Recent study shows strong likelihood we are the only intelligent life in the universe

Joshua Jones said:
Actually, he is just flat wrong. You aren't dividing a finite number by infinity; you are dividing infinity by a finite number, which leaves you with infinity. In other words, if there are an infinite number of planets, and a finite percentage of them are inhabitated, there must be an infinite number of inhabited planets.

The ironic part of his whole argument is that, should it hold true, he would actually be proving with absolute certainty some form of Creationism. DeCarte proved that one thinking must exist (even if all of the physical world were an illusion, someone is being shown that illusion, and therefore, that someone exists in some sense), and given that arbitrary self-exceptionalism is rightly excluded in logic (oneself isn't the exception to the rule unless there is an adequate reason to suspect oneself is), this must be true of other thinking entities as well. Therefore, anyone you meet cannot be a product of a deranged imagination.

If, however, the probability of an inhabited planet were actually zero, as he suggests, there cannot be a natural explanation of inhabitants anywhere. Therefore, there must be a non-natural or supernatural explanation for the fact that we do exist, even if the actual nature of our existence is outside of our ability to perceive. Thefore, if he is right, an inhabited planet required Creationism.

Therefore, unless this is his intention, he may wish to abandon this line of logic. And, if he were to, Creationists would be wise to avoid this argument, as he still has his math backwards.
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You realize it is satire, right?
 
Joshua Jones said:
And here, ladies and gentlemen, Joshua demonstrates why you Google unfamiliar names BEFORE typing up lengthy rants
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It was a great dissection though ;)

I just assumed that anyone on a forum dedicated to scifi would know who Douglas Adams was.
Mind you, I've never read Dune, so what do I know?
 
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Robert Zwilling said:
Wonder how far out into space one could spot an A-bomb test. You would think that a probe heading out of the solar system would take a reading of Earth so we could see how badly our EM signature of authenticity is degraded over distance. Maybe it all jumbles together into meaningless static or maybe our harnessing of energy is so crude that an intelligent life form might never do it that way.
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Forget for a moment looking for other life in the rest of the universe, could we detect an ancient industrial civilization in the geological record of our own planet? Or as The Atlantic headline put it, in a much more clickbaity way, was there civilization on earth before humans?
 
M. Robert Gibson said:
It was a great dissection though ;)

I just assumed that anyone on a forum dedicated to scifi would know who Douglas Adams was.
Mind you, I've never read Dune, so what do I know?
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Yeah, one would think... I saw the movie, and am hoping to read the book at some point in the near future, but I don't write humor at the moment, so there has always been other works above it on my list. So, I guess I just never took note of his name.
 
And just to add to the discussion - humanity almost didn't make it. The Earth is very close to the inner edge of the Goldilocks Zone. A bit closer in...
 
Joshua Jones said:
Nope, not blocked! Thanks for sharing. I will take a listen in the near future.

Thanks again!
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I strongly recommend listening to the original radio recordings as that is how THHGTHG was originally conceived; it was only adapted to book, tv and film later. Personally I still thing the original radio drama is the best.
 
If the study had 100 FTL ships and surveyed all of the stars in a 200 light-year radius I might rate it's credibility at 5%.
 
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