OR 
It became known as the Drake Equation, and when its inventor factored in the number of stars, the percentage likely to have planets around them, the percentage of those planets likely to be right for life, and so forth, he concluded the universe must be teeming with sentient beings.
2) Skeptic
Dr. Andrew Watson at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain, says the odds of finding beings like us elsewhere is very, very low — perhaps as little as 0.01 percent over the four billion years that a given planet like ours is likely to be friendly to life.
Dr. Watson argues that there’s a finite window for life on Earth–and we came into being relatively late in that window. The Sun is slowly growing in intensity so that Earth has “only” about a billion years before it gets fried.
“Structurally complex life is separated from prokaryotes [probably the Earth's first living cells] by several very unlikely steps and, hence, will be much less common than prokaryotes,” he writes in the journal Astrobiology. “Intelligence is one further unlikely step, so it is much less common still.”
An interesting debate on this topic can be found on the link below:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article236.html
Questions
1) Do you believe there is life on other plants? If yes, is there a life with an intelligence at least equal to humans?
2) If we did find life found on another planet how do you think you would react to this news?
15 comments
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April 24, 2008 at 8:13 pm
ric booth
I am hopeful that we will at least on day be able to travel to other solar systems and explore other worlds. I don’t know what to expect as far as life elsewhere. Intelligent life? hmm.. (resisting the temptation to quip: “I’m still looking for intelligent life on planet Earth!”
ok, I couldn’t resist.
One scientist described the leaps necessary to arrive a the human body in the “short” lifespan of the universe as equivalent to a tornado going through a junk yard and “accidentally” constructing a fully functional Boeing 747. I’ll look for that scientist’s name.
April 25, 2008 at 7:08 am
Indian Lake Papa
Ed - I think were almost foolish to belief life doesn’t exist out there! Maybe my Christian faith is too shallow to think that earth is the only place that god put life on. Hopefully other place aren’t as screwed up as we are! I am fascinated at how large this universe is - it is one of driving forces in why I believe there is a God. This subject fascinates me to say the least. Maybe someday you and I can rent a space ship and go see a baseball game and walk a beach on a distant planet! :o) Wouldn’t that be cool!
April 25, 2008 at 9:34 am
hoverfrog
1) I’d like there to be. If seems likely that life can exist on other worlds and we know that intelligence can evolve so it seems likely that intelligent life can exist on other world.
2) I’d be very excited and then annoyed that any communication between us would be over the span of lifetimes or generations given the distances.
3) you didn’t ask if I thought that intelligent life had visited Earth but it’s an important distinction to the first question. My answer is the aliens probably haven’t visited Earth. Even if they have I don’t think that they’ll come back for a while.
April 25, 2008 at 1:13 pm
brandy
Hmmmm, to be honest, I’ve never given it a whole lot of thought b/c it is not something that really interests me. I figure, if there IS life on another planet the odds of us finding it and then communicating with it (them, whatever) are slim to none. Intelligent life anyway. I know they’ve found water and plants and stuff like that on planets but do I think those plants are going to grow into intelligent life forms one day? Heck no.
See, I don’t know much about it. As for aliens, like the “crop circle” kinds, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I find it very hard to believe.
Although, that footage that they showed here a while back that had the shadow form of a man, I think it was on Mars, that was a little creepy.
If we DID find life in the form of PEOPLE on another planet, I think that would be very exciting! THEN I would want to know more and learn all about it. But not now, when its still just a speculation. I feel like there are other more important things to fret about here on THIS planet.
I just said fret. Oh my.
April 25, 2008 at 2:04 pm
edfromct
Ric & Papa - both of you have brought up the good point as to whether we can say we have intelligent life on earth.
I would hope that if another life form did make it’s way to our planet, or communicated with us, it would be one that has figured out how to eliminate the war and poverty Brandy “frets” about.
Papa, it would be “very cool” if we could take a trip to another plant.
