Oooof🔥😂🤣

@@kwnstudio1421 Why do you think the aliens call us "Earthtards" ? 😀

@@huruduru5144 Lol i never said that and who knows what they think of us if they are out there watching.

@@huruduru5144 , If you think that you are an Earthtard, keep it to yourself. The rest of us are NOT like you.

Unless you think the US Navy is fabricating the gun camera images taken by their fighter planes, then perhaps extraterrestrial life has already found us!

Yes well, he only had 17 minutes but he said that there are hundreds of statistical oddities, and I think many more. Life is a very precious gift from the universe that becomes aware of itself. But if the multiverse is infinite, even only spatially, beyond the outer horizon, then everything must be accepted, and not only is life infinite, but even very similar and even identical copies of us. Sure, they'll be at distances you couldn't even write, but IF the multiverse exists, and it's infinite, they can't not exist.

Indeed the red dwarf stars are quite different from the sun and do not appear to be conducive for the evolution of life as we know it. The Earth appears to be a rare planet with the large moon, enrichment of uranium, thorium and phosphorus and the strong magnetosphere. We should search for Earth analog planets around F, G and brighter K type stars.

Also the impact event which formed the moon reset the initial rotation of earth - moon.

So if you visit say 100 other planets outside our Solar System then maybe there is something remarkable there. Now go and visit 10 billion and see if it remains remarkable. Incidently you dont even need to leave our Solar System to encounter another `double planet` system.

Once life evolves and circumstances permit it to survive for enough time it will evolve to better fit the circumstances and niche survival opportunities available. Because life is somewhat to very adaptable to many different sorts of environments and conditions, for it to evolve intelligence, conditions don’t have to parallel or match what exists on earth or in our solar system.

So true... There's more to setting up a mic and pa than just plugging it in. Bet that's all they did.. Is it on ok...yes.. Ok go!

The audio wasn't bad tbh

you seriously need to learn what a great mind is. this boy here is no evidence of a great mind but a great idiocy. wake up people!!!!!

@@VG-rj8pn What's your PHD in?

@FBI Guy No doubt

What it is sure, with probability of 1, is that a First Civilization arose in the Universe, and that that First Civilization was (or is) alone being the only one that existed. Individuals of that First Civilization were (or are) saying _we could not be the only ones, the Universe is so vast._

Very simply, the statistics point to what happened here to be nearly impossible, except for this one time. Most likely, we are alone in the universe.

Indeed ! If anything he understated the case !

Yes its huge but it is the same physics everywhere.

Imagine if you did that and actually scooped up a whale

@@fudgedogbannana maybe.

@@George.Coleman There could be a _whale_ of a time to be had for sure! 😛

@@Dawkinsbulldog that would get my _Seal_ of approval

Great comment

Yours being one of them.

Yes, amazing man but not very intelligent.

@@larslarsen8010 - Explain why, in your opinion, the man isn't intelligent. Or are you one of those types who write "This sucks!" without the ability to back up your claim?

@@donmiller2908 The reason is that this man is uninformed have listened to fake news and is full of false data. He's not able to sort out all the lies from the truth. That's stupidity.

and intelligent life that evolved beyond primitive radio wave communication after 5,000 years of development. Trying to find another civilization using a technology similar enough to ours that we would recognize it is like trying to see the registration number of an airplane at night from 4 miles away!

Totally correct, time is the key to everything in time everything is possible.....

We are definitely not alone but they are soooooooo far away.

Plus intelligent life might have wiped themselves out. They we’re here for a very brief moment in the great expanse of time. There technology may not be present in our region and in our brief time that we have been capable of detecting their signals.

@@thelikebutton3451 Your use of the word 'definitely' is definitely wrong. Without any evidence the answer must be that we just don't know. The lack of evidence, while not conclusive, does not bode well for the "there must be millions of civilizations crowd." Life could be incredibly rare...ie just us.

O2 in the air is distributed randomly. But it doesn't need to be. It can all move to the corner of the room. The math for that happening can happen and its about as likely as there being other life. Which means yes it is possible but its so rare that it would be like winning the lottery trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions of times in a row. its not worth even rationally considering.

@@aguyfromnothere those odds are nothing on the cosmic scale.. we havent even explored a tiny % of our galaxy for intelligent life , and there are quadtrillions of galaxies , maybe even infinite amount of galaxies and planets out there so I think life isnt really that rare of a event if you look at the BIG picture. Think of like this, saying that we are the only intelligent life out in the universe is the equivalent of taking a cup of water from the ocean and saying that there is no fish in there

@@aguyfromnothere O2 cannot just "all move to the corner of the room"!! Jeezus!! Life forms the same as all things in the universe: when its components are together, they do what they do because they have no other choice. Then from the earliest life onwards, intelligence is heavily rewarded. Mammals and even SOME humans are smarter than the dinos were when the Cretaceous comet hit. The Cretaceous dinos were smarter than the Triassic dinos from shortly after the Permian comet hit. The pseudosuchians and other reptiles of the Permian were smarter than the insects of the Carboniferous. And so on.

@@user-pu1mu9ph6b It probably does exist elsewhere in the universe but almost certainly not in our galaxy or even our cluster group, and for all intents and purposes that means it might as well not exist at all

The universe is not old enough for the evolutionary process to occur successfully with an infinite number of chances. There is a limit to the time available after the big bang.

Yep, occams razor. This is basically the answer to the Fermi Paradox yet people like to speculate science fiction all day because it sparks their childish imaginations and gives them hope we will get to trade memes with aliens in another solar system.

