UFOs Not, Because E.T. Isn’t: Part Two

Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species (defined as Homo sapiens) has been around for only some 100,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial ‘It’? If the answer should prove to be ‘yes’, if terrestrial life and humanity is the be all and end all of life in the Universe, then UFOs can’t have anything to do with extraterrestrials.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Technology second:

Okay, we have lots of widely separated planetary abodes throughout the cosmos that have an intelligent species of critter on them. Since we assume your intelligent neighbours are fairly far away and you want to discover, and then maybe communicate with them, that poses a problem. If you want to find them, you or your surrogate, has got to go to them, and/or they (or their surrogate) have to come to you. In a terrestrial analogy, you have a barrier like an ocean or vast desert or mountain range separating you from them so it’s difficult to hike or swim the distance. The surrogate mentioned earlier could be a smoke or radio signal or laser beam, but if you want something more up-close-and-personal then you tend to need boats or planes or four-wheel drives or covered wagons, or in our interstellar scenario, rocket ships, etc. Once you do establish ‘first contact’, you’d like to keep in touch. On Earth, the usual means of keeping in touch other than by face-to-face communication is by snail mail, phone, or email – snail mail apart, its radio or electromagnetic communications in general that’s usually employed (even smoke signals use reflected light waves to deliver the message).

That introduces one additional complication for the UFO ETH; it’s not enough to just be intelligent. You need to have technology (and even snail mail as noted above is still a form of technology). Then, and only then, will the ‘are we alone?’ question be answered to our absolute satisfaction. We need technology if we are to find (maybe communicate with) extraterrestrial intelligence(s); and/or extraterrestrial intelligence(s) will need technology to find us. One or both of us has to have invented engineering to a somewhat sophisticated level - maybe rocket ships, maybe radio telescopes, but something technological is required.

There’s also a hidden assumption here – you actually want to seek out new civilizations. It matters not one jot if you have all the required technology but care not to use it for the purpose of answering that question – ‘are you alone in the Universe?’ I’ll assume here that if you have intelligence, and you’ve been able to construct appropriate technology, then part of your intelligence is devoted to being a curious critter who wants to know and find out things – so that’s a certainty of one. Curiosity and associated intelligence, or intelligence and associated curiosity are two sides of the same coin.

But what’s the level of certainty of developing appropriate technology in the first place? Rather poor judging from all those terrestrial species that have a somewhat reasonable degree of smarts to their credit. There’s the human species of course, and though while we’re not quite a sample of one, there having been other hominoid species with some IQ capacity (like Neanderthals), its pretty close to being a sample of one. There are documentary observations of some animals (primates mainly) not so much manufacturing, but making use of existing ‘tools’ to assist in their survival. Alas, most intelligent species lack the anatomy and/or the right environment to manipulate objects. In the case of dolphins and whales, their ocean environment stymies any way and means of constructing things and making use of fire, for example. So, developing technology has to be rated, judging from our terrestrial sampling, as rather low; otters using rocks to break open clams not withstanding. 

So, for UFOs to be alien spaceships, one needs an extraterrestrial intelligent species to develop appropriate technology, and here’s where I see a bit of a bottleneck. The evolution of technology isn’t inevitable and has a lot of just-so factors attached.

Firstly, your home planet has got to come equipped with the right sorts of materials like oxygen and metallic ores and other objects (rocks, wood, etc.) than can be turned into useful tools, and of course most important a suitable supply of energy sources. That you’ll have at your disposal all the required material and energy resources is not a given.

Water worlds are out of the running since it’s difficult to discover and utilise fire in that sort of environment.

You can’t have all your required locomotive appendages (legs) in contact with the ground – some limbs have to be free to manipulate objects in your environment. Birds have wings that are off the ground, but since wings aren’t good at making tools, that seems to rule out wings, and all birds of a feather, pretty much as well as tool makers.

So, I’ve already ruled out dolphins and whales and the cephalopods (like the octopus) being water based creatures; the birds with their useless wings as far as building things is concerned; and all the four-footed walking mammals (or reptiles or amphibians).

It might be conceivable that you can build up a technology using your mouth parts and/or using a tail (if you have one) to manipulate and build things, but we don’t have obvious terrestrial case studies, although you might argue that bees, wasps, termites, ants and birds can build elaborate structures using just their mouths. So that’s in the ‘maybe’ basket.

Technology is also a double-edged sword. The use of technology has had obvious survival value for the human species. You wouldn’t be hard-pressed to come up with dozens of technological inventions that have enabled us to survive longer and thrive better and be ever more fruitful and multiply. But, our technological genie is also out of the bottle, and unless you’re a hermit, you will have noted by now that technology can also reduce our quality of life, and no doubt you wouldn’t be equally hard-pressed to cite dozens of examples, from handguns to the automobile - which leads nicely into the last consideration. 

To be continued...

UFOs Not, Because E.T. Isn’t: Part One

Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species (defined as Homo sapiens) has been around for only some 100,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial ‘It’? If the answer should prove to be ‘yes’, if terrestrial life and humanity is the be all and end all of life in the Universe, then UFOs can’t have anything to do with extraterrestrials.

Some people say that terrestrial life is the only life in the cosmos, therefore, whatever UFOs are, they can’t have anything to do with aliens. That’s despite the fact that there are ‘billions and billions’ of possible sites in the Universe where life could take hold, evolve and ultimately boldly go.

A few UFO skeptics do tone down that argument by acknowledging that extraterrestrials exist as in extraterrestrial microbes, plants and multi-cellular animals but extraterrestrial intelligence doesn’t. That still means that UFOs have bugger-all to do with aliens. Even if intelligence exists, only humans have invented technology, and even if aliens have invented technology, well those dumb bastards exterminated themselves within a short time frame after discovering chemical, biological and radiological warfare technology. The upshot, E.T. isn’t; UFOs therefore aren’t.

