% say if we receive a message from another planet we should reply. The poll was commissioned by the SETI Institute and the National Geographic Channel."
Check out this guy who can summon UFOs on demand. Has a link to a news broadcast where they filmed him doing it. Shocked the hell out of the camera crew.
_ ID=44503
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE
Pretty cool.
-Matt
Perhaps if you were better educated and less arrogant, you would realize that your assertion is not the only possibility that can be asserted from the data.
Perhaps the other 40% adhere to the principle that Belief gets in the way of learning.
(R.A. Heinlein - "Time Enough for Love")
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
I'm confused why only 46% of christians believe that aliens exist. Is it because then they might have to consider that a god might have more to think about than their petty affairs, and that the bible might just be pretty limited in galatic terms? I always think an alien visiting earth would just laugh at the primitive beliefs of our so called 'advanced' civilisations. Interested to hear what other religions think about aliens. Would Mohammed, Jesus etc have any relevance to someone from Alpha Centauri?
It would be interesting to know how many Americans could competantly argue the existance of a statistical likelihood of such; counter the common objections (wrt the narrowness of the range of environments in which life as we know it is sustainable and the improbability of such environments being generated by chance); and otherwise take part in an intelligent discussion on the topic. Depressing, I expect, but interesting. (Actually, I wonder at the extent to which the intelligent design movement, for all of its faults, may have helped to educate folks about the improbability of randomly generating an environment where life as we know it can exist -- there's something to be said for having folks who can put up a competant counterargument).
I don't anticipate that knowing how many Americans can prove life exists beyond Earth would be particularly interesting at all. (I presume you're excluding any life in human-generated artifacts, particularly those in orbit; and Americans posessing nonconclusive evidence [ie. those involved in studying the potential and/or evidence for present or former microbial life on Mars]? If not, perhaps I'm off by a bit).
So, how about Fermi's Paradox?
I do hope aliens have been observing us for a long long time. That way, when we finally reach the stage where we can actually make contact with them (either because they find us developed enough, or we just develop far enough to find them), they can tell us what our history REALLY was like.
The reason more individuals take pot shots at Christians is because they are by FAR the majority in this country; almost every single elected representative in Congress is Christian.
No one is threatening the rights of Christian Americans by summarily imprisioning them; the same can't be said for those of the Muslim faith in America. Don't give me the crap about the new rise of secularists in America; take a good hard look at the US Senate/House (Hint: what state is the Senate majority leader from?) and who has more sway there before you start spouting random rebuttals about prayer in schools/pledge of allegiance. After that, think hard about those new evolution stickers.
Besides, there's no need to make fun of Muslims when there's already deep-seated hatred in this country of people from the Middle East who aren't Israeli. In short, it's very different to make fun of a persecuted minority vs. a dominant majority with powerful lobbysts.
Ignoring the fact that this is straying way off topic...
What's truly weird is how so many of us delude ourselves into believing that we live in democracies (ie. rule of the people) simply because we hold elections. The main function of an election is not to give the people a voice, but to periodically renew the governmental entity (congress, parliament, legislature, judiciary, whatever). It's a way of cleaning out the old and bringing in the new -- but it's always the same political parties in roughly the same mixture.
Even here in Canada, in one election we wiped the Progressive Conservative party off the electoral map in 1993. But all of the Progressive Conservative policies remained intact (the GST, Free Trade, the public service cuts, low inflation policy, etc. etc). Elected governments rarely contradict or rescind the policies of the previous government. In Canada and the US after a legislative election, generally 80% to 90% of the incumbents win.
Which is good for the people in power. It gives the illusion of listening to the voice of the people but doesn't disrupt the reign held on power by the parties, corporations and unions. Elections are, in fact, essential to ensuring that the powerful maintain a fresh, strong grip on power.
True democracy is not about giving the people a choice: it's about giving the people a voice. If the powers-that-be simply give people a choice, they limit what power the people have and reserve the real power for themselves.
What would a real democracy look like?
Probably the most genuine democracy would draft their legislators at random (like juries are or mandatory military service) from all walks of life and force them to go to Washington or London or Ottawa and do their duty. Namely, if any laws need to be made, make them -- otherwise, don't. This would solve many problems such as the underrepresentation of minorities and women in government. They could even remain anonymous and we could make it a crime to reveal the identity of a legislator.
Other things that would make democracy less illusionary:
* Give the vote to every citizen above the age of zero (obviously until a child was able to claim the right to vote themselves, their parents would vote for them). In most places, there is no IQ pre-requisite to being an elector and children should have the right to be represented by their government. I suspect if kids could vote (or parents voting for them) education and health care would be a higher priority. If teenagers voted, maybe we'd actually get some movement on the environment. I wonder what promises a politician would make when visiting a high-school campus if the kids there could actually vote...
* Make voting continuous -- not just once every 4 years or whatever. Register our votes and give every citizen the right to change their vote whenever they want to. Thus an incumbent could effectively be recalled any time his/her constituents lose confidence in him/her.
But those are wishy-washy measures. As long as we have any form of voting, we dilute any power vested in the people.
anyone remember the good old drake equation?
Yep. Too bad it's so often abused by people who call the abuse "science." Crichton quote:
This serious-looking equation gave SETI an serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we're clear-are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be "informed guesses." If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It's simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from "billions and billions" to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.
I can't disagree.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.