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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."
Q. Do you believe UFOs exist?
A. Yes. (Well duh, anything we see in the sky but can't immediately identify is a UFO. Was I supposed to answer 'No'?)
Q. Do you believe aliens exist?
A. Yes. (With billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars, it's a pretty safe guess that somewhere out there is another planet with life.)
As a result, I'm recorded as just one more nut-job who believes that little green men are abducting our sheep. That particular survey was merely incompetent. Much more entertaining results can be obtained from surveys which are actively rigged.
In this SETI-National Geographic poll they appeared to have asked people if they thought that life exists somewhere out there. They got a 60% yes. It would have been interesting to ask half of those people if they thought that we are the only life in the universe. My guess is that those opposite questions when added up wouldn't even come close to 100%.
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Meanwhile, only a resounding 5% of life on other planets believes that there is intelligent life on Earth.
I certainly hope there is intelligent life somewhere else in space, but we got bollocks down here on Earth.
May I have your liver then?
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100% of the republicans polled believe that all the life on the other planets are christian.
the vast majority of people also believe in Astrology. A large percentage of people believe that earth has already been visited by aliens (in particular to help build the pyramids) and some people believe that aliens are studying earth right now.
How we know is more important than what we know.
So 40% of the people in the US are arrogant enough to think that in an infinite universe they are alone?
Why should be be astonished about finding life elsewhere?
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
...did not see Star Wars Episode III yet.
...so I am not necessarily impressed by majority rule.
Theory and practice are the same in theory, but different in practice.
That's only 60% of those that responded.
What percent of Americans can prove life exists beyond the Earth? Surely, a more interesting statistic.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
That 80% think it would be life like us is mind-boggling. I suppose it is the taint of science-fiction. It's hard to enjoy characters that are hard to fathom.
But really, intelligent I could see. But like us? That just demonstrates a lack of imagination.
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?
I use VS.net. Its editor is uber-sweet. Every time I want to, say, edit my modules.conf file I upload it to a remote FTP-able location, reboot into Windows, edit the file, save it again, reboot into Linux, and replace the file.
There is life in other planets!
Democracy at its finest!
"I mean, seriously, why would anyone believe that the only planet in the universe that supports life is this one?"
The same reason a lot of people don't believe there is a god. No proof.
"Derp de derp."
Which is better Emacs or Vi?
...And if they answer, "There's no way you'll get me started on that debate," you'll know they're truly intelligent.
Seriously though, 8 out of 10 believe that they would be more advanced than us? Yet...only 7 of 10 thought they would be able to communicate across deep space (something we can already do, to an extent). Those figures don't make any sense.
Chances are we're just going to find living martian bacteria in the near future, not just the fossilized remains. I highly doubt we'll find a super-advanced civilization.
"People who are regular churchgoers are less-likely to believe in life on other planets compared to non-churchgoers, 46% vs. 70%"
Yet they apparently believe in an invisible monster who loves them, but sends them to hell for eternity if they don't play by rules they don't understand.
What is a more likely "Intelligent Designer": a mythical spirit which used to do miracles all the time, before recording could corroborate it, or an alien intelligence, different from us in that it is adapted to live outside the Earth's environment?
When the aliens land, all those churchgoers are going to bow down before the "angels", with their "miraculous" technology. And they're going to hand over the science-believers, who think these aliens are just the competition, for burning as witches. Just as they always have, when their priests have had control, and were threatened by independent thinkers.
--
make install -not war
Personally, I think it is extremely likely that intelligent life would be in other parts of the universe, but there are a few qualifications that should be made:
1) The chances of it being near us or even in our galaxy is not so good.
2) The chance of it existing concurrently with our little blip of time is even smaller.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
just my $.01
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
--Calvin, to Hobbes
I worry that the alien visiting Earth will give us the "convert or die" choice we are so famous for giving our fellow humans.
The chances of no life is pretty slim.
However, the fact we are pretty late in the 'cosmic timeline' would lead one to think that most intelligent life has long since died out.
