Science, meet science fiction: 100 million life-giving planets

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 10, 2014

Extraterrestrial life, News}

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All ya gotta do is invent a new computer model, apparently:

Despite the large number of planets that could harbor complex life, the Milky Way is so vast that planets with high BCI values are very far apart, according to the scientists. One of the closest and most promising extrasolar systems, called Gliese 581, has two planets with the apparent, possible capacity to host complex biospheres. The distance from Earth to Gliese 581 is about 20 light years.

“It seems highly unlikely that we are alone,” say the researchers. “We are likely so far away from life at our level of complexity that a meeting with such alien forms might be improbable for the foreseeable future.”

Not to be rude, but lots of lonely people on this planet would like a new computer model that improved their chances too. The only problem is …

For a brief look at how this type of nonsense came to pass for science, go to The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (cosmology).

Comments

Phoodoo, I'm afraid you are simply and spectacularly wrong. The evidence is, I'm afraid, overwhelming. I know you don't like it, but that is simple fact. Neil Shubin and others at Chicago used it to find Tiktaalik, because they knew they were looking for a transitional between fish and tetrapod, the approximate age that the transition occurred, and the type of environment such a creature would have lived in. They didn't just turn up in the Canadian Arctic for the hell of it-they went there because that area had the rocks of the right age and sedimentary origin for the types of fossils that they would have expected if the theory was correct. And they were spectacularly successful. You might argue that a fossil has been found that is older, although in fact they are tracks which are disputed because they don't show signs of digits, but all that means is that Tiktaalik would be a late living relative, by just a few million years, of the actual transitional ancestor. ID has never done anything even remotely close to this. Sorry, but you are just wrong.Henry Crun_{June 11, 2014
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tjguy, I was very specific about what I said, I said there is no evidence for "Darwinian" evolution. Lots of people believe in common descent, and are still considered creationists. The fossil record certainly tells nothing about mechanisms. So I stand by what I said very adamantly-there is zero evidence for Darwinian evolution. Many people still believe there is evidence for Darwinian evolution, but that is only because they confuse results with processes. No evidence.phoodoo_{June 11, 2014
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Phoodoo says:
What evidence do you think there is for Darwinian evolution? There isn’t any, it is pure pure speculation. You clearly have just heard people say there is evidence, without knowing this yourself.
Phoodoo, I'm a creationist so I'm on your side, but I really think you are overstating the case here. And when you do that, people tend to just shut you off and dismiss whatever you have to say as bunk. No evidence for evolution? Really? I would say there are plenty of facts/observations/discoveries that evolutionists interpret as evidence for evolution. Human DNA being genetically close to chimp DNA is one of those for instance. How genetically close is quite debatable but let's say it is %95 similar for the sake of argument. So there we have the fact. Now what does that mean? Here is where the interpretation comes into play. Evolutionists will say that this is evidence for common descent. Even some IDers think that. I do not. I think it is evidence for a common design. There may be various explanations that could possibly explain a particular fact. So creationists can use this as evidence as well. It all comes down to how they interpret the evidence or observations. Take the fossil record. It is a fact. We can go out and verify the existence of fossils with our own eyes. The evolutionary interpretation of this is that the rocks were laid down over hundreds of millions of years and therefore, they see the fossils as telling the story of the evolution of life. They ignore out of place fossils, polystrate fossils, and other inconvenient facts that challenge that, but for them, the fossils are evidence for common descent. Creationists see the same fossils as evidence for a global flood. They view most of the rock layers as having been laid down during or soon after the global flood which means the fossils do not tell the story of the evolution of life, but they tell the story of what life existed at the time of the flood. So huge fossil graveyards, the complete whale and ichthyosaur fossils in Chile, the stasis seen in most fossils, the red blood cells and soft tissue found in a growing number of fossils, the rapidly buried organisms, the death pose of dinosaurs which is typical of drowning, etc. we see these things as supporting our interpretation of the fossil record. Anyway, to evolutionists, there certainly is evidence for their paradigm, but whether they are accurately interpreting the observations is questionable in my mind. Here we are dealing with history and it is difficult to check which "story" is really accurate - at least through experiment. I think Henry is genuinely deceived and therefore he honestly thinks that Humble is "out to lunch". The thing about being deceived is that the person who is deceived is not aware of it. We think they are deceived and they think we are deceived. So be it.tjguy_{June 11, 2014
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Henry, I think you are going to soon find that you are not talking to people who have just considered this issue starting today. Your one little paragraph post is already so chock full of errors, that it seems you have just come to this problem recently. First, it turns out that Tiktaalik was NOT where it should be, if it were a transitional species from water to land, as we now know there were tetrapods walking around on land many millions of years before Tiktaalik. But that was only your first mistake. What evidence do you think there is for Darwinian evolution? There isn't any, it is pure pure speculation. You clearly have just heard people say there is evidence, without knowing this yourself. So I suspect your problem is not one of dishonesty, its of thinking you know plenty about this topic, which you will soon be shown that you don't. In that sense you are not unique, its a typical level of knowledge from people who never study the issue deeply, yet are convinced they have all the answers.phoodoo_{June 11, 2014
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Humbled, you are the one with either an honesty problem or a delusion. Evolutionary theory relies not on assumptions, but evidence, for which there is a multitude. ID on the other hand has no evidence whatsoever to support it. When the Chicago researches found Tiltaalik, which theory did they use to decide where to look for it? That's right: not ID. Evolution works. ID doesn't.Henry Crun_{June 11, 2014
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Funny Ab, how the assumptions of ID tend to be correct while Darwinian assumptions seem almost always incorrect. Does this constant pattern not concern you? I fail to see how any educated person can believe in Darwinian codswallop, especially with its constant failed predictions and faulty assumptions. It is clear to me that, and in light of the fact that zero evidence exists to support it, Darwinism is a belief system, based on faith, proselytising, pastors, dogma and scripture. To say, as many do, that Darwinism is science, based on facts and evidence, and not faith, is highly dishonest even delusional.humbled_{June 10, 2014
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Henry, I agree. This is far less fanciful than the assumptions and extrapolations that ID use.Acartia_bogart_{June 10, 2014
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What is the problem with it? We have a sample of 2000 planets or thereabouts, and the figure seems like a reasonable extrapolation from those.Henry Crun_{June 10, 2014
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