Yes. Abiogenesis is statistically almost impossible, interstellar distances are too large, intelligence will be rare maybe less than 1 per million galaxies, the galaxies are flying apart at impossible speeds and light speed communication (let alone travel) is way too slow at the cosmic scale. We are alone forever. But that’s ok and there’s no harm in looking. Just in case

Give us 100 years and we will sort it all out

yep that's the highest probability why we never say them

Andrew Cliffe maybe the aliens are just a bit busy at the moment and we just have to wait until they have decent spaces enough in their calendars to come and see us. I mean what are we going to say to them anyway when we finally meet them? Has anyone got this properly planned out yet? I’d hate for us to disappoint the aliens when they arrive with nothing planned or even a decent cup of tea or something....you know...

jlrinc but they cant

If they “were” on the same earth network connecting to have conversations if you were just on the moon it takes a full minute to send a message but this is only if you would be on the same “network” times that by maybe the biggest number you can think of... then communication would take that long to send a message to the location and back. But since the other organisms on the other planets they rather don’t have the technology or their devices don’t have access to what ever the network is on earth I don’t fully understand how network works on space to earth... that’s why

we forgot to send the wifi password with the voyager space probes

I like you tong in cheek answer. :)

Very very good point and and when you look at the gentleman who is currently the president of the United states it is clearly a logical conclusion. We are perhaps as a race of beings currently like a creature under a rock compared to other universal races.

Fact stranger than fiction... Read book. Rare earth

I have little doubt that life exists elsewhere. However, intelligent life capable of developing advanced technologies is likely very rare. We've only had the communication capability for less than one hundred years. SETI has been in operation about 60 years. So the messages sent have travelled 60 light years. If we encountered a species willing and able to answer, it would have to have been within 30 light years of Earth. If the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe for objects, interstellar travel is likely to be exceedingly rare because it would take generations of any species to travel great distances through space. We won't even be able to communicate with anyone out of our very local neighborhood. There may be billions of planets throughout the universe capable of supporting intelligent life, but not all within the same time frame. Let's continue to explore space, but manned missions are not practical beyond our solar system. Let's preserve life on this planet. With an infinite (for all practical purposes it is infinite) universe, improbable events occur with great frequency, but the odds of improbable events happening very close together in space are very small.

I guess you just didn't get it, did you? Iisten again.

No that's not what he's saying at all. He's trying to argue that the long sequence of specific events that are in the history of life on Earth before humans are necessary for intelligent life to form. TBH it would be better if he WAS trying to make a theistic argument out of it, instead he has to go and demonstrate for all to see that creationists aren't the only idiots in town. And his argument itself still sounds EXACTLY THE SAME as the creationists' arguments, their formula is "look at these unlikely things that must happen in order to get to now, I can't imagine all that happening without the guiding hand of a god, therefore god did it all". All he's doing is replacing the final conclusion at the end with "therefore there is nothing else like humans in the galaxy".

He didn't exactly analyze all the bad luck we might have had. I'm wondering if our type of warm organic life is rare, but superconductive life could be common.

@@medexamtoolsdotcom uh, no...a creationist argument doesn't involve a long series of unlikely events. as the name implies, it simply involves humans being directly created fully formed in their modern state. that's pretty much the opposite of what he lays out.

The rarity of our existence is just as vast as the universe.

@@goodkrypollo1706 not if we find microbes on Mars and Europa. 3 instances of life in a single solar system? That makes us common.

yet the improbability of intelligent life is just as big as planets and stars in the universe from the forming of eukariote cells fromm prokariot cells (the lucky chance one form of prokariot cell (bacteria) enteing another bigger one and living in symbiosis and the reproduction forming new symbiotic cells doing the same) without that there be only single cell life... 1 in a kazillion chance should mention too that there was no oxigen on earth and somehow a algea formed that changed out atmosphere to contain oxigen.. that life needed for better energy creation within cells.without this event there would not be the life as we know it multiple near life extinction events (the dinosaurs dying from the impact is one of about 5 to 6 events we know of that could have ended all life) the fact this planet has a magnetosphere due to iron core saving out planet from having atmosphere stripped off also a mars size planet hit earth and the crash split a part of and formed the moon that we need to out weathersystem and tides. that life needs also relise 99% of all lifeforms have seized to be... they are extingt... the 1 percent is what is left and that contains 8.7 million different forms of life currently on this planet right now from that 1 percent that is the 8.7 million different forms of life there is only one that is really inteligent (to understand most of the universe) and that is us improbability upon improbability

@Mike Bronicki - I hope we do find microscopic life on other worlds within our solar system. But, I don't think it changes the probability of intelligent life, elsewhere in the cosmos. If intelligence exists elsewhere, it's likely much too far away in distance (and in time) to ever be discovered, much less encountered. For all intents and purposes, our world is singular in its uniqueness.

exactly. just calculate the time to get to the nearest possible one: millions of generations

What are the chances of finding intelligent life that wants to be friends with us or help us with our problems? What is even the point of finding intelligent life out there?

@@jamescollier3 We don't have enough energy on Earth to send a short message to Proxima Centauri 4.25 light years away.

And the chance is great it is so good for this intelligent life elsewhere, they never will have to discover a deadly species as us........ !

you are right but i think, Marc Defant is talking about our Galaxy (the Milkyway Galaxy)?! i mean the titel of this video is called Galaxy

And the time frame...

You're forgetting the alien abductions and probings....

Reasonable comment

@@davenotdoug8394 - Lol!

I don't agree that intelligent life "is very rare". Kind of like saying purple is very rare. I see intelligence as part of a spectrum of life. If it can exist AT ALL, then it is on the spectrum and therefore all-present as potential. True, we can't see gamma rays, but they were always there as a potential discovery. Also, distances/time in space are, once understood and manipulated by a sufficiently advanced civilization, of little hindrance. Any advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

There's probably other paths to life, or other forms of life out there, so there are unknowns there. But there are probably far more unknowns with what makes life possible. He mentions only a few, but say they are only a few examples of many, much of which may be unknown to us currently. I would posit there are more unknowns with things that can prevent life from forming than paths to intelligent life.

