Aliens do not exist, nor will ever exist, because life does not evolve from non-life, and God did not create them. So all religious rights discussion is pointless concerning them. |
Statistically, this is extraordinarily unlikely.
Here's what we know to be true:
- There are 8 planets in our Solar System
- There are ~100-400
billion solar systems in the Milky Way galaxy
- There are over 54 galaxies in our Local Group
- There are 10 Groups in the Virgo Supercluster
- There are millions (~10 million) superclusters in the observable universe.
(refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgo_Supercluster
http://www.universetoday.com/30582/superclusters/
)
So let's be
extremely conservative and say that we live in a situation where the numbers for our solar system/group/supercluster/etc are above average from what is seen in other solar systems/groups/etc. So let's cut all those numbers in half and say this is average:
- avg 4 planets per solar system
- avg 50 billion solar systems per galaxy
- avg 27 galaxies per group
- avg 5 groups per supercluster
This means we can estimate the number of
planets that exist to be:
4*50 bil*27*5*5 mil = 1.35e16 planets in the observable universe.
Just to clarify how big of a number that is... it's: 13,500,000,000,000,000
And remember I'm being extremely generous and rounding down a lot. The real number is much, much higher. I'm also ignoring the possibility of other heavenly bodies like moons, asteroids, rogue planets, etc... all of which could theoretically be habitable.
This is also only in what is in the observable universe. There is no way of knowing what exists outside of that, as we cannot see it from Earth. But again, let's be
extremely generous and say that the observable universe is all there is... that there's nothing outside of it.
So 13.5e16 planets. The odds of at least one of those planets (aside from Earth) being habitable is extremely high. Almost a statistical guarantee.
Let's continue with wild estimations here and say that the odds of any planet capable of supporting life as we know it is 1 in 1 trillion. Again note I said "life as we know it", since we have only been exposed to Earth-style life... we cannot say for sure whether or not it is the only form of life there is. But let's continue to be conservative and say it's the only kind of life.
1.35e16 / 1 trillion is 13,500
So guessing
very conservatively, there 13,500 planets that are capable of supporting Earth-like life. And again... I cannot stress just how generous I'm being with these numbers. In reality we're probably talking 100x that or more.
To say that Earth is the
only place with life... and that we are the
only life in existence is quite an extraordinary claim. The numbers just don't agree.
Of course... any life that does exist is likely going to be so far away we will never come in contact with it.
EDIT:
I'm also being extremely kind and ignoring how things could have changed in the several billion years of time... or how they might change in the billions of years to come.
To say that we are the only live that ever was or ever will be is an even more extraordinary claim.
(and of course... is already known to be untrue due to the prehistoric periods where Earth was populated with other species -- and humans did not exist yet)