I believe in aliens. Aliens started the hippie movement.

[Erikmen]

If people were abducted by aliens, that would mean the the 2 species can exist in similar gravity,atmospheric conditions, pressure, temperature. Now what are the chances that a species that evolved on another planet would share all these characteristics.

Exactly!

 

[rickolasnice]

If you think that humans evolved in under a million years, and earth has been harboring life for about 3 billion, even taking into account the several mass extinctions, it just seems likely that we were not the first intelligent life to have developed on this planet.

I just think that is a more likely scenario than another group of life being able to travel at or past the speed of light to come here.

However, it's just what I think is more likely. I don't have any evidence, nor am I educated enough on the subject to argue that it is more likely.

There'd be evidence.. a fuck ton of it, too.. Unless this advanced race is actually our future and they're travelling back through time.. There'd evidence of their existence sprayed all over the place.

No I don't think humans evolved in 1 million years.. we've been evolving for about 3.8 billion years.

 

[rickolasnice]

If people were abducted by aliens, that would mean the the 2 species can exist in similar gravity,atmospheric conditions, pressure, temperature. Now what are the chances that a species that evolved on another planet would share all these characteristics.

Well.. It's highly probable that another life form would be from a planet with liquid water..

But your assumption is wrong any way.. Space suits would sort all of that out.

 

[lazylazyjoe]

^ Yeah, but most people report seeing the actual aliens, not aliens in suits.

As for evidence left from any previous intelligent life forms on Earth, most evidence a couple hundred million years old would be gone by now, I would think. Especially if they had mass destruction or wanted it gone. Or it could be on the ocean floor by now. IDK, merely an idea I always had.

 

[Xorkoth]

If you think that humans evolved in under a million years, and earth has been harboring life for about 3 billion, even taking into account the several mass extinctions, it just seems likely that we were not the first intelligent life to have developed on this planet.

I just think that is a more likely scenario than another group of life being able to travel at or past the speed of light to come here.

However, it's just what I think is more likely. I don't have any evidence, nor am I educated enough on the subject to argue that it is more likely.

Humans did not just evolve in a million years though... we are the result of the entirety of the history of evolution on this planet since life formed. Fish evolved into land animals, some dinosaur evolved into the first mammal, some mammals evolved into monkeys, then into apes, then into human ancestor species... then finally modern humans emerged. We carry forward a huge number of features and adaptations evolved over this long course of evolution. Our brains, our most important feature, have been built upon and improved over billions of years... the framework upon which our relatively recent rapid brain expansion was made possible would not have been possible without the rest of it.

 

[swilow]

^To expand on that, you could say that it has taken 13-14 billion years for the human mind to evolve, if we consider its starting point to be the start of the universe.

There is no real evidence to say that an intelligence similar to our own has arisen (on earth at least) prior to humanity. On earth, complex animals didn't appear before about 600 million years ago. It took nearly 3 billion years for a simple cell to evolve into a more complex organism. The geological, meterological and astronomical reasons for this are relatively clear; it took the emergence of life for the increase of atmospheric oxygen which sustains us, there was a long period where young earth was buffeted by asteroids and temperatures on the surface was inhospitable to life (also molten rock, somewhat inhospitable...). It is very unlikely that an intelligent civilisation was in existence before humanity. There is nowhere for this civilisation to have lived and not left a trace. Even the earliest simple cells left behind fossil evidence. Perhaps an advanced race of machines lived on earth, terraforming the place for a few billion years in anticipation of complex cellular structures, but again, we have no evidence and it does seem somewhat unlikely.

Its an awesome thought though

 

[PORB]

anyone smell a conspiracy in that Roswell, nuclear war, and LSD were all a thing in the '40s....