Quote:
Originally Posted by el_draco
If you apply scientific principles, the likelihood of E.T. existing is pretty much a sure thing.
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Some form of life form out there is highly likely. The chances of it ever coming here are near zero.
I'm not going to set probabilities for each of these and have them picked over, but do your own estimates for the probabilities of each of these, and let the maths decide the outcome.
You need:
A star that stays stable for billions of years.
A planet in the goldilocks zone.
Planet must have a solid surface.
Planet must have cooled since formation.
An atmosphere thick enough to protect from radiation, but thin enough not to 'cook' the surface.
That planet has suitable amounts of water.
No sterilizing asteroid strikes.
No nearby supernova.
(I'm sure there are plenty more).
Now, with all of this, after 5 billion years, we have on earth, just one species capable of communications for about 100 years, and short distance space travel for half of that.
This species must have a desire to travel and communicate into space.
It must not wipe itself out.
It would have to find out that we are here (a fact that only travels outwards at the speed of light) they react, and travel here whilst we are still around.
Now that's a pretty rough set of parameters, but multiply up all those probabilities, and the chances of two civilizations being around at the same time, close enough to make contact, both with the ability and intention to do this is near zero.
I'd say that it is very likely something like bacteria is out there, but anything more than that, we are never likely to encounter.