Could you try writing a little better if you're going to seriously debate this subject? Your post has the feel of something that's been through a not-quite-perfect computer translator. I hesitate to take issue with what you've said for fear I've not understood you correctly.

 

But if he didn't succeed in creating life, he can hardly have proven that it requires intelligence to create life. Even if he had succeeded, this wouldn't prove that it couldn't also occur naturally, anymore than the fact that I own a Zippo proves that it takes intelligence to create fire.

I have no idea if abiogenesis is how life originated (as opposed to evolution, which I firmly believe in), it's never been directly observed or successfully replicated and there's a multitude of different theories (some of them extremely outlandish) so it's basically a big question mark. But arguing that the origin of life requires the interference of an intelligence doesn't really address how life began either, it just addresses how life on Earth began (and it's even less observable) and leads to an endless series of question marks sprialling back into infinity.

 

i am curious about which side you are taking on this. comaface has a serious point in debunking your "life requires intelligence to be created", which leads me to believe that you are religious. but it is my understanding that religious people believe in creation and intelligent design, which suggests that the earth is 6000 years old. according to carbon dating, the "oldest rocks on earth" would have to be millions upon millions of years old. but a common argument of the creationist suggests that carbon dating is inaccurate and useless. so if you are a creationist, your point is moot.


otherwise, interesting point.

 

To be fair, not all creationists believe the Earth is 6000 years old. Depending on how you want to define 'creationist', I'd say the Young Earth variety is possibly the minority. Hell, given that something like 5% of the American population self-identifies as athiest, while close to 40% believe in evolution (with another 35% specifically choosing a 'no opinion' option that is distinct from the 'disbelieve' option), an awful lot of people who are 'creationists' in a sense are not opposed to evolution, either.

I probably shouldn't talk about this much more since I don't want to get the thread locked.


While there was always at least some oxygen on Earth, there was very little in the atmosphere up until a certain point. The sharp rise in the levels of oxygen around 2 billion years ago is likely a result of the rise of life rather than a cause. The earliest organisms didn't need oxygen (which may be why it wasn't part of the experiment being discussed, but I know nothing about that experiment), but as they propagated they produced a lot of it as a byproduct of their photosynthesis, paving the way for more complex organisms.

 

The concept of evolution goes all the way back to the big bang. The 2nd law of thermodynamics defies the idea that protons bounced around and became more organized over time to form solar systems and the like.

 

Here's proof right here!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/loebig/insideUFOspacecraft.jpg

 

It's the little girl with that giant tube thing. I know it.

 

Why do people feel the need to constantly bring religion into threads? Seriously,posting something about how God created the Earth is not only against the rules,but just a dumb thing to do. You know full well,when you post about God or religion,the next few people will make fun of you,then you'll be all butthurt,then you'll complain,then threadlock. We have all seen it on this board and other boards,countless times. What's the point?
BTW,that includes things like,"This can't be true because God made Earth,but I don't want to get into religion so I won't say any more."

On topic:
I think maybe there's intelligent life out there,but it wouldn't be a dude with two legs,two arms,a face,etc. like in movies or comics. I think they'd be something totally,well,ALIEN,for lack of a better word,like a cloud,or moss,or liquid. I mean even here on Earth,there are a lot of scientists who feel whales and dolphins are super intelligent,but we'll never know,because we're so incompatable. I mean,how are you or I the judge of what "smart" is? Maybe a whale swimming around in water is smarter than me. He doesn't go to work,doesn't have any bills,doesn't use anti-depression meds,doesn't need to max out a credit card to buy a better car than the neighbor has,he just chills in some reefs or whatever. A porpoise can't beat your I.Q. test,but maybe that's because it's designed around what we deem important.
Of course I'm not really saying these animals are smarter than us,but if they were how would we know?
So maybe somewhere on some distant planet,there's a mushroom smarter than any man,who just sits,absorbing the soils nutrients and ruminating on the One Universal Truth of Existence,something you or I could never comprehend,because the human mind is a poor choice for a benchmark.

Sorry if this made no sense.

 

So long, thanks for all the Fish?

 

Yes, and I hope they have compatible anatomy, large cans/squishy bits and low standards.


.....I'll leave now.

 

I hope they poop

 

Quite the opposite, actually. The formation of interstellar 'structures' is in a sense one of the causes of entropy, not a violation of it. The unfathomably massive amount of potential energy unleashed by the Big Bang is converted into unusable heat energy every time it facilitates any of the 'work' involved in "organizing" matter, from arranging nucleons to coalescing the largest galactic clusters, thus entropy is increased by these events and not decreased.

The second law doesn't work in the way that you're describing it. It's helpful to not think of entropy as 'disorder'. That is a useful analogy, but unfortunately it seems that a lot of people have adopted it as a literal definition.
Entropy as it applies to physics (as opposed to informational entropy, which is closer to 'disorder') is concerned primarily with energy and applies only peripherally to matter. At it's simplest, entropy can be thought of as energy 'decay', in which usable potential energy becomes unusable heat energy. Thus, the second law states that the amount of heat being dispersed as a whole within a closed, isolated system such as the universe (it is arguable that the universe is the only truly isolated system, but nevermind) will never decrease in total, until eventually maximum entropy is reached and the universe is in a state of total heat and energy equilibrium.

This doesn't mean that entropy cannot be decreased within an open subsystem of the larger closed system, whether it be my fridge or a nebula, only that the total entropy within the larger system must increase.

This also, most importantly, has almost nothing to do with matter except in a tangential sense. Applying the concept of thermodynamic entropy to the physical organization of living organisms requires taking an abstract and not wholly accurate analogy ("think of entropy as your room getting messier") of one thing and shoehorning into it something entirely different.
If entropy applied to the 'order' of matter in the way that you're suggesting, then everything from the formation of snowflakes to the birth and subsequent maturation of any lifeform would be impossible. Human life, for instance, begins as a sperm and an egg and eventually develops into a full grown, sentient person. What is that if not increased organizational complexity? Matter itself couldn't even exist as we know it, except as its most basic components; how could elementary particles organize themselves into anything? You wouldn't even be able to read this post if that were the case, because the creation of neural pathways in your brain that are necessary for learning new things would be impossible to form (though this would likely be of little concern, since you would have never developed beyond a single-celled organism in the first place).

However, all of these things require energy, and the expenditure of that energy will dispense more heat energy into the universe, and thus entropy as a whole will increase and the second law is not violated.

Incidentally, if the universe continues expanding 'forever', it may not ever actually reach a state of maximum entropy, although this wouldn't violate the second law either.


And I, too, hope that aliens poop. And yell out "rectangle!" when they are taking 'shapes' class.

 

IG , would you stop doing that to people?  

 

i like where your head's at

 

But it's fun...  

 

I think for us to be the sole intelligent life in the universe is some variety of mathematical impossibility.

 

I think the more important thing is do they have cool toys for us to buy and do they accept paypal?

...or not. I believe their has to be more than what we can concieve, as someone stated before Infinite Universe, Infinite Possibilities.

 

Our telescopes are just now beginning to spot Earth sized planets in the same range as we are from their sun(s). And even these images are basically nothing because it's so far away. But the universe is massive and it is possible that another Earth-like planet is out there with life. Just add water.