Should we fear space aliens?

[Locutus]

CNN) -- Stephen Hawking's new documentary premiered Sunday night on the Discovery Channel. In it, he claimed that intelligent alien life almost certainly exists and that the search for it is valuable. He also suggested that the potential threats posed by contact with alien intelligence should discourage us from actively sending out messages to the cosmos.

As anyone who has seen the Discovery Channel broadcast knows, it did an excellent job of explaining astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It illustrated how vast the search is (and will become) and its potential impact on Earth's inhabitants.

We earthlings are fairly new at technology (100 years of transmitting electronic signals) in a very old galaxy (10+ billion years). The SETI Institute's optical and radio searches can only detect life capable of technology more advanced than ours. If such life is less advanced, their technology will not be detectable across the huge distances of interstellar space (smoke signals don't get very far!).

Watch Jill Tarter's TEDTalk about searching for alien intelligence

The ultimate success of SETI also depends upon the average longevity of technologies (assuming there are others out there besides ourselves). Longevity or "L" is the last term in the Drake Equation, a formula designed to estimate the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy. In fact, the length of time a technologically advanced species might continue to transmit is completely unknown and unknowable until, or unless, contact is made.

I think that Prof. Hawking made the point that a short-lived technological society (a small value for "L") means little chance of contact. But it L is large, it is likely that SETI searches will succeed and that the civilization that's transmitting is using a technology that is older and more advanced than our own. Of course he's right, but there's a lot of room for different opinions about what contact with an advanced technology would mean.

In describing the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, Prof. Philip Morrison (co-author in 1959 of the first scientific SETI paper) was fond of saying that "SETI is the archaeology of the future." It's archaeology because any signals we detect will tell us about their past (even signals traveling at the speed of light can take up to 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way Galaxy), but the successful detection would tell us that we could have a long future.

In that case, we are talking about contact through electromagnetic communication. What about physical contact? Well, one thing is for sure: If they can get here, then their technology is superior to ours, and not just by a little! Arthur C. Clarke's third law is, "Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic."

Can we be certain that their magic would do us harm? I would hope that Hawking would agree that a large value for L (a requirement for that magical, star-spanning technology) could also mean that their distant civilization had found a way to stabilize itself in order to survive and grow old. That might require outgrowing any aggressive and belligerent tendencies that may have characterized their youth.

Such an advanced technology might well send explorers whose size and shape we cannot yet imagine to study and examine the diversity of life that evolved elsewhere -- and rather than exploiting us, they might value and support the natural biodiversity of the galaxy.

Indeed, most of Hawking's Discovery Channel program was devoted to explaining that life as we know it is hugely diverse, and life as we don't yet know it is worth searching for because of all the ways a discovery would inform and surprise us.

At SETI, our current mission isn't to broadcast, but rather to listen to the universe and see what else might be out there. If signals are detected, everyone on the planet should have a voice in deciding how to respond.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/27/tarter.space.life.fears/index.html?iref=allsearch

[Locutus]

^^

Now that's a fascinating OpEd as was Stephen Hawking's take on aliens on his show last Sunday.

What say you?  Is anyone out there?

[Moonglow]

I, like Captain Kirk, hope they are sexy aliens.

[The Troll]

  If there is a space aliens, there is a better odds that they exist more than there is a God.  They won't really come in peace. 

  They will be just like the Prigrims.  Give us some beads the take over our world.  Just look what England did to all of the countries they took over.  Just like the old saying, "the sun didn't set on the British empire" why, God didn't trust the Limey sonuvabitches in the dark.   How nice was Russia to the countries they took over?

  The  only country that showed goodness to a country that they took over was America and that was after we bomb them to hell.  The same countries that we helped bring back, are the same countries that are beating the hell out of us, with the imports.  How about that for justice.

The Troll     

[Henry Hawk]

  If there is a space aliens, there is a better odds that they exist more than there is a God. 

based on what?

[Locutus]

based on what?

Probably based on the same facts, evidence, and logic with which I used to come to that exact same conclusion.  Religious folk are always telling us that their version of god created all of this universe just for us.  Just so the beings that he supposedly made in his own image can have this extremely (and that's not even an adequate term) small planet in which to live.  That's overkill in the grandest sense of the word.  It just doesn't make any sense.

Also, earth has an event horizon insofar as the universe is concerned.  We only have an observable universe.  In other words, there are areas of the universe that exist that we just can't see.  Why should anyone believe the scribblings of ancient man, who had no clue about the workings of cosmos, to tell us with any authority whatsoever how it all came to be, let alone why?

"The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, but not how the heavens go."  ---  Galileo Galilei 

[followsthewolf]

And it's getting bigger as we speak.

[Locutus]

And it's getting bigger as we speak.

Indeed it is, and although none of us will be around to see it fortunately, the temperature is asymptotically approaching absolute zero. 

[Sandy Eggo]

I love Stephen Hawking! I watched the same program last Sunday.

I imagine his conclusions are too full of all that sciency mumbo-jumbo logic for the religious folks.

[Henry Hawk]

I love Stephen Hawking! I watched the same program last Sunday.

I imagine his conclusions are too full of all that sciency mumbo-jumbo logic for the religious folks.

I find him interesting.....Even Steve does NOT discount the existence of a Creator/God....

[Locutus]

I find him interesting.....Even Steve does NOT discount the existence of a Creator/God....

But I'll bet he does discount said creator likely being the god of the bible.  If one was to go with the supposition of a creator, it's a HUGE stretch to say that the creator is the god of the Christian bible. 

[followsthewolf]

Indeed it is, and although none of us will be around to see it fortunately, the temperature is asymptotically approaching absolute zero. 

Yep.

Personally, though, I'm not worried about it. 

[pariann]

I don't know why it couldn't be the God of the bible.   The creator that is.  I wish I was more comfortable sharing my thoughts on what I consider to be a supreme being.   

I will say this:

1. There could easily be a virgin birth if you consider invitro (sp?) fertilization and it was done by alien scientists. 
2. Think chariots of the Gods for all the parallels between the bible and what we suppose today about aliens and their technology. 

I think the earths population is a scientific experiment gone awry.  And guess who the supreme beings/creators are.   And guess why they are 'watching' us live out our 'free will' lives.   

[The Troll]

But I'll bet he does discount said creator likely being the god of the bible. If one was to go with the supposition of a creator, it's a HUGE stretch to say that the creator is the god of the Christian bible.

  Go to YouTube and type in atheist and see all of the People who really have and had brains are atheist. 

  I have found in the people I have meet, the more religious they are, the less brains they have.  Ignorance is bliss. 

The Troll 

[Palehorse]

I fear the stupidity of the people of this country more than I'd fear an extraterrestrial being.