If Evolution is true, why aren't we surrounded by aliens?

This makes absolutely no sense.

To state that we are or are not surrounded by aliens must be based upon the premise of if we know there are aliens to begin with.

If by surround you are referring to the universe and its encompass around Earth then the answer would be maybe.

May the blessings of Xenu(swt) be upon you

You may want to consider rephrasing your question.

Because evolution doesn't predict that we should be surrounded by aliens.

That was easy.

I live in TX. I am surrounded by aliens. I love them though.

Gottservant said:

Randomness + process = biodiversity. That is evolution's formula.

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Assuming this is correct, suppose evolution predicts exactly the amount of biodiversity we see.

Well if randomness is so random and process is so sure why isn't biodiveristy^10?

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If evolution predicts the observed amount of biodiversity, it does not also predict "biodiveristy^10".

What do you consider "aliens"? And where should they be to "surround" us?

I guess that you mean the space-faring version... other "humanoids" (or slimy tentacle blobs, depending on your Sci-Fi preference) from other planets.

That problem has basically nothing to do with evolution at all, but with physics.
There could be trillions of alien species surrounding our little speck in the universe, or only a few... but neither they not we have a way to make contact.
Space is rather huge, you know. And quite empty. And difficult to cross.

So I don't say "we are". But we could be. And haven't yet found out.

Perhaps we will, perhaps we won't. But that doesn't tell us anything about evolution.

Gottservant said:

Hi there,

Heading says it all.

If you say "we are", I will be offended.

If you are smart, you will realize you are offending a lot of other people in the process.

I doubt also, that you have the integrity to answer this fairly, but that is my perogative to doubt and my problem, I am just telling you so that future correspondances are in the correct light.

Thanks for your time.

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Space is very very very big and life appears to be rare in it.

Gottservant said:

The rarity of life is covered by evolution how? You just say "evolution is rare"?

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That life is rare is simply an observation based on current evidence. It's not mentioned in the theory of evolution as I've read it.

To my understanding evolution is supposed to be able to happen anywhere, anytime, given appropriate selection pressures.

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For evolution you need the parts of the process, populations of imperfectly reproducing entities in an environment that limits the number of entities that successfully reproduce. Life is the most obvious example.

Think of another process like say erosion instead of evolution. Erosion must have a rocky planet with weather, so erosion is rare because rocky planets with weather are rare.

Let's suppose I am wrong though. Let's suppose it is rare. How rare is it? "Rare enough to create no aliens"?

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Seems that way.

Woah! Big assumption, also very, very, very convenient. Not scientific in the slightest.

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It is a scientific hypothesis based on observation. We observe that there are no aliens so life must be either so rare because it needs certain conditions which are rare to appear and there's vast swathes of time required get to a form of life that's capable of communicating in some way with other star systems. That's assuming that such forms of life are an expected outcome and they may not be. There's been life on earth for nearly a fifth of the age if the entire universe and only just now has any species been capable of communication and not yet capable of traveling. There's certainly nothing in evolutionary theory that says humans or human-like organisms have to evolve.

So life is either rare or non-existent and there's not enough info to test the hypothesis to a confident conclusion yet. It's still a testable scientific hypothesis.

Gottservant said:

Edited for clarity.

The problem here is that you are not big-picture enough. Why do we need other planets when Evolution can make aliens here?

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Evolution does make new life forms all the time, only we don't call them aliens because evolution makes them out of existing species, and so they just join the 10 million species already present on Earth. If a completely new kind of life were to start to arise chemically on Earth, analogously to how the first life is thought to have arisen(*), then existing life would call it "food" and gobble it up.

(*) Which isn't really part of evolution.

Gottservant said:

Hmmm... you guys are smart, but you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

One of you wants to say "test it for yourself" when I can see there are no aliens and the other one wants to distance himself from it saying its not really part of evolution.

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Well there are no aliens known so far and it's quite possible that if there were they are bacteria-like and incapable of space travel or communication and it's also true that evolution doesn't address the origin of life nor whether life will evolve to be able to communicate or travel to other worlds.

Gottservant said:

Still not addressing the fact that they could be here to start with.

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In what sense?