"Oracle. Are we alone in the universe?" she asked. "Yes," said the Oracle. "So there's no other life out there?" "There is. They're alone too." By James Miller .
Brilliant and also very graspable for any semi intelligent non scientist. Appreciate his agnosticism on the topic…He speaks very clearly and supports a specific point of view…but entirely without arrogance…Thank You for sharing this lecture
At this point of our history the video title alone is sheer gaslighting if on purpose, and dumb ignorant narcissistic egocentristic naive arrogance already. not worth watching. Purpose of these type of statements today is to dumb down the masses deeper into ignorance to keep on controlling and profitting from them.
7:05 the green ball explanation I was just left speechless. I have thought this so many things miss, but haven’t been to explain it. I absolutely salute this man. Well done prof. I love your work ❤
He has another video from a few years ago where he explains the same principle using 1M prisoners picking a lock to escape. It blew my mind. Search “are we alone in the universe”
This talk shows typical scientific lack of knowledge, focusing on the external. All truth of life is found within. The external is purely a temporary sensory reflection. Having "hope" that there's life out there is simply a lack of self knowledge, and encourages people to focus on the external, which again leads to a lack of self knowledge. I recommend listening to Barry Long, a legitimate spiritual teacher.
@@JohnyG29 The truth of life is that I, the reader (not the writer, since the writer is a "you", not an "I") am life itself. I am all life, and all life is in me. However to realise, which is to make real, that truth, requires living the spiritual life, or the divine life. I recommend spiritual teacher Barry Long as a "real deal" teacher, which is a very rare thing, who can act as a guide until such time as you no longer require a teacher. Barry passed in 2003, but left behind a large body of work.
The conditions for life that our planet enjoys are so many and so particular, makes you think about how the universe works: it doesn't repeat itself. It is us who give the same label to different things. It would be awesome to find intelligent life somewhere else, but I really don't have any expectations. Just life, not intelligent life, I think it is easier to expect. Or, intelligence without life: is that possible?
We don't even know if intelligent life is a surefire products of evolution anyway, life doesn't need to be intelligent like us to survive, dumb life is acceptable as long as they survive and that's all evolution "care about"
We aren't alone. The aliens are here, RIGHT NOW. It's a verified fact. The most advanced military in the world verified the footage of non-human technology (see Tictac). This isn't a question anymore! No more "swamp gas" or "it was Venus". The aliens are REAL and HERE. Why do people keep acting like this is a question anymore? Stop living in denial!
We may see light from other long dead civilizations or receive a message that is millions of light years old. That's probably the best we can hope for. We will almost certainly die with our bubble.
Andromeda galaxy is the nearest one to ours. It's approx 2.5 million LIGHT YEARS away. If you leave earth today at the speed of light, it would take 2.5 million years to reach Andromeda.
@@Icneumone7that would be for people on earth, but if you travelled at the speed of light, from your perspective you would have gotten there instantly because time stops at the speed of light. If you were traveling near the speed of light it would feel like a couple minutes.
We hv a lot of questions but answers evade us. We know of this one life. Humanity. Us. Whether there is life other than us in another form on another planet with again a different form to sustain that life form we do not know. If they exist they are invisible to us. Are we invisible to them. We are not alone. There are other dimensions in the Universe. What about the trillions of humanity in some other dimension who have finished with their experiences over here. They have moved on. May be they could help us with some answers.
I find this person to be VERY logical in his thinking ! And I watch his channel all the time . I do not ALWAYS agree with his deduction, but I do MOST of the time ! DML.
This is wonderful. This is a perfect example of holding scientists and proponents of alien life to the same scrutiny/skepticism we would expect to place on any claim. This is something to live by in all things. Apply skepticism to all things, especially the things you believe to be true.
Finally! Michael Crichton made similar points some years ago (it would take a fiction writer with a scientific mind to sniff out BS so keenly). The compounding of UNKNOWN variables still make them unknown. That popular scientific personalities talk about the Drake equation and other similar notions with such bias has seriously dumbed down the scientific dialogue in our society. We also talk about modeling in other areas in the same way, as if these equations are not speculative but somehow predictive. Kudos to Dr. Kipping for treating science like a process, not a corruptible worldview.
His right about one thing ! Life has a short time ⏲️ to become intelligent life + get to age of modern technology + be able to have the Intelligent to want to leave they're planet. Intelligent life + life may only be around for a short period of time. Universe is a dangerous place.
@@A_Stereotypical_Heretic here is the definition of a scientist in its strictest sense: a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences. "a research scientist" From this, we can surmise that a scientist need not have a PhD. A person can attain expert knowledge from independent research, without having gone to university and received a PhD. This would accurately describe Bill Nye, whom has devoted a massive portion of his adult life to the study of more than one field of science. He is respected by professors and the greater scientific community. So, a scientist he is, a qualified professor with a doctorate he is not.
What he wrote in 2003: "More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called 'Rare Earth' theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way." This is an ignorant person's skepticism. He doesn't know anything, so he doubts everything. Equally fallacious, he plays up correct theories that initially weren't accepted... until there was evidence, but he doesn't emphasize that requirement, as Sagan does at 21:30. So he scorns assertions of likelihood when there is evidence (he doesn't know of) and scorns the establishment for dismissing theories that he deems sufficiently backed by evidence when they aren't. I would be embarrassed to have written with such a tone of playground antagonism for that level of audience (see link), while also betraying an inconsistent standard of empirical support. Sure, Africa and South America "fit" together, but there also seems to be a face on Mars. Coincidences happen, so evidence needs to be accumulated--such as similar fossils below the time of continental separation and dissimilar species above. When you take pictures from a closer distance and different angles, the facial symmetry vanishes. This evidence takes time to amass. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or as Feynman tried to teach with his license plate explanation, you can't use the hint that gives you the initial hunch to test that very hunch. Unlikely things happen all the time, so you need to collect _new_ data to see if it supports the hunch. The ubiquity of rare events is why hypothesis testing seems very conservatively structured to the uninitiated. Feynman's UFO discussion with a "layman" distinguishes whether talk of knowns or talk of likelihoods is scientific. Sure, we don't _know_ that we're not being visited by space aliens, but that doesn't make us unscientific to take sides and say it's highly unlikely. We _can_ talk about likelihood, given what we already know. That is in fact allowed, when there's data. Bayesian reasoning _is_ consistent with the scientific method. Or as Feynman put it, from what he knows about the world around him, reports of UFOs have more to do with the known, irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than with the unknown, rational characteristics of extraterrestrial intelligence. As Christopher Hitchens would point out, one of the rules of oratory is that arguments presented without evidence can just as easily be dismissed without evidence. But that's not what's going on in this case. 100B galaxies of 100B stars cooking for 14B years is what Kipping is taking on, as is the Miller-Urey experiment. Slowly evidence is amassing in the astronomical and biochemical fields on both the ease and difficulty of abiogenesis and convergent evolution of technology-wielding intelligence, and the time to cook up the heavier elements that assist life. The trouble is when people make assertions that "we just don't know" as an excuse to dismiss talk of likelihoods, use of Bayesian reasoning, and evidence that already exists. To do so is just indulging in a false equivalency. And it's especially annoying when it's born of their own ignorance of evidence that already exists (an agnosticism of laziness). stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf
I took a long time for life to become multi cellular, and it took a long time for multi cellular life to become intelligent enough to create technologies and it took a long time for technological life to develop the abilities we have as modern humans. What we have no clue about is how long we can persist after we have developed the ability to wipe ourselves out. Sixty years so far, and counting.
That’s selective perception. Just like how science accepted that galaxies like ours were impossible in the early universe. Well early from our perspective. Yet, we have located galaxies like ours that have disproven this theory.
Actually, for most of the time life was unicellular on earth, for billions of years. And that might be the norm that most planets have without ever having a multicellular creature
What he's not taking into account are the several world extinction events that happened on planet Earth. It doesn't take as long as he is suggesting for intelligent life to evolve. That throws out a huge chunk of his argument.
Only knock to that is the Earth being 4.5 billion years old. When the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. So life on a similar planet could of had 3 times then time we did to get intelligent life.
its basic stuff found in the first paragraphs of the first chapter of any decent analysis on the prospects of alien life; and a distraction from the correct best answer we currently have. Astronomers are good at pointing telescopes at stars and looking at spectrographs, but typically bad at logical analysis / reasoning on the prospects of alien civilization. The first law of reasoning for alien civilization is never trust an astronomer's analysis, they have all sorts of screwed up bias and archaic modes of thinking. Astronomers are among the last people to be consulted this on matter. Ok onto the elephant in the room, the biggest myth of our times, which the naive astronomer didn't address, and has never objectively thought about it in his life and never will: 1. The idea that alien civilization would blast out radio communication, loud and clear, hence our satellite dishes should be jammed with alien radio transmissions. This myth was created back in the early days of radio communication around the 1920s when most transmissions were sent uncoded. Thinkers at the time assumed radio comm would remain that way practically forever. Today most radio comm is encoded so that it resembles random noise; but it is digital as apposed to analogue, which distinguishes it from natural background noise. However it is easy to convert a digital radio stream into an analogue stream then add a few pseudo noise fx to make it completely indistinguishable from natural background noise, except for those with the encryption keys. This is how aliens communicate. 2. The myth that we can detect the tiniest signals from the other side of the universe. Actually, our best technology ( Nasa Deep Space Network ) can detect synthetic information from a synthetic source from about at maximum 180AU or one light-day away; it is 6 orders of magnitude smaller than the detection sensitivity we'd need to evesdrop info from the nearest star system. In case you haven't noticed, we can barely detect exo planets directly. If a whole exo planet can't generate enough waves to be detected by our best scopes, its going to be hard to detect an artificial source unless its pointed directly at us, and for us. This leads us onto 3. The idea of convenience that aliens want to communicate with us. In technology they are millions or billions of years ahead of us. It would be like us trying to comm with bacteria in the dirt. What is the purpose? Just to poke the bacteria and do experiments on it. Any discussion about alien civ should address these points. The astronomer's lecture was conspicuously lacking, like a half man lacking half his body and head.
4. The myth that inter stellar aliens comm using spherical wave broadcasts, this one's again from the 1920s. For interstellar space it is more sensible to use rasers ( radio equivalent of laser ) to aim a coherent beam at a target star system. (a) less power useage, (b) much better stealth; no other star system would detect the signal. The chance that we'd sit between 2 alien star systems and be able to intercept their signals is extremely low, and in these cases, aliens can simply divert signals around the solar system. That we might postcept signals after they pass their target star can be stopped by alien engineering, they can adjust their rasers to difuse enough to be too weak to detect past the target star system and also the target star system can send out an neutralizing wave signal to reduce the signal beyound the receiver. Show me the astronomer lecture that mentions these points. protip: u can't because astronomers are dumb.
@Jota Efe that astronomer got a big applause, 354K views, 11k likes, and 3447 praising comments in 3 weeks for "neither prooving nor disproving anything." Glad that we give credit where its due.
@@famalam943 Literally said 'biogenesis' or to be precise abiogenesis experiments where we attempt the formation of simple biological building blocks from naturally occurring chemistry. Also, there really are just lots of stars. And that argument has gotten much stronger as when it was first said it was commonly thought most stars had no planets or just had gas giants. Turns out rocky planets are far more common than anyone expected. This actually makes a lot of 'dork' sci-fi that presumes the earth is particularly unique in structure pessimistic.
This talk shows typical scientific lack of knowledge, focusing on the external. All truth of life is found within. The external is purely a temporary sensory reflection. Having "hope" that there's life out there is simply a lack of self knowledge, and encourages people to focus on the external, which again leads to a lack of self knowledge. I recommend listening to Barry Long, a legitimate spiritual teacher.
@@michaeltsung9741 Sounds like pseudoscientific nonsense to me. A brief search of Barry Long suggest the same. That's not to say that internal spiritual exploration isn't beneficial or valid. It simply falls outside the realm of logic, and thus is particularly susceptible to charlatans and grifters. It's easy to create "knowledge" when it's not falsifiable or subject to empirical verification.
incredible lecture, professor kipping. a breath of fresh air after hearing so many scientists conclude there has to be life in the universe other than us.
Fresh air? Are you serious? He brings nothing new to the table and spends 25 min telling us what we already know. Of course nobody knows for certain and he criticized deGrasse Tyson as if his comments on entertainment tv were an actual scientific journal. Those who cant do science are quick criticize the ones who do. I am sure Tyson knows the difference between mathematical certainty and personal beliefs. If he cant understand that he was expressing his beliefs and that he was not presenting to actual scientific audience then he needs to self check and rethink his career.
@@davidvega1097 Kipping was being scientific. Tyson forgot he is a "physicist" and was just speaking his mind, which might also amount to nonsense. Tyson should have stuck to the actual science. A few years ago, a team of scientists at The University of Oxford arrived at the same conclusion as Kipping did using Bayesian statistics--that we might very well be alone in the universe.
@@stellarspacetraveler he was using what you call no sense to make his conclusion appear valid and make himself look smart. Now just because your a physicists does not mean you can’t be an expert in other sciences. Our brains don’t stop working if it is a subject outside our original study area. Besides this guy and all those statistics came to a whopping conclusion that we just don't know. I understand this as an actual exercise in logic but for this guy to spend 25 min is ridiculous. Now for anyone to publish this conclusion is just plain moronic. These people cant come up with their own things and they take simple things and blow them up just to make them sound smarter than he is. Now Tyson I am certain he know that his claims are not scientific or mathematically valid (I have no doubt he can do the math). Everyone with half a brain knows we just don’t know for sure as of today. Also, speculating on things that may one day be proven otherwise has lead to the creation of wonderful discoveries and inventions. They make me feel like publishing a scientific paper to prove if there is life after death.
I used to want to believe we’re not alone but you changed it, not in the way I wanted to but I’m so thankful for it. This really is a hidden gem for intellectual growth. You’re a very well spoken person!❤
I don't get why so many people are so obsessed with whether there is life elsewhere in the universe-which we are highly unlikely to find or interact with (though I'm not denying the watershed nature of either circumstance)-while humans demonstrate daily that they don't value other human life, nor all other life on this pale blue dot that we all occupy-and likely all will die upon, as will our very species, barring a sea change in how we behave towards each other, other life here, and the planet itself.