But space is vast.. and anything is possible if you use large enough numbers..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Drake's equation calculates just that. And with the most conservative values assigned it is almost certain that there are other intelligent life forms out there somewhere.
Now as to the question of if they have visited us or even know we are here. The answer is almost certainly no. People have used alien visitation to try to explain things they don't understand. And it is a handy insurance write off for the cattle ranchers when one of their cows dies.
Of course I'm not convinced that there is intelligent life here on Earth. Just watch the nightly news for evidence that there is no intelligent life here.
I tend to believe that any intelligent alien life would likely be similar to us. There is a reason man evolved the way they did. 2 eyes and ears to see and hear in stereo. Hands to manipulate tools. Legs to move around. I believe there was a show on Discovery channel a long time ago where well known scientists explain why aliens would likely have a humanoid form.
Suicide is killing yourself. A lot of smokers have underlying mental problems, and smoking is a form of "self-medication". Google for smoking mental illness self-medication.
here is just one result
... it makes sense - you have to be nuts to smoke.100% of Slashdot moderators automatically mod up pedantic Christianity-related jokes.
Funny how so far nobody's hit on the topic of collective intelligences, or hive minds, like termites, so far. Guess we're really into anthropomorphizing everything tonight.
"Carl Sagan, a brilliant astronomer, was also a devoutly religious person."
Are you nuts? Or just like making stuff up? Devoutly religious?? It is extremely clear that he was a non theist.
"In a March 1996 profile by Jim Dawson in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sagan talked about his then-new book The Demon Haunted World and was asked about his personal spiritual views: "My view is that if there is no evidence for it, then forget about it," he said. "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic.""
anyone remember the good old drake equation?
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.
I'm getting more and more convinced that polls can not be used as an accurate representation of a population's feelings towards something. And typically, I do my best to ignore them.
First, because I don't believe the very small sample sizes can really fully show an accurate picture of the entire population's feelings. 1,000 out of 250+ million with only a ~3% margin of error? I'm sorry, but no. (I should note that my failure to trust in the accuracy of small sample sizes, no matter how much math you throw at it, made statistics a difficult course for me).
Second, because I think polls are often constructed in such a way where questions manage to get worded so they don't really get after the original intent. I had the opportunity to work as an outside consultant a few years back for an IT build out imitative for a large public university system. As we were developing the guidelines for the build out, the powers that be brought in an polling firm. It turned out developing the questions for the survey became the most difficult and frustrating portion of the entire project. It also became very clear that the polling firm was "modifying" the intent of the questions to fit the agenda of the administration.
For example, the subject came up about putting new computers in computer labs, and the age old debate of "should we buy PCs or Macs" started up (these were non-CS labs, and it was decided by everyone against something like Linux for a number of reasons I don't want to get into).. "Aha, we'll find that out in the poll" says the administration. The question submitted to the polling company was "While in campus computer labs, would you prefer to work on a PC or a Macintosh?" By the time it went through the administration, the question became "While on campus, do you normally use a PC or a Macintosh?" A subtle difference, but important.
When the poll was finally administered, it turns out that the answer to that question reflected the percentage of PCs to Macintoshes currently on the school campuses (about 70% PC, 30% Mac). This is despite the fact that most students I spoke with would much prefer to use the PCs, but often just went to the Macs because the lines were always shorter in the Mac labs. Had the question been asked as it was written, most of us involved with the project expected we'd see more around an 85%-15%.
When I hear about polls that make statements like "60% of Americans believe there is life on other planets", I always wonder what, exactly the question they asked was. Most polls don't say this, but thankfully this one had a link where you could see what the questions actually are. The first question, the big one read:
Do you believe that there is life on other planets in the universe besides earth?
With possible answers of "Yes, No, and I don't know".
