right, i'm firmly in the atheist camp but.........
Discussion
There's bugger-all difference in the blood and guts, and really also in the levels of intelligence between us and other species.
That extra few % is what prompts you to say "we're amazing" and dolphins "meh, not so much".
We're within one order of magnitude of intelligence of animals that we'd consider totally hopeless, yet they aren't. They survive and breed all on their own. No mean feat.
We're certainly much closer to other earth species than to any alien species who have conquered the problem of long-distance interstellar travel, in intelligence terms.
That extra few % is what prompts you to say "we're amazing" and dolphins "meh, not so much".
We're within one order of magnitude of intelligence of animals that we'd consider totally hopeless, yet they aren't. They survive and breed all on their own. No mean feat.
We're certainly much closer to other earth species than to any alien species who have conquered the problem of long-distance interstellar travel, in intelligence terms.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Chimune said:
did you see when Derren Brown tossed a coin and it landed heads up 10 times in a row ?
That result is equivalent to us.
I think the odds of us being here are a bit longer than 1 over 2 to the power of 10.That result is equivalent to us.
ash73 said:
The fact we are here only means conditions are suitable, if they were perfect we may have been here 500 million years ago; for example more frequent extinction events might actually drive faster evolution on some other planets.
It could go either way - but we owe our existence to the asteroid that put paid to the then-ruling class of animals and allowed mammals to take over. So if you factor THAT into the equation, it gets a whole lot smaller.Had it not been for the asteroid, would dinosaurs have evolved a walking talking biped I wonder?
Guvernator said:
Are you saying that from all those millions, ours was the only one that would have benefited from being smarter as a survival tool? Why are we the ONLY species to develop in this way?
Not at all - many animals exhibit heightened intelligence (tool use, problem solving). It's possible that only our species (and possibly other closely related hominids) has taken such developments to the extreme - but then again - many species exhibit extreme features that have evolved over time.Is asking why we have such a highly developed sense of intelligence any more valid than asking why bats have highly developed echolocation, or why duck billed platypuses lay eggs?
The fact that few if any other species have taken the same evolutionary route as us is kinda irrelevant - and as you observe, the fact that humans have effectively filled that niche may have suppressed other species from doing the same.
turned into an interesting read this thread has!! thanks for all the responses!
I'm watching the human universe shows with much interest. one big surprise for me was the assertion that somehow a chance encounter of one single cell being encapsulated by another and surviving in some sort of weird symbiosis was what caused complex life to happen at all. I find it amazing that in a literally countless sea of single cells that this only happened once.
I used to be quite happy with the panspermia idea but it seems very unlikely to me now given the distances between the stars and the tiny size of planets relative to the vastness of space. trajectories of asteroids and planets crossing outside of the confines of a single solar system seems almost too remote to ever happen.........and the headache remains because because it had to start somewhere first. as a random event if life sparks from nothing once then this happening more than once seems more likely to me than bits of planet getting smashed off and microbes surviving the void of space for billions of years before crashing into something else to seed life.
I've gone from thinking there must be loads of intelligent life out there to thinking that we are quite a rare accident. i'm sure there is loads of bacteria style life everywhere but this evolving to intelligence seems incredibly unlikely (even though we are here to think about it!)
and after all that, i'm still no closer to even beginning to understand why any of it happened in the first place!!
I'm watching the human universe shows with much interest. one big surprise for me was the assertion that somehow a chance encounter of one single cell being encapsulated by another and surviving in some sort of weird symbiosis was what caused complex life to happen at all. I find it amazing that in a literally countless sea of single cells that this only happened once.
I used to be quite happy with the panspermia idea but it seems very unlikely to me now given the distances between the stars and the tiny size of planets relative to the vastness of space. trajectories of asteroids and planets crossing outside of the confines of a single solar system seems almost too remote to ever happen.........and the headache remains because because it had to start somewhere first. as a random event if life sparks from nothing once then this happening more than once seems more likely to me than bits of planet getting smashed off and microbes surviving the void of space for billions of years before crashing into something else to seed life.
I've gone from thinking there must be loads of intelligent life out there to thinking that we are quite a rare accident. i'm sure there is loads of bacteria style life everywhere but this evolving to intelligence seems incredibly unlikely (even though we are here to think about it!)
and after all that, i'm still no closer to even beginning to understand why any of it happened in the first place!!
SpudLink said:
tuscaneer said:
and after all that, i'm still no closer to even beginning to understand why any of it happened in the first place!!
Sigh!This is moving towards theology, not science.
You and every philosopher who ever lived.
The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
Eric Mc said:
You and every philosopher who ever lived.
The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
I have been re-watching journey to the planets again over the weekend and it's astonishing how much more we know now than we did when I was born in '75.when my grandfather was born the wright brothers had just managed powered flight. from first flight to voyager in 2 generations!!The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
ash73 said:
The fact we are here only means conditions are suitable, if they were perfect we may have been here 500 million years ago; for example more frequent extinction events might actually drive faster evolution on some other planets.
Conditions are not suitable: we are suitable to the conditions. That's evolution.If there's no carbon then who is to say there is no chance of life? Once life, in whatever form, starts then the conditions will be suitable, maybe even perfrect, for whatever evolves.
There being no water does not necessarily mean no life.
Fred Hoyle came up with a number of different forms of intelligent life, let alone life. There was The Black Cloud. The book made me concerned as to his sanity, but his imagination was firing.
For 'us' to develop we need an environment that is virtually identical, when all the options are considered, to the Earth, so we'll need to be in the Goldilocks zone, have a moon, a certain amount of water, have continental drift and be hit by the occasional big lump of rock, not to mention another planet. The gas giants will have to be specific as well, with the need to have two in orbits which force them out into the nether regions.
For 'them' to evolve - who can say?
What is intelligence anyway? 'I think, therefore I am' is a conceit. It should be: 'I think, therefore I think I might be.' And even that requires a considerable amount of faith.
tuscaneer said:
Eric Mc said:
You and every philosopher who ever lived.
The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
I have been re-watching journey to the planets again over the weekend and it's astonishing how much more we know now than we did when I was born in '75.when my grandfather was born the wright brothers had just managed powered flight. from first flight to voyager in 2 generations!!The big difference is that in the past 200 years we have come to understand a lot more about the cosmological, astronomical, geological and biological processes that have combined to bring life and us about.
The big leap in understanding was the discovery of the true length of time that has been available for these processes to work.
We still don't know most of the really fundamental ("theological", in essence) but we have a much, much better grasp of those questions which can be posed and answered using science.
As Derek rightly says, this is a conceit.
tuscaneer said:
I have been re-watching journey to the planets again over the weekend and it's astonishing how much more we know now than we did when I was born in '75.when my grandfather was born the wright brothers had just managed powered flight. from first flight to voyager in 2 generations!!
The 20th century was indeed remarkable. From the Wright brothers to the moon in 66 years, two world wars, the atom bomb, Concorde, and from bakelite gramophones to mobile phones. It's impossible to conceive what will happen in the 21st century, just as, if you were currently in 1914, you could even begin to imagine what 2014 would be like 
My granny was born in 1890 and was already 13 when the Wright brothers flew. She was sitting in her usual armchair in our house with the rest of us as we watched the moon landing live on TV.
In fact, one of the guests who attended the launch of the last Apollo lunar mission, Apollo 17, was allegedly a slave who had been freed after the end of the American Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Smith_(centen...
In fact, one of the guests who attended the launch of the last Apollo lunar mission, Apollo 17, was allegedly a slave who had been freed after the end of the American Civil War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Smith_(centen...
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