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Okaaaay, just how smart would it be to make first contact with a species advanced enough to have almost certainly advanced to the point that faster than light travel, and take them on with some stone age weapons (in comparison) that are chemically powered.
We are a very stupid species, attack as a way of saying "hello" but why not, we kill each other over which one of the imaginary deities is the 'best one'.
Never mind the claims of men, show me a verified legitimate video of an alien telling us the history of his world and how he came to be on earth. Until then I remain unconvinced.
Then you will remain unconvinced for quite some time my friend because there isn't such a video yet. That is because we still live in the pre-official alien announcement era.
Think of it this way. Back in the 1600s, I am sure many folks remained unconvinced that the Earth was round. I am also sure that many demanded to see a picture of Earth from space as proof. Well, such a picture wasn't available until the 1900s.
Besides, you know EXACTLY what some aliens look like (grey skinned short guys with big black eyes). We all have THAT image in our heads (thanks to the movies). However, the majority of these "aliens" don't look that way at all (so it seems). They (the aliens) look VERY human.
If the claims of human looking aliens are true, how on earth would you know one if you saw one? Such "aliens" could actually walk the streets of New York and no one would notice.
IF the claims of human looking aliens are true, would you believe that the "hott" blonde on an "alien" video was not born and raised on Earth?
IF the claims of human looking aliens are true, wouldn't that make us all re-examine the TRUE origin of the human? Wouldn't it also explain why some of us decided to write about wise human looking "gods" in the sky that flew around in "fiery chariots"?
I have no doubt that humans and apes share an ancestor. However, there is still an unexplained split that took place between us (humans) and them (apes). Now, if one day we should find out that these human looking aliens are real, and that they have been evolving for MILLIONS of years (even longer than the apes) human evolution (as we know it) would be dead.
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Originally Posted by Asheville Native
We are a very stupid species, attack as a way of saying "hello" but why not, we kill each other over which one of the imaginary deities is the 'best one'.
You'd be surprised how many we've shot at. What is REALLY embarrassing is that there has NEVER been a report of them returning fire on us. The worst that they've ever done was disable our nuclear test weapons (in an effort to save us from ourselves), but that's a WHOLE other thread alltogether. But YES, I do agree. We humans are dumb!!!
Last edited by urbancharlotte; 07-28-2010 at 12:01 PM..
He's a radio show host that interviews people with ET beliefs. You'll get more agreement there and it's entertaining to listen to the wing nuts he interviews.
And that is PERFECTLY fine. That is why I told you to do your own research. Be skeptical, but don't let your own ideology of what is "logical" stand in your brain's way.
Governments all over the world (including the UK) are now slowly releasing their secret files on UFOs. America has not yet, but we will soon.
Now TRUST ME, I am by no means a fan of Fox news. However, it is true that the UK (as well as other countries) have released some of their secret files on UFOs to the general public. This is all happening at the same time that the Vatican has released a statement that a "belief in ET life is NOT a contradiction to our belief in God". Add to all of this the fact that some government officials claim that many aliens look human; and now we have a serious debate on our hands about humanity's REAL evolutionary past. That's all I am saying here. Nothing more, nothing less.
Fine with that. Evidence - good evidence - is what I'm interested in. And how fascinating it would be to have visiting Aliens - putting aside the claimed nastier side.
But really, the vatican remark on their theological position on alien life - not visiting alien craft, note - is of no more interest to me than their theological view of Theist - driven evolution. The vatican, frankly, knows damn' all about it.
I agree that the release of the secret UFO files has been interesting but not as wildly significant as was hoped. Of course it is claimed that the real meat is still kept locked away.
I have been locking at official involvement since Blue book and what the UFO bods could never understand is that the Air Force and Governent had no interest in Alien craft. Their only interest was in any national threat to security. True, the side product was some collated info on UFO phenomenon. Allen Hynek, originally hired to create the Condon Cove...report...became a strong advocate of there being something in it.
But the release of secret files does not (so far as I yet know) blow the whole thing open. I remain highly skeptical about Blonde Venusians, greys, abductions, crop circles and Chupacabra. I do find radar hits, airline pilot reports (oh yes) lost - time accounts and the curious persistence of buzzing and mental..no, I begin to sound whacky. But I'm curious, yes.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-28-2010 at 03:05 PM..
I disagree with the folks saying it's not a matter of belief, yet I'm an atheist, I would say that this proposition is true: "Evolution is the phenomenon that led to the appearance of all life more complex than the most basic single-celled organisms", and I would say that evolution is a fact.