Wonderful lecture. Thank you, especially, for the green-ball-in-the-urn analogy. I've looked for a way to explain to people that if we happen to be the only intelligent creatures in the galaxy, then naturally we're going to assume that we're the default case. But the green-ball analogy does a nice job of showing this bias for what it is.
Mr. Kipping, you have quickly become one of my favorite science educators. Looking forward to your future content with great excitement. I am an electrical engineer that absolutely loves physics and science.
A great talk and a point that needed to be made. Thanks to Cool Worlds, I feel comfortable in being agnostic about the possibilities for life, as you said. I want to believe, but someone needs to give me a good reason!
@@zdcyclops1lickley190 but that's exactly the reasoning this video argues against? Just because it happened here doesn't mean life has happened elsewhere, let alone that it's ubiquitous or even common. As David Kipping said, the right answer is we don't know.
@@jamesgeary4294 This is what I'm struggling with. My take is all parties are saying "I think"...meaning "we don't know". One person's assumptions (the Fl value) are really no better than someone else's. Given that, there has been a progression of 'likelihood' since the first images from hubble. Q1: Are galaxies rare? A: Seems not. Appears there are trillions (thx Hubble). Q2: There are a lot of stars, are there planets with them? A: Yes. Actually a lot. Around 10 or so planets is fairly common. Q3: Are there a lot of planets in the habitable zone? A: yes. Seems this is also common. We see the transits. Q4: Of these planets in the habitable zone, do they also have similar characteristics to Earth? A: We don't know. But this is what JWT should help with (measuring VRE - vegetation red edge). This video, was all about this 4th question. What's the likelihood that these other planets are indeed similar to Earth? What even constitutes similarity?
Well if scientists support every viewpoint imaginable, what good are they? I can get that opinion asking my neighbor. At a certain point, "experts" need to give you an expert opinion otherwise they are not experts.
I agree with you completely. Very few scientists (e.g. Richard Feynman) have stressed the danger of expectancy bias and the importance of agnosticism in some specific cases. I am personally an agnostic when it comes to the existence of God and anthropogenic global warming (later conveniently renamed climate change). I am quite familiar with the Pupin Physics and Astronomy building where Dr. Kipping gives his lectures. I got my PhD degree from Columbia in 1978, and I wish I could be there 45 years later to meet Dr. Kipping in-person.
So one of his major arguments is because we don't know exactly how many planets there are we can't make a positive claim that there is life anywhere but earth. What a trash argument in fact all you have to do is look up to see that everything in the universe is repeated constantly over and over and nothing is special and contained to any one area. Besides that you don't have to look any further than our own existence for evidence that alien life exist. In an endless amount of space what happens once will happen over and over. Everything in the universe is repeatable.
@@matthewviramontes3131 yeah. it's distance and time to the nearest alien. Calculate the time it would take to the nearest alien, in the drake equation
Well, his whole take on the Copernican argument is just wrong, and it's surprising that he didn't really think it through. While it is natural to expect that a civilization would show a survivor's bias, that, by itself, doesn't invalidate the argument. You could still imagine what an external observer of the Universe would think if they found us in such a big Universe. They would still update their probability, based on that observation, and conclude that the probability that there's EXACTLY one civilization is much lower than there being at least a few. This is also precisely what you'd think if you spotted a bacterium in an aquarium. It's absolutely irrelevant to your conclusion what that bacterium thinks.
Wow, this may be first video I immediately watched a 2nd time. So well-presented and very thought-provoking to me. Maybe because of my bias in that I agree it is way too early to know if we are likely alone.
We already know we're not alone. Although we haven't seen "them" we have seen and recorded their transportation devises and or drones. I've seen what ever they are, the the military has seen and recorded and even measured what ever they are, for years. We know how fast they are and have some video of what ever they are. I spend a lot of time in the desert near military installations. They seem interested in our military more than our shopping malls. They observed our nuclear program and our air force. They regularly spend time stalking our pilots. We have them on both video and radar.
@@TheBandit7613 If a weird thing hovers around a military base, it's more likely it's a weird thing from the military base than a weird thing from outer space. If a military person says it's not their equipment and it moves in a manner that's impossible, it's more likely that the military person lies about it than it's from outer space.
@@TheBandit7613 You can't say I say it and we will take that . Science doen't believe in your eyes brother , it requires evidence - repeatable on experiment table . Next time you saw something set up a science camp and help them conduct experiment repeatedly . Thank You .
I really liked the way Professor Kip lectures/teaches. He has a genuine smile and its more like he's conversing with you about something so casual, except it's about the universe and scientific equations lol.
So, he is alone when far greater critical thinkers with far better knowledge look at the astronomical mind boggling number of known galaxies let alone planets, use common sense..lol
One of Brian Cox's friends who is a biologist told him he thinks at best, there may only be slime in the rest of our galaxy. Because of his biology education, he knows just how unlikely life is.
We live in such an exciting time having access to all of this info etc even back 40 yrs ago so much of this wasn't availiable! Keeping an open mind to everything is so important!
Pretending is not same as knowing, the scale of the universe is way too much for a human brain to digest .Many issues here ,from basic know how to complex ones .Everything is made out of functional parts , if i exists so can others, kowtowing this issues pretty much requires exploration of all universe ,we can’t duplicate the most basics forms of life meaning we are in a very weak scientific position .
maybe thats the nature of the universe , where perspective and bias always change reality, and thats a good thing because that way we have new things, if everyone saw the universe the same way we'd all act the same way and that would be wierd and probably not lead to all what we have, so much variatey, choice. Even on this planet alone where all life shares some dna with each other, their take on how to express the code is vastly different. I dont think you cant have it both ways - predicability doesnt lead to variety and vice versa. Ultimately i think if we found an equation of the universe that would break the universe as it woudl be exploited and it doesnt look to be , but maybe has been before and the big bang could of been remnants of a past civilization who found the equation for everything and the universe too is evolving to compensate
I see what you did there :) Now you're definitely not alone :) Incidentally, Kipping is probably among the most brilliant astronomers of our generation, in my very humble view. His papers are remarkably creative. I highly recommend to read them if you're into these things. They should be readable for most people with some basic physics/astronomy background.
Fr man, so happy I found this video! I'm not willing to die on a hill for us being alone but it's always been strange to me how one sided this conversation is. Every other physicist/scientist talks about outside intelligent life as some sort inevitability so it's nice to finally hear a different perspective.
@@Retotion What you wise guys overlook is the fact that once we find even the tiniest microbe on Mars, or a moon of Jupiter and Saturn, the whole lecture was nothing more than a waste of oxygen. And with each passing day, we get closer to the cause. Especially now that we're going to start looking at the atmospheres of extrasolar planets with the help of the James Webb Telescope. As soon as we can prove chlorophyll for the first time, the lecture is waste paper again. The deniers of the "plenty of life" theory must refute any evidence. The others only have to successfully complete the proof once...
Don't count on it. In a purely materialist cosmos, the chances of true solipsism becomes significant. The entire universe may exist only in your own mind. But that case only you would actually exist and the rest of us would be figures of your imagination. I think I need another beer.
@Wikileads No, not necessarily. As Professor Kipping said, we simply don't know, so the possibility that alien civilizations exist is as legitimate as the position that we're alone. But when scientists start proclaiming the galaxy is teeming with alien civilizations when there is zero proof of this, and insult people as arrogant or whatnot for not believing a position for which there is zero proof, then this is anti-scientific behaviour. Not the same as insanity but not appropriate either. I can understand what op meant by finally a sane response. Professor Kipping's analysis is a rare instance of evidence based logic and thoughtful even-handed balance amid a massive myriad of emotional reactions. The scientists who let their wishful thinking propel them to enthusiastically premature conclusion arejust one part of this. Think of all the craziness in non-scientific circles, from cults to people brainwashed into believing Democrats are secretly alien lizards under fake human skin.
Watching this again a year after first watching it. I myself am guilty of being very optimistic that alien life exists but David's argument is very valid and actually true. Nothing we currently know can possibly tell us alien life is likely and therefore being likely or unlikely is equally possible. I admire David's stance on being completely grounded and not just saying aliens must exist simply because of the sheer number of planets which is what I'm guilty of saying. The number of planets tells us absolutely nothing about the likelihood of life existing on any of them.
Biologists who study early life are probably the people you would want to include in this discussion. While even they don't _know_ how life first began, they know enough to at least give some interesting and illuminating context.
yes the fact that in a planet where there ara conditions to life to arise, had happen (as far as we know) only one time shows its not as common as we tend to think .
It's also somewhat interesting to remember that often times when we talk about how life can begin somewhere, we forget life could look a lot different in different circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to start on a planet like ours, though obviously we don't have any examples of life like that.
@@eventhisidistaken If it had happend a billion times all together let alone in a day I would think that life on earth would have been more varied then it is. I was under the impression that they claim that everything is related. That would at least mean it was only successful once and may there fore have only started once. To my knowledge the scientist know quite well what life is made out of but I don't believe they have actually ever managed to actually start new life without a cell of excisting life.
Fascinating lecture, it's one I've been waiting for a long time. Thank you professor. For what it's worth, I took it over to Center for Inquiry (CFI) Forum, it's become an engaged thread. Dec 16, 9:52 PM - "Why we might be alone" Public Lecture by Prof David Kipping, under philosophy
excellent presentation. i love my brain’s reaction to that time limit “we don’t have much time! only a billion years. need to spread elsewhere!” if we can survive another 10,000 years we’ll be doing well 😂
Я, американец, тебе завидую, потому что в Америке люди в средне живут по 800 лет. И этому есть серьёзное доказательство, которое предоставляет ваша судебная система. Вашим некоторым маньякам суд даёт наказание по 500 лет, и даже по 700 лет, а это значит у всех американцев хорошее здоровье. И к маньякам в Америке очень хорошо относятся. После того, как эти нехорощие люди отсидят 300 лет, их за хорошее поведение могут досрочно освободить. Значит, американец, у вас имеется элексир бессмертия и вы эту велиеую тайну скрываете от международной общественности.
I'm the same. I can't imagine the probability of life evolving. From what? What created the spark? And, after the spark the evolution is so fast that mere mutations in DNA due to the suns radiation could not possibly have enough time to create the diversity we see. It's just soooooo amazing. Obviously, Darwin could see the evolution of life. But, the big jumps are not explained in my opinion. For example, the mission link.
@@TrevorStandley Yes, I guess so... Because just with this phrase: "I can't imagine the probability of life evolving", he's already going against all that the lecturer was trying to explain... 🤷🏻♂
@@TrevorStandley Not a 'Christian' one, or a 'Monotheist.' Just a human who looks at things like the flagellar motor and thinks there has to be a designer.. But, I can't deny that the religions and culture of our planet would have influenced my perception.
Brian Cox spoke at my local lecture hall last year. It was fantastically well presented and he broached this topic and discussed this television appearance. He no longer holds the position that life is common. In fact, after interacting with so many biologists over the years, it changed his thinking about how…as he put it….extremely lucky you seem to need to be to evolve to this level. He now thinks that life may not necessarily be super rare either, per se’, but remains single-celled or low level multi-cellular for the life of the planet.
Amazingly well thought out and performed lecture. The kind of lecture that makes you smarter in more than a factual sense. A philosophical lecture more than a purely astronomic one and truly convincing, something rare in a philosophical lecture. 👏
Thank you for the work you are doing professor Kipping. I would have loved working in your team. Our world needs more minds like yours to profess reason and expand our knowledge. ❤
Great lecture. Dr. Kipping is completely correct. I personally want there to be a Star Trek like universe out there just waiting for us to discover it, but what we've currently observed shows no evidence of that. You can get into as many thought experiments using statistics as you want, but at the end of the day we just don't know. Those thought experiments are important, don't get me wrong, but they prove nothing. This might not be very exciting, but this time we live in is very important. As Obi Wan said in Star Wars, we have "taken your first step into a larger world." Keep learning everyone!
You literally have no idea what you're talking about and clearly have done zero investigation. But pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you're smart. 🤓
That assumes no life that persists that could be potentially millions if not billions of years ahead of us. Distances would be of no issue to even a very sublight travelling species or singularity like that.
Fantastical video! Sharing with my online astrobiology course. Though, you're conclusion near the end is also part of my arguing for why we shouldn't call the Golidlocks Zone for liquid water something like a "habitable" zone. We just don't know enough to presume or conclude that anything about that zone means habitability outside of the fact that it's the zone where we are in our solar system. it seems like that any other terrestrial worlds with oceans and life like ours will be found there, but being in the zone alone doesn't tell us enough about habitability nor preclude other worlds outside of the zone from potentially being habitable. The journey of science continues to be a humbling adventure in wonder and awe.
I still think that life is common out there. There's plenty of reasons to do so. Intelligent life is a whole other matter and I'm more sceptical about that. But ever since I saw this lecture, I've had to admit that my point of view is almost entirely based on hope and not data or fact. There is no evidence as of yet for or against... Only educated guesses that can go either way. Which is kinda awesome in itself. And really fun to think about.
@@johanwittens7712 I agree. I think it would be awesome if there were life out there and it is definitely highly possible that life (at least very basic versions of it) is common. But currently there is no evidence for or against and a lot of people forget or outright deny this.
This lecture is overblown. He literally contradicts himself by bringing up survivor bias and the folly of using our sample of 1 to extrapolate on life elsewhere, but then goes on to do the very same with the ridiculous timeline example. The point he made about arrogance being an emotional appeal was a good one however.
There is data; recall sea life at heat vents in a non oxygen environment. That is the best evidence we have that living organisms evolve based on conditions presented. As for intelligent live, I agree with Kipping.
Just wanted to say that I’m on exactly the same boat as you. I have had these exact thoughts and beliefs on the matter for years now, and seeing it being so eloquently defended is a nice change of pace. It seems that taking a hardline stance that there _MUST_ be life out there in the universe other than us has been the prevailing dogma, and any criticism of it is reflexively dismissed without much thought. It really does seem to be a faith-based position that lacks the evidence to support it.
@@REALdavidmiscarriage If you had watched the video you would understand that this is EXACTLY what he was arguing. Wait for conclusive evidence before taking a definitive stance.