@The Great Gazoo Nope, The answer could be one.

​@The Great Gazoo That's not how math works. Time might be infinite, but it does not mean everything will happen (or one of us will magically reappear for a second at some arbitrary time in the future). This is because there are also an infinite number of possibilities, as an example, for something as simple as the relative position of two atoms. So once the last structures are destroyed in the universe, an infinite amount of time can just be an infinite number of different positions of photons. You can also have an infinite repetition of something. None of these are inconsistent with a universe going on forever.

I agree. If intelligence has survival value, and greater intelligence enhances the chance of survival, then there could be many ways that intelligence as great as ours, or greater, could evolve. They don't all necessarily involve asteroids and rift valleys. Dr. Defant also speaks of "life" and "intelligent life" interchangeably. But SETI is only designed to detect intelligent life, and only that subset of intelligent life that communicates using radio waves. There could be a Leonardo Da Vinci on TRAPPIST-1e and we would not know it. The search for extraterrestrial life is done by instruments such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which looks for the absorption spectra of molecules associated with life in the atmospheres of planets that orbit other stars.

You're right, this guy is very narrow-minded. I'm sure there are other ways he never dreamed of!

' Nearly "......Hmmm...?

Life itself is an extremely rare almost impossible thing. Life was formed on earth under conditions that do not exist now, and life would not be created under current conditions. He mentioned only 3 of at least dozen highly improbable (as in 1 in a billion) events that had to take place: supernova, existence of planets of the right size/type, development of chemistry supporting life, biogenesis, DNA/RNA, photosynthesis, cell nuclei / mitochondria (from symbiosis), cambrian explosion, etc. It's reasonable to conclude that intelligent life is a one-in-a-many-trillions event.

When I was a kid, we thought planets were an extremely rare, almost impossible thing. But it turned out that was only because we hadn't learned how to spot them yet. Now we assume they're almost everywhere.

Patrick McGuinness what evidence are you basing this assumption on? We don't have a clear understanding of HOW life began here...yet you now find it everywhere. Unless you have a galactic survey handy, I'd recommend keeping an open mind. Not too long ago (25 years) people were claiming that Earth was "Unique" in the universe! Just a few decades later, that claim is well and truly busted.

Earth still is unique, in the known universe at least.

Of course the same conditions don't exist now, life in general has completely altered the planet from initial conditions. IE oxygen catastrophe. The chemistry isn't all that special. The chemical makeup of our bodies matches the universe, save for helium (which is inert). In order of frequency, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen... Life doesn't appear to be picky. No special blend of 11 herbs and spices. Supernovae are common in the universe, nothing special there. Estimated to be 30 PER SECOND in the observable universe. You don't need multiple supernova, you only need one to salt a nebula and cause the collapse. Remember the ratio of elements I mentioned? A large star ready to go supernova is going to have this breakdown. An extra percent (or even 10 percent) of carbon or iron isn't going to break the chemistry of life. (again, oxygen catastrophe being a perfect example) The geologic record of the Earth demonstrates life existed almost immediately after the initial conditions allowed for the chemistry to exist. That doesn't support your assertion that life is rare or difficult. That suggests that life is probable. Life appears to have taken the easiest route! Your other misconception is that life elsewhere must match the metabolism (mitochondria, photosynthesis) or instruction (RNA/DNA) used on Earth. How do you know our way, is the only way? Basically, we don't know. And I'll argue that two other planets in our solar system, Mars and Venus, came damn close to having early conditions well suited for life. In fact there is a chance (perhaps even some weak evidence) that Mars once had life early on. Summary... the assumptions used to justify the rare earth hypothesis are wrong

@@anthonyv6962 Well, that may be true, but I don't believe Mr. Defant is making the argument that all life considered needs to be a life form like us .... He is suggesting that the reason SETI can't find any life forms is because of how amazingly improbable the chain of events that had to take place which helped humans get here is also probably the same for other non carbon based forms of life in the universe. It seems you are trying to discredit his science for a point he's not even trying to make.

@@JEMCC I think Defant is not understanding just how _big_ the universe is, and how many different ways life may arise. Amazingly unlikely things happen all the time. There may even be other life in our own solar system right now, on one of the moons of the gas giants, and there's a very reasonable chance that Mars once had some type of life on it. So, consider how many other solar systems there are in our own galaxy alone, and then multiply that by all the galaxies out there. So, we know life _can_ arise (since we are an example of it), and we know there are trillions and trillions and trillions of other chances for it to arise, so it seems more likely to me that life in various forms exists throughout the universe, and some of those instances are bound to survive long enough for some type of intelligence to arise, maybe something so smart that they wouldn't consider us to qualify when they went looking. :) Basically, I think Defant's approaching this issue with a clear bias, and offering an apology that is a little akin to the (quite silly) Cosmological argument for god.

@@JEMCC Yes, great speech and I just think that for us to be here is obviously a will.

@@aerocap are you suggesting this is God’s will? All these improbable events are somehow the will of God? The exact opposite is what’s happening here. Science is slowly and surely disproving the existence of any and all Gods. And the sooner the better.

@@JEMCC Yes it's what I meant. On the opposite, to me it seems to become more and more obvious.

Gets more complex...take magnesium from earth and no humans ..take potassium from earth no humans...take vitamin c from earth no humans...on and on and on...the creator left nothing out ..strong case for intelligent design

And is hollow

People forget that time is just as vast an obstacle as space is to detecting others. Good point!

That's assuming no intelligent life survives for long after technological advancement. Otherwise every single rock in the galaxy would be colonized by now.

Trying to find another civilization using a technology similar enough to ours that we would recognize it is like trying to see the registration number of an airplane at night from 4 miles away!

well the speaker does not seem to consider this jmtnvalley lol hes forever harping on about dinosaurs pfff tiresome

What if there was a signal sent 500 lightyears away from us 500 years ago? But you are right that distance narrows the odds of noticing.

