Posted by Samael at 1:18pm Sep 23 '09I don't know... I'm with the others. I think that it's a matter of limited resources and understanding the limitations of our own technology. Plenty of academic discussions about the possibilities of extraterrestrial life concede the point that life on other planets may look nothing like what we've got. But, we're taking blind stabs in the dark looking for life, it makes sense that we'd look for life that seems like what we already know.
I mean, if I go to a strange place, and I need to use a restroom, the first place I'm going to look is in a cafe or a restaurant. Sure, the shoe-store might have a bathroom, but I know that places that serve food tend to have them. It's not that there aren't a million other places that might have bathrooms, it's just that it makes sense to start with what you know, first.
And especially when we're talking about the serious technological and resource limitations that we've got. We can try making an effort to locate intelligent life that is at least superficially similar to the one example of intelligent life we know about in the Universe, or we can try other methods to look for life that we have no real examples of... At least we know that life like us exists, because, well, we exist. We might be the only life like us out there, but at least we've got a basis for trying. There might be intelligent hydrogen based gas-bag creatures floating around the atmospheres of ultra-hot, low grav planets. But how we would we contact them right now? And what evidence do we have that such life could really happen?
Infinite possibilities exist for what might be, so we might as well try with the one example that we know exists.
I mean, if I go to a strange place, and I need to use a restroom, the first place I'm going to look is in a cafe or a restaurant. Sure, the shoe-store might have a bathroom, but I know that places that serve food tend to have them. It's not that there aren't a million other places that might have bathrooms, it's just that it makes sense to start with what you know, first.
And especially when we're talking about the serious technological and resource limitations that we've got. We can try making an effort to locate intelligent life that is at least superficially similar to the one example of intelligent life we know about in the Universe, or we can try other methods to look for life that we have no real examples of... At least we know that life like us exists, because, well, we exist. We might be the only life like us out there, but at least we've got a basis for trying. There might be intelligent hydrogen based gas-bag creatures floating around the atmospheres of ultra-hot, low grav planets. But how we would we contact them right now? And what evidence do we have that such life could really happen?
Infinite possibilities exist for what might be, so we might as well try with the one example that we know exists.
Re: Given what we know of life, it makes sense. - Samael