@@REALdavidmiscarriage really ignorant statement considering the mere presence of a lot of planets doesn't tell you much if anything about the likelihood of life being on those planets.
@@Smoomty septillions of planets! Whats really ignorant is your lack of understanding of statsitics and scale... Take a few classes and physics and mathematics and maybe you will understand. Just alone the possibility of there being exactly 1 planet out of 2000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 is hubris of the highest order. I'd sooner believe in the book of mormon than believe the ideas you are proposing 😂
1/3 of the way through and he hasn't used any science. It's distance and time. calculate the time it takes to get to the nearest possible alien. it's FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He believes in people having Biases' in believing there is life out there, instead of people trusting science and the law of probability. I don't know why religious people always have to fight science on so many fronts, and now to pretend we are the only thinking creatures in the universe - that is extremely arrogant.
@@mrzoinky5999 I fail to see how saying "earthlings (humans, dolphins, bacteria, and everything in between) are the only current life in the visible universe" is arrogant. Earth's creatures did not get there from their own merit. They did not will themselves into existence while preventing others from emerging, they just happened to survive and become diverse over time.
@@mrzoinky5999 I don't think you understand religious people at all. You're being very arrogant in thinking that all religious people simply pretend we are the only thinking creatures in the universe. The reality is, we have no idea what's going on. All you know is that one day you were here and have memories. That's it. It could all be an illusion. Time may not exist. We may very well be alone. There could be a creator. Who knows? Don't assume that just because someone is religious, they are wrong. You don't know and they simply have faith in something larger. Also, there no such thing as "trusting science."
Extremely well argued - thanks David. One addition factor in Lowell’s imaginary canals is not only his faulty eyesight but the cultural archeology bias - imaging canals because they were the symbol of modern technology in the 19th century.
Rather,@@tonoornottono, I contend that it's not simply convenient and subjective consideration - based on ourselves. It's a product of the knowledge that *all* life requires energy. In fact all creative or constructive, or transformative processes we can conceive of, have an energy input of some sort. Where there would be a sentient intention to create something specific, it is reasonable to expect steeplingly requirement for energy.
My english is not good, but I understand your statement and i wrote just about modern science. Why do some weird humans think the other planets must have inhabitans? Because of the fact of waste spaces without population? The mosts planets don't offer atmospheres for any creature. Wether animals nor any other creature would ever be able exist there and nowhere was found any clue of those possibilities of life. Since time immemorial mean humans this creatures can be find . Either this probably existing creatures are in a save hiding spot and they are laughing about this stupid humans or there just don't exist. How stupid that notion to ignore!? No science found ever creatures beyond earth. The bible says on, God owns all planets and nowhere says bible on about any hint of other creatures in the universe,...like every science says. Excavations don't bring also to light indications of any creature. Not even something about islam . Only about iron age and Jesus time was found. The temples Solomon etc. Satan is lying to us and many killers say in court they weren't forced by Satan to kill somebody. Catholics are not better, because they are lying too. Revelation warns about the pope as he is an antichrist. Jesus' day of birth is unknown and chrismas, eastern aren't mentioned on bible. No problem celebrate this, but that has nothing to do with bible or christians. Islam is also a lie, which Satan uses for distracting humans from Jesus. Other populations beyond the earth or another life before our life now are lies and distractions from Jesus. Exactly that says on the bible. Scientist aren't able to confirm any islamic prove, how Solomons temple residues for example or any other useful things during iron age. Pre-existence can't be proved also. No war was an idea of God, because only humans are blame! Allah doesn't help or he can't help his fans for having a better life. Those nations are ruled by poverty, wars. Otherwise there remains nowhere any Christian among poverty, no matter where he lives. Show me one Christian who lives in danger, in poverty, but I can show you a crazy not existing Allah, who can't change it better for his fans! To believe on other creatures is also a diversion created by Satan, like I mentioned detailed!
Yes, your English has some problems, but it will gradually improve,@@burda2809. The more serious problem you have, is your silly religious stories. The main reason that no alien life is mentioned in the bible, is that the bible was entirely written by humans, starting back in the Iron Age. Human society back then didn't have the technology to investigate distant celestial objects and phenomena.
This is a subject that I've considered for some time. One of the aspects of being in space that rarely gets talked about is that humans begin to deteriorate as soon as they go into space and may well be that why we never see aliens because they are as tied to their planet just like us. And then again there are the impossible distances involved.
dont be stupid, that like saying humans cant breath on water.. therefor we arent meant to be in the swimming pool. Have you seen how fast some of these ufo travel? and the amount of ufo footages alone, already suggest otherwise. I think the probability that we are alone is NIL. its bloody stupid to thikn otherwise ,,,data shows that in our galaxy alone, theres about 300 million potentially habitable planet. Thats just our galaxy. Theres about 2 trillion galaxy.... its just seem so stupid to think were alone otherwise. Its beyond DUMB
> tied to their planet just like us probably by design, if the universe is infinite there is nothing unique, I don't buy the argument of the video, there is nothing special here.
@@fmeloThere's a lot special here. Kipping does a great job of debunking status quo arguments publicly paraded from mainstream/celebrity scientists or dumb podcasters *Rogan, who love presenting life like it's such a sure thing but ultimately have no more evidence for it than statistical speculation.
Wonderful analysis from Prof Kipping. The one thing that I have always wondered is whether having a moon is/was important in the development of life. Many, many exoplanets, may be in the goldilocks zone, but without a moon to create tides, maybe they never create life.
The moon is still a mystery as far as I know. I've heard theories that the moon had once contributed to a shared magnetosphere on Earth. The tides don't seem any more necessary for life than oxygen. Mind you, there are forms of life on Earth that do not use oxygen respiration for metabolic function. Those forms of life also exist on a vastly different time scale (kinda like slow motion, but for the metabolism; which seemed to require unique conditions like being subterranean [which limits interactions with predators or environmental hazards]). The speed of life is a problem unsolved, and often not considered in regards to intelligence. There may be intelligent life that blinks in and out of existence in weeks; where our existence has taken hundreds of thousands of years. I don't really like this lecture; it doesn't define life. It presupposes life as "recognizable" to our senses (or the instruments commanded by our senses). We very well may require AI to seek out languages spoken in ways we cannot theorize in the span of one career.
I’ve watched other lectures, were not only was a large moon crucial, but also our axis tilt…likely secondary to the collision with what would become our moon. Our magnetic core. Having large gas giants shielding us from many asteroids, etc. So many crucial variables.
@@travishayes840 Glad to hear that I am not alone. I was not saying that these things were essential, I was just wondering out loud in the hope that Prof Kipping or others might be sparked to consider the possibility.
I adhere to Prof Brian Cox’s thoughts regarding intelligent life. Highly improbable because of the time spans involved and the possibility that intelligent life may tend to eradicate itself at some point.
Professor Cox has adopted the same position as his friend who is a biologist. He says there is likely, at best to be only slime in the rest of the milky way galaxy.
I think so too. The early start argument suggests that life could be common. However intelligent life may be extremely rare. For all we know intelligence might prove to be a dead end on the evolution tree. But of course no one knows.
There is also the possibility that dinosaurs would have never gone extinct if not for a random meteor, meaning, intelligent life would have never evolved to take their place.
Im a statistician. Always felt we could be alone. I believe the absence of direct evidence makes it more likely that Fl is indeed smaller than the number of stars and we are alone. Note that statistics doesnt apply to whether we are alone. We either are or are not. The statistics only apply to our knowledge of it. Its like the odds of the next card in a deck being a heart. It either is or is not. Once the deck was shuffled, the answer is fixed, only our knowledge of it is pseudo random.
There is plenty of direct evidence. Theres a lot of circumstantial evidence that shows we are not along, and keep in mind that we can convict people on circumstantial evidence for murder. Yeah sure if you ignore that, then yes were alone.
@@Alex-pb1iy Most of the "direct"evidence is mostly by people with psychological problems or the need for attention. Also, the chances of someone being guilty on circumstancial evidence, whether this is right or wrong, is still by far more likely for the crime to have happened than someone claiming to have evidence for an extra terrerestrial. Extaordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence.
Thank you! I've been thinking along these lines ever since I read biologist Robert Shapiro's book "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth". It may be that abiogenesis is extremely rare.
That first argument is very interesting. I've never hear of that before, but it makes perfect sense. I've also been one to think if there's billions of stars, there has to be at least one more with life, but that's not necessarily true. Now if we do happen to find another one with life, it would then be safe to say there's probably many more, but as of now since we only know of one place with life, it's impossible to know the odds there might be life on any other planet. That's pretty cool!
THIS WAS SO IMPORTANT. Thank you for this beautifully logical, cogent and enlightening lecture. And is anyone getting sick of people sugarcoating and exaggerating for ratings and popularity. These celbri-scientists have a lot of pressure to make people feel good and to keep themselves booked as the presenter states. So approachable. Well done Doctor
So look here, the odds of this mote of dust being the only mote of dust that is infected with a sentient disease is far greater than there are millions of motes of dust with sentient diseases upon them
"THIS WAS SO IMPORTANT." On the contrary, this is so NOT important. It is impossible to know we are alone, and almost impossible to know we are not. If the latter, due to some received communication, the chance of communicating back is another 'nearly impossible', and the knowledge of another intelligent life (or any other sort) would only confirm what we already knew was possible. And we can't exactly meet for a beer in the city on Friday night, so nothing would be any different. Oh, except all the violent and bloodthirsty human race would start stressing that, having advertised our existence (if we replied to signals) that said other lifeforms would turn up and kill us!
@@tedturner03 the "news" isn't always misinformation. That's a lie spread by certain political groups to their less than educated masses. The point is to be skeptical, analytical and inquisitive. Blanket statements like yours do nothing other than perpetuate willful ignorance. Also, what does the "news" have to do with it?
17:45 I have always said that I believe our moon to be an under-considered factor in our hypotheses as to why it appears we are alone in the cosmos. From the circumstances of its formation, to its precise mass, reflective luminosity, and the fact that it is tidally locked are all variables that I think should be considered more when looking at potential candidates for habitable exoplanets. One of the reasons I follow Professor Kipping's research is because he and his team specialize in surveying exomoons and I truly believe that may be where the answers we are looking for lie.
@@mezzb What was the entire point of Professor Kipping's lecture? Evidence! Don't make assumptions. Don't say just because there are a lot of worlds out there -100 quadrillion, more or less - more than one of them MUST have life? Evidence. There is no evidence we are alone or not, either way.
Finally, someone who can see this argument fully logically. There is no sensible argument for OR against there being other life in this universe. As to other universes...also unknown. But we can have beliefs based on some of the statistics and patterns.
once again you have blown my mind David. I love your thinking process. I am hoping the evidence for life on other planets comes in my lifetime :) and if not mine then my sons. I know it was a real let down that you couldn't get the time on the james webb but don't worry your time will come!!! your are the best of the best of the best :)
Dr. Kipping is, as always, fascinating as he guides us through these theories. The bottom line, though, is, quite simply, we don’t know if we’re alone or not. Really, though, suppose we are alone in the universe? So what? We have plenty of challenges right here without worrying about another world's civilization and their issues. How many issues do you want?
.. when the conditions are just right, as on Earth, life is unavoidable .. but there are so many variables that to get everything just right for life is .. extremely rare.
Scientists have assembled all ingredients for life, put them the ideal environment, provided stimulation, but no life formed. Just-right chemical and environmental conditions don't seem to be enough. Perhaps a big dollop of (unknown) extreme random chance is needed on top of the extreme random chance of there being just-right chemical and environmental conditions.
Respectfully, your first statement has no scientific basis. There is a return lately to the God hypothesis. Your assumption is that the Origen of life was a totally natural process. You cannot assume that the information on human DNA came from nothing
Unavoidable bc of the fact that we exist. But we have no idea how many variables and factors of chance played into the equation that resulted in life at all, let alone multicellular life, then incredibly sophisticated conscious intelligent life. The odds could be 10^-100000 for all we know for any of those tiers of life forming
@@dzenacs2011 yes that’s exactly my point haha. We cannot possibly know with any confidence in either direction without more data. I just dislike how commonly I see the misconception that because there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, life is guaranteed to be everywhere. There’s zero data to possibly predict how common or uncommon it is
It’s not just that space is vast, but also that time is vast. Perhaps there was once a civilization in our galaxy that sent out radio signals hoping to find other life, but it ceased to exist billions of years before humans discovered how to detect those signals.
This has been exactly my point for decades and it rarely gets discussed. The chances of another civilisation existing in our blink of an eye in time is infinitesimally small, let alone the narrow slice of time we have been aware of the concept.
@@HowardKlein1958 Yes. It is a very well-discussed and known topic. Remember that time and space are the same thing, therefore when talking about the vastness of space you're also talking about the vastness of time.
Let's be honest here: We're never going to accept that we're alone in the universe, we're going to keep looking for extra terrestrial life for as long as our species exists.
Why should we as humanity accept that we are alone when this assumption is impossible to verify? We can only falsify it when we find something that is 'alive' (can also be just some type of space bacteria or fungi).
While I agree with your statement, im of the firm belief that what we are "in" is a super-duper advanced holographic simulation (akin to Star Treks "holodeck", but obviously on a much more larger scale, and complexity). With that being said, it could very well be that all that space out there in the universe is a mere "illusion" and doesnt really exist [until/if such a time arises that we are able to physically reach it, then it could very well "pop" into existence, as in the phenomena of manifestation. The phenomena of manifestation is very real for me, insomuch that I witnessed it on at least 3 occasions during my lifetime. Some would say im a kook, while others think im merely misremembering things...and thats ok. I know in my heart the phenomena is real and exists. Lastly, yes it does make your mind do one huge "Whoa !!! WTF ?!?!?!"
@@Aurochhunter Let's look at our own planet. How many species did we have since the beginning of life on this earth? Billions of life forms and only one was able to use tools, books and fire. So it must be VERY unusual to develop this kind of 'intelligence'. Another factor is the possibility to destroy the own environment or own species with the right tools and weapons. So intelligent life will probably have very short life cycles compared to simple forms (which also have way lower demands to their environment than complex forms of life)
We're still finding new/undocumented species of life here on Earth. Just because we've not seen it, doesn't mean it does'nt exist, because we have plenty of examples proving that assumption wrong. It was once thought that life could not exist in extreme temperatures. Then we found a wide array if life forms thriving on deep sea hydrothermal vents, in temperatures ranging from 400f to 700f. We've also found life thriving in lakes underneath the Antarctic ice sheets.