Might have been an improvement it we had had that collision - but it proves absolutely nothing about life in the Universe - for or against

its the most logical and beautiful POV of the universe. I didn’t feel very special when I grew up with faith. That some god created me here to suffer for a purpose. When I learned just how rare and alone we are, and the miraculous beauty of it, I felt very special to be living as an observer

This is not some crazy theory he dreamed up. It's legit theory. goes back decades. Weird for Ted to flag.

What exactly is brilliant about someone having bad deductive reasoning skills given all the empirical evidence in the universe for the exact opposite of what he claims...?!?!

​@@SWest00072 What is the empirical evidence? Please share. Much appreciated.

If you landed on the planet Greet, you would say GREETINGS, GREETLINGS!

shes a sav

She`s skipping a lot. She has to be.

@@UndergroundIndigenousPrimate noooooo. She's doing sign language in cursive.

@notfiveo Makes me think of a line from a song in the Monty Python movie, "The Meaning of Life." It goes, "...and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, because there's bugger all down here on earth."

You jumped straight from microbial life to intelligent life, as if those were the only two options available. My cat is not amused.

There was another TED speaker, I forget who, who also said that microbial life was probably common but that intelligent life was rare.

ll the evidence we have so far is that any life is rare. Every life on our planet came from one cell, and in billions of years this one needed cell only happened successfully once, and we know this planet works for life. All this and we haven't even found a way to deliberately create a life-form unrelated or unrelated to that original DNA. Primitive life wasn't covered by the lecture, but it is yet another incredibly unlikely event, and we have all the evidence of that.

@@DieFlabbergast On the scale of microbe to intelligent life a cat is almost at the human end of the scale - although as many people have pointed out, humans are not the endpoint of the evolutionary process.

Don Walker exactly dude

Such a smart guy..... such a weak and poorly defended proposition.

Don: You've got that exactly right. I liked this first time that I saw it, but I rewatched tonight and not so sure I like what he is saying. I think of someone who is very RELIGIOUS, and they sound just like this guy. Meaning, that what he is expousing is his religion (or more -- his views) and beliefs about how we became us. No, I don't think just the Rifts in Africa could have gotten apes out of the trees. Many apes might have got out of the trees by many different way. Okay, killing off the dinosaurs, it could have happened by a virus too -- didn't but could have. Then, smaller life would have sprung up. Say the metorite killed most everything off; well, some places would have small remnants of life, so it would have come back. What he has said is VERY MYOPIC (as Don said), and I agree that what he is saying sounds more like HIS THOUGHT-PROCESSES only and sounds like a RELIGIOUS look at it -- more than a scientific look. Life will survive, grow, evolve, and overcome when it has the opportunity ... Fortuitous and helpful circumstances surely happen throughout the universe.

are the laws of physics different somewhere else?

Idk, doesn't seem like there's life that we could EVER know about, unless they travel TO earth on a ship for what, a few billion years??

Good since he started out wrong about what the BB would produce and then got it all wrong about the nebula of gas AND DUST that our solar system started from. For his education he sure produced a lot of ignorance.

Hiiiighllllyyyyy improbable

@@AngadSingh-bv7vn aahh thank you, I almost lost hope. Now can you please present everyone your evidence.

Also, we only have 900 million (only lol) before the sun finishes off earth.

"which it did". How can you assert that? We can't possibly know yet

@@MijinLaw life did happen once because we are alive, duh.

@@Withnail1969 I thought it was saying life occurred once in total. Misread it because most of the other comments were agreeing with the video.

Basically because there is a god who was responsible of our existing. This lecture is a huge slap in every atheist

@@idanime1514 there is no evidence god exists.

If civilization is abundant, this galaxy will be full of cacophony of Radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, and Dyson spheres, other massive construction which should be easy to detect.

So far it seems that the more intelligent life is, the shorter the duration of its existence. Intelligent life exists because environmental conditions in a given time permit it. In the history of our planet, the window of permitting conditions is a fraction of the life of the planet. If humans survive the next two centuries, we may have time to continue to evolve.

Depends of definition of "LIFE" itself. If Life is a form of molecular existence based on food-chain type of energy exchange, there may be completely different "life forms", not necessarily carbon-oxygen based. But the Intelligence itself is only one. There is only one ABSTRACT INTELLIGENCE. It has only one form based on REASON and LOGIC. Physics, mathematics, chemistry etc. all are exactly the same, no matter at which point of space-time they manifest themselves. Nature itself is interested in finding and developing any food-chain energy exchange, so at some point it can INSTALL that abstract intelligence into the most complex "life-form" of that food chain. That organism further develops itself with the help of Nature, until it sets itself apart from the rest of living organisms of that system (like humans did on Earth in the last 40-50 thousand years). "Gift Of LIfe" in our understanding here on Earth may be completely different that in another system. We just have no proof of its existence, because we are still too primitive to discover anything solid. We just barely scratched the surface...

@@KrystofDreamJourney You started off well and then got weird.

Same here.FB is full of fake news & moronic posts.

Farhan Ahmed true that bro

???????????

There is evidence all over this planet that proves without question that there were many highly intelligent civilizations on this planet tens of thousands of years ago, who were far more intelligent than we are today.

What you say is technically true, for now. The Kepler telescope is rapidly cataloging planetary systems where once we saw only pinpricks of light at night. If so (and we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime) I think we may discover there's life on other worlds in the next generation or two - and I hope we can get our sheet together before we meet them. If not, as Sagan so aptly put it: "It's an awful waste of space".

