Quote:
Originally Posted by Xurtio
It's a ROC curve - and a ROC curve that favors false positives since there's no danger in false negatives. If your planet is made entirely of only five or six elements, or has no key elements like oxygen or carbon, the chances of life having formed there are approaching 0.
Edit: also your point that it doesn't tell you if life is there is a good one too. Even if carbon and oxygen are there, there's no guarantee that life is there. Of course, this is all in the drake equation.
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I guess I consider myself pragmatic in that I believe life elsewhere would be similar to life on earth, but some are a little more creative. Stephen Hawking for example has suggested life elsewhere could be so alien to us, we'd never know what to look for. His example was the possibility of life forms living within stars.
That seems very far fetched to me, but who knows?
edit :
Regarding abductees, I heard a radio program some years ago in which some professor was talking about mental illnesses and delusions through the ages. Very roughly speaking, he made a point and convincing argument that back in the real good days, delusions used to be religious with people seeing angels or demons and the like until some time after the age of enlightenment where some would think they were abducted and experimented on by scientsts, much like some people believe they've been abducted by UFO's today. The general idea was that these people are just a little nuts and their delusions basically reflect the times.