This is absolutely brilliant. Prof. Kipping is amazing. I love his demolishment of the Copernican Principle in this context, and his rebuttal to the "arrogance" emotional "argument."
Yes, he is brilliant but Copernican principle is align with his though process stating that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that, as observers, we don't occupy a special place. How's then it is demolished? It would meand contradicting it's own speech.
Totally agree on the emotional coercion. But on the other hand, all that he's demonstrated is that it is impossible to come up with a statistical determination when all you have is a single event. Mind you, the increasing detection of exoplanets similar to Earth suggests that we may indeed be average, which is the whole point in this theory. I think he might have to go back on that one.
Professor Kipping almost said that life is either complete with all of its electron microscopic details and be alive or it cannot generate life at all. We with our brains can’t order up a biological upgrade of our choosing or need. Eons of lifeless time can do nothing but be more eons of lifeless time.
@@duke_of_oz But this is not what we are discovering. In fact, out of around 1000 solar systems, we have not found a single star system that resembles our own. Most of them are dominated by gas giants as inner planets which make the formation of earthlike planets impossible. More and more, our solar system with rocky planets in the habitable zone, and the gas, giants, further out, appears to be a one off anomaly. The rare earth hypothesis appears to be more or less confirmed, and life, as we know it here on earth, or indeed, life at all, may be vanishing rare, and in fact unique to earth. This is what Professor Tipping means by the Copernican principle not being valid. Earth is not ordinary and the solar system is not ordinary.
No, he is advocating for saying “we don’t know” instead of making assumptions, because the probabilities are not known. He argues that it is unscientific to take things on faith. I agree.
This is an incredibly vague and obtuse comment. His main argument is that we don't know, and then he subsequently presents a number of examples debunking the status quo, that there 'must be a universe teeming with life'. Maybe you should elaborate.
we have one known, absolute fact - in the entire universe, in all we can see, billions and billions of lightyears in all directions...we have found no evidence of any other life in the entire universe
I was hospitalized last month and was watching this fascinating talk. I had an old cosmology professor in the same hospital room as mine and we started discussing. His take was: because intelligent life is much harder to form han simple life, the fact that at least a single instance of intelligent life exists (us) means that very likely simple life exists in other places on the universe. I found this argument amazing!
As a practical matter, we are alone due to the incomprehensible distances between planets and stars. Every other planet and moon in our system does not support advanced life for sure, and presents no evidence of simple life. Advanced life is exceedingly rare and probably is not contemporaneous with our life, which has only developed in the last million years or so, ad how much longer do we have?
i'm so happy to have found this video ! For the longest time every conversation i had about this topic it was me against the world asking: "But how are you so sure ?" I'm not saying i think there is no life But the answer everyone gives is always " There has to be, it's illogical to think otherwise" Neven knew how to explain this doubt i had, and this video said everything i wanted to hear
Wouldn't it be amazing to find out that it takes a massive universe interacting just to create life on 1 tiny planet? They always say there's other life, they never consider that life may be the rarest, most precious thing to ever exist.
This is good. Even better are the arguments getting into more specifics, e.g. the extreme improbabilities of life forming by random processes, evolving to intelligence, and the numerous specific occurrences and things about earth that facilitated it
It’s good to have Avi Lobe’s optimism to drive him to find out, and if he and his discover something extraordinary with the Galileo Project and that expedition near Papua New Guinea then that would be worth it. But it also good to have lectures like this which tempers expectations and brings one back to reasonable skepticism. We don’t know if there’s other life in the universe, but let’s find out!
Dr. Kipping is right about not moralizing your positions and right you should consider the possibility we are the only intelligent life in the universe. Though it's also the least likely outcome.....Dr. Kipping uses the example of snowflakes. It's true no 2 are exactly identical, but it is a distinction among a class. Snowflakes are ubiquitous in the universe. No 2 humans are exactly identical either. Though our bodies manifest in slight unique variations we are none the less all humans. If our example of intelligent life is a singular event it would seemingly be the only time the Universe had ever produced just one of something.
With all due respect, Avi Loeb is nothing but a publicity hound producing click-bait "science" that isn't in the slightest way scienctific. Him and his Oumuamua "solar sail" moving only slightly faster than our crude chemical rockets - an absolute joke. The worst part - he didn't believe it himself. He's a scam artist.
@@dunnagan5 nah screw that guy. Grammar is only as necessary as it is functional and I read what you put down easy. Folk just think the noise in their head needs to be spat into the world
24:40...Anybody can see the blood vessels in the back of their eyes. It is an ordinary optical phenomenon. I have terrible eyesight - very near sighted. I reported seeing the back of my eyeball to my optometrist when I was in high school, and he thought I was crazy. I demonstrated it to him and he was amazed. It only requires a bright light source directed at a precise angle into the eyeball, which then projects a virtual image of the retina back through the lens, which you see in front of you. Percival Lowell possibly saw this virtual projection of his retina as he was peering through his telescope, but the canals seem to be only a bad interpretation of a low resolution image of the Mars surface details.
Whilst I wouldn't say that we are alone in the entire universe, I would say that life that observes itself, like we do, is extremely rare. Kipping says(or infers) that we are not special, but in reality we are, extremely special, if only because we are extremely rare.
The movie "Contact" (1997) was based on Carl Sagan's book of the same name. In it, the main character Ellie Arraway (Jodie Foster) returns from a visit to a planet with intelligent life saying we're not common. She says "Now I realize how rare and precious we all are" I just really loved that line.
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years and the cataclysm that wiped them out set the conditions that led to humans. There is no reason why life on Earth had to evolve to intelligent life. The same holds true for any other planet that may have life on it.
I've changed my views over the last 30 years - from "of course there are many extraterrestrial civilizations" to "we are almost surely alone". The reason is simple and devastating - what are the chances that the literally trillion of mutations, changes, accidents, extinctions and conditions and an environment for life could be replicated elsewhere? Not the exact events but a "path" that leads to sentience. In our case, a good spot in the galaxy, a safe Solar System, water, a large moon, an early rise of life. This occurred on a deadly world of methane and other deadly gases. (This is probably common in our galaxy.) Over the next 500 million years life was nearly extinguished several times yet these were necessary for our rise. I still recall that factoid - of the billion or so organisms that have existed on Earth exactly one (1) has attained sentience. Great talk!!
That path is probably rather broad. One can make biology with a sheer infinite variations of organic molecules. That you have attained sentience is, by the way, a good candidate for the biggest bullshit of the day award. :-)
@@lepidoptera9337 LOL Yeah, I hear that frequently - humans are not sentient! Actually there is a very limited variation that produces life which is one reason it can rise. 99% of other combinations don't work.
Thank you for articulating & solidifying what I've been trying to frame/express about the life-in-the-universe question for years! "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - - It is also not evidence of existence! The answer to a question can be simply unknown or unknowable at the present time; anyone who claims to know is simply wrong when no one *can* know. Fred
While no one can know. We do know we’re made of one of the most abundant elements in the universe: carbon. And we know the staggering number of star systems in our galaxy alone: more than a couple hundred billion. Each with its set of planets. Even if for some odd reason our solar system is the only one with life on it, we still have to consider that our Milky Way is just an insignificant galaxy amongst two trillion other galaxies. Believing we’re alone, needs faith.
@@miks564 If I hook a worm to my fishing pole and cast the pole into the lawn of my back yard and given enough time, will I catch a salmon? The answer is no, the probability is zero. Enough time does not make zero, nonzero.
@@miks564 Carbon arguments are just stupidification. We are DNA, RNA, enzymes, proteins, and other extremely sophisticated types of carbon not found in rocks and therefore not possible by chance. Self-construction is an argument not justified by any data as the fossil record would have to be 99.9999999999999999999999% one-off species by chance, and one in a quadrillion gets going. Is this what the fossil record shows? No. The fossils we see are in complex ecosystems all the time. Therefore, there was no adaptation and no survival of the fittest.
This is the same thing as saying you can't really know that you're not living in a simulation (or all other people aren't zombies, etc.). Granted that's epistemologically sound from a philosophical perspective, we all ultimately presume other people have agency. Therefore, I think it's safe to presume that similar conditions throughout the universe will produce similar results. We don't KNOW that to be the case, but it's a good bet.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 91 | คู่เอก "คมอาวุธ vs อเล็กเซย์"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/V0RkEfYFsgM/mqdefault.jpg)
I know why I’m still alone, I keep watching videos like this instead going out 😂
Lol ! 😂 that was a good one ☝️
Society is overrated.
Touch Grass
So basically this lecture boil down to… we are the top of the hierarchy in the universe … a god ?
you are assuming that you wouldn't be alone if you went out...
"Oracle. Are we alone in the universe?" she asked.
"Yes," said the Oracle.
"So there's no other life out there?"
"There is. They're alone too."
By James Miller .
very good
I really like this. 👍Very solemn but very much true.
We all will die in future they will too
I prefer to ask ALEXA.
Bingo. We're not alone in the cosmos, just very far away from everybody else.
Brilliant and also very graspable for any semi intelligent non scientist. Appreciate his agnosticism on the topic…He speaks very clearly and supports a specific point of view…but entirely without arrogance…Thank You for sharing this lecture
At this point of our history the video title alone is sheer gaslighting if on purpose, and dumb ignorant narcissistic egocentristic naive arrogance already. not worth watching. Purpose of these type of statements today is to dumb down the masses deeper into ignorance to keep on controlling and profitting from them.
@@MilkoOfficialChannel Did you watch it? If you did, why are you using an emotional statement?
simple = in this universe , there is no any life form! maybe in another universe ( if it exist )
You opinion of it about being “x” to “z” is a hypothesis and would need to be tested.
Umm, _what_ , @@M4R10_?
7:05 the green ball explanation I was just left speechless. I have thought this so many things miss, but haven’t been to explain it. I absolutely salute this man. Well done prof. I love your work ❤
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
He has another video from a few years ago where he explains the same principle using 1M prisoners picking a lock to escape. It blew my mind.
Search “are we alone in the universe”
“I don’t know” is often the only honest thing a wise man can say.
very true
I know, right?
@@mpetrison3799 😉
Are you sure about that?
@@WilhelmFreidrich 🤷🏻♂️
Videos like this make me grateful to be alive in the time of the internet.
Lol. and doing a bank transfer worth an amount of 234.93
This talk shows typical scientific lack of knowledge, focusing on the external. All truth of life is found within. The external is purely a temporary sensory reflection. Having "hope" that there's life out there is simply a lack of self knowledge, and encourages people to focus on the external, which again leads to a lack of self knowledge. I recommend listening to Barry Long, a legitimate spiritual teacher.
@@michaeltsung9741 So what is the truth of life?
@@JohnyG29 The truth of life is that I, the reader (not the writer, since the writer is a "you", not an "I") am life itself. I am all life, and all life is in me. However to realise, which is to make real, that truth, requires living the spiritual life, or the divine life. I recommend spiritual teacher Barry Long as a "real deal" teacher, which is a very rare thing, who can act as a guide until such time as you no longer require a teacher. Barry passed in 2003, but left behind a large body of work.
@@michaeltsung9741 Ain't nobody got it figured out, and never will.
The fact that intelligent life only formed shortly before Earth becomes uninhabitable is really interesting. I'd never thought of it that way.
The planet gets uninhabitable because we ruin it. Without humans the planet stays habitable for 500 million years
The conditions for life that our planet enjoys are so many and so particular, makes you think about how the universe works: it doesn't repeat itself. It is us who give the same label to different things. It would be awesome to find intelligent life somewhere else, but I really don't have any expectations. Just life, not intelligent life, I think it is easier to expect. Or, intelligence without life: is that possible?
We don't even know if intelligent life is a surefire products of evolution anyway, life doesn't need to be intelligent like us to survive, dumb life is acceptable as long as they survive and that's all evolution "care about"
It's not becoming uninhabitable though.
@@uku4171 not currently, but once the sun starts to change in another billion years, it will almost overnight
This is the most reasonable and realistic approach to this question.
We may be alone or we may be effectively alone. It is a distinction without a difference...
We aren't alone. The aliens are here, RIGHT NOW. It's a verified fact. The most advanced military in the world verified the footage of non-human technology (see Tictac). This isn't a question anymore! No more "swamp gas" or "it was Venus". The aliens are REAL and HERE. Why do people keep acting like this is a question anymore? Stop living in denial!
We may see light from other long dead civilizations or receive a message that is millions of light years old. That's probably the best we can hope for.
We will almost certainly die with our bubble.
Andromeda galaxy is the nearest one to ours. It's approx 2.5 million LIGHT YEARS away. If you leave earth today at the speed of light, it would take 2.5 million years to reach Andromeda.
If you want to know if it is possible that other life has occurred other than us, then the distinction is very important.
@@Icneumone7that would be for people on earth, but if you travelled at the speed of light, from your perspective you would have gotten there instantly because time stops at the speed of light. If you were traveling near the speed of light it would feel like a couple minutes.
"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
-Arthur C Clarke
Neither is terrifying. We should learn to deal with either possibility.
@@ungmd21 yes, also the quote is overused lmao
Not really, if we're alone we can seed the galaxy with no external competition. We have each other which is very sufficient
We hv a lot of questions but answers evade us. We know of this one life. Humanity. Us. Whether there is life other than us in another form on another planet with again a different form to sustain that life form we do not know. If they exist they are invisible to us. Are we invisible to them. We are not alone. There are other dimensions in the Universe. What about the trillions of humanity in some other dimension who have finished with their experiences over here. They have moved on. May be they could help us with some answers.
@@mrnrnh8 As Dr Kipping said to conclude, for now we really don't know. You cannot know right now that we are not alone
I find this person to be VERY logical in his thinking !
And I watch his channel all the time .
I do not ALWAYS agree with his deduction, but I do MOST of the time !
DML.
This is wonderful. This is a perfect example of holding scientists and proponents of alien life to the same scrutiny/skepticism we would expect to place on any claim.
This is something to live by in all things. Apply skepticism to all things, especially the things you believe to be true.
