Hawking: "primitive alien life may exist"

[UM-Bot]

Image credit: NASA

Alien life may well exist in a primitive form somewhere in our corner of the galaxy, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Monday. Given the size of the universe, it is unlikely that Earth is the only planet to develop some sort of life, Hawking told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival.

View: Full Article | Source: Space.com

[Silmarillion]

This topic was started earlier today on this thread: Aliens MUST exist, says Stephen Hawking

Alien life may well exist in a primitive form somewhere in our corner of the galaxy, famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said Monday. Given the size of the universe, it is unlikely that Earth is the only planet to develop some sort of life, Hawking told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival. "While there may be primitive life in our region of the galaxy, there don't seem to be any advanced intelligent beings," said Hawking during a lecture as part of a series commemorating NASA's 50th anniversary this year. The lack of success by the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project to discover signals from an alien civilization suggests that none exist within several 100 light-years of Earth, Hawking said, though he offered three theories on the dearth of interplanetary communications. The probability of primitive life developing on a suitable planet may be extremely low, or it may be high, but aliens intelligent enough to beam signals into space may also be smart enough to build civilization-destroying weapons like nuclear bombs, he said.

More likely, he added, is that primitive life is likely to develop, but intelligent life as we know it is exceedingly rare. "We don't appear to have been visited by aliens," Hawking said, adding that he discounts reports of UFOs.

View: Full Article | Source: Space.com

[Jerzy]

This topic was started earlier today on this thread: Aliens MUST exist, says Stephen Hawking

I could have said the same thing, so quote me now because I'm saying:

The universe is so vast that there is some possibility that alien life exists is some form.

Are you gonna?

[Blueguardian]

"Primitive", yes they have ufo's that can fly faster then anything we have and they can also travel to other planets. I wouldn't say primitive would be the word to use.

[HAJiME]

Oh that man is such a genius.

Talk about stating the obvious. :|

[War Eagle]

He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival. "While there may be primitive life in our region of the galaxy, there don't seem to be any advanced intelligent beings," said Hawking

Then i had this from a site i bookmarked...(make of it what ever ya like)...

Hawking raised the threat of biological engineering in saying humans must colonize space or face an end as a species.

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space," Hawking told the Daily Telegraph. "There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."

Hawking, 59 and considered one of the most brilliant physicists and cosmologists of all time, cited nuclear technology as one threat. But he said there is an even greater danger.

"In the long term, I am more worried about biology," he said....

Think he may be talking some man-made virus wiping us out...Or we could all end up like Zombies in Dawn Of The Dead.

"Technological and societal evolution has now reached a level of complexity that renders the probability of human survival for the next 1,000 years drastically higher than at any previous stage of our long history."

By Robert Roy Britt

Senior Science Writer

Space.com

He's also been bagged for his theories by some in the scientific communities(?)

[Raptor]

Oh that man is such a genius.

Talk about stating the obvious. :|

This wasn't a single press release statement, it was just a sentence from one of his lectures that was pulled up by the media.

[yvan]

He keeps pushing that.

He added that humanity must embrace space exploration, if only to ensure its long-term survival. "While there may be primitive life in our region of the galaxy, there don't seem to be any advanced intelligent beings," said Hawking

Maybe he's an alien. hehehe

[theQ]

For a renowned physics professor to make a statement "that primitive life may exist somewhere in the universe" is insulting to a actuall intellegent creature thats knows that even without physical proof the universe demands that you conclude there is because of mathamatics and what we have seen already. So yawn Stephen.