Ancient Aliens

[YellowSubmarine]

throwback wrote:

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I think one of the reasons that humans are looking for other intelligent life is that we want to know whether or not there is the possibility that we too might not go extinct.

We will most certainly go extinct. If we don't, that would be a first for a species on Earth, and most probably a universe first as well.

[Robert Maxwell]

sojourner wrote:

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And "nature" is not a she or anything for that matter. Like the cylons, nature does not have a plan.

It's amazing how often people forget this.

[BillJ]

YellowSubmarine wrote:

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We will most certainly go extinct. If we don't, that would be a first for a species on Earth, and most probably a universe first as well.

I don't know. Maybe we will be the seed of a galactic civilization some thousands of years down the road? If we get our priorities right and don't kill ourselves first.

[YellowSubmarine]

BillJ wrote:

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I don't know. Maybe we will be the seed of a galactic civilization some thousands of years down the road? If we get our priorities right and don't kill ourselves first.

Sure, but they won't be human, and speciesists care too much about that.

Then again, it's possible that someone saves human DNA and decides to bring us back from extinction one day. I'm betting on someone doing that with the Neanderthals in a several decades. So why not homo sapiens sapiens too?

[Silvercrest]

BillJ wrote:

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I don't know. Maybe we will be the seed of a galactic civilization some thousands of years down the road? If we get our priorities right and don't kill ourselves first.

Great! Then there will be "Ancient Aliens" shows about us! With all the accompanying idiocies.

Are we sure we want that?

[Alidar Jarok]

throwback wrote:

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I know that the Neanderthals didn't create a civilization, yet I also know that they were intelligent and that some of them had sex with humans. So, for a brief period of history, humans were in contact with and interacting with another intelligent life form. Why do we forget that?

I have to point out also that Neanderthal were human. In addition, the conclusion that the two ever mated is highly controversial and disputed. I know anthropologists that are proponents of the theory and those that think it's scientific nonsense.

[sojourner]

Based on personal experience with women I know and the men they are attracted to, I am going to side with the proponents.

[throwback]

Humans share up to 4% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1108...l/476136a.html

There are life forms that are on this planet that have survived multiple extinction level events. An example is the horseshoe crab which has been around for approximately 450 million years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_crab

We humans are a stubborn and resilient species. 75,000 years ago, the super volcano Toba erupted. This volcano killed a majority of humans living then, yet we survived. For us to go extinct, the event would have to be more catastrophic than Toba.

[CaptainDonovin]

I did watch it for the first season, the four 2-hour episodes or however many there were because the concept sounded interesting. However I gave up after that, it felt they were just making shit up as they went.

I won't make fun of the porcupine on his head though, that's not fair to the poor critter.

[Alidar Jarok]

throwback wrote:

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Humans share up to 4% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1108...l/476136a.html

Yes and there are some modern human populations that allegedly share features consistent with having ancestors that were Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis. It's still highly disputed by experts in the field. IIRC, the study supporting interbreeding is based on Mitochondrial DNA, which is useful in some areas, but poses its own problems. It's certainly a possible explanation, but we don't "know" that it happened.

[PurpleBuddha]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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I have to point out also that Neanderthal were human. In addition, the conclusion that the two ever mated is highly controversial and disputed. I know anthropologists that are proponents of the theory and those that think it's scientific nonsense.

Shit, I find it inconceivable that they didn't mate. There are people that fuck animals. And never mind that, what about women being abducted by one side or the other? Granted, I am not talking about evidence here, but unless the argument is that the two groups never came into contact with one another, I can't see it.

[Deckerd]

throwback wrote:

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Humans share up to 4% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/1108...l/476136a.html

I'm fairly certain, biologists on the board will correct me if I'm wrong, but humans share 100% of their genetic makeup with humans.

[throwback]

I think there is still a residual bias in the scientific community toward the Neanderthals. For a long time, they were viewed as a less intelligent brutish humanoid. This bias has slipped into our language when we call a person a neanderthal. It's only in the past few decades that our understanding of Neanderthals is changing.

I have no issue with our ancestors having sex with Neanderthals. It's better than thinking that our ancestors totally obliterated them in the first genocidal campaign in human history, or accepting the belief that the two species operated in a vacuum and never met the other.

Returning to the topic, I think many of the diagrams that proponents of ancient alien visitation cited as evidence were rather the creation of an imaginative, intelligent artist. Our ancestors were capable of creating fantasy and science fiction. During the Roman Empire, Lucian created stories, in True History, wherein humans travel to the Moon and to Venus, of the existence of extraterrestrial life, and of wars between planets. I think it's conceivable that he wasn't the only writer who wrote on these matters in the ancient world.

Like I said earlier, this inability to envision our ancestors as like us was a bias - a terrible bias at that - that I would like to see buried along with the other beliefs like that blacks were less intelligent and less brave than whites, or that a woman's place was in the house and that such an individual didn't have an intelligent mind and was incapable of uttering an opinion.

I don't know what aliens will look like, but I would like to think they feel emotions, they form family and friendship bonds, they go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to go to work, they like to eat and to drink, they like to party, and they like music and dancing. This is my bias. I can't imagine an alien civilization that doesn't embrace some of these likes. This is my human weakness - that I like to think at some fundamental level they are like us.

[Maurice]

Edit_XYZ wrote:

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Well, our galaxy is ~13,6 billion years old - but only since ~6 BILLION years there were enough heavy elements for life to be able to form.

This may have been discussed upthread, but... Maybe. Recent discoveries indicate planet formation might have started occuring much earlier than previously supposed, but the data is as yet from too small a sample to draw too may conclusions, especially re rocky bodies.

[STR]

Maurice wrote:

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This may have been discussed upthread, but... Maybe. Recent discoveries indicate planet formation might have started occuring much earlier than previously supposed, but the data is as yet from too small a sample to draw too may conclusions, especially re rocky bodies.

Yeah, but how much of a civilization can you build up when you have 1/10th of the metals of Earth? Which is roughly what you're looking at with a planet system orbiting a population II star.

Also, is it just me, or this guy a Centauri? He looks like Vir's younger, stoner brother.