A more universal topic...

Maybe some of you saw the Discovery Channel presentation about Steven Hawking and his theories...some of which appear to be intentionally exaggerated and aggrandized for the sake of good TV...but they are interesting........
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0426/Stephen-Hawking-aliens-theory-doesn-t-scare-planet-hunters


I saw that Discovery show last night doting on every word he says...or actually every word his computer churns out because he can't talk...and obviously there are all kinds of opinions, but the one opinion of whether there ARE other civilizations "out there" on other planets has only 2, maybe 3 answers...
Either yes, no, or maybe - don't care - don't have a way to know...etc...

Here's my thoughts.........
after decades of everyone having high hopes about the possibility of finding intelligent life elsewhere, now Hawking says it would kinda be for us like it was for the Native Americans when Columbus arrived...
There'd be little reason those intelligent aliens would spend the time, effort, and whatever they have in place of money to come here except for wanting what we have and they'd probably treat us poorly in the process..
In other words...if they ever did make themselves known to us or come here, it probably would be because they ruined their own world and are coming here to take ours or it's resources.

BUT --- here's another thought...Steven Hawking does concede the the highest probability would be that if we find life elsewhere it would NOT be intelligent, but would be primordial or just like bacteria..

BUT if there are intelligent beings elsewhere...one thought is that SOME....maybe even JUST ONE (as long as they're postulating millions of possible habitable planets) -- would have done something by now that we'd have seen...
visited us, sent a signal, generated explosions or electromagnetic waves, something that we would have detected and yet we haven't...we've seen nothing....

And there's no area in science where the total LACK of even a tiny piece of evidence still draws HUGE hopes and beliefs that what we have no evidence for still exists - and not even exists but those scientists draw up detailed speculation about all the aliens that exist and even what they eat and how they function!!
This, to any real scientists, is NOT what science is about - and this is cartoonish fantasy...but honestly, the science on aliens is absolutely absent and non-existent....

YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS...
you can't use the argument that the universe is nearly limitless so the statistical probability is HIGH of some planet out there having life...

Then turn right around and deny MY ARGUMENT, that if it is so limitless, then SURELY by now one of those planets with life would be way ahead of us and would have BY NOW done something we would have detected!! -- They'd have made themselves obvious or apparent to us, on purpose!!
We've been to several other planets and moons (both with human explorers and probes) and we've made NO effort whatsoever to hide our trips to the moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc...
Surely if there was life out there they'd have seen us or detected us..and so why are they all hiding...or are they???

Also -- surely we wouldn't be the MOST advanced of those societies...surely some planet - of the supposed gazillions out there - houses beings that are far more advanced than us...so why have we not seen them nor have they found US and visited us..???

And why do we always presume that any being coming from another world always represents that entire world...
It sure isn't the case here on earth...we are so factionated and when one of our astronauts goes anywhere, he certainly isn't representing all the people on earth....just the naiton that sends him....so any theoretic discussions he'd have with beings elsewhere wouldn't necessarily represent the feelings of everyone else on earth...

But here's a thought that some are always so certain to shoot down as preposterous..but it isn't....
..could it be there is NO ONE out there...or if they are there...that NOBODY yet has found a way to travel the vast distances...so therefore neither will we...
and if that's the case...then we are wasting a lot of $$ trying...

If Hawking compares to Columbus visiting America...there's an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE...
Columbus or anyone in Europe..had NO IDEA and no way to have an idea what was over there on the other side of the ocean....they couldn't see the tiniest evidence of what was there---

By contrast, we have a plethora of ways of looking out there and seeing almost everything or anything for signs of life...AND NONE EXIST...sorry to break the news....but the crap we see and read about aliens and flying saucers is a lot like the Bigfoot argument...
Maybe a couple decades ago I coulda bought it (although I never did) but now with all the sophisticated devices we have that can tell every inch of airspace covered by planes like Payne Stewart's unpiloted airplane or JFK, Jr.'s fatal flight...
we know that technology exists to know everything we need to know about those flights, so don't you think if there were aliens flying among us, we'd have the evidence by now??
Just ONE solid piece...one craft shot down or crashed (and don't cite Area 52 unless you have some evidence on that - but you don't, just speculation again), one tiny bit of hard, solid evidence...but to date we have NONE. Even people willing to pay and offering millions for the evidence still have their money and nobody's provided the proof yet!