What you are saying is statistically impossible!!!! There are over 220 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy and based on a very researched and documented equation, the Astro-Copernican Limit, there are potentially several advanced civilizations existing in the Milky Way - and that is on a very conservative basis. Just like centuries before, everyone thought the Sun went around the Earth, that the Earth was flat, now you are going to tell us that humans are the only advanced beings in the Milky Way?!

@@bradwhitham4115 While he was smoking his mooncabbage and writing a book where he made simplistic mistakes such as "Eratosthenes proved earth is a globe". He was unable to visualize something as simple as the fact that Eratosthenes exercise wasnt intended to prove earth is round, nor did it prove earth round. His exercise was to measure the size of an Earth known to be a globe for centuries before😆😆😆😆

If there are 100 billions of galaxies each with 100 billions of stars, one would need to be really conceited, and smug. and feel so special, to be able to believe there arent other beings in the universe of at least our small level of awareness

It's too late! We've already elected Trump over a year ago!

@@111Renegade111 - So, you're happy with JB as president?

@@achaille9110 Never fails that there's always something that will try to disturb the peace by braying.

@@huizhechen3779- 'Something' or someone?

+Nathan Stevenson Excellent point Nathan. I addressed the issue below but will summarize here. There is no doubt that there may be many ways that intelligent life could evolve. If true, than it does undermine my premise. But let me emphasize that in 4.5 billion years of the history of earth no intelligent life evolved until us. In addition, you have the Fermi paradox to contend with - "where is all the intelligent life" if it is out there? I don't think there is a right answer here and we can continue to speculate without coming to any conclusive resolve. In regards to your point, there was an interesting article published in Icarus last year which suggested that there is a code hidden in our DNA (they do not suggest they know what the code is but note that it is statistically improbable that it is random). If true, perhaps the universe was ceded with DNA with a code that tells us our history (speculation on their part). I remain skeptical but open to the possibility.

+Marc Defant I must also point out that it is incredibly conceited to think that we humans are the ONLY intelligent life that has ever existed on this planet. Having opposable thumbs is hardly a prerequisite for intelligence, but it certainly helps in making tools. Tools (especially the development of written communication) have allowed us to accomplish quite a bit more than would have been attainable by a marine mammal with equal intelligence.

Nathan Stevenson you don't know how we came to be

Love hidden codes, Mark Defant!

Marc, your enthusiasm and excitement about the incredulous miracle of this life is right on par with mine although you know many more facts about the subject here. Funny that sometimes if I stay on the subject too long I feel as if I could spontaneously combust LOL, like some kind of sensory overload `on contemplating the vastness of this STRANGE Universe, the numbers of galaxies and solar systems, LIGHT YEARS of distance and INFINITY...And then I just have to Stop and normalize? Fat chance of that, Ha! :D Great fun Talk! Thank You xox

The existence of extremophiles tells us that life is common everywhere

@@Pelgram Yes,but not advanced tool using beings,just simple life. Europa might be teeming with animal life in it's deep water oceans.

@@mikedunn7795 you can't know that. If there is simple life it is more likely than not there will be complex life too. The idea that Earth alone in the entire Universe has complex life belongs in the middle ages and should stay there

Exactly. His assumptions are based on such a narrow conception of life that they're useless and, even worse, potentially misleading.

@@GonzoTehGreat It's no more useless than the assumption that life can arise in any different way, because we have zero evidence that suggests that. We still don't even know how life started here on Earth. People can speculate about silicon based life and other fanciful stuff, but there's no science behind it.

@@WaxPaper Irrelevant. You're arguing a strawman. The lack of evidence doesn't make his case any stronger.

@@GonzoTehGreatBut you saying his definition of life is too narrow is the same thing; there's no evidence to support the idea that life can exist as anything else. The guy in this video is speculating with the idea that life is rare, and you are speculating about it being abundant.

@@WaxPaper Please quote me where I speculate about intelligent life. I suggest you read my comments more carefully. It's the assumptions made by this speaker which are speculative and I'm commenting that his speculations are unfounded because we currently don't know enough to say either way. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, so it's too early to rule things out. Making such unfounded assumptions inevitably narrows your perspective, which is detrimental to the search itself.

You make the argument much better than the speaker. Although correct, he chose weird examples to illustrate the Rare Earth hypothesis.

Wow... quite a statement.

Life is rare. Life is precious. But can life survive 100 million barrels of oil being burned every day? It's not going to stop any day now.

@@kensanity178 erm, yes it can.

@@ArmaturaRecords wrong answer. 100 million barrels is 5 billion pounds of oil. That's EVERY DAY. No, life cannot survive that. First powerful storms get more powerful and more numerous. Then the ocean water levels start going bbn up. Methane hydrate at the ocean floor starts to turn into a gaseous state, this precipitates a runaway greenhouse effect. No life survives that. I didnt just make this up. Its fact.

t Luke McGregor : ryt ! (-Tx!)

Silicon is not as abundant as carbon and carbon has better structure bonds, no intelligent life can breathe methane.

@Dece, That we know of. The point of the comment was that life develops relative to the environment.

+Amarandum Valadamaris No we know this to be true, intelligent life forms have a brain and a brain uses a lot of energy and oxygen by far is the single best element to create vast amounts of energy during metabolism. Learn biochemistry. We have microbes on earth that breathe carbon dioxide, sulfur, but observations have shown since they do not utilize oxygen they never produce sufficient energy levels to develop complexity.

I think his explanation is why we as homosapeans exist and how we came about which is rare...the evolution is not stopped with us...it continues...who knows what will evolve out of us?????????

Sounds like an egocentric fallacy.

Not really...turns out humans can't produce even a single cell much less DNA....so your analogy isn't relevant...while we can dismiss the bible as fiction that doesn't dismiss a creator

@@powerdriller4124 which is why Douglas Adams was a genius. A sophisticated version of the "which came first, chicken or egg" conundrum.