Finally! Michael Crichton made similar points some years ago (it would take a fiction writer with a scientific mind to sniff out BS so keenly). The compounding of UNKNOWN variables still make them unknown. That popular scientific personalities talk about the Drake equation and other similar notions with such bias has seriously dumbed down the scientific dialogue in our society. We also talk about modeling in other areas in the same way, as if these equations are not speculative but somehow predictive. Kudos to Dr. Kipping for treating science like a process, not a corruptible worldview.
Well Tbf two of his examples weren't scientists
His right about one thing ! Life has a short time ⏲️ to become intelligent life + get to age of modern technology + be able to have the Intelligent to want to leave they're planet. Intelligent life + life may only be around for a short period of time. Universe is a dangerous place.
@@A_Stereotypical_Heretic here is the definition of a scientist in its strictest sense:
a person who is studying or has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.
"a research scientist"
From this, we can surmise that a scientist need not have a PhD. A person can attain expert knowledge from independent research, without having gone to university and received a PhD.
This would accurately describe Bill Nye, whom has devoted a massive portion of his adult life to the study of more than one field of science. He is respected by professors and the greater scientific community.
So, a scientist he is, a qualified professor with a doctorate he is not.
Absolutely.
What he wrote in 2003: "More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called 'Rare Earth'
theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone. Again, there is no evidence either way."
This is an ignorant person's skepticism. He doesn't know anything, so he doubts everything. Equally fallacious, he plays up correct theories that initially weren't accepted... until there was evidence, but he doesn't emphasize that requirement, as Sagan does at 21:30. So he scorns assertions of likelihood when there is evidence (he doesn't know of) and scorns the establishment for dismissing theories that he deems sufficiently backed by evidence when they aren't. I would be embarrassed to have written with such a tone of playground antagonism for that level of audience (see link), while also betraying an inconsistent standard of empirical support.
Sure, Africa and South America "fit" together, but there also seems to be a face on Mars. Coincidences happen, so evidence needs to be accumulated--such as similar fossils below the time of continental separation and dissimilar species above. When you take pictures from a closer distance and different angles, the facial symmetry vanishes. This evidence takes time to amass. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Or as Feynman tried to teach with his license plate explanation, you can't use the hint that gives you the initial hunch to test that very hunch. Unlikely things happen all the time, so you need to collect _new_ data to see if it supports the hunch. The ubiquity of rare events is why hypothesis testing seems very conservatively structured to the uninitiated.
Feynman's UFO discussion with a "layman" distinguishes whether talk of knowns or talk of likelihoods is scientific. Sure, we don't _know_ that we're not being visited by space aliens, but that doesn't make us unscientific to take sides and say it's highly unlikely. We _can_ talk about likelihood, given what we already know. That is in fact allowed, when there's data. Bayesian reasoning _is_ consistent with the scientific method. Or as Feynman put it, from what he knows about the world around him, reports of UFOs have more to do with the known, irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence than with the unknown, rational characteristics of extraterrestrial intelligence. As Christopher Hitchens would point out, one of the rules of oratory is that arguments presented without evidence can just as easily be dismissed without evidence. But that's not what's going on in this case. 100B galaxies of 100B stars cooking for 14B years is what Kipping is taking on, as is the Miller-Urey experiment. Slowly evidence is amassing in the astronomical and biochemical fields on both the ease and difficulty of abiogenesis and convergent evolution of technology-wielding intelligence, and the time to cook up the heavier elements that assist life. The trouble is when people make assertions that "we just don't know" as an excuse to dismiss talk of likelihoods, use of Bayesian reasoning, and evidence that already exists. To do so is just indulging in a false equivalency. And it's especially annoying when it's born of their own ignorance of evidence that already exists (an agnosticism of laziness).
stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf
I took a long time for life to become multi cellular, and it took a long time for multi cellular life to become intelligent enough to create technologies and it took a long time for technological life to develop the abilities we have as modern humans. What we have no clue about is how long we can persist after we have developed the ability to wipe ourselves out. Sixty years so far, and counting.
That’s selective perception. Just like how science accepted that galaxies like ours were impossible in the early universe. Well early from our perspective. Yet, we have located galaxies like ours that have disproven this theory.
Actually, for most of the time life was unicellular on earth, for billions of years. And that might be the norm that most planets have without ever having a multicellular creature
Yeah sure😂
What he's not taking into account are the several world extinction events that happened on planet Earth. It doesn't take as long as he is suggesting for intelligent life to evolve. That throws out a huge chunk of his argument.
Only knock to that is the Earth being 4.5 billion years old. When the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. So life on a similar planet could of had 3 times then time we did to get intelligent life.
This is a tremendous lecture.
Thank you.
I watched it with my visiting alien friend. He thought the arguments very good indeed as well. ;)
its basic stuff found in the first paragraphs of the first chapter of any decent analysis on the prospects of alien life; and a distraction from the correct best answer we currently have. Astronomers are good at pointing telescopes at stars and looking at spectrographs, but typically bad at logical analysis / reasoning on the prospects of alien civilization. The first law of reasoning for alien civilization is never trust an astronomer's analysis, they have all sorts of screwed up bias and archaic modes of thinking. Astronomers are among the last people to be consulted this on matter.
Ok onto the elephant in the room, the biggest myth of our times, which the naive astronomer didn't address, and has never objectively thought about it in his life and never will:
1. The idea that alien civilization would blast out radio communication, loud and clear, hence our satellite dishes should be jammed with alien radio transmissions.
This myth was created back in the early days of radio communication around the 1920s when most transmissions were sent uncoded. Thinkers at the time assumed radio comm would remain that way practically forever. Today most radio comm is encoded so that it resembles random noise; but it is digital as apposed to analogue, which distinguishes it from natural background noise. However it is easy to convert a digital radio stream into an analogue stream then add a few pseudo noise fx to make it completely indistinguishable from natural background noise, except for those with the encryption keys. This is how aliens communicate.
2. The myth that we can detect the tiniest signals from the other side of the universe. Actually, our best technology ( Nasa Deep Space Network ) can detect synthetic information from a synthetic source from about at maximum 180AU or one light-day away; it is 6 orders of magnitude smaller than the detection sensitivity we'd need to evesdrop info from the nearest star system.
In case you haven't noticed, we can barely detect exo planets directly. If a whole exo planet can't generate enough waves to be detected by our best scopes, its going to be hard to detect an artificial source unless its pointed directly at us, and for us. This leads us onto
3. The idea of convenience that aliens want to communicate with us. In technology they are millions or billions of years ahead of us. It would be like us trying to comm with bacteria in the dirt. What is the purpose? Just to poke the bacteria and do experiments on it.
Any discussion about alien civ should address these points. The astronomer's lecture was conspicuously lacking, like a half man lacking half his body and head.
4. The myth that inter stellar aliens comm using spherical wave broadcasts, this one's again from the 1920s. For interstellar space it is more sensible to use rasers ( radio equivalent of laser ) to aim a coherent beam at a target star system. (a) less power useage, (b) much better stealth; no other star system would detect the signal. The chance that we'd sit between 2 alien star systems and be able to intercept their signals is extremely low, and in these cases, aliens can simply divert signals around the solar system. That we might postcept signals after they pass their target star can be stopped by alien engineering, they can adjust their rasers to difuse enough to be too weak to detect past the target star system and also the target star system can send out an neutralizing wave signal to reduce the signal beyound the receiver.
Show me the astronomer lecture that mentions these points. protip: u can't because astronomers are dumb.
@Jota Efe that astronomer got a big applause, 354K views, 11k likes, and 3447 praising comments in 3 weeks for "neither prooving nor disproving anything." Glad that we give credit where its due.
@@plasmaastronaut Aho.
@@plasmaastronaut TH-cam Ph.D. in the room.
In my opinion this is the most plausible presentation I have seen on the subject.
Kind of ignores a lot of details in research in other fields like biogensis experiments.
Its the dumbest! Aleans are here NOW!! ITS AN ABSOLUTE FACT!! WAKE UP!!!!
@@bryanfinkell9022
Name one who you know.
I felt quite the opposite
@@famalam943 Literally said 'biogenesis' or to be precise abiogenesis experiments where we attempt the formation of simple biological building blocks from naturally occurring chemistry.
Also, there really are just lots of stars.
And that argument has gotten much stronger as when it was first said it was commonly thought most stars had no planets or just had gas giants. Turns out rocky planets are far more common than anyone expected. This actually makes a lot of 'dork' sci-fi that presumes the earth is particularly unique in structure pessimistic.
Fantastic, thanks for posting this David! Loved watching it.
Thank your for this lecture, Dr. Kipping! You and your family have a great Christmas and New Year!!
This talk shows typical scientific lack of knowledge, focusing on the external. All truth of life is found within. The external is purely a temporary sensory reflection. Having "hope" that there's life out there is simply a lack of self knowledge, and encourages people to focus on the external, which again leads to a lack of self knowledge. I recommend listening to Barry Long, a legitimate spiritual teacher.
@@michaeltsung9741 Sounds like pseudoscientific nonsense to me. A brief search of Barry Long suggest the same. That's not to say that internal spiritual exploration isn't beneficial or valid. It simply falls outside the realm of logic, and thus is particularly susceptible to charlatans and grifters. It's easy to create "knowledge" when it's not falsifiable or subject to empirical verification.
@@michaeltsung9741 All truth is found in Christ, not within.
@@florida8953 true ) 🙏✝️
incredible lecture, professor kipping. a breath of fresh air after hearing so many scientists conclude there has to be life in the universe other than us.
Fresh air? Are you serious? He brings nothing new to the table and spends 25 min telling us what we already know. Of course nobody knows for certain and he criticized deGrasse Tyson as if his comments on entertainment tv were an actual scientific journal. Those who cant do science are quick criticize the ones who do. I am sure Tyson knows the difference between mathematical certainty and personal beliefs. If he cant understand that he was expressing his beliefs and that he was not presenting to actual scientific audience then he needs to self check and rethink his career.
@@davidvega1097 Kipping was being scientific. Tyson forgot he is a "physicist" and was just speaking his mind, which might also amount to nonsense. Tyson should have stuck to the actual science. A few years ago, a team of scientists at The University of Oxford arrived at the same conclusion as Kipping did using Bayesian statistics--that we might very well be alone in the universe.
I sure agree!
After reading The Dark Forest I have no hurry for us to be found, but I believe that there are others, is a statistic posibility too big
@@stellarspacetraveler he was using what you call no sense to make his conclusion appear valid and make himself look smart. Now just because your a physicists does not mean you can’t be an expert in other sciences. Our brains don’t stop working if it is a subject outside our original study area. Besides this guy and all those statistics came to a whopping conclusion that we just don't know. I understand this as an actual exercise in logic but for this guy to spend 25 min is ridiculous. Now for anyone to publish this conclusion is just plain moronic. These people cant come up with their own things and they take simple things and blow them up just to make them sound smarter than he is. Now Tyson I am certain he know that his claims are not scientific or mathematically valid (I have no doubt he can do the math). Everyone with half a brain knows we just don’t know for sure as of today. Also, speculating on things that may one day be proven otherwise has lead to the creation of wonderful discoveries and inventions. They make me feel like publishing a scientific paper to prove if there is life after death.
I used to want to believe we’re not alone but you changed it, not in the way I wanted to but I’m so thankful for it. This really is a hidden gem for intellectual growth. You’re a very well spoken person!❤
You listen to people too much. That will be your biggest downfall
Alone can mean either "the only" or it can mean "forever out of contact". It's easier to accept the latter than the former...
Not alone for sure ,all this engineering for nothing? We have no idea what’s beyond discernible horizon, not seeing don’t change reality.
I don't get why so many people are so obsessed with whether there is life elsewhere in the universe-which we are highly unlikely to find or interact with (though I'm not denying the watershed nature of either circumstance)-while humans demonstrate daily that they don't value other human life, nor all other life on this pale blue dot that we all occupy-and likely all will die upon, as will our very species, barring a sea change in how we behave towards each other, other life here, and the planet itself.
@@obiecanobie919 What engineering?
@Obie Canobie did you even watch the video you are commenting on??
Some of this from these scientists is deliberate disinformation
Wonderful lecture. Thank you, especially, for the green-ball-in-the-urn analogy. I've looked for a way to explain to people that if we happen to be the only intelligent creatures in the galaxy, then naturally we're going to assume that we're the default case. But the green-ball analogy does a nice job of showing this bias for what it is.
Mr. Kipping, you have quickly become one of my favorite science educators. Looking forward to your future content with great excitement. I am an electrical engineer that absolutely loves physics and science.
24th like
True this is great
respect to you sir
Quickly enough before we became extinct
😂
This is the first I've seen of this channel. I'm always pleased to watch more cool worlds productions.
A great talk and a point that needed to be made. Thanks to Cool Worlds, I feel comfortable in being agnostic about the possibilities for life, as you said. I want to believe, but someone needs to give me a good reason!
Once the entire Earth had no life whatsoever. No one knows how or why life began. If it happened before it can happen again.
Without watching, why are we alone?
@@zdcyclops1lickley190 but that's exactly the reasoning this video argues against? Just because it happened here doesn't mean life has happened elsewhere, let alone that it's ubiquitous or even common. As David Kipping said, the right answer is we don't know.
@@jamesgeary4294 just because life happened here doesnt mean it couldnt happen somewhere. Same hollow argument on your hollow argument
@@jamesgeary4294 This is what I'm struggling with. My take is all parties are saying "I think"...meaning "we don't know". One person's assumptions (the Fl value) are really no better than someone else's.
Given that, there has been a progression of 'likelihood' since the first images from hubble.
Q1: Are galaxies rare?
A: Seems not. Appears there are trillions (thx Hubble).
Q2: There are a lot of stars, are there planets with them?
A: Yes. Actually a lot. Around 10 or so planets is fairly common.
Q3: Are there a lot of planets in the habitable zone?
A: yes. Seems this is also common. We see the transits.
Q4: Of these planets in the habitable zone, do they also have similar characteristics to Earth?
A: We don't know. But this is what JWT should help with (measuring VRE - vegetation red edge).
This video, was all about this 4th question. What's the likelihood that these other planets are indeed similar to Earth?
What even constitutes similarity?
A true scientist is supposed to think this way. Great Lecture!