If even any intelligent being has ever come within 50 light years of earth, then they would have emitted electromagnetic waves that we could have and quite possibly WOULD have seen or found by now....
The SETI (giant radio telescopes searching the skies continuously and endlessly at your expense!!) program has been meticulously searching for any radio wave or electromagnetic signal of any kind that is not random or would suggest reason or intelligence...
and yet NONE have been found in 50 years...so when will they finally give up and admit none exist...


If none exist, then how do we explain the tens of thousands of reports on a daily basis of flying saucers and alien ships, and phenomena....
there are only two possible answers...

--either the evidence does exist and it's being hidden or kept from us by a conspiracy that would have to be so vast as to include all governments and most top scientists...
it would be like trying to buffalo the world into thinking there's no such thing as a tornado or an earthquake, or a meteor....because those events are all actually rarer and seen by fewer than claim to see UFO's!!!!
This is even more preposterous that so many people could all keep the same monumental secret from the masses......when they can't even hide a politicians secret love affair!!


--or they are ALL false reports and mistakes and other unidentified natural occurrences, and that NO aliens have ever visited...
Sorry - if you're one of those who swear you have seen evidence of aliens, then it is just possible you and many others have been duped or fell for a lie...

The reports are so numerous and so varied that you'd have to conclude multiple alien civilizations have been here -- all of whom are sloppy, leave behind ridiculously observable evidence to a few individuals, but that they've been incredibly fortunate so far and none of their solid evidence has ever fallen into the hands of someone credible and believable in a manner that's not so bizarre and weak, who has gone public with it

And .......that all the different aliens have unified in their desire and their plan NOT to intentionally contact us or let us know they really are here beyond doubt...
all the while flirting with leaving behind badly bumbled evidence when they abduct people and do alien exams then return those people to earth..

The whole scenario is absolutely laughable - kinda comic book-oid - which is why I conclude all those who claim to have seen such things are simply weak or deluded minds or they have been deceived or have hallucinated...

Alien life from other planets isn't worth the money and effort put into looking for it...
but you and anyone else are free to spend your own $$ and time...
I think the total LACK of believable evidence in the past 60+ years since people have been earnestly looking with gazillions of high tech scientific equipment speaks volumes, just like the total lack of evidence of Bigfoot even when the rarest animals are still often seen, photographed, and caught...

True science should take a neutral position and neither believe nor disbelieve anything unless it's proven. Yet we see scientists (who all want to make something off their opinion - usually doing TV or selling books) claiming they still believe in something no evidence exists for..
The true scientific position should be that the more time goes by and no evidence exists, then the less likely we are going to ever find any evidence.
You obviously can't prove something doesn't exist but you can disprove each individual piece of evidence (about 95-98% do eventually get disproven, but after a while people get tired of disproving so many bits of useless and false evidence).

It's actually fantasy to speculate all these things about aliens and other worlds...
and, by the way....we're no closer to ever going out there or getting to another world than we were 40 years ago...and not likely to get any closer in the forseeable future.
So in the end it probably doesn't even matter what anyone thinks...
unless the aliens come here and finally reveal themselves...and don't hold your breath on that one...

When that happens, give me a call.......I'd be willing to consider the facts, but not the hype and the imagination...same goes for Bigfoot.


PS-- by virtually universal agreement, the definition of science requires that the scientist remain objective and somewhat skeptical of unproven events, especially those events and phenomenon that have such a dearth of evidence.
Science is all about the measurable, reproducible, observable, and studyable...
anyone who has studied science, or spent years in college learning many aspects of it or who have a degree in physics would agree.

Any talk of other beings or aliens leads to really wild conjecture....sort of like a few people stealthily knocking down some wheat stalks at night, then spawning a whole realm of alien believers who swear it was caused by aliens even when those who did it step forward with video evidence. So when scientists begin speculating about aliens as Hawking did...even guessing what aliens on Jupiter would have to be like - low weight and made of gaseous elements - or silicon based on planets that have little or no carbon, then he enters the realm of speculative, fiction, and fantasy...and NOT SCIENCE.
To even pretend that this was a scientific program then throw in all that ficiton and fantasy totally destroys the credibility...
It would be as if I tried to study how the brain worked then blend into my science - the opinion that ghosts exist and that invisible goblins are responsible for unexplained phenomenon about the brain....
It takes us backwards 200 years in science, and I am quite disappointed that Hawking chose to throw in so much fantasy and dreaming, but I am sure the show's producers wanted it so it would be more appealing to the relatively non-scientific audience. I am sure they weren't too worried about ticking off the few scientists in the viewing audience that would call them on their completely un-scientific process!