why you’re most probably not part alien
As anyone able to pass a college level biology course can tell you, the chances of humans interbreeding with any alien species are quite literally astronomical. Even if we embrace the notion of panspermia and assume that life on multiple planets has a common origin, the window for hybridization is under two million years and by the time the colonizing microbes start to evolve, creating a branch of their evolutionary tree endowed with a certain intelligence, if this would even happen at all, the gulf between them would be measured in billions of years. And if we were to assume the more standard approach, that life arises on a planet where the chemistry can sustain the necessary biochemical reactions, then there’s pretty much no way alien life forms can ever be similar enough to even genetically engineer themselves to be remotely compatible with each others’ biology.
And yet, not only do we have people who believe that aliens could’ve interbred with humans, they think there is actual, tangible proof for the idea, with some going as far as dismissing evolution as an inadequate way to explain the rise of our species. And if you think that ancient astronaut proponents make some strange or specious arguments from their very liberal interpretation of astrobiology, it gets even more bizarre when they start using religious scriptures to justify a scientific investigation into the notion…
The Bible says the daughters of man had relations with fallen angels, and that their offspring were giants. Scoff if you want, but why don’t they (scientist etc.) do DNA samples of all the known giant fossils? Maybe something shows up.
Sure, scientists can test fossils for alien DNA until the cows come home, but what exactly are they supposed to find? Are they just going to do some magical sciencey stuff and cough up a string of extraterrestrial genes? Of course not. We have no idea what real alien hereditary material would be like, much less what four or five, or six billion years of evolution could do to it. Aliens could use quadruplet codons, have ten nucleobases, and cells with no nuclei. Without having an example of an intelligent extraterrestrial’s genome to study its evolution and biochemistry, looking for an alien genetic code in human fossils would basically be an exercise in blindly stabbing in the dark, hoping to find something on the off chance it’s there. And there are much better uses for the very limited amount of money scientists get than trying to prove fanciful tales from holy books or fulfill an emotional need to spice up our lives with an alien conspiracy theory. If and when we get a hold of some old, wise alien’s genome, we could certainly run a few tests. But until then, it’s just not going to happen.
Why don’t aliens ever wear clothes (well, except for Klingons)?
“And if we were to assume the more standard approach, that life arises on a planet where the chemistry can sustain the necessary biochemical reactions, then there’s pretty much no way alien life forms can ever be similar enough to even genetically engineer themselves to be remotely compatible with each other’s biology.”
Thats actually contradictory logic. If life develops as a result of natural chemical reactions, then it is more likely that it will be similar. The basic elements are relatively consistent throughout the known universe.. For the the most part the physical laws are also the same. Gravity is in different amounts, but still exerts an influence that encourages certain structures and shapes to be more suitable than others. Qualities such as bilateral symetry or cell processes like osmosis, for example are almost certain to be reflected in any self organizing system, since that is part of the chemical and physical construction process for an organism to be “alive”. Almost everything would have a functional equivalent form of mouth, foot, anus, etc. The huge diversity that these basic factors can result in is obvious, yes. However we stll can pretty much classify life into relatively few categories. Invertabrates, vertabrates.. etc… single cell, multiple cell. quadrapeds, bipeds, fish,etc. If an alien even “looked”close to us physically, then genetically it would already likely be very similar. An alien breeding with a human would likely be a biped with bilateral symetry. This would probalby make the DNA very similar already and able to be modified. Orangutan, chimpanzee, etc DNA is already 90something percent similar to human. A civilization advanced enough to travel here would likely have the ability to modify 5% of the genetic code of its gametes to be able to breed with humans.
I agree with your general direction here, but lets not drift into the world of the people you are criticising by using the same flawed blanket assumptions as they do.
Thanks.
“If an alien even “looked”close to us physically, then genetically it would already likely be very similar.”
Well yes, but the odds of that happening are astronomical. This is what I was trying to explain here. To look like us, aliens would have to evolve in a world almost identical to ours in terms of climate, and evolutionary history.
“Orangutan, chimpanzee, etc DNA is already 90-something percent similar to human.”
Yes, but we’re evolutionarily related. Aliens wouldn’t be anywhere as close to humans, and even if they were bipedal and bilaterally symmetrical, that doesn’t say what kind of match their DNA would have to ours. Considering that they evolved on another world, I would bet almost none. Even though they may have the same chemistry, the array of options presented by that chemistry is immense.
“A civilization advanced enough to travel here would likely have the ability to modify 5% of the genetic code of its gametes to be able to breed with humans.”
Even if there was an only 5% difference, that’s a lot of DNA to modify. Let’s remember that we may also be talking about different amino acids and different DNA setups too. A shift of 5% in genomes is roughly the same as the millions of years it took for the first fully bipedal hominids to diversify into us. Flying to another solar system would actually be a lot easier that this kind of genetic engineering.
