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Cosmos Forums

PBS (ended 2005)

Carl's calculation on life in the cosmos.

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  • Avatar of halfbaked7777

    halfbaked7777

    [1]Jun 10, 2008
    • member since: 12/22/04
    • level: 3
    • rank: Soup Nazi
    • posts: 13

    Hey guys.

    I'm a big fan of this series and these kind of documentaries in general.

    There's this part in one of the episodes in which Carl 'calculates' possible intelligent life in the cosmos.

    I understand that this isn't a real calculation, rather a calculated guess, but i feel that an important factor was left out.

    There's a lot of different extra factors that could be used in the calculation, but there's one that is really important IMHO.

    The factor TIME.

    It's nice to guess the number of potential intelligent life, but it could be that we ARE the only intelligent life forms in the universe(at this time that is).

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  • Avatar of 123home123

    123home123

    [2]Jun 12, 2008
    • member since: 05/24/02
    • level: 55
    • rank: Bounty Dog
    • posts: 15,434
    Although I haven't seen the episode recently, you might be talking about the famous Drake Equation. I think Carl Sagan and some other astronomers and exobiologists might put too much "faith" in that equation.

    It's interesting to hear some scientists describe the origin of life on Earth, which according to Sagan himself arose from the primordial "soup" that once covered the Earth. (If you think about it, that is essentially saying that life came from non-life.) One commentator (it might have been Carl Sagan) said that each spark and chemical reaction was a fortunate accident, maybe a one-in-a-million shot. And yet, many of these accidents and fortunate circumstances had to occur before life could begin on Earth. If so, then I think it really is possible that the only intelligent and self-aware life in the universe is located on Earth.

    That's not to say that I deny the possibility of intelligent extraterrestrial life, but I don't think it's a given.
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