Indeed but what is a TV Scientist supposed to say under pressure :)
"Supposed to", the operative term here...he excises the inextricable from his pedestrian comments.
Well if scientists support every viewpoint imaginable, what good are they? I can get that opinion asking my neighbor. At a certain point, "experts" need to give you an expert opinion otherwise they are not experts.
True scientist also thinks of ways to look for life elsewhere, and so we are.
I agree with you completely. Very few scientists (e.g. Richard Feynman) have stressed the danger of expectancy bias and the importance of agnosticism in some specific cases. I am personally an agnostic when it comes to the existence of God and anthropogenic global warming (later conveniently renamed climate change).
I am quite familiar with the Pupin Physics and Astronomy building where Dr. Kipping gives his lectures. I got my PhD degree from Columbia in 1978, and I wish I could be there 45 years later to meet Dr. Kipping in-person.
FINALLY someone speaking straight about this subject. Thank you.
It's nonsense is what it is
So one of his major arguments is because we don't know exactly how many planets there are we can't make a positive claim that there is life anywhere but earth. What a trash argument in fact all you have to do is look up to see that everything in the universe is repeated constantly over and over and nothing is special and contained to any one area. Besides that you don't have to look any further than our own existence for evidence that alien life exist. In an endless amount of space what happens once will happen over and over. Everything in the universe is repeatable.
@@matthewviramontes3131 yeah. it's distance and time to the nearest alien. Calculate the time it would take to the nearest alien, in the drake equation
Well, his whole take on the Copernican argument is just wrong, and it's surprising that he didn't really think it through. While it is natural to expect that a civilization would show a survivor's bias, that, by itself, doesn't invalidate the argument. You could still imagine what an external observer of the Universe would think if they found us in such a big Universe. They would still update their probability, based on that observation, and conclude that the probability that there's EXACTLY one civilization is much lower than there being at least a few. This is also precisely what you'd think if you spotted a bacterium in an aquarium. It's absolutely irrelevant to your conclusion what that bacterium thinks.
@@plafar7887 Totally agree Plafar.
So refreshing hearing this. I've always been of the belief that there is life out there but I think I'll shelve that for now, albeit reluctantly
Wow, this may be first video I immediately watched a 2nd time. So well-presented and very thought-provoking to me. Maybe because of my bias in that I agree it is way too early to know if we are likely alone.
We already know we're not alone. Although we haven't seen "them" we have seen and recorded their transportation devises and or drones. I've seen what ever they are, the the military has seen and recorded and even measured what ever they are, for years. We know how fast they are and have some video of what ever they are.
I spend a lot of time in the desert near military installations. They seem interested in our military more than our shopping malls.
They observed our nuclear program and our air force. They regularly spend time stalking our pilots. We have them on both video and radar.
@@TheBandit7613 If a weird thing hovers around a military base, it's more likely it's a weird thing from the military base than a weird thing from outer space. If a military person says it's not their equipment and it moves in a manner that's impossible, it's more likely that the military person lies about it than it's from outer space.
@@TheBandit7613 You can't say I say it and we will take that . Science doen't believe in your eyes brother , it requires evidence - repeatable on experiment table . Next time you saw something set up a science camp and help them conduct experiment repeatedly . Thank You .
i was like…wait it’s over!!??
I really liked the way Professor Kip lectures/teaches. He has a genuine smile and its more like he's conversing with you about something so casual, except it's about the universe and scientific equations lol.
Brian Cox actually changed course. Respect to Brian 💯
wdym
So, he is alone when far greater critical thinkers with far better knowledge look at the astronomical mind boggling number of known galaxies let alone planets, use common sense..lol
One of Brian Cox's friends who is a biologist told him he thinks at best, there may only be slime in the rest of our galaxy.
Because of his biology education, he knows just how unlikely life is.
@@andrewdouglas1963 any sources or more info on that. sounds interesting
@@TicTac2
th-cam.com/users/shortsVBSGGaTqP-8?si=DvG3SxAn8tuF8lct
Thanks David Kipping, I heard little I didn't already know, BUT so well put togther, clearly stated. Thanks!
We live in such an exciting time having access to all of this info etc even back 40 yrs ago so much of this wasn't availiable! Keeping an open mind to everything is so important!
Doesn't matter how much we know today because we won't be here someday soon
@@travelfun3812 Don't know that for sure. Even with Biden in the White House, we can't be sure.
@@jazz4asahel Don't worry! Biden is not an obstacle when it comes to disclosure I think.
@@jutjubow Disclose is this: we're alone, because any intelligence out there would want to stay away from us.
Perspective from emotional bias seems to be a huge problem in science throughout our history. Please keep more of these coming, they’re incredible!
We need more teachers like this
Even “rational” physics is full of emotional bias with respect to its most essential premises.
Pretending is not same as knowing, the scale of the universe is way too much for a human brain to digest .Many issues here ,from basic know how to complex ones .Everything is made out of functional parts , if i exists so can others, kowtowing this issues pretty much requires exploration of all universe ,we can’t duplicate the most basics forms of life meaning we are in a very weak scientific position .
maybe thats the nature of the universe , where perspective and bias always change reality, and thats a good thing because that way we have new things, if everyone saw the universe the same way we'd all act the same way and that would be wierd and probably not lead to all what we have, so much variatey, choice. Even on this planet alone where all life shares some dna with each other, their take on how to express the code is vastly different. I dont think you cant have it both ways - predicability doesnt lead to variety and vice versa. Ultimately i think if we found an equation of the universe that would break the universe as it woudl be exploited and it doesnt look to be , but maybe has been before and the big bang could of been remnants of a past civilization who found the equation for everything and the universe too is evolving to compensate
it's why no one was allowed to ask a question about the vaccine
Finally a sane approach to this question. Thanks so much. I am not alone.
I see what you did there :) Now you're definitely not alone :) Incidentally, Kipping is probably among the most brilliant astronomers of our generation, in my very humble view. His papers are remarkably creative. I highly recommend to read them if you're into these things. They should be readable for most people with some basic physics/astronomy background.
Fr man, so happy I found this video! I'm not willing to die on a hill for us being alone but it's always been strange to me how one sided this conversation is. Every other physicist/scientist talks about outside intelligent life as some sort inevitability so it's nice to finally hear a different perspective.
@@Retotion What you wise guys overlook is the fact that once we find even the tiniest microbe on Mars, or a moon of Jupiter and Saturn, the whole lecture was nothing more than a waste of oxygen. And with each passing day, we get closer to the cause. Especially now that we're going to start looking at the atmospheres of extrasolar planets with the help of the James Webb Telescope. As soon as we can prove chlorophyll for the first time, the lecture is waste paper again. The deniers of the "plenty of life" theory must refute any evidence. The others only have to successfully complete the proof once...
Don't count on it. In a purely materialist cosmos, the chances of true solipsism becomes significant. The entire universe may exist only in your own mind. But that case only you would actually exist and the rest of us would be figures of your imagination. I think I need another beer.
@Wikileads No, not necessarily. As Professor Kipping said, we simply don't know, so the possibility that alien civilizations exist is as legitimate as the position that we're alone. But when scientists start proclaiming the galaxy is teeming with alien civilizations when there is zero proof of this, and insult people as arrogant or whatnot for not believing a position for which there is zero proof, then this is anti-scientific behaviour. Not the same as insanity but not appropriate either. I can understand what op meant by finally a sane response. Professor Kipping's analysis is a rare instance of evidence based logic and thoughtful even-handed balance amid a massive myriad of emotional reactions. The scientists who let their wishful thinking propel them to enthusiastically premature conclusion arejust one part of this. Think of all the craziness in non-scientific circles, from cults to people brainwashed into believing Democrats are secretly alien lizards under fake human skin.
Watching this again a year after first watching it. I myself am guilty of being very optimistic that alien life exists but David's argument is very valid and actually true. Nothing we currently know can possibly tell us alien life is likely and therefore being likely or unlikely is equally possible. I admire David's stance on being completely grounded and not just saying aliens must exist simply because of the sheer number of planets which is what I'm guilty of saying. The number of planets tells us absolutely nothing about the likelihood of life existing on any of them.
Biologists who study early life are probably the people you would want to include in this discussion. While even they don't _know_ how life first began, they know enough to at least give some interesting and illuminating context.
yes the fact that in a planet where there ara conditions to life to arise, had happen (as far as we know) only one time shows its not as common as we tend to think .
I *highly* recommend looking into Dr. James Tour and his incredible insight into the *chemistry* of the origin of life.
@@matiasfernandez5635 We do not know that it only happened once. It could be happening a billion times a day, and we probably wouldn't know it.
It's also somewhat interesting to remember that often times when we talk about how life can begin somewhere, we forget life could look a lot different in different circumstances. It doesn't necessarily have to start on a planet like ours, though obviously we don't have any examples of life like that.
@@eventhisidistaken If it had happend a billion times all together let alone in a day I would think that life on earth would have been more varied then it is. I was under the impression that they claim that everything is related. That would at least mean it was only successful once and may there fore have only started once.
To my knowledge the scientist know quite well what life is made out of but I don't believe they have actually ever managed to actually start new life without a cell of excisting life.
This guys knows his stuff for sure. Impressive.
Fascinating lecture, it's one I've been waiting for a long time. Thank you professor. For what it's worth, I took it over to Center for Inquiry (CFI) Forum, it's become an engaged thread. Dec 16, 9:52 PM - "Why we might be alone" Public Lecture by Prof David Kipping, under philosophy
I stayed up really late to watch this. Enjoyed it.
excellent presentation. i love my brain’s reaction to that time limit “we don’t have much time! only a billion years. need to spread elsewhere!” if we can survive another 10,000 years we’ll be doing well 😂
We have already survived for hundreds of thousands of years as Homo Sapiens.
Я, американец, тебе завидую, потому что в Америке люди в средне живут по 800 лет. И этому есть серьёзное доказательство, которое предоставляет ваша судебная система. Вашим некоторым маньякам суд даёт наказание по 500 лет, и даже по 700 лет, а это значит у всех американцев хорошее здоровье. И к маньякам в Америке очень хорошо относятся. После того, как эти нехорощие люди отсидят 300 лет, их за хорошее поведение могут досрочно освободить. Значит, американец, у вас имеется элексир бессмертия и вы эту велиеую тайну скрываете от международной общественности.
@@tolyamochin4066 что
Great and refreshing lecture with a reasonable conclusion!
I love this guy. So succinctly and clearly explains what I've been trying to get across whenever this conversation comes up.
I'm the same. I can't imagine the probability of life evolving. From what? What created the spark? And, after the spark the evolution is so fast that mere mutations in DNA due to the suns radiation could not possibly have enough time to create the diversity we see. It's just soooooo amazing. Obviously, Darwin could see the evolution of life. But, the big jumps are not explained in my opinion. For example, the mission link.
@@GEB-yy3ud you're coming at this from a creationist angle aren't you?
@@TrevorStandley Yes, I guess so... Because just with this phrase: "I can't imagine the probability of life evolving", he's already going against all that the lecturer was trying to explain... 🤷🏻♂
Love this guy? I want to change my sex so I can have his baby.
@@TrevorStandley Not a 'Christian' one, or a 'Monotheist.' Just a human who looks at things like the flagellar motor and thinks there has to be a designer.. But, I can't deny that the religions and culture of our planet would have influenced my perception.
Brian Cox spoke at my local lecture hall last year. It was fantastically well presented and he broached this topic and discussed this television appearance. He no longer holds the position that life is common. In fact, after interacting with so many biologists over the years, it changed his thinking about how…as he put it….extremely lucky you seem to need to be to evolve to this level. He now thinks that life may not necessarily be super rare either, per se’, but remains single-celled or low level multi-cellular for the life of the planet.
Amazingly well thought out and performed lecture. The kind of lecture that makes you smarter in more than a factual sense. A philosophical lecture more than a purely astronomic one and truly convincing, something rare in a philosophical lecture. 👏
@@pianoman16 Stick to pianos, man. They don't care you're an arrogant twit.
Thank you for the work you are doing professor Kipping. I would have loved working in your team. Our world needs more minds like yours to profess reason and expand our knowledge. ❤
Such an informative and well spoken individual. Thank You.
Aderall is bad
@@vincenthaddad he's about as interesting as all those "men of science" of the 16th century who thought the Earth was the center of the universe
So nice to see some taken for granted, and oft-repeated ideas examined critically - brilliant!
Great lecture. Dr. Kipping is completely correct. I personally want there to be a Star Trek like universe out there just waiting for us to discover it, but what we've currently observed shows no evidence of that. You can get into as many thought experiments using statistics as you want, but at the end of the day we just don't know. Those thought experiments are important, don't get me wrong, but they prove nothing. This might not be very exciting, but this time we live in is very important. As Obi Wan said in Star Wars, we have "taken your first step into a larger world."
Keep learning everyone!
You literally have no idea what you're talking about and clearly have done zero investigation. But pat yourself on the back and tell yourself you're smart. 🤓
Your videos always make me think, I love to watch them late at night. This video changed my mind, and I appreciate it.
Given distances,we might as well be alone, even if we aren't.
That assumes no life that persists that could be potentially millions if not billions of years ahead of us. Distances would be of no issue to even a very sublight travelling species or singularity like that.
Fantastical video! Sharing with my online astrobiology course. Though, you're conclusion near the end is also part of my arguing for why we shouldn't call the Golidlocks Zone for liquid water something like a "habitable" zone. We just don't know enough to presume or conclude that anything about that zone means habitability outside of the fact that it's the zone where we are in our solar system. it seems like that any other terrestrial worlds with oceans and life like ours will be found there, but being in the zone alone doesn't tell us enough about habitability nor preclude other worlds outside of the zone from potentially being habitable. The journey of science continues to be a humbling adventure in wonder and awe.
Fantastic lecture. I have been saying this sort of stuff to people for years and I constantly get ridiculed for it.
I still think that life is common out there. There's plenty of reasons to do so. Intelligent life is a whole other matter and I'm more sceptical about that.
But ever since I saw this lecture, I've had to admit that my point of view is almost entirely based on hope and not data or fact. There is no evidence as of yet for or against... Only educated guesses that can go either way.
Which is kinda awesome in itself. And really fun to think about.