How do you know that the probability of a life generating event is small. Maybe there have been several every day for the past 3 billion years. Why does it have to be something that just happens once? How can you say it is rare when you, and I, dont even know how it occurs ??

That is assumption. The evidence suggests life shouldn't be in the universe once, and that we'd need far more planets for it to be likely even onc.

Having an infinite number of something doesnt increase the probability of a particular event. There is no NECESSITY for life to exist. That is why Mark's emphasis on the rareness, randomness and improbability of various events was so important. This randomness and rarity proves the lack of NECESSITY for life elsewhere. If you can prove there was NECESSITY you will become rich and famous, until you die.

@@admiralbenbow5083 It's certainly been rare within the scope of our observation. But you're right to suggest that our observation is pretty limited and there are lots of other places.

you make a good point. thanks.

I do not think you see his point though. Of course you could say, how do we know intelligent life could not occur through a myriad of other pathways? That question is always on the table, but it is pure conjecture. What is the basis for saying it could or could not? The fundamental, humble presupposition is not that the way we were made is the only way toward an intelligent life form, but rather, that we are the simplest intelligent life form that can exist. WE are our standard. Given that, the probability of our emergence constitutes a threshold for intelligent life and that is the point of what Marc is talking about. The fact that our emergence is dependent on all of these statistically improbable coincidences (or whatever you wish to call them) shows how intelligent life is not going to be commonplace across the galaxy, if the galaxy holds to all the fundamental concepts of physics, chemistry, and biology that we have gleaned from our rock in the cosmos. I suppose the easiest way to answer your own thought would be to ask yourself, how else could it occur? Can you devise some way that you could arrive at intelligent life in a simpler way than what we have on Earth? Precisely coordinated evolutionary events would be the only way, but you would need a tremendous amount of power, knowledge, and foresight to be ablet to even think to attempt such a thing. So basically, if you are God, then yes. There probably is a better way, ha ha.

@@shawnbydalek4153, obviously you see humans as the highest(and only) intelligent beings around in this vast(!) universe. Why so sure? Where do you have your "certain visdom" from...who provided it? Unless you'r actually "the all seeing God" you have to stick to what science believes to be likely...this far. As science is ever evolving something new is discovered(almost) endlessly. In other words science's not complete, done, finished or even over or certain, even on this topic, thus neigther are you...😉 "Always be sceptic with an open mind" ⚔️

​@@oddvin31 What are you talking about man, ha ha? All I gave was an argument to explain why Rishi was mistaken, or missing Marc's point, however you prefer to think of it. I suppose if you think I was wrong, I would love to hear why, but I took no position on the subject of intelligent life in the universe. I just think Marc's argument is very sound and it is easy to misrepresent exactly what it is that he is saying. I studied chemistry, so that is the background lens that I view things from, and you are making a big mistake when you say you need to follow what science believes to be likely, especially as it regards grandiose topics that cannot be studied in the traditional sense (replication under controlled conditions to isolate a single variable). I always try to look at good data, get different perspectives from different places, and then make an informed decision. I do not claim certainty, only a grasp of what is probable, and then I make an argument to support my conclusion. I do not appreciate your fatuous and condescending commentary, but of all the things I have had to clarify in this exchange, this one is probably the biggest waste of time. Is there some girl you are trying to impress later? Good luck with whatever motivates you, ha ha.

@@shawnbydalek4153, there you go...obviously an academic long before you ever became a Jersey girl...ha ha.

In my thought experiment..they choose them all over time.

I think TED just doesn’t like his conclusions.

Yup. God did not create others

At least until artificial intelligence advances beyond our control

@@gemmrk Who?

I agree. The distances, the speed of light and the time that we have had radio technology are why we haven't detected similar intelligence. I found this talk to be very very poor, being devoid of a basic understanding of time, the size of the universe and basic statistics. Whether we remain alone, is time and technology dependent and some element of luck. The location of a near by intelligent world that is only 100 years behind us could be the case. I think the use of radio technology may be transient in a species technological evolution. if you see smoke on the horizon, you don't assume someone is trying to signal you, you just think "yeh, there's a fire" and carry on with your day.

I disagree. If you put people in cold storage, or have enough people, they can voyage through the universe forever.

50/50??? Wow. Guess you didn't see the Airforce radar video released with the radiating UFO'S conducting maneuvers that defy physics or the granite caves in India with perfectly carved interior domes that were measured with lasers and are nearly PERFECT, but are tens of thousands of years old. There are hundreds upon hundreds of similar like examples which are virtually impossible to replicate even with today's technologies!

@@jefft6802UFO doesn’t automatically confirm aliens. It could be anything.

That's called the "Anthropic principle"

absolutely correct. I knew this when I gave the talk but because of time limitations, I did not wish to get into red giants, etc.

yes but in order for the contents of a star to be distributed around it first needs to explode

Traveling anywhere close to the speed of light would require immense amounts of energy. Slower speeds mean less ability to leave the solar system, much less to travel elsewhere within the galaxy.

@@rdberg1957 Yes, I can do math (E=MCsquared), the closer you get to C2, mass goes towards infinity. ...but thanx for your reply.

Karl, I disagree that "either result will be equally amazing." If extraterrestrial intelligent life is found, it will be "amazing". If not found, it will be inconclusive.

we have had radio based communications for about 100 years. Technology is progressing to the point that radio communications will most likely be completely obsolete in another 100 years. Assuming that a civilization as advanced as we are has indeed existed, that means we have a 200 year window of opportunity to actually observe them. Highly unlikely in a 13billion year old universe.

@Gernot Schrader Ive heard legends of the rare intelligent alien species known as Mark Zuckerberg Only pictures have been taken, but im telling you, this species is real and I have proof

How are there infinite options? Also, I don't think that he said that we are the only intelligent species in the universe. Only that, due to the odds, there probably aren't as many as we would hope.