I would sign up in a heart beat. Perhaps you could bring along Amos and be the first cowboy in space. 
I don’t know that what the scriptures say about life on other plants but I would think a person of religious faith could see the hand of God everywhere.
Hover - I agree it is unlikely an intelligent life form has visited earth. It is likely if they did they would take one look at how we treat our fellow humans and flee back to their own plant.
The materials necessary for life, as we know it, have been found in meteorites from outer space. Also it is likely that volcanic eruptions on earth have spewed these same materials, perhaps even bacteria, into outer space. If we found life on Mars it may have orginated from earth. Outer space must be full of the building blocks of life and millions of earth like plants to seed.
Brandy, you have a bigger problem in turning you new house into the home you want. No need to “fret” about aliens from outer space.
April 25, 2008 at 4:25 pm
brandy
The kind of aliens I’m into are Autobots and Decepticons from Cybertron. Serious.
They are autonomous robotic organisms. heehee
I’ve watched WAY too much of the Transformer movie.
April 25, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Indian Lake Papa
Yahoo! ride em cowboy! I wonder what Amos would look like in a space suit! You can change his DEPENDS!
April 25, 2008 at 10:23 pm
brandy
Amos wears Depends?!?!
April 26, 2008 at 5:18 am
Indian Lake Papa
Brandy - only when we space travel and he has to wear a space suit!
April 26, 2008 at 11:37 am
mandythompson
Ed: when i was a little girl i couldn’t sleep because i was SO petrified that aliens were going to come and take me away.
for years.
and years.
and years.
and i have NO idea why it shook me up so bad!
April 26, 2008 at 4:14 pm
tam
i think you might you might a couple Aliens right here Ed.
who needs space travel
April 26, 2008 at 6:06 pm
edfromct
Tam, I have often felt like an alien myself at times.
I don’t remember how old I was but when I was a child I remember watched a movie about space aliens and wondering if I came from outer space. I saw the world so completely differently from my family.
April 26, 2008 at 6:10 pm
edfromct
Mandy, one of my favorite movies is Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, about alien abductions.
The movie came out in 1977, so maybe you saw the movie or one like it.
Remember seeing any crop circles on the fields of Georgia?
May 7, 2008 at 7:09 am
Robert
A little late to the conversation…but
Ric the 747 “arising from a tornado in a junkyard” that was the work of Fred Hoyle. Fred was an Astronomer, NOT a molecular biologist. He can be forgiven for is GROSS mischaracterization of what the process of natural selection and random mutations actually do.
For my part I think that what we call Life may be very common in the universe as a whole. Let’s face it we haven’t even begun to seriously reconnoiter Mars yet from a biological standpoint. There might be microbial life in many places in our solar system alone.
Sentient beings? Well that’s a horse of an entirely different color! The geological and biological evidence suggests that the hardest thing to do is develop the genetic code and the basic chemistry of life. For most of the history of our planet life didn’t progress beyond algae. About 530 million years ago an event scientists call the Cambrian Explosion happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
All of the animals that are even remotely recognizable to us happened in the years since that event.
For 2.5 billion years life was nothing more than slime, then in a fifth of that time comes all the diversity you see around you.
Does it follow that sentience MUST follow complex life?
I don’t think so…
I think the variables are many and we are the result of the ‘goldilocks effect’: right place, right time, right conditions…
It makes it no less meaningful to me, in fact it makes me appreciate it all the more.
So sentient life may indeed be the rarity but I am convinced that we are not alone in that respect.
Hey Ed, have you ever seen Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ series?
I highly recommend it to anyone fascinated by these questions!
Seriously, find it some where and watch it, whether theist or not, if you don’t come away from viewing this series without an awe of the The Cosmos…well you don’t have a pulse!
R.
May 7, 2008 at 7:40 am
ric booth
Thanks Robert. I forgot I was looking that up. And I loved Cosmos… I should get it and watch it again.