@@johanwittens7712 I agree. I think it would be awesome if there were life out there and it is definitely highly possible that life (at least very basic versions of it) is common. But currently there is no evidence for or against and a lot of people forget or outright deny this.
This lecture is overblown. He literally contradicts himself by bringing up survivor bias and the folly of using our sample of 1 to extrapolate on life elsewhere, but then goes on to do the very same with the ridiculous timeline example. The point he made about arrogance being an emotional appeal was a good one however.
There is data; recall sea life at heat vents in a non oxygen environment. That is the best evidence we have that living organisms evolve based on conditions presented.
As for intelligent live, I agree with Kipping.
Just wanted to say that I’m on exactly the same boat as you. I have had these exact thoughts and beliefs on the matter for years now, and seeing it being so eloquently defended is a nice change of pace. It seems that taking a hardline stance that there
_MUST_ be life out there in the universe other than us has been the prevailing dogma, and any criticism of it is reflexively dismissed without much thought. It really does seem to be a faith-based position that lacks the evidence to support it.
Superb lecture, David. Well argued, especially the ending summary regarding faith without evidence. Thanks!!!
I think it’s faith without evidence to think we are alone in a universe with 2 septillian exoplanets but hey to each their own…
@@REALdavidmiscarriage If you listened to the talk, he addresses that right in the beginning.
@@REALdavidmiscarriage If you had watched the video you would understand that this is EXACTLY what he was arguing. Wait for conclusive evidence before taking a definitive stance.
@@REALdavidmiscarriage really ignorant statement considering the mere presence of a lot of planets doesn't tell you much if anything about the likelihood of life being on those planets.
@@Smoomty septillions of planets! Whats really ignorant is your lack of understanding of statsitics and scale... Take a few classes and physics and mathematics and maybe you will understand. Just alone the possibility of there being exactly 1 planet out of 2000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 is hubris of the highest order. I'd sooner believe in the book of mormon than believe the ideas you are proposing 😂
great lecture.
this way of thinking is so crucial right now and should be applied to all facets of society.
Exactly. You hit on the most important point of Prof. Kipping's lecture.
1/3 of the way through and he hasn't used any science. It's distance and time. calculate the time it takes to get to the nearest possible alien. it's FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He believes in people having Biases' in believing there is life out there, instead of people trusting science and the law of probability.
I don't know why religious people always have to fight science on so many fronts, and now to pretend we are the only thinking creatures in the universe - that is extremely arrogant.
@@mrzoinky5999 I fail to see how saying "earthlings (humans, dolphins, bacteria, and everything in between) are the only current life in the visible universe" is arrogant. Earth's creatures did not get there from their own merit. They did not will themselves into existence while preventing others from emerging, they just happened to survive and become diverse over time.
@@mrzoinky5999 I don't think you understand religious people at all. You're being very arrogant in thinking that all religious people simply pretend we are the only thinking creatures in the universe. The reality is, we have no idea what's going on. All you know is that one day you were here and have memories. That's it. It could all be an illusion. Time may not exist. We may very well be alone. There could be a creator. Who knows? Don't assume that just because someone is religious, they are wrong. You don't know and they simply have faith in something larger. Also, there no such thing as "trusting science."
Dude. Brave presentation. Plese, keep posting and presenting.
Your description of the timeline actually sounds like a book, play, & movies. I could feel the crescendo. Good teacher!!!
what kind of drugs do you use?
"crescendo"?... I've never heard IT called that one before...😮😁😉
Extremely well argued - thanks David. One addition factor in Lowell’s imaginary canals is not only his faulty eyesight but the cultural archeology bias - imaging canals because they were the symbol of modern technology in the 19th century.
we now look for things like dyson spheres because they’re extrapolations of our own needs. we want to meet ourselves grown-up.
Rather,@@tonoornottono, I contend that it's not simply convenient and subjective consideration - based on ourselves. It's a product of the knowledge that *all* life requires energy. In fact all creative or constructive, or transformative processes we can conceive of, have an energy input of some sort. Where there would be a sentient intention to create something specific, it is reasonable to expect steeplingly requirement for energy.
My english is not good, but I understand your statement and i wrote just about modern science.
Why do some weird humans think the other planets must have inhabitans?
Because of the fact of waste spaces without population?
The mosts planets don't offer atmospheres for any creature.
Wether animals nor any other creature would ever be able exist there and nowhere was found any clue of those possibilities of life.
Since time immemorial mean humans this creatures can be find .
Either this probably existing creatures are in a save hiding spot and they are laughing about this stupid humans or there just don't exist.
How stupid that notion to ignore!?
No science found ever creatures beyond earth.
The bible says on, God owns all planets and nowhere says bible on about any hint of other creatures in the universe,...like every science says.
Excavations don't bring also to light indications of any creature.
Not even something about islam .
Only about iron age and Jesus time was found. The temples Solomon etc.
Satan is lying to us and many killers say in court they weren't forced by Satan to kill somebody.
Catholics are not better, because they are lying too.
Revelation warns about the pope as he is an antichrist.
Jesus' day of birth is unknown and chrismas, eastern aren't mentioned on bible.
No problem celebrate this, but that has nothing to do with bible or christians.
Islam is also a lie, which Satan uses for distracting humans from Jesus.
Other populations beyond the earth or another life before our life now are lies and distractions from Jesus.
Exactly that says on the bible.
Scientist aren't able to confirm any islamic prove, how Solomons temple residues for example or any other useful things during iron age.
Pre-existence can't be proved also.
No war was an idea of God, because only humans are blame!
Allah doesn't help or he can't help his fans for having a better life.
Those nations are ruled by poverty, wars.
Otherwise there remains nowhere any Christian among poverty, no matter where he lives.
Show me one Christian who lives in danger, in poverty, but I can show you a crazy not existing Allah, who can't change it better for his fans!
To believe on other creatures is also a diversion created by Satan, like I mentioned detailed!
Yes, your English has some problems, but it will gradually improve,@@burda2809.
The more serious problem you have, is your silly religious stories.
The main reason that no alien life is mentioned in the bible, is that the bible was entirely written by humans, starting back in the Iron Age. Human society back then didn't have the technology to investigate distant celestial objects and phenomena.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Engaging lecture, thanks for posting this!!
The best ♾title I have seen on TH-cam! I think it is magnificent ✅that we are even here! Thanks for the wake up🏁. Cheers
This is a subject that I've considered for some time. One of the aspects of being in space that rarely gets talked about is that humans begin to deteriorate as soon as they go into space and may well be that why we never see aliens because they are as tied to their planet just like us. And then again there are the impossible distances involved.
dont be stupid, that like saying humans cant breath on water.. therefor we arent meant to be in the swimming pool. Have you seen how fast some of these ufo travel? and the amount of ufo footages alone, already suggest otherwise. I think the probability that we are alone is NIL. its bloody stupid to thikn otherwise ,,,data shows that in our galaxy alone, theres about 300 million potentially habitable planet. Thats just our galaxy. Theres about 2 trillion galaxy.... its just seem so stupid to think were alone otherwise. Its beyond DUMB
> tied to their planet just like us
probably by design, if the universe is infinite there is nothing unique, I don't buy the argument of the video, there is nothing special here.
@@fmeloThere's a lot special here. Kipping does a great job of debunking status quo arguments publicly paraded from mainstream/celebrity scientists or dumb podcasters *Rogan, who love presenting life like it's such a sure thing but ultimately have no more evidence for it than statistical speculation.
Loving this. Please upload more lectures, we all want more David Kipping!!
i don't
He has a TH-cam channel called COOLWORLDS
Wonderful analysis from Prof Kipping. The one thing that I have always wondered is whether having a moon is/was important in the development of life. Many, many exoplanets, may be in the goldilocks zone, but without a moon to create tides, maybe they never create life.
The moon is still a mystery as far as I know. I've heard theories that the moon had once contributed to a shared magnetosphere on Earth. The tides don't seem any more necessary for life than oxygen. Mind you, there are forms of life on Earth that do not use oxygen respiration for metabolic function. Those forms of life also exist on a vastly different time scale (kinda like slow motion, but for the metabolism; which seemed to require unique conditions like being subterranean [which limits interactions with predators or environmental hazards]). The speed of life is a problem unsolved, and often not considered in regards to intelligence. There may be intelligent life that blinks in and out of existence in weeks; where our existence has taken hundreds of thousands of years.
I don't really like this lecture; it doesn't define life. It presupposes life as "recognizable" to our senses (or the instruments commanded by our senses). We very well may require AI to seek out languages spoken in ways we cannot theorize in the span of one career.
So your premise is tides are necessary to create life? 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@leodeleo18 it is a possibility. And you cannot prove otherwise.
I’ve watched other lectures, were not only was a large moon crucial, but also our axis tilt…likely secondary to the collision with what would become our moon. Our magnetic core. Having large gas giants shielding us from many asteroids, etc. So many crucial variables.
@@travishayes840 Glad to hear that I am not alone. I was not saying that these things were essential, I was just wondering out loud in the hope that Prof Kipping or others might be sparked to consider the possibility.
I adhere to Prof Brian Cox’s thoughts regarding intelligent life. Highly improbable because of the time spans involved and the possibility that intelligent life may tend to eradicate itself at some point.
Professor Cox has adopted the same position as his friend who is a biologist.
He says there is likely, at best to be only slime in the rest of the milky way galaxy.
I think so too. The early start argument suggests that life could be common. However intelligent life may be extremely rare. For all we know intelligence might prove to be a dead end on the evolution tree. But of course no one knows.
There is also the possibility that dinosaurs would have never gone extinct if not for a random meteor, meaning, intelligent life would have never evolved to take their place.
Wow, such a brilliant lecture! Thank you for letting us participate!
Except he is wrong.UFO's and aliens are real.
Im a statistician. Always felt we could be alone. I believe the absence of direct evidence makes it more likely that Fl is indeed smaller than the number of stars and we are alone. Note that statistics doesnt apply to whether we are alone. We either are or are not. The statistics only apply to our knowledge of it. Its like the odds of the next card in a deck being a heart. It either is or is not. Once the deck was shuffled, the answer is fixed, only our knowledge of it is pseudo random.
There is plenty of direct evidence. Theres a lot of circumstantial evidence that shows we are not along, and keep in mind that we can convict people on circumstantial evidence for murder. Yeah sure if you ignore that, then yes were alone.
@@Alex-pb1iy Most of the "direct"evidence is mostly by people with psychological problems or the need for attention. Also, the chances of someone being guilty on circumstancial evidence, whether this is right or wrong, is still by far more likely for the crime to have happened than someone claiming to have evidence for an extra terrerestrial. Extaordinary claims really do require extraordinary evidence.
Don't forget 'time'. Most of the starlight we see left it's source 1000s of years ago. So how would we know.
@@Alex-pb1iyYeah there’s ton of evidence out there somewhere in the ether. We just have to be positive and believe just because.
After we find intelligent life we might likely begin asking, "So just the two of us then? Are we alone, just the two of us?" 🤣
Thank you! I've been thinking along these lines ever since I read biologist Robert Shapiro's book "Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth". It may be that abiogenesis is extremely rare.
Abiogenesis may not be required. 🤔
That first argument is very interesting. I've never hear of that before, but it makes perfect sense. I've also been one to think if there's billions of stars, there has to be at least one more with life, but that's not necessarily true. Now if we do happen to find another one with life, it would then be safe to say there's probably many more, but as of now since we only know of one place with life, it's impossible to know the odds there might be life on any other planet. That's pretty cool!
THIS WAS SO IMPORTANT. Thank you for this beautifully logical, cogent and enlightening lecture. And is anyone getting sick of people sugarcoating and exaggerating for ratings and popularity.
These celbri-scientists have a lot of pressure to make people feel good and to keep themselves booked as the presenter states.
So approachable. Well done Doctor
... never mind the point that the presenter here is attempting to do the same and be a "celibri-scientist" just like any other.
So look here, the odds of this mote of dust being the only mote of dust that is infected with a sentient disease is far greater than there are millions of motes of dust with sentient diseases upon them
@@santiagodraco Guess we all have to decide who we believe - Watch the news you're misinformed - don't watch and be uninformed. 🤷♂️
"THIS WAS SO IMPORTANT."
On the contrary, this is so NOT important.
It is impossible to know we are alone, and almost impossible to know we are not. If the latter, due to some received communication, the chance of communicating back is another 'nearly impossible', and the knowledge of another intelligent life (or any other sort) would only confirm what we already knew was possible. And we can't exactly meet for a beer in the city on Friday night, so nothing would be any different.
Oh, except all the violent and bloodthirsty human race would start stressing that, having advertised our existence (if we replied to signals) that said other lifeforms would turn up and kill us!
@@tedturner03 the "news" isn't always misinformation. That's a lie spread by certain political groups to their less than educated masses. The point is to be skeptical, analytical and inquisitive. Blanket statements like yours do nothing other than perpetuate willful ignorance.
Also, what does the "news" have to do with it?
17:45
I have always said that I believe our moon to be an under-considered factor in our hypotheses as to why it appears we are alone in the cosmos. From the circumstances of its formation, to its precise mass, reflective luminosity, and the fact that it is tidally locked are all variables that I think should be considered more when looking at potential candidates for habitable exoplanets. One of the reasons I follow Professor Kipping's research is because he and his team specialize in surveying exomoons and I truly believe that may be where the answers we are looking for lie.
@@mezzb What was the entire point of Professor Kipping's lecture? Evidence! Don't make assumptions. Don't say just because there are a lot of worlds out there -100 quadrillion, more or less - more than one of them MUST have life? Evidence. There is no evidence we are alone or not, either way.
And as Arthur C. Clark once famously said "either we are alone in the universe or we are not, and either thought is equally terrifying."
Why?
There’s another possibility: multiverses
Favorite German convertible - that is awesome! May I use it in conversation? :)
@@insomxWe're talking about lifeforms , NOT EXISTENCE.
He said a lot of things. Almost nothing he said was anything more than fiction.
Finally, someone who can see this argument fully logically. There is no sensible argument for OR against there being other life in this universe. As to other universes...also unknown. But we can have beliefs based on some of the statistics and patterns.