3:03 was all I could watch because of all the presuppositions.

Same ridiculous to tell you the truth - All assumptions!

The broader scope is that a lot of things had to go right on this planet in order for us to be here, and that it's probably a good assumption that if something like us is somewhere else, a lot of things had to go right there. Why? Because all of the elements have to be present, the atmospheres conducive, the right temperature, abundant water, a sun and earth the right size and distance from each other, an iron core to create a magnetic field, and on and on. Each condition worsens the odds.

The earth was created in the beginning, by God. Please don't make it any harder than it has to be.

@@marshalllaw4116 It may indeed be too hard for you. Perhaps you can get your mommy to help you with the big words.

It is the nerd's wish thinking that is talking.

Nicolas Morris Maybe you are the subtle cause of what you think the universe is

He said galaxy, not Universe, there's a difference.

As typical of Tyson's comments, at first they sound interesting . . . . then when you really think about them you realize how pretentiously fatuous they are.

One of the dumber things that he's said. There are many, many, many opportunities to find many civilizations, many vast civilizations could easily fit inside the volume humans have searched, whereas it is impossible for a whale to fit inside of a small glass of water. It's more like, if you got frozen and revived in 1000 years, and searched not one glass of water but 1000 whole cubic kilometers of seawater (and the volume of the oceans is more like a billion cubic kilometers, so that's still only one millionth of the ocean you've searched), and found not just no whales, but no fish, and no microorganisms, and concluded that life on Earth has become extinct. Not such an unreasonable conclusion now, is it?

Of course there's a possibility that we're alone...a strong one. All of the evidence, so far, is for being alone. You can spout on about many billions of stars there are and billions of galaxies but life is not a statistical inevitability. We have zero idea of how likely or unlikely it is for life to form, so to use the numbers argument for planets and stars is fairly useless.

I think life must exist elsewhere - but it is rare and far between, but because of the great distances involved - to the point of 'breaking time' - it means we are alone. So maybe the paradox is that both are true. And that's the scary part!!!

@Appleholic1 I agree! The idea that we are alone in our Milky Way Galaxy, let alone our entire electrified plasma universe, is crazy! , and doesn't make sense, totally illogical!

We are the only physical , intelligent, life in the universe right now, but the whole physical universe was not created in vain.

Either is possible.

"solid" science -- if scientists used his methodology you wouldn't have the computer or internet available to you to spread your opinion.

I agree. Whether you agree or not we have to face that life probably is rare and even rarer to survive long enough to spread outward. He has his theories which are impossible to prove (right now anyway) so it's easy to attack his ideas. Best to listen, think and not rush to agree or disagree with him. We have a long way to go to insure we do last as a species so it's best to just assume intelligent life is rare and do our best to keep it going.

@Gernot Schrader -- investor friendly really isn't the issue. Getting the crutch of religion out of society that is now seriously holding us back would be nice though.

Gary Longsine Consider the Octopus or the Dolphin. Pretty smart, but trapped in the water where they can't invent fire.LMAO Goofy as F

I don't know about that. I feel like the logic that we evolved a certain way therefore no other variables can exist for life to evolve other ways with other variables seems far fetched to me. Perhaps a better way of looking at it would be, we evolved this way due to the variables presented to us, and if the variables were different the evolution would have been different, but no less intelligent.

No one cares about your variability. We are only talking about radio capable life.

Marc gave a brilliant presentation to keep the conversation open to ponder our existence. Most people are indeed uninterested and some do just says God did it. We will all be equally as lazy if we leave the conversation of our being as fortuitous or a series of improbable events. In the same breathe that life evolves, there is a purpose to that evolution which came about only by chance? It seem ‘mildly’ contradictory. Then, Why do we even need consciousness as our natural evolutionary state is more than sufficient for our species existence from the brain/body size index? I think we can be diligent from this conversation to ponder the evidences logically if life is an accident.

@@ten9195 you fail to clearly state your point...it is better to be clear and specific rather than vague

Sorry mate, let me try. In essence, Marc has left it open to probe if life on earth is the result of an accident caused by a series of improbable chances and evolution for life preservation. So here goes some questions in reverse. If nature produces what it needs. Why does life even occur if it has no purpose in a universe that has existed for billions of years preceding? Humans with self consciousness has an extraordinary capacity far exceeding what is required for life. So why has nature gone so much further through to produce a matter that is so singular but yet so totally superfluous? The probability for life to exist opportunistically is a mathematical impossibility, ask SETI as it gazes the night skies. We will be lazy if we conveniently leave it as fortuitous to exists alone and ignore the math. So the pertinent question for us is what else unseen could be at play?

Some of the smartest and thoughtful person to live believed in God and some were atheists. Its silly to attribute either point of view to intelligence.

Oh, i get it, we can worship Marc

Get off your mommies computer.

+ Perhaps -- he's not saying that dinosaurs are a necessary precondition for intelligent for life to form, but illustrating that, if not for a "statistically improbable" (we may disagree there) event, this earth would be filled with life -- just not the kind that builds radiotelescopes and longs for alien contact. We are a singular evolutionary outcome, as far as we know, in the entire fossil record, which makes the argument that there may well be life all over the place in universe, but if we look at earth as a representative case (which is the sample set we have) then we must assume that linguistic, reading/writing, surviving-by-tool-using types of "intelligent" life is comparatively rare versus life in general. There is probably an abundance of life out there, but the chances for it to rely on this specific survival strategy that favors linguistic intelligence and hands, and then for it to avoid being wiped out (genetic records indicate the entire human population was once reduced to only about 10,000 individuals or so at one point -- and that 99% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct), and then for it to discover an abundant energy source like fossil fuels so it can develop industrial technology for radio, etc., -- this is piling on statistical improbability on top of statistical improbability, and then there is the chance of any two of these super-event chains being coincident in time so they can find each other... SETI is not just looking for life, or intelligent life, per se, but specifically the kind that uses radio waves... and by the time their signals reach us they probably would have gone extinct or uploaded themselves into computers anyhow...

