Instead of avoiding the allergen, the treatment is designed to reprogram the immune system's response to peanuts and eventually develop a tolerance.

I can't help but think part of the whole 'peanut allergy' thing has to do with helicopter parents who micromanage their child's comfort beyond all rationality.

For parents like this (helicopter parents isn't the best term, can't think of a better one now), a doctor telling them their kid *cannot* have a single peanut is almost like crack to them. It gives them an outlet for their OCD: Guard child against deadly peanuts.

To these parents, the idea of sensitizing their kid over time is anathema..."I will not slowly poison my child!" I guess the only way to really see what I mean is to hop over to some of those "parenting" message boards about peanut allergy...

Pardon my formatting error....post should read as such:

You're trying to prove a negative which you can't do.

Not trying to prove a negative.

My side doesn't need to prove anything because...*The burden of proof is on those claiming intelligent life exists*

You have to understand this for us to have any hope of rational discussion.

The status quo is that we have absolutely no evidence, for that reason, the burden of proof is on those who say "Most likely there are many intelligent civilizations".

smh...I blame Star Wars and GOP defunded education system for this...it's not entirely your fault if you can't grasp this...

You're trying to prove a negative which you can't do.

Not trying to prove a negative.

My side doesn't need to prove anything because...*The burden of proof is on those claiming intelligent life exists*

You have to understand this for us to have any hope of rational discussion.

The status quo is that we have absolutely no evidence, for that reason, the burden of proof is on those who say "Most likely there are many intelligent civilizations".

smh...I blame Star Wars and GOP defunded education system for this...it's not entirely your fault if you can't grasp this...

Because people of science require evidence, and right now the information we have is piss poor.

Nope, wrong. Completely wrong.

The burden of proof is on people saying life exists elsewhere, not the other way around hotshot.

Either A: they are not there; or B: they are there, but the universe is so big we'll just never encounter them. Those two ideas are opposite of each other.

Not from an observer's stand point. We will never be able to visit all of the universe, so it's irrational to think someone could "prove" no other intelliegent life exists by direct observation.

Your problem is twofold:

1. you are not truly taking into account the size of the universe

2. you are mistaking where the burden of proof lies

The evidence for no other intelligent life is that we haven't seen any, and there are numerous plausible scenarios in which we would have detected other intelligent life. There's also plausible scenarios where they're out there and we haven't detected them for a variety of reasons. I know of no hypotheses treated as fact with such little evidence.

everything you said there is wrong

First, the burden of proof is on the claim that intelligent life *does* exist not the other way around.

2nd, ever heard of General Relativity?

Source

We have several Physics theories that we treat as fact but haven't proven with direct observation, like General Relativity until this year.

I don't think you are aware enough of the facts of this topic to converse intelligently, so I'm done here.

I don't see any evidence that humanity progresses faster through war.

Just because some technology was advanced by war necessity doesn't mean it's the only or best way at all.

They don't accept it because it's just a hypothesis, and although it is reasonable, it is just one of many hypotheses that explain the current evidence.

In the absence of further evidence, there will be no way to tell which of the hypotheses is correct, and choosing one prematurely isn't helpful.

Good feedback.

In response I'd say let's compare to Physics theories that are "just a hypothesis" that have weaker evidence yet treated as fact. I think that *comparatively* we have more reason to think "they aren't there" because life is rare in a large universe than we have evidence for many physics theories that are "Just hypothesis" but are generally accepted as true.

If humans managed all that in some 300 years, you'd almost expect they would be broadly interstellar in the next 1000.

I *think* the author touched on this in the text (maybe in one of the 'in universe' scientific papers in the index?).

I think the jump to a new star is huge, but the jump to another galaxy is just sort of beyond anything we can rationally predict given the advances in tech to do such a thing. We'd have to have some kind of 'time ship' like in ST:Voyager to visit another galaxy and report anything back in any useful manner. That or some kind of wormhole we make similar to Interstellar...which would require producing energy on scales beyond what we could even predict.

It's always possible our minds somehow evolve to manipulate energy by pure thought (and something quantum-related idk) but again that's so far-fetched we couldn't even put that in a prediciton model.

Yeah the whole "slate" thing was egregious and embarassing to behold such pettiness.

agree.

well said, this is the right answer plain and simple

intelligent life is rare and the universe is big...asked and answered...next question please!

> Standing on the shore in Spain you couldn't hear anyone shouting from Hispaniola, yet when Columbus landed there he found loads of people.

excellent analogy

exactly...other intelligent life isn't impossible at all, it's just extremely rare...rare enough that two intelligent species in the universe will probably never contact each other

If intelligence-driven extinction doesn't explain this great cosmic silence, then what does?

They just aren't there! Why can't people of science accept this?

It's sometimes called the Rare Earth Hypothesis but KS Robinson really explains it well in his Mars Trilogy books.

Basically the theory goes that lower level life may or may not be 'common' in the universe, but intelligent life is so rare that given distances and the speed of light and whatnot we just probably won't ever encounter each other.

It's elegant and explains everything and should be the accepted theory in exobiology (if it isn't already) until evidence proves otherwise.