OMG Ive just seen 3 UFO's!!!!!!!! really

iviv

(Repost) Actually, they may send an officer.
Though you should only use 999 for emergencies.

john_s_2

Point taken about my flat earth example. I'm vaguely aware that the main body of scientific opinion was that the earth was round long before the Christian Church accepted this view. (Or at least, that the earth wasn't the centre of the universe. I don't know anything about what position other religions held on this. Or whether they put pressure on scientists to abandon their theories as they conflicted with their sacred texts.)

But I'm sure there are other examples of scientific theories that turned out to be wholly wrong. AFAIK contemporary scientific opinion doesn't rule out that there could be ways of crossing the vastness of space. I've heard of things called wormholes for example. (As has my Firefox spellchecker it seems.)

Marty_J

john_s wrote: »

But I'm sure there are other examples of scientific theories that turned out to be wholly wrong.

Oh, there are loads of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theory

AFAIK contemporary scientific opinion doesn't rule out that there could be ways of crossing the vastness of space. I've heard of things called wormholes for example. (As has my Firefox spellchecker it seems.)

There are lots of suggested ways for space travel, it's just that they are very technologically advanced, and the ones capable of crossing the distances involved in any useful sense are largely theoretical. Space is really, really, really big. Voyager 1 is the fastest man-made probe relative to the Earth. It has travelled almost 10 billion miles and hasn't even left the solar system yet, despite travelling for over 30 years.

Even our own solar system is mind bogglingly enormous; the furthermost know planet is only a tiny fraction of the distance to the edge of it (and no one is exactly sure where it stops). It's so big as to be beyond human comprehension, yet it's not even a drop in the ocean compared to the rest of the universe. Unless there's some monumental scientific discovery, it is doubtful we'll even get a toe past our own front door for a very long time.

It is possible that there is life elsewhere in the universe, but it might not be as advanced as we are. It might have died out millions of years before we came along. And if there is intelligent life, its quite possible that it is so different to us as to render us unable to understand or comprehend each other's societies or motives. Exploration is a very human trait, so there's no reason to think that if there is intelligent life, they have any desire to explore the universe, or to make contact with any alien life-forms. There's a temptation to think of aliens as funny looking people, but if we did ever meet them, it could be the equivalent of a chimp and a dolphin trying to introduce themselves to each other.

Still, it's nice sometimes to look up at the stars and imagine that there's someone somewhere looking right back at you.