The speaker has never seen a reptilian. =)

You wrote War and Peace...

How dare you assume their gender

It’s actually pretty bad. He’s using the same terrible logic that religions use to prove that god exists.

Check out some of the interviews/lectures by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, author of "The Return of the God Hypothesis", "Darwin's Doubt" and several other publications on the subject. I think you'll find them fascinating!

@@bwr3rd Oh please, god no. NO!!!!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!!

​@@bwr3rd the intelligent design guy 🤦‍♂️

@@stevefromsaskatoon830 The fact that most religions are hilariously irrational does not bring the conclusion that intelligent design does not exist

Believe it or not, some infinities are greater than others. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Of course he meant it colloquial.

1. Without the Moon's stabilizing effect the Earth would face extreme climat changes. 2.,3.,4.,5., ....

WHat is the rational behind your feeling, given all the evidence is the opposite?

The only reason we consider ourselves to be intelligent is because, at least so far, we have not come across anything we deem to be more intelligent than ourselves. Most of humankind is incapable of grasping this very simple concept. That is how intelligent we are. Instead of applying our `intelligence` and cleaning up the only place we can call home we wallow in the self satisfaction of how intelligent we are as our short termed egotism and vanity condemns us to the dustbin of biology. We are going to destroy ourselves. That is how intelligent we are.

In a recent article titled “The Trouble with Puddle Thinking,” astronomers Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes explain why this analogy fails. Consider more closely the puddle’s reasoning. Let’s name our puddle Doug. He has noticed a precise match between two things: 1) his shape and 2) the shape of the hole in which he lives. Doug is amazed! What Doug doesn’t know is that, given A) the fluidity of water, B) the solidity of the hole, and C) the constant downward force of gravity, he will always take the same shape as his hole. If the hole had been different, his shape would adjust to match it. Any hole will do for a puddle. This is precisely where the analogy fails: any universe will not do for life. Life is not a fluid. It will not adjust to any old universe. There could have been a completely dead universe: perhaps one that lasts for 1 second before recollapsing or is so sparse that no two particles ever interact in the entire history of the universe.

A self-important statement, I think.

I thought he was clear enough with the key point "why isn't SETI finding anything". Alien whales and octopuses aren't sending any messages to Earth. For them to become intelligent enough to send a radio message they urgently need their own series of very lucky events. Starting with getting rid of us!

What "theology" did you hear? I thought it was all science.

@@geocountsdatasupply3312 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@@jasonpatrickries I didn't hear any "theology." I wrote "teleology." Big difference.

@Jason Ries He mentions fine tuning, which is basically The teleological argument, Both of which are used by apologists as evidence for creationism. He sounds like an apologist the entire time. He's likely a thiest.

Woody Allan "Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on a weekend.".

thank you. I was very careful that I chose scientifically verified data. This has to be political at some level. Maybe someone at SETI got rustled.

If you had said IL was impossible that would be a sweeping claim. The convergence of politics ,a complete misunderstanding of how evolution works plus an unjustified faith in large numbers makes this talk more controversial than the claims it makes warrant. It was an excellent talk. Kudos!

The data only applies to our existence and our world , other worlds have their own geological history and random events no tow places are the same , your concluding that everywhere in the universe is a mirror image of our system which is highly improbable

And at the same time, all those improbable events, in all the planetary systems there are, may have happened, or will happen in the universe, leading to the appearance of IL. I personally don't think IL comes from a single sequence of improbable events. Our definition of IL is very limited by our own history and experience in such a minuscule fraction of geologic time. We do not quite grasp what are ALL the necessary elements for IL to come to life, or a long-term set of requirements to classify some life forms as IL. Even though I appreciate Prof. Defant's use of facts, starting from the "big bang" (?) to the formation of the elements in the universe (which requires more than conventional supernova events....), and the geological trinity of Time-Drift-Chance that has shaped our planet and its biosphere, some of the arguments used to justify how rare IL is fall short to make an impact just because we have a limited knowledge about life in the universe and even more about IL itself. How we define IL? What are the key elements for IL to occur? Is IL a rare occurrence, or a short-lived one? With the current results, there is no way we can ascertain a single explanation, or even worse, believe our explanation is right. Some previous talks about the subject dealt with Drake's equation, which is more or less the quantification of our lack of knowledge about life in the context of the unknown variety of lifeforms in the universe. We can certainly say that the number of stars in the universe, maybe less than the number of stars, from G-type down to brown dwarfs. Maybe a bit more than that.... What if Earth-like IL is a very common occurrence in Goldilock zones but their half-lives are around 1 million years? What is the estimated time to breakdown (ETB) of planetary ecosystems after a IL starts changing the natural balance of its bio-geosystems? Is there such thing as an starfarer or geoformer IL? If not, it will be almost impossible to discover IL; each IL in the universe to be condemned to start, thrive and disappear not knowing about the "other ones" I would love to see more more talks about the subject, not for the sake of enhancing our feeling that we are special, unique, or shifting towards religious or political interpretations, but to provide a reason to encourage people to learn more about the universe, star evolution, planetary systems, planetary evolution, in particular Earth through geologic time. I would love to see more human beings being educated on "large-scale" knowledge, learning about the world we live in. Knowledge is power and knowing how things are can help us to make decision about what is right or wrong. We should work harder to reach a many people as possible; our academia is falling short in providing a good thick primer to most of human beings. Thanks for sharing

No its not, east africa is not arid, west africa is. The Sahara, Namib and Okavango deserts are all to the west. Unless he is suggesting east africa was once arid, but he adduced no proof for that