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Posts:
71
From:
Evansville, Indiana, USA
Registered:
5/13/06
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(1 of 2)
Apr 28, 2008 9:54 AM
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That was the title of a movie starring Geena Davis made a few years back. I think the reviews read, "The title is great, unfortunately the writers seem to have used all their humor in the title and had nothing left for the rest of the movie." So, sadly, I cannot recommend the movie. I saw it once on television or somewhere, and it really is not a great movie.
What, you may ask, does that have to do with History Channel International. Well, as I am typing this, a show is airing on HCI called 'Ancient Aliens' which mentions, among other things, the Angels, Sons of God, or Nephilim coming down from the heavens and mating with human women.
I support airing such shows, because such subjects should be open to discussion, and people should at least take a look, once in awhile at ideas like that. That being said, let us do just that, and take a look at this idea.
In the last week in science news published at Eureka Alert
http://www.eurekalert.org/
there was an article discussing recent research about the liklihood of other planets developing intelligent life. It turns out to be not great. The professor postulates several pivotal events in evolution which have to happen. Each one must happen for the next to happen, but having one happen does not guarantee that the next will happen. Each is highly unlikely on its own nature. So, the odds of intelligent life developing are astronomically small. We may be one of very, very few species of intelligent life in the universe.
Now, that is biology, but geology and climatology also have things to say. We would probably not live on a world capable of supporting life, or stable enough for intelligent life to develop without the moon. Our moon is very unusual and the likelihood of a planet being in the habitable zone and having a moon like ours is quite small.
You start to add up all these things and it begins to look like the Universe is a pretty lonely place. This is all only informed speculation, but it is INFORMED speculation.
There is the issue of biological contamination. Some persons suggest that we originated as microorganisms on Mars and taht those microorganisms seeded the Earth with life.
An intelligent alien form of life would be aware of and cautious about contamination with alien bacteria and viruses. Life is inherently more dangerous to other forms of life than non-life is.
A species with the technology to travel here would be able to create everything they need from the raw materials on relatively sterile planets and would avoid contact with planets possessing a biosphere as a matter of safety.
Our planet really has nothing that is not available on other planets in the Solar System which can be had on them more easily and with less risk than it could be had from a planet like ours teeming with life that could infect or corrode or otherwise inflict damage on aliens.
Only curiosity could bring aliens to our planet. It seems unlikely that such aliens would then find our women irresistably attractive and be capable of breeding with them.
So, it is unlikely that we have ever been visited by aliens. It is unlikely that such visitors would actually visit a planet with a biosphere. It is unlikely that they would, doing that, find anything on the planet worthy of anything but detached scientific curiosity.
Earth girls may indeed be easy, but it is unlikely that anyone out there really cares.
It is a simple fact, as the show on HCI pointed out that people have been seeing odd things in the sky and various other places throughout history. In the past they attributed these things to Gods, Demons, Angels, Faeries, Elves, and other similar beings.
In the last couple of centuries it has become popular to attribute them to Aliens.
There are three hypothesis.
1) All these things have been swamp gas or something similar throughout history. (The skeptical dogma.)
2) All these things have been spiritual manifestations. (The religious dogman.)
3) These have actually always been aliens and we are just now becoming technologically sophisticated enough to recognize this. (The currently popular belief.)
When you actually put this into perspective, the third one is very unlikely. Either of the first two is considerably more likely than number 3. (I am an agnostic, I do not deny that there is no spiritual reality, and I do not affirm it either.)
Probably a great many different phenomenon are involved. Time travelers are probably more likely than aliens based on what we know now, but what we know now is really just speculation, informed speculation, but speculation.
Still, based on that, I would credit some kind of spiritual reality as more credible than aliens. Or, it could all have been some kind of swamp gas, or various other similar phenomena.
I do have problem explaining it all away saying 'swamp gas'. I strongly suspect that there are things we have not discovered yet and that there is a science or two out there waiting to be described which can explain those things in this category which are not swamp gas.
Aliens, however, realistically, are quite unlikely, no matter how many times you see them in movies or on TV.
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