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, not really. If I had been asked that question, I'd probably end up in the "I don't know" category. To me, the word "believe" implies certainty. I would say that it's highly likely that there is extraterrestrial life, but I really don't know for sure. Had there been an option of "Probably", or if the question was "Do you think it's likely that there is life on other planets in the universe besides Earth", I would have no problem saying yes, and I think the results would be different.
I mean, if someone asked me "Do you believe the 101 Freeway will be congested tomorrow morning during rush hour?" and only give "Yes", "No" and "I don't know" as options, I'd answer I don't know, despite the fact that unless something very major was going on that I didn't know about I'm pretty much sure that the 101 is going to have heavy traffic.
What gets me is I've been polled a few times by telephone, and ended up frustrating the pollsters because they often asked for "yes" or "no" answers to questions that needed better qualification. One I remember well was from a large alcohol company that made rum. After asking me about the fre
The Internet is generally stupid
That would be damn cool, but some of the biggest events might have been ignored at the time.
Jesus pops to mind. Christianity didn't really take off until he was dead. Any outside observers simply wouldn't have been paying him much attention.
Or who knows - maybe the aliens were rooting for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas and concentrated all of their attention there, ignoring the rabble over in Europe.
aaaannndd...I just realized how stupid I sound throwing a fly into this most unlikely of ointments. Ah well - Submit!
Last post!
Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
I dunno what you're seeing, but that video looked nothing like an irdium flare. For one thing, it lasted slightly too long, and they were suggesting (although you really could tell) that it moved in the sky in a directional manner.
No idea what it was. Looked like a balloon from a distance, really. But I'd say not an orbiting satellite of any kind. Looks entirely wrong for that.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
...or at least we should. If "over 400 government, military, and intelligence community witnesses testifying to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and the cover-up that keeps this information secret" isn't good enough, then dismiss all of these as swamp gas while you are at it.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
I mean, seriously, how can you not believe in UFOs when they are so prevalent that the Illuminati can't keep them out of Google maps?
This isn't exactly news. Nor is it really news that Iran is ordering its military to shoot them down.
Well, I thank you for taking the honor this time around. By that I mean, every time a story about aliens comes up, someone makes a post like this. Unfortunately the history of ufology is an obscure one, long since rejected by science and subjected to incessant ridicule, very few people are willing to take the statements of people like this at face value, because they believe they are being made in a vacuum.
The problem is compounded when you still have a few kooks mixed in with the credible people. Anytime one of them is exposed the baby is once again thrown out with the bathwater. Only those who invest significant hours in doing reading/research by themselves can get at a reasonable picture of what is currently known. Without any serious motivation to do so or the promise that anything is there to make it worth it, few people choose to do so.
I would say there is progress being made though. For those who want a respectable quick assessment, check out INFLATION-THEORY IMPLICATIONS FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL VISITATION by DEARDORFF/HAISCH/MACCABEE/PUTHOFF (JBIS, Vol. 58, pp. 43-50) A very compelling argument about why close minded rejection of this phenomenon needs to end (and the first paper on this topic to be published in a mainstream refereed journal in a very long time).
Outside the realm of science, I don't think the general public will catch onto this in any greater magnitude until someone makes it a serious national political issue.
Somebody said alien, and she thought they meant illegal alien and signed up!
Any physical life forms, obeying the laws of physics as we know them cannot be too radically different from life on earth.
That's a anthropocentric prejudice, similar to thinking that Earth is the center of the universe (isn't it obvious?). Also your phrase "Because the laws of physics appear to operate uniformly throughout the Universe as far as we have observed until now, the only physical life allowed must be based on carbon, just like life on Earth" is more a guess than an established fact.
Have you seen Solaris? (the novel, not the movies). It described an alien intelligent life in the form of a whole planet: the ocean itself had evolved to react to the environment in order to sustain its existence.
That lifeform wouldn't have a need to "communicate", "feed" itself or any other action that we usually relate to life. This kind of "alien" life is what the previous poster was arguing. It has nothing to do with spirituality, the Bible or alternate planes of existence.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
....is whether life exists in the White House....
You're anthropomorphizing. Big mistake.