Extraterrestrial life

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

When I think about the possibility of E.T. life, I break it down as such:

One of the following is true:
1. Life here was placed here by a creator.
2. Life here is an accident of nature.

If the first is true, that creator could have chosen to put life all
over the place, and the Universe could be teeming with intelligent
life.  Or we could be the only life anywhere.  It's impossible to
know.

If the second is true, it is my belief that life is such an astounding
accident, requiring such perfect arrangements of chemicals to arise
under such perfect environmental circumstances, that there is no other
life anywhere else, let alone life intelligent enough to travel across
the vast expanse of space to visit us.

However, regardless of whether we are alone in the Universe, the
barriers to travel between inhabited worlds seem insurmountable to me.
 I very much doubt any E.T. intellegence has visited us.  Even if it
did, considering the earth is 5 billion years old and we have been
around for 50,000 years, the odds of E.T. visiting our world when it's
inhabited by human beings are staggeringly slim.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Perhaps not. The number of stars in the universe, and the number of planets, is astonishingly enormous.

The Drake equation, with even somewhat conservative estimates, would yield a relatively large number of planets with intelligent life, and an even larger number of planets on which life arose. Drake himself estimates 10,000 intelligent civilizations.

Drake fails to take into account the mind-boggling complexity of even the simplest possible lifeforms.  In order for a cell to form from lifeless matter, a process would have to take place akin to a tornado striking the junkyard outside of a Boeing factory and accidentally assembling a functional 747.

The Universe isn't big enough for it to have been likely to occur once, let alone 10,000 times.

If we are an accident, we are one fantastic accident.  I personally don't believe we are, however.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

The Drake equation, with even somewhat conservative estimates, would yield a relatively large number of planets with intelligent life, and an even larger number of planets on which life arose. Drake himself estimates 10,000 intelligent civilizations.

Consider this very long list of criteria that have to be within very tight tolerences in order for intelligent, complex life to exist.  There are now 154 of them:

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design_evidences/200406_fine_tuning_for_life_on_earth.shtml

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

We might be talking about a species that breaths nitrogen, for example

Nitrogen gas (N2) would have zero value for respiration.  The Nitrogen triple bond takes enormous amounts of energy to break.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

We might be talking about a species that breaths nitrogen, for example

Nitrogen gas (N2) would have zero value for respiration.  The Nitrogen triple bond takes enormous amounts of energy to break.

You are assuming respiration in a carbon based life sense, as seen on earth; the migh have evolved another method.

Nitrogen takes huge amounts of energy to break, whether you are Carbon, Silicon, or Marshmellow-based life.  The laws of chemistry don't change just because you're on another planet.