This question resolves YES if conclusive evidence is found of any biological life having originated from any other planet. For instance, if dinosaurs or tardigrades are conclusively discovered to have originated from Mars, this question resolves YES. If alien bacterial life is found on other planets conclusively proven not to have originated from Earth, this resolves YES.
If by 2100, none of these criteria have been fulfilled, this resolves NO.
1,000Getting closer
New findings by NASA Mars rover provide strongest hints yet of potential signs of ancient life
https://apnews.com/article/mars-nasa-perseverance-rover-rock-life-4e608d530be598c1a7af959d97eb88d8
@BrunoClawfeld what's the Bayes factor of this “evidence”?, my prior is essentially 0 (like on the order of 1/2^256)
I feel like people are too emotionally attached to life (anthropic bias) for any of this hype to be taken seriously.
I just think that find life that doesn’t share a common ancestor with life on earth is impossible for the same reason two snowflakes are never identical or how a shuffled deck of cards is always unique.
If humans can make both the hottest and coldest temperatures ever observed in the entire universe both occured on Earth (in laboratories), but can’t make life out of nonliving matter, why do we think the universe can do the same twice?
Even a 4000 token response from ChatGPT can’t even be recreated twice in the history of the universe, why do we think life is more common/simple than that?
@ChinmayTheMathGuy The snowflake analogy actually makes the point: each snowflake is unique, but snow itself is inevitable given the conditions. Abiogenesis is the same — unique instantiations, but the process is generic chemistry. Modeling it as 1/2^256 is a category error: that’s a static lottery, while life is a Poisson process with hazard >0. With ~10³⁰ experiments, the waiting-time distribution guarantees repeats. A prior at zero is non-Bayesian; the real question isn’t if life arises again, but how quickly we’ll recognize its chemistry as familiar rather than alien.
I like the rare-Earth hypothesis. Life in general is extremely unlikely to spontaneously arise from scratch, and it was only possible on Earth by a remarkably unlikely series of events lining up over eons.
Given the (possibly infinite) size of the universe and billions of years, it’s basically certain there exist many examples of extraterrestrial life—all that’s needed is the right chemical reactions to happen spontaneously at the right time and place. Alas, it seems the chances of us humans finding a rare alien planet nearby within just 75 years is pretty low. They might be so spread out that we’re the only life in our galaxy. By the way, why haven’t we seen any signals from super-intelligent aliens?
@thepurplebull I like the rare earth light hypothesis. it’s just my hunch that cellular relatively primitive life is probably pretty common, but anything beyond that is probably pretty rare. if I’m right, I think we’ll detect undeniable gas signatures from that primitive life.
New York Times
Astronomers Detect a Possible Signature of Life on a Distant Planet
Further studies are needed to determine whether K2-18b, which orbits a star 120 light-years away, is inhabited, or even habitable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/science/astronomy-exoplanets-habitable-k218b.html
Does evidence of extinct life on Mars count?
If there is possibility that microbes originated on Earth but carried to Mars by ancient meteorite before evolving there, do we have to wait for good evidence one way or the other before it resolves the question? If so how good does the evidence have to be?
(Proof is only for mathematics, science deals in evidence. Extraordinary claims do require very good evidence.)
@ChristopherRandles It would not then have originated from Mars, but Earth. If expert consensus is uncertain, the closing date will be extended should I still be around and capable of doing so.
"Huge breakthrough in the search for aliens: NASA discovers 85 Earth-like exoplanets that could have the right conditions to support life"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12996441/Huge-breakthrough-search-aliens-NASA-discovers-85-Earth-like-exoplanets-right-conditions-support-life.html
"Huge breakthrough in the search for aliens: NASA discovers 85 Earth-like exoplanets that could have the right conditions to support life"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12996441/Huge-breakthrough-search-aliens-NASA-discovers-85-Earth-like-exoplanets-right-conditions-support-life.html
Question: if we discover a non-living extraterrestrial intelligence and/or an artificial life form would that count as a 'yes.'
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231025-if-alien-life-is-artificially-intelligent-it-may-be-stranger-than-we-can-imagine
@username I think with markets like this, the smart money often is scared away by the 2100 resolution date, leaving the price to be determined by those who don't optimise for profits that much.
You see this a lot in UFO-related markets. They're way higher than they should be because of the sorts of people betting, whenever the long resolution date is enough to deter the more seasoned betters.
Perhaps consider a market with a shorter timeframe? 2030, 2035, or something like that? Much less likely, but you may get more people betting.
@chrisjbillington I like how these kind of markets allow me to spend most of my loans without having to think too much about it.
And I am indeed not profit maximizing (would take too much time), so at least some kind of behaviors help in the other direction.