So, got my new Popular Science in the mail the other day, and in it is a great article about the Wolfe-Simon study, and the effects/aftermath experienced by her and her colleagues, NASA, popular media, and the Scientific Community as a whole, after a serious scientific study and debate was turned into a media circus. So, as I read the article today while on break at work, it got me thinking about what we truly know about life as a whole here on Earth, and potentially elsewhere in the Universe.

What do you think about the possibility of organisms that go against our classic definition of "life" on other worlds? Did you/do you buy into the conclusions drawn about GFAJ-1 in the study? Did the media hype started by NASA's PR Team tarnish NASA's, and the scientific community's reputation? Do you think that there may be extremophiles like GFAJ-1 was puported to be, here on Earth that live beyond our current definition of what constitutes life?

Personally I believe that it's almost impossible for there not to be life elsewhere, and also that there are extremophiles right under our noses, that defy the basic principals of life as we know it. I also think that the Wolfe-Simon papers were flawed and inconclusive from the get-go, and now peer reviews are slowly proving that.

For those un-familiar with the Wolfe-Simon study, in short, she claimed to have found Gammaproteobacterium that utilized arsenic in place of Phosphorus, a chemical that is believed to be a critical component of life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1 (the Bacterium outlined in the Wolfe-Simon study)

The universe is too big to not have other life. :shrug:

There is obviously life elsewhere in the galaxy and Universe, the conditions are not so impossible to achieve that it's only on Earth.


The real question is whether there is intelligent life on our scale elsewhere near us...I don't think so. Maybe in the Universe, but life as developed as us near our solar system? Doubt it.

I agree with Septim007. Intelligent life is extremely unlikely to exist beyond Planet Earth in our galaxy, to be honest.

This can be true.

I am more towards there could be other life as in living bacteria and small things, but I don't really buy into there being intelligent life out there. If there is other intelligent life out there the human race will do what they always do... Shoot, kill, study, start a war...

My thoughts also. We need to get on Mars and find that Prothean ruin to we can start exploring.

I don't see a reason in not believing the idea that there is intelligent life else where. We're just sitting here on Earth, it's hard not thinking that we're on a special planet, but it's just as likely there are other planets with these same questions. Violence and war has nothing to do with intelligence and everything to do with how humans came to be what we are today.

Reason- religious belief.. can't get into too much detail because of forum rules...

I didn't connect intelligence with violence and war... And I have to stop there, because of another forum rule.. RULES!!!!!!!!

I'm assuming the words I chose were a bit confusing, so I edited to clarify. I guess what I am trying to get at is not the debate of whether there could be life, (intelligent or not) but the question of whether or not there could be organisms that go against our current understanding of what classifies as life.

This

But if they go against what we classify as life then they're not alive, right? :blink:

Sorry about that.

You know, when you think about it, we constructed life on Earth here out of Silicon, so what if there's life elsewhere that naturally is silicon based? Not transformers...but you know what I mean?

Those who believe earth is the center of the universe and no life can exist anywhere else except on earth are fools.

As far as i've been told so far there are like 1x10 to the 15th power of stars or even greater than that. You can't tell me that within all of those stars there isn't the possibility of life. Even more that life may have some for of sentient intelligence in one shape or another. Life is a powerful thing and always finds a way to create itself using what it has at hand.

To advance our notion of "life" we really need to stop thinking that the only way life can exist is if it is carbon based. Once we accept that then we can move past our base instincts and start accepting the world around us in even greater detail. Another thing we will also have to accept is that life may have a single helical strand of DNA or possibly quadruple strands of DNA in a square helical formation. These formations intertwining amongst themselves allowing for enhanced intelligence, elemental manipulation, advanced energy conversion ratios, etc... .

The possibilities are only limited by our imagination and the "plausible" boundaries of physics and quantum mechanics.

If there's life out there, regardless of what kind, we should leave it the [censored] alone.

The universe is far too expansive to not harbor any other life, plain and simple.

+1 for the Sadist King.

somewhere there is a whole planet or multiple planets filled with terminators that killed their creators just waiting for some other species to stumble across them. whatever human crewed ships we end up sending out to the great beyond better have nuclear warheads on them.

You can't say with certainty that there is, just as you cannot say with certainty that there isn't. I'm surprised that all the so called 'believers in science' already assume other life based on no evidence. (Besides of course Martian Bacteria and other localized things). The scientific point of view is that we know nothing conclusive right now, and any assertion otherwise is unscientific.

That being said, I don't like science anyway, I prefer (want) to believe what the X-Files taught me. They're already here. :poke:

This.

Will we ever contact or be contacted by intelligent life? Hard to say. Anything's possible, but it's pretty unlikely to happen during any of our lifetimes.

Humanity needs to invent Mass Effect drive first. :wink_smile:

I'm confused. You seem to admit that there is bacterial life on other planets, but yet it doesn't count as life?
And actually, unless I missed something, no bacteria have been found outside of our Atmosphere as of yet.

I have no doubt that there could be. The size of the universe can't be described with mere words and we are as a species arrogant enough to think that we know quite a bit about it. Our galaxy is so small compared to the entire universe that the word has not yet been devised to properly describe it. We learn new things about our infinitesimal corner of the galaxy every day, amazing things that sometimes can completely change what we thought about our galaxy and yet we haven't even fully discovered our own planet. The oceans make up 99% of the Earth's living space and less then 10% of its depths have been explored by humans. We've discovered a life form in our oceans that is based on chemical energy rather than light energy that resides in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, whose to say what else could be found in our universe if something like this can be found on our own planet?

Yes I believe their are others out their far smarter than us *any species except goats* are smarter than us...TBH... people keep thinking "we are superior and smarter than every other species in the whole UNIVERSE!" No...thats just ignorant because for one we have NO proof whether there is or isn't any other species out there. Two, remember Earth used too be a water planet "lol according to scientists 50 billion years ago" and maybe Mars used too be Earth but the cycle continues, hell Jupiter could've been home too a superior species a long time ago. It's the cycle really.

i just hope that if we encounter intelligent life we have the good sense to nuke the [censored] out of it. after they get a hold of our probes with their shiny gold records and pictures of people holding hands :yuck: they are going to think we are a bunch of panzies. we need to let them know that we are perfectly capable of destroying them if they try and attack us.

So have a real-life Independence Day?

Jupiter is ball of gas. Not really firm and solid, in the traditional sense. But I get what you're saying, just used a bad example.

I was trieing too say that maybe MAYBE once Jupiter wasn't always that way or any other planet may have harbored life. Earth for example used too be a water planet yet life managed. Everything changes including planets.