They engneered our dna with so called junk dna in order to allow breeding unless the human genome projext is too far fetched for you too. Tards if an an advanced civlization that could travel across the cosnos came to earth and wanted to breed with humans I’m sure they could make any necessary changes based on their technology. And when you say astronomical we are talking space here folks. Nit wits
dude…there aliens, everyone thinks that we know something they might not or we can outsmart them or even predict what they might have done to us in the past. Theres some astronomical odds for you, the fact of the matter…we dont know how they think or what they know, we will never know intel they tell us. obviously we cant croos breed genes that are that different yet, we may not even be that different, once again we will never know intel they tell us.
How moronic are you, like really? Yes we evolved by evolution, i’m not disputing that with you, but to go on and say that a spieces of neanderthals that were probably eating their own feces, just virtually overnight, became more intelligent, and had the advanced knowledge to know how to construct the great monuments of the world. And even we, the “human race,” can’t even accomplish these things in todays modern world.
Think of Adam and Eve in the bible. Now where else or better yet, when else, are you going to have a world where their are only two intelligent human beings on the face of the earth? Aliens came down to Earth, to harvest our planets valuable resources. And whilst in the process of surveying our planet, our alien ancestors, or what you christians and cathloics refer to as Angels or Gods, saw that there were upright beings on this planet, that were so unintelligent, they couldn’t possibly be of any harm to the extraterrestrials. So they abducted two neanderthals, one of male and female, and through alien genetics, they interbreeded our DNA with theirs, thus speeding up the process of our natural evolvement. And most likely using us as a slave race, to mine and harvest earth’s most presious rescources from the Earth.
And then later, as more of us sprouted, and the world became civilized, thats when our extraterrestrial brothers and sisters came down from the heavens, and were praised and worhsiped as heroines, and dieties. That’s when humans began having sex with those aliens, thus creating human hybrids.
That’s enough of a history lesson for now, anyways, keep you’re mind more open, stop being so damn ignorant you jackass! =P L&P, C.
Look, if we can genetically alter a sheeps DNA, and a make a fucking clone of it, and if we can take an egg out of a woman, and take the sperm out of a man, and genetically splice the two together and replace it back into the womans womb, so she can have a child, then what makes you think it’s so impossible that ancient aliens didn’t do the exact same thing?
Keep your minds more open, ya fuckin jackals! =P L&P, C.
This argument is pointless.
Who needs to mess with genetics? All we need is a brain and an fMRI machine (or a ‘down-the-road’ cousin).
It is safe to predict that by 2030 virtual reality will be fairly close to reality.
However, our bodies kind of get in the way, we need to be able to communicate directly with the brain (and we already can, but it needs work – a LOT of work, but it will happen sooner than you think).
Our bodies are actually a hindrance, we only see in three colours so the world isn’t anything like we see it.
Our sense of smell is pitiful, compared to wide chunk of animals.
Our hearing is pathetic as well.
All our senses are crap when compared with a lot of other species.
Our only true advantage is our BRAIN.
In the next 40 years we WILL be able to download a human mind into a digital format, the raw data anyway (by 2080 you and I will be able to afford this digital backup and it COULD BE a standard practice). In the next 100 years it is not rediculous to predict that we will be able to run a downloaded mind in an electronic simulation of a brain (seriously). A virtual mind. A true avatar.
Think of the possibilities:
Reverse engineer this blueprint, remove all data, mess with a few processes and you have true Artificial Intelligence. Most of our technology is taken from natural processes anyway. Until we understand OUR intelligence properly we can never hope to construct one.
Our physical bodies are actually obstructing our journey in understanding what it means to be sentient (this is an opinion, this whole thing is meant as an exercise – I’m not saying it will happen just that it could and I think it should).
Physical death will always exist (technically) but digital immortality is a very real concept and if you are 24 (like me) then you might just live to see it, I hope to. These ‘Avatars’ will experience one year in 32 seconds and due to their digital nature we would NEVER have to learn anything, we would simply add information to our ‘memory’ and it would be as if they always knew it. Memory recall would be PERFECT. Even years of semantic understanding is simulatable. It’s not that simple, obviously. But with time frames like I mentioned you can run a simulated life cycle of a physicist in much less than half an hour (real-time), and that would allow you to think like one (you’d BE one) so you would have true understanding of the knowledge. Then, save that model of your mind and put your consciousness through that ‘filter’ whenever you need it. You could watch a whole life in a twist on what we call a ‘movie’, get to really know your partner. Better yet, you can actually experience it. You would truly be able to feel how they feel when you kiss their neck, so on and so forth. Call me a romantic but I love the notion of the boundaries between people being completely shattered. Here’s a notion, you could run your mind through a ‘Hendrix’ filter (for example, a bad one since his brain isn’t preserved) and play the guitar as if you were him. Don’t understand your dad? You can simulate his thoughts (accurately) and spend an hour actually thinking about your life from his point of view.
