'Humans will find aliens within 20 years'

[gozzer]

Chesters will be along to work out the odds for us, i'll decide then.

 

What's the betting that the odds will be 50/50?

 

Prof Finkelstein, (now there's a name to conjure with), is too late in his prediction. I was out in the local town centre the other day, and I saw things there, that I'm sure 'were not of this world'.

 

John.

[Leon Roskilly]

Every species that has existed or that is still extant today has Telomeres. That hasn't stopped evolution in the past and won't stop it now. Species evolve when they are under pressure from their environment to do so.

 

 

But ours (as a species) have become a bit short, indicating that we are running out of time as a species (according to some).

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2004/a...highereducation

 

When a species becomes extinct, no amount of evolutionary pressure will induce it to evolve!

 

 

Inbreeding could lengthen them again, but since the bicycle was invented we are headed down a different route.

 

(The bicycle as a means of mass transportation meant that anyone could now travel quite a distance to breed, rather than keeping it mostly in close-knit communities. Air travel takes that to new dimensions!).

 

But yes we may suffer a population collapse taking us back to a few people who will interbreed and have to face new evolutionary pressures in a resource depleted world, and they evolve into something not human, perhaps having rid the line of the biological curse of 'human intelligence'.

Edited June 29, 2011 by Leon Roskilly

[chesters1]

Chesters will be along to work out the odds for us, i'll decide then.

 

50-50 ,one day you will be alive the next your dead

doom 50%, nice day at the shops 50% people worry to much about odds ,it will or it wont

my outlook is always believe the worst can happen then be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't ,far better than the doom and gloom merchants worrying about zilch

Edited June 29, 2011 by chesters1

[Renrag39]

Inbreeding could lengthen them again, but since the bicycle was invented we are headed down a different route.

Sooooo, Norfolk is ahead of the game then?

 

Webbed fingers and toes for when sea levels rise, more fingers and toes for increased surface area of the webbing and inbreeding to lengthen telomeres and reduce genetic damege from replication (and possibly damage from radiation?)

 

Renrag

[Ken L]

A very recent evolution, Homo has changed the planet's ecology in an incredibly short time like no other before, disastrously so.

 

Oh I don't know, I think that cyanobacteria might just have us beat.

 

The article strikes me as rather silly.

The big question in astrobiology is "where is everybody?" because no matter how hard we have looked, we have yet to hear a peep on the EM spectrum.

 

We need to find at least one example of abiogenesis and subsequent evolution that is entirely independent of Earth before we can make the leap from thinking of life as very special to thinking of a universe teaming with living things - although personally, I'm inclined by virtue of the maths alone to think of a universe if not filled with life, then certainly speckled with it.

 

Short of the proverbial landing on the White House Lawn, I'm not sure how the chappie expects us to make contact in 20 years.

We might detect a rocky planet who's spectral analysis hints at life - that ain't making contact.

We might detect a signal but even if we decided to send a reply, there is pretty much zero chance of us getting a response with 20 years - that ain't making contact.

So what does he mean ?

 

Personally, I'm with Hawking and others. Actually contacting aliens might be a bad move. Forget plagues, forget being eaten, the big problem is that the amount of life supporting real estate in the galaxy is very limited and they just might decide to push us out. Even if they don't, I can't think of a single example in human history where a technologically advanced civilization has visited a less advanced civilization and the latter has done well.

 

A last thought. If it hadn't been for a big rock 65 million years ago, how much sooner might a technologically advanced (and certainly not human) civilization have evolved on Earth ?

Edited June 29, 2011 by Ken L