I enjoyed your lecture immensely. I hope to see more of them on TH-cam. Thank you.
once again you have blown my mind David. I love your thinking process. I am hoping the evidence for life on other planets comes in my lifetime :) and if not mine then my sons. I know it was a real let down that you couldn't get the time on the james webb but don't worry your time will come!!! your are the best of the best of the best :)
it has already come.
Very thought provoking! Great work!
Dr. Kipping is, as always, fascinating as he guides us through these theories. The bottom line, though, is, quite simply, we don’t know if we’re alone or not. Really, though, suppose we are alone in the universe? So what? We have plenty of challenges right here without worrying about another world's civilization and their issues. How many issues do you want?
.. when the conditions are just right, as on Earth, life is unavoidable .. but there are so many variables that to get everything just right for life is .. extremely rare.
Scientists have assembled all ingredients for life, put them the ideal environment, provided stimulation, but no life formed.
Just-right chemical and environmental conditions don't seem to be enough. Perhaps a big dollop of (unknown) extreme random chance is needed on top of the extreme random chance of there being just-right chemical and environmental conditions.
Respectfully, your first statement has no scientific basis. There is a return lately to the God hypothesis. Your assumption is that the Origen of life was a totally natural process. You cannot assume that the information on human DNA came from nothing
Unavoidable bc of the fact that we exist. But we have no idea how many variables and factors of chance played into the equation that resulted in life at all, let alone multicellular life, then incredibly sophisticated conscious intelligent life. The odds could be 10^-100000 for all we know for any of those tiers of life forming
@@Jm-wt1fs or your argument could be reversed to "we dont have enough information life maybe everywhere" lol
@@dzenacs2011 yes that’s exactly my point haha. We cannot possibly know with any confidence in either direction without more data. I just dislike how commonly I see the misconception that because there are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, life is guaranteed to be everywhere. There’s zero data to possibly predict how common or uncommon it is
It’s not just that space is vast, but also that time is vast. Perhaps there was once a civilization in our galaxy that sent out radio signals hoping to find other life, but it ceased to exist billions of years before humans discovered how to detect those signals.
This has been exactly my point for decades and it rarely gets discussed. The chances of another civilisation existing in our blink of an eye in time is infinitesimally small, let alone the narrow slice of time we have been aware of the concept.
@@HowardKlein1958 Yes. It is a very well-discussed and known topic.
Remember that time and space are the same thing, therefore when talking about the vastness of space you're also talking about the vastness of time.
we thought we had 5 billion years, now it turns out only 250 million years - panagea
This is based on the rudimentary understanding of physics, time, space, and reality of the psychotic apes making these proclamations.
We would find evidence of their existence in geology
Let's be honest here: We're never going to accept that we're alone in the universe, we're going to keep looking for extra terrestrial life for as long as our species exists.
Why should we as humanity accept that we are alone when this assumption is impossible to verify?
We can only falsify it when we find something that is 'alive' (can also be just some type of space bacteria or fungi).
While I agree with your statement, im of the firm belief that what we are "in" is a super-duper advanced holographic simulation (akin to Star Treks "holodeck", but obviously on a much more larger scale, and complexity). With that being said, it could very well be that all that space out there in the universe is a mere "illusion" and doesnt really exist [until/if such a time arises that we are able to physically reach it, then it could very well "pop" into existence, as in the phenomena of manifestation.
The phenomena of manifestation is very real for me, insomuch that I witnessed it on at least 3 occasions during my lifetime. Some would say im a kook, while others think im merely misremembering things...and thats ok. I know in my heart the phenomena is real and exists. Lastly, yes it does make your mind do one huge "Whoa !!! WTF ?!?!?!"
@@highsoflyify Right, we’re so focused on finding _intelligent_ life, that we often forget that there could well be more primitive life out there.
@@Aurochhunter
Let's look at our own planet. How many species did we have since the beginning of life on this earth?
Billions of life forms and only one was able to use tools, books and fire. So it must be VERY unusual to develop this kind of 'intelligence'.
Another factor is the possibility to destroy the own environment or own species with the right tools and weapons. So intelligent life will probably have very short life cycles compared to simple forms (which also have way lower demands to their environment than complex forms of life)
We're still finding new/undocumented species of life here on Earth. Just because we've not seen it, doesn't mean it does'nt exist, because we have plenty of examples proving that assumption wrong. It was once thought that life could not exist in extreme temperatures. Then we found a wide array if life forms thriving on deep sea hydrothermal vents, in temperatures ranging from 400f to 700f. We've also found life thriving in lakes underneath the Antarctic ice sheets.
Lets face it, the universe is indeed full of life... we're just stuck observing the light of these miracles millions of years in the past.
love your lectures David. Presented in an adult way and sticking to facts.
Keep it up. 🙃
This is absolutely brilliant. Prof. Kipping is amazing. I love his demolishment of the Copernican Principle in this context, and his rebuttal to the "arrogance" emotional "argument."
Yes, he is brilliant but Copernican principle is align with his though process stating that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and that, as observers, we don't occupy a special place.
How's then it is demolished? It would meand contradicting it's own speech.
Totally agree on the emotional coercion. But on the other hand, all that he's demonstrated is that it is impossible to come up with a statistical determination when all you have is a single event. Mind you, the increasing detection of exoplanets similar to Earth suggests that we may indeed be average, which is the whole point in this theory. I think he might have to go back on that one.
Yeh but he does make exceedingly good cakes.
Professor Kipping almost said that life is either complete with all of its electron microscopic details and be alive or it cannot generate life at all. We with our brains can’t order up a biological upgrade of our choosing or need. Eons of lifeless time can do nothing but be more eons of lifeless time.
@@duke_of_oz But this is not what we are discovering. In fact, out of around 1000 solar systems, we have not found a single star system that resembles our own. Most of them are dominated by gas giants as inner planets which make the formation of earthlike planets impossible. More and more, our solar system with rocky planets in the habitable zone, and the gas, giants, further out, appears to be a one off anomaly. The rare earth hypothesis appears to be more or less confirmed, and life, as we know it here on earth, or indeed, life at all, may be vanishing rare, and in fact unique to earth. This is what Professor Tipping means by the Copernican principle not being valid. Earth is not ordinary and the solar system is not ordinary.
Somehow I think his arguments, while being eloquently expressed, are based on as many assumptions as many other theories.
No, he is advocating for saying “we don’t know” instead of making assumptions, because the probabilities are not known. He argues that it is unscientific to take things on faith. I agree.
Uh he addresses that uncertainty in many of his videos, u should check ‘em out!
I absolutely agree
This is an incredibly vague and obtuse comment. His main argument is that we don't know, and then he subsequently presents a number of examples debunking the status quo, that there 'must be a universe teeming with life'. Maybe you should elaborate.
we have one known, absolute fact - in the entire universe, in all we can see, billions and billions of lightyears in all directions...we have found no evidence of any other life in the entire universe
I'm keen to find out how life started, here or anywhere.
I've got a hunch it's to some extent difficult working around the laws of physics.
I was hospitalized last month and was watching this fascinating talk. I had an old cosmology professor in the same hospital room as mine and we started discussing. His take was: because intelligent life is much harder to form han simple life, the fact that at least a single instance of intelligent life exists (us) means that very likely simple life exists in other places on the universe. I found this argument amazing!
and yet it was dismissed in Kippings talk (the green ball bias)...
🥺 This is the kind of thinking that causes us to suddenly make new discoveries. Great idea! 💡
@@phil20_20 Hmm. I don't think we're suddenly going to discover that we're definitely alone. We might suddenly discover that we're definitely not.
Thank you, I am saying those things for many years now!!!❤😊
As a practical matter, we are alone due to the incomprehensible distances between planets and stars. Every other planet and moon in our system does not support advanced life for sure, and presents no evidence of simple life. Advanced life is exceedingly rare and probably is not contemporaneous with our life, which has only developed in the last million years or so, ad how much longer do we have?
Very well presented. I have been an agnostic in so many areas.
Hello 👋 fellow Agnostic!
fantastic, ty for making this public :)
i'm so happy to have found this video !
For the longest time every conversation i had about this topic it was me against the world asking: "But how are you so sure ?"
I'm not saying i think there is no life
But the answer everyone gives is always " There has to be, it's illogical to think otherwise"
Neven knew how to explain this doubt i had, and this video said everything i wanted to hear
I am in the same boat as you
Wouldn't it be amazing to find out that it takes a massive universe interacting just to create life on 1 tiny planet?
They always say there's other life, they never consider that life may be the rarest, most precious thing to ever exist.
Now we are three. 😁
Now we are four
@@mattgilbert7347May I join?
This is good. Even better are the arguments getting into more specifics, e.g. the extreme improbabilities of life forming by random processes, evolving to intelligence, and the numerous specific occurrences and things about earth that facilitated it
It’s good to have Avi Lobe’s optimism to drive him to find out, and if he and his discover something extraordinary with the Galileo Project and that expedition near Papua New Guinea then that would be worth it. But it also good to have lectures like this which tempers expectations and brings one back to reasonable skepticism. We don’t know if there’s other life in the universe, but let’s find out!
Dr. Kipping is right about not moralizing your positions and right you should consider the possibility we are the only intelligent life in the universe. Though it's also the least likely outcome.....Dr. Kipping uses the example of snowflakes. It's true no 2 are exactly identical, but it is a distinction among a class. Snowflakes are ubiquitous in the universe. No 2 humans are exactly identical either. Though our bodies manifest in slight unique variations we are none the less all humans. If our example of intelligent life is a singular event it would seemingly be the only time the Universe had ever produced just one of something.
With all due respect, Avi Loeb is nothing but a publicity hound producing click-bait "science" that isn't in the slightest way scienctific. Him and his Oumuamua "solar sail" moving only slightly faster than our crude chemical rockets - an absolute joke. The worst part - he didn't believe it himself. He's a scam artist.
Personally, I suggest a course in remedial grammar...
Yeah I typed too fast and couldn’t edit.
@@dunnagan5 nah screw that guy. Grammar is only as necessary as it is functional and I read what you put down easy. Folk just think the noise in their head needs to be spat into the world
24:40...Anybody can see the blood vessels in the back of their eyes. It is an ordinary optical phenomenon. I have terrible eyesight - very near sighted. I reported seeing the back of my eyeball to my optometrist when I was in high school, and he thought I was crazy. I demonstrated it to him and he was amazed. It only requires a bright light source directed at a precise angle into the eyeball, which then projects a virtual image of the retina back through the lens, which you see in front of you. Percival Lowell possibly saw this virtual projection of his retina as he was peering through his telescope, but the canals seem to be only a bad interpretation of a low resolution image of the Mars surface details.
Whilst I wouldn't say that we are alone in the entire universe, I would say that life that observes itself, like we do, is extremely rare. Kipping says(or infers) that we are not special, but in reality we are, extremely special, if only because we are extremely rare.
Compared to what
You missed the whole point of the lecture
The movie "Contact" (1997) was based on Carl Sagan's book of the same name. In it, the main character Ellie Arraway (Jodie Foster) returns from a visit to a planet with intelligent life saying we're not common. She says "Now I realize how rare and precious we all are" I just really loved that line.
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years and the cataclysm that wiped them out set the conditions that led to humans. There is no reason why life on Earth had to evolve to intelligent life. The same holds true for any other planet that may have life on it.
I've changed my views over the last 30 years - from "of course there are many extraterrestrial civilizations" to "we are almost surely alone". The reason is simple and devastating - what are the chances that the literally trillion of mutations, changes, accidents, extinctions and conditions and an environment for life could be replicated elsewhere? Not the exact events but a "path" that leads to sentience. In our case, a good spot in the galaxy, a safe Solar System, water, a large moon, an early rise of life.
This occurred on a deadly world of methane and other deadly gases. (This is probably common in our galaxy.) Over the next 500 million years life was nearly extinguished several times yet these were necessary for our rise. I still recall that factoid - of the billion or so organisms that have existed on Earth exactly one (1) has attained sentience. Great talk!!
That path is probably rather broad. One can make biology with a sheer infinite variations of organic molecules. That you have attained sentience is, by the way, a good candidate for the biggest bullshit of the day award. :-)
@@lepidoptera9337 LOL Yeah, I hear that frequently - humans are not sentient! Actually there is a very limited variation that produces life which is one reason it can rise. 99% of other combinations don't work.
@@smb-zf9bd I didn't say that humans aren't. You don't sound sentient. You don't even sound intelligent. ;-)
@@lepidoptera9337 Still don't get it - maybe you're right. LOL
Many thanks for this classroom. Very informative and interesting.
A glimmer of intellectual hope in a mad World. thanks!
Thank you for articulating & solidifying what I've been trying to frame/express about the life-in-the-universe question for years!
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." - - It is also not evidence of existence!
The answer to a question can be simply unknown or unknowable at the present time; anyone who claims to know is simply wrong when no one *can* know.
Fred
The cited "scientists" babble that enough probability equals success for anything imagined.
While no one can know. We do know we’re made of one of the most abundant elements in the universe: carbon. And we know the staggering number of star systems in our galaxy alone: more than a couple hundred billion. Each with its set of planets. Even if for some odd reason our solar system is the only one with life on it, we still have to consider that our Milky Way is just an insignificant galaxy amongst two trillion other galaxies.
Believing we’re alone, needs faith.
@@miks564 If I hook a worm to my fishing pole and cast the pole into the lawn of my back yard and given enough time, will I catch a salmon? The answer is no, the probability is zero. Enough time does not make zero, nonzero.
@@miks564 Since we hear nothing from the universe, we are alone until proven otherwise. Staggering numbers does not make zero possible.
@@miks564 Carbon arguments are just stupidification. We are DNA, RNA, enzymes, proteins, and other extremely sophisticated types of carbon not found in rocks and therefore not possible by chance. Self-construction is an argument not justified by any data as the fossil record would have to be 99.9999999999999999999999% one-off species by chance, and one in a quadrillion gets going. Is this what the fossil record shows? No. The fossils we see are in complex ecosystems all the time. Therefore, there was no adaptation and no survival of the fittest.
This is the same thing as saying you can't really know that you're not living in a simulation (or all other people aren't zombies, etc.). Granted that's epistemologically sound from a philosophical perspective, we all ultimately presume other people have agency. Therefore, I think it's safe to presume that similar conditions throughout the universe will produce similar results. We don't KNOW that to be the case, but it's a good bet.