The world will never have to lose a mind like Einstein’s ever again.
Nobody will have to specialise in anything, you can have simultaneous copies running and truly multi-task.
This is all in cyber space.
We can have our cake and eat it too.
How about truly thinking like your pet?
You could download a pets mind into a human filter and communicate with them quite easily.
In one hour an avatar personality would have ‘lived’ for nearly 60 years to our perception of time (you can’t make this stuff up). Imagine what an army of Stephen Hawking’s could accomplish?
Then there are the virtual environments in which all the rules of the universe DO NOT APPLY. You can be Superman, you can be Hitler. It isn’t real, whatever fantasy you have can come true. Personally I think it should be mandatory for there to be a watermark, constantly reminding you that it isn’t real because you will not be able to tell reality from virtual reality if it is a real world simulation and not an imaginary one.
Imagine the possibilities for yourself, save a blueprint of when you were five and when you’re fifty apply that filter and you’ll think like that five year old once again.
I can go on with these scenario’s. Ever wanted to actually live in an anime? Easy.
Ever wanted to be a cat? Done.
You could actually be a woman for a few hours.
Be Asian.
Be a bloody dinosaur.
I’ll stop.
So, how has humanity changed in the last hundred years – more than my 92 year old gran can believe.
All I’m saying is – prepare to be amazed.
Here’s the funny part – a lot of you will curl up in fear of this but you’re ALREADY doing it!
First thing you do if you have a question – Google. Right? Can you really go very long without a computer?
All I’m talking about is streamlining this whole process. Why bother with an iPhone (for example) when your mind can be constantly in contact with the Internet? Your actual consciousness would be in cyberspace and your physical body would be the avatar. Why bother with a keyboard when your thoughts and senses are the peripherals?
Use your imagination.
A new kind of birth and marriage could exist – marriage could be where you merge minds, if you keep the two originals and erase your raw data (memory) it is digital procreation.
I know I have gone on a massive rant, I am aware of the perceivable negatives to all this.
I’m not religious, obviously and I see how this could upset you if you are but imagine being able to think like your hero (I could pick up my guitar and play as if I was Ben Harper or Dave Matthews, it’d be as easy as flicking from overdrive to distortion). I just hope you were entertained and maybe I have got your imagination running wild… that’s not a bad thing.
So, we were talking about aliens?
Given the new information (and wild imaginings based on very real possibilities) I just rambled on about… do you really think anything is beyond our understanding? It is just a matter of time, and in the end, it may well prove to not even be that.
For now, let’s concentrate on OUR home, it’s closer and we know we can eat the fruit and are allowed to put our feet on the couch.
How’s my post for an ‘open mind’. It is ALL plausible and may very well happen in the next century and a half.
Research ‘digital immortality’ for starters.
I think that eventually we will be able to design a biological being from scratch. Biology doesn’t work by magic, we’ll figure it out.
Tuple Witt.
Call me a loonatic, call me mad, just please please call me.
Who needs faith when I have a stick!?
Is my comment longer than the article?
Hahahahaha.
I need something to simmer down my mania.
=P
Tuple Witt.
‘Erm, that’s NOT egg on your face…’
there are giants or was that sarcastic lets see i have always thought myself not to be from here cause i have a talent in math science highly logical my memory is amazing others say i am alien like at such a a low age i walked and talked or thats what my parents say but really i shalll need to hear more
11 year old
skylar
What if long ago, Earthlings created aliens and colonised other planets and Human kind somehow forgot about it? Or what if I’m a unicorn?
1. First a polite note to lol,cameron, and rickie13. Honestly, Tuple I didn’t get far enough to notice errors. Not in you’re spelling anyway. Please put a spell checker on your toolbars and use it. It’s free.
2. Please go to YouTube and watch this short video titled open mindedness.
http://youtu.be/T69TOuqaqXI
3. Visit the website The Dictionary of Woo. Click on any letter of the alphabet. Go ahead, it’s a fun learning experience.
Wow are we realy arguing about aliens? Dont we have enough problems here on Earth to wory about lol. I dont hold ignorence to the idea that we are the only life forms in a large universe with so many possible solar systems. Or that Aliens may possibly make pit stops by Earth. But lets be realistic here genetics are a very compex thing and even now we dont know everything about them. The fact is that if even one very small part of the genetic code was off or nonexistent the offspring would probibly be deformed and not live long enough to see the light of this world. Just saying.