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[Remember]

Im on the fence a believer/non-believer do you believe there is no other intelligent life in the universe Or do you believe there to be other beings living on other planets/in other galaxies?

[jimwalton]

I don't believe there is intelligent life in the universe or beings living on other planets. By every indication we have from science, the earth is unique as a life-supporting rock. We also know that the parameters required to support life are extremely (some would even say miraculously) narrow, making the earth an astoundingly "against the odds" place for life to have actually succeeded. I, at this point in time, don't believe in extraterrestrial life forms. There is no hard evidence for such a belief. A new Oxford University analysis of the best and latest scientific evidence concludes that believing in life intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe is on par with believing in the Tooth Fairy.

In the 1950s, Enrico Fermi (Nobel Prize winner in physics) mused that any intelligent civilization would be technologically savvy enough to colonize the galaxy within 10 million years. Given that the Milky Way has been around for 10 billion years, it probably would have happened if they're out there.

According to a team of researchers At Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, there is "a substantial probability that we are alone in our galaxy, and perhaps even in our observable universe."

Another factor is that we are only looking for life as we understand it and define it (carbon based, with hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.). If we saw life of another form, we probably wouldn't recognize it. Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, the astrophysicist in charge of the Hubble telescope, said, "We are biased to looking for life that we would recognize. Otherwise we wouldn’t know what to look for. We have no other paradigm. We have no other definitions or characteristics than the ones we know. We are limited in our perspective until some other data or observations change our current knowledge." She also said, "We have a tendency to jump to full and intelligent civilizations elsewhere. But from a scientific perspective, we are most likely to find microbial life."

A further challenge would be the time it would take to travel, and also to communicate across the galaxy. Even communications could take millions of years—an impractical number for space exploration by other "intelligent" life.

Based on those analyses and issues, I don't believe there is intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy or universe.