Poll: Do you think evolution and the earth were effected by outside sources?

[Lightknight]

Millions of years ago, an alien stopped by a rock of a planet to breath in the fresh nitrogen/carbon dioxide and to poop. Having had a thoroughly nutritious meal of veggies beforehand, he unwittingly planted the seeds of our future. Also, his name was coincidentally Alf.

 

[Lightknight]

I don't particularly think we needed a deity to have abiogenesis or for the earth to form itself (all you need for the latter is gravity and magnetism). I'm not adamantly opposed to the idea of life coming from other planets in its earliest stages though, like bacteria on meteorites.

Abiogensis doesn't beg the question so much as matter and energy existing in the Universe at all. I've always been fascinated where all this stuff comes from. Either it spontaneously came into existence or has always existed forever without cause. Two things that modern science has no explanation or claim of an explanation for. Anything the moment before the big bang is pretty much a solid mystery.

 

[Vausch]

I don't particularly think we needed a deity to have abiogenesis or for the earth to form itself (all you need for the latter is gravity and magnetism). I'm not adamantly opposed to the idea of life coming from other planets in its earliest stages though, like bacteria on meteorites.

Abiogensis doesn't beg the question so much as matter and energy existing in the Universe at all. I've always been fascinated where all this stuff comes from. Either it spontaneously came into existence or has always existed forever without cause. Two things that modern science has no explanation or claim of an explanation for. Anything the moment before the big bang is pretty much a solid mystery.

There's always the concept of cyclical time and the universe is always on a complete loop. Guess we'll find out soon, that large hadron collider has to have some answers.

 

[Atrocious Joystick]

It's impossible to say. The universe is all kinds of crazy when looked at objectively. We're just a bunch of naked monkeys with oversized heads that has to munch on other living things to survive and goes unconscious during night because reasons making a life on a hunk of rock floating in the nothingness and circling a titanic ball of fiery plasma. Life here could not exist without this ball and it hangs comfortably in our sky like a protecting guardian that we can't look at directly or it will burn our puny human eyes.

All of what has happened could have happened without a god. But seeing how insane existence is I would not lose my shit if it turned out that we are the result of the actions of a god. Perhaps there is a very clear pattern to the universe that proves it is "artificial" and created by a superior intelligence. Or perhaps aliens would laugh at us for religion. Perhaps we are one among many intelligent lifeforms and we are the retards and to all the others the secrets of the universe are taught at age five. So they just leave us alone because we are kind of awkward and stupid and smell weird and that is why we never see any aliens. They avoid us because we are awkward during conversations.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't think so, no. But I also don't have particularly strong feelings one way or the other. It could be that external forces (aliens, God, or a cartoonist) could have been at work, but I don't specifically subscribe to it.

It just wouldn't chafe me if it was true.

 

[Johnny Impact]

In the literal way your question is worded, yes. The entire solar system was formed from the ashes and ejecta of bodies and events elsewhere in the galaxy, acted on by universal forces. Earth and everything on it was, therefore, "effected" by outside forces.

Reading your post, I see you mean "affected."

No.

Has the universe harbored life other than on Earth? Almost certainly, in uncountable locations and varieties.

Did such life
A) have the technology to surmount the obstacles of unimaginable distance and insane energy requirements to traverse the stars?
B) exist at the right point in time, i.e. between 4 billion years ago and a couple million years ago?
C) exist at the right point in space, i.e. within traveling distance of Earth?
D) find Earth among billions of other rocks floating around out there?
E) have any interest in mucking around, seeding primitive planets with protoplasm, or throwing rocks to kill the dinosaurs?

The likelihood of A through E being true ranges from probably not to essentially zero. For the answer to your question to be yes, all five would have to be true. The likelihood of that is too stupendously tiny to be worth considering.

If you're talking about a supreme being, a god, the answer is still no. There is no observable thing anywhere in the universe that lends any credence whatsoever to the notion of a supernatural creator. Gods are merely people's way of coping with things they don't understand.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

If you mean by that we are descendants of the alien equivalent of a egg salad sandwich that someone forgot to pick up on a visit to early earth than no.

If you mean that some higher intelligence decided to use earth as a Petri dish then also no.

If you mean that there was some hitch-hikers on an asteroid that hit earth than the answer is probably not.

My personal opinion is that Miller?Urey experiment is the most probable solution to the whole 'how did life start' question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment