Green elephants? How can they be green if they are invisible?

Your logic is logical - in theory. Man has travelled across the entire world many times over, and not come across green (visible) elephants. To miss an animal the size of an elephant would be amazingly improbable, plus many people haven't claimed to have seen green six-legged elephants. As for the invisibility, I think we have discovered enough of this world to make an educated guess that such a phenomena is ridiculous, or at best be very surprised if we find it to be true.

On the other hand, the earth is a tiny little feature of the entire universe. Man has only explored about a gazillionth of the universe, so we are not qualified to dismiss any notions about what could lie at distant galaxies.

Now let us assume that for life to exist, conditions similar to those on Earth must apply. For this to be true...

The proportion of the distance between the planet and the sun, and the heat the sun gives off must be approximately equal to that of the earth and the sun. There must exist chemicals on the planet that will support the production of water, and nutrients. There must exist plenty amaeno (sp?) acids on the planet.

Now that might seem highly improbable. But consider how many stars there are in the universe, how many of them are "healthy", even counting for the amount of stars with planets in orbit, were still talking about a lot of stars, which makes the possibility for life quite likely, and therefore the existence of life quite likely. Definitely more likely than invisible green six-legged elephants.

: But if we want to discuss that topic, is not valid to start saying "I believe in extraterrestrial life because it's not possible that we were alone in the Universe", or "it would be a great coincidence if we are the only one life form", or "if we are here, why shouldn't they be there", or something like that.

Why not? with no evidence, our only choice is to follow what seems the most likely situation.

Anyway, after typing all that I noticed this bit!

: Finally, I forgot to say in my "declaration" something really important: when we deny the existance of UFO's (as alien spaceships), we are not denying the existance of extraterrestrial life, that's a different topic.

UFOs (of extra-terrestrial nature) are still more likely than green elephants. Quite a few people claim to have seen them, been abducted by them and have had interpersonal encounters with them. Also on occasion, have independantly described them as being similar.

Now I agree all of this can be explained by lying, hallucinations, illusions, government conspiracies, simple mistakes, dreams, etc. but it still is more substantial than green-elephant sightings.

• I told you it was a silly example... - Luciano_Medina/">Luciano Medina - September 10, 1998 - 15:38 UTC
• Distant galaxies and natural laws - Luciano_Medina/">Luciano Medina - September 10, 1998 - 16:24 UTC
  • Here is my Galaxy page - Wayne/">Wayne - April 7, 1999 - 18:11 UTC