Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
news.bbc.co.uk
Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
1–10 of 31 posts
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#2Slightly misleading headline from BBC there... it should really be "Galaxy may have 'billions of Earths'". There's no proof of it, it's just an estimate/guess. It may well be true, but there's no proof yet.
Billions of earth-like planets. Makes you want to live forever to get to explore all that stuff, doesn't it?
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#3This has been "known" since the 60s. The Drake equation estimates the number of habitable planets in the universe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#4Slightly misleading headline from BBC there... it should really be "Galaxy may have 'billions of Earths'". There's no proof of it, it's just an estimate/guess. It may well be true, but there's no proof yet. Billions of earth-like planets. Makes you want to live forever to get to explore all that stuff, doesn't it?
I suggest adopting RFC 2119 or something similar to avoid misleading titles on HN.
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#5Not to derail the conversation, but, question: What impact would the undeniable discovery of alien life have on organized religion? Would theists abandon their beliefs en masse or would they find a way of explaining the new discoveries with their existing doctrine?
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#6How many of those are getting warmer, gibsonf1? :), couldn't resist.
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#7Not to derail the conversation, but, question: What impact would the undeniable discovery of alien life have on organized religion? Would theists abandon their beliefs en masse or would they find a way of explaining the new discoveries with their existing doctrine?
What would that contradict?
Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#8Not to derail the conversation, but, question: What impact would the undeniable discovery of alien life have on organized religion? Would theists abandon their beliefs en masse or would they find a way of explaining the new discoveries with their existing doctrine?
What would that contradict?
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Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#9Re: Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'
#10Not to derail the conversation, but, question: What impact would the undeniable discovery of alien life have on organized religion? Would theists abandon their beliefs en masse or would they find a way of explaining the new discoveries with their existing doctrine?
Creationism -- the belief that some deity created all we see -- wouldn't have a problem with life on other planets. We see them. What kind of creation would only involve certain planets or creatures?
ID -- the belief that our perceptions can either be of completely natural artifacts or artifacts created as a result of an external intelligent agent -- also not implicated. Interestingly enough, there may be a counter-movement here: if intelligent life were discovered, arguments could then begin to be made that some sort of intelligent agent had some play in our cultural/geological history. That would be new.
This religion-vs-alien life question has been going around since the 1950s, at least. What a lot of people forget is that most major organized religions have been adapting to situations like this since their beginnings. Christianity, for instance, thought of the "world" as basically Eurasia for hundreds of years. People in Africa and the Americas were not considered fully "human" until fairly recently. That meant, for all intents and purposes, that places like the New World were 1) far away and almost impossible to reach, and 2) not part of the normal world, and 3) inhabited by creatures that were somewhat intelligent but not completely human.
Religions, especially successful ones, adapt. I would be extremely surprised to see any impact at all. The more you study it, the more of a non-issue it is.