Here's why: people seem to be using "belief" in what I consider to be an unusual sense: they seem to reserve "belief" for things that one does not have evidence for--basically, a synonym for faith.
That's a non-standard way to use "belief" in epistemology. The standard way to use it is that if you would assert a proposition, if you would assert that P, then you believe that P. I would assert that I have a refrigerator in my kitchen--and I'd do this when I'm standing in my kitchen looking at it. I would assert that it is a fact that there is a refrigerator in my kitchen. So I believe that there is a refrigerator in my kitchen. I would also assert that 2+2=4. So I believe that 2+2=4.
That's not an unusual way to use "belief". It's not just reserved for academia or something.
Think of it this way. Let's take the case where P is "2+2=4". If it's true that Joe, say, does not believe that P (maybe in the usage of some people here, Joe would say, "I do not believe that P, rather P is a fact"), then it would logically follow that "Joe does not believe that P"--there should be little question about that. So it would be the case, then, that "Joe does not believe that 2+2=4".
Well, what happens in common usage when we tell a friend, "Joe does not believe that 2+2=4"? The friend would say, "What the hell? What does Joe think that 2+2 equals then, 5??" Common usage has it that if one is familiar with a claim that P, and one says, "I do not believe that P", one must believe that P is incorrect, another proposition similar to P is true instead--maybe the negation of P, maybe something else closely related to it.
It seems to be only in the context of religious versus non-religious views that people use what I consider to be the unusual sense of "belief". I'd bet that almost none of those people use "belief" that way in their typical, everyday speech however. If we were in a casual situation with them and said something like, "I do not believe that we can exit the highway ahead", I'd bet they'd say, "Why not?" rather than, "Right, it's a fact that we can exit the highway ahead--no belief is required".
I just ran across this.....In Koontz's novel "Breathless" a mathematician proposes that even given 4billion years even the tiniest worm could not have evolved from a one-cell organism even if there had been a mutation in every one of a millionth of a second (used as a length of the smallest measure of time)
Also used that the minimal number of genes required to support cell function and reproduction in the simplest form of life would be 256.
I gather he wrote this because he purposely was slamming Darwin.
Is this anywhere near accurate or totally made up for the sake of the novel?
The fictional mathematician would be saying that more than 126,144,000,000,000,000,000,000--that's 126 sextillion, 144 quintillion--mutations would be needed . . . or in other words, it's nonsense. But no problem as that. It's fiction, after all . . . and Dean Koontz. He's not exactly trying to write "hard SciFi" a la Asimov or something.
I believed in evolution much more BEFORE becoming a biology major.
I still believe that evolution is something that does occur in life. But, the fact is evolution falls for short of explaining as much as people might think.
Evolution is supposedly based on beneficial mutations in DNA (99.9% of which are harmful) which create a mutation (usually too minute to matter) that is expressed in an organism. At the same time, some natural occurrence must (just so happen to) occur that when combined with the minuscule mutation makes that individual significantly more fit.
The biggest problem with this theory is in the question of how DNA which is a highly complex information system came to be. DNA is a string of nucleotides and there is no way one string can be more "fit" than another. So, DNA itself couldn't have evolved and in order to argue that it did one MUST employ a circular argument (because evolution is based on DNA mutation).
Plus, a virtual biological factory of about 50 mechanisms is required for decoding DNA and synthesizing protein structures. If you study this process in depth (which I have done in agonizing detail), one can only conclude that evolution can not explain the existence of this system. To do so would require circular reasoning.
Now some might argue that this highly complex system just occurred randomly. That would be like putting a million Scrabble pieces in a huge can, shaking them up and dumping them out enough times until the pieces formed "War and Peace."
If anyone can explain how protein synthesis and DNA pre-evolved I'd like to hear the explanation.
The fictional mathematician would be saying that more than 126,144,000,000,000,000,000,000--that's 126 sextillion, 144 quintillion--mutations would be needed . . . or in other words, it's nonsense. But no problem as that. It's fiction, after all . . . and Dean Koontz. He's not exactly trying to write "hard SciFi" a la Asimov or something.
Those numbers are exactly the point being made.
That there just wouldn't be enough time, regardless of the age of earth (If I remember, he used the presumed age of the Big Boom as a 'starting' point.
After I asked this, I googled discussions about Koonntz and this book.
It seems he was purposely slamming Darwin.
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just how smart would it be to make first contact with a species advanced enough to have almost certainly advanced to the point that faster than light travel, and take them on with some stone age weapons (in comparison) that are chemically powered.