So are we alone in the Universe? That’s a question that’s been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word ‘alone’ implies alone in the sense of whether or not there exists elsewhere in the cosmos our rough equals; more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours across the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling answer to the question usually revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions and billions of galaxies each with billions and billions of stars, etc. and the vastness of time, surely we can’t be the proverbial ‘It’.

There’s unfortunately one slight flaw in that statistical approach. There’s a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be extremely long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one bit whether or not all the other factors are extremely probable. The overall result is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the overall answer will also be as close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty ultimately equals zero!

It’s been pointed out by others, and I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (being physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe - extraterrestrial intelligences - are a dime-a-dozen. That’s relative to biologists (being life scientists), who considerably hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?

With 13.7 billion years to play with since the origin of our Universe (that Big Bang event); with billions and billions of stars in our own galaxy alone; with billions and billions of galaxies scattered throughout the cosmos each with billions and billions of stars therein, with extra-solar planets being discovered around many of those stars in our own galaxy at a rapid rate of knots, (and by implication planetary systems exist in other galaxies as well); with the chemical elements required for life commonplace throughout the Universe; with the principles of Darwinian evolution given as universal, what odds that we are really the proverbial ‘It’? And what are the implications for extraterrestrial UFOs?

When it comes down to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), it’s only our own Milky Way Galaxy we need concern ourselves with. Even I acknowledge that though extraterrestrial civilizations exist in other galaxies, travel times between galaxies quickly exceed any logical transit times available, even when invoking a “Star Trek” warp drive. Interstellar travel, travel within the confines of our own galaxy, however is quite another matter. Still, our own galaxy gives us some ten billion years to play around with; billions and billions of stars and no doubt planets, those abundant chemical elements, and Darwinian principles. Again, it would be a very brave soul to suggest, given those sorts of statistics, that we are, even in our own galaxy, the proverbial ‘It’; not just the new kid on the block, but the first and only kid on the block.

Not even a UFO ETH skeptic like a certain SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) scientist of my acquaintance would argue we’re the proverbial ‘It’ – it would make a mockery of his own chosen career path.

So in summary to that first objection that only terrestrial life exists: 1) The Universe is a bio-friendly Goldilocks Universe – we’re here after all. 2) There is plenty of real estate in the cosmos that could give rise to and host hardy microbial life forms. 3) The appropriate chemicals, organic chemicals, and biochemicals; appropriate life producing and sustaining chemistry full stop, are present throughout the cosmos. 4) There’s been a massive amount of time for life to originate, evolve, survive, thrive and migrate.

Ultimately, what this all boils down to; the three key points here, are whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence exists, and if so, does extraterrestrial technology, technology that can get E.T. from there to here, evolve of necessity? Lastly, having evolved a sophisticated advanced boldly going technology, how long do you have it? Translated, we need to answer whether or not Darwinian evolution, natural selection, will favor intelligence, technology and long-term survival.

Intelligence first: 

Some people object to the UFO ETH on the grounds that we (humans) are the proverbial be-all-and-end-all of the cosmos in terms of overall smarts and being tool makers – there are no other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, therefore UFOs can not have anything to with extraterrestrial intelligence. Translated, they adopt the more religious point of view that humans (and human intelligence) were created in the image of God and therefore no other intelligences can exist. No alien intelligence means no-go to the UFO ETH.

The answer to that issue, that extraterrestrial life exists, but not extraterrestrial intelligence (for religious reasons or otherwise), well, the answer is yet again that not even respectable SETI scientists would propose this as an objection to the UFO ETH since again that would undermine their own work. Clearly the evolution of intelligence, albeit being just one of many competing traits for biological survival-of-the-fittest, does have ultimate survival value. The Earth provides a practical example of that. Many species can be attributed to having a reasonable degree of ability to figure things out, and that it is possible to evolve extremely high levels of intelligence is witnessed by us existing. If Mother Nature can evolve one biological highly intelligent species, She can do it again, and again, and again on other worlds. 

Now based on a statistical sample of one, it’s been a long tough road to get from microbes to ferns to jellyfish to sharks to newts to crocodiles to crows to cattle. Once you have multicellular critters (like ferns and cows) that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve into intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves. Again, no alien intelligences translate into UFOs having zip to do with aliens.

The issue now is having evolved to a multicellular stage (like magpies and buffalo), will organisms develop some higher brain function? Is there any further evolutionary advantage towards increasing one’s intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the answer is roughly ‘not likely’. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn’t inspire confidence that intelligence has inevitable value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don’t (can’t) stop to figure things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are a few exceptions.  Many wild birds would put our everyday companion animals to shame in the IQ department. I mean I adore my cats, but a little Einstein they’re not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher IQ bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart – by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain functions. Take my cats. Is it to their survival advantage to ‘figure things out’ or to  just be a bit faster afoot, have a bit more acute hearing, have sharper vision? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, intelligence is not the only game in town, and therefore doesn’t have what I’d call any evolutionary ‘certainty’ or destiny.  However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to figure things out, isn’t valuable and doesn’t have any survival value; it’s just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an IQ of even one (the human average is 100). So, let’s say intelligence is somewhere between near certainty and highly improbable. That’s a rather ‘have your cake and eat it too’ position.

IMHO, the bottom line is that intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have life forms that have evolved ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

To be continued...

The Rare Earth Hypothesis: Part Two

If the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a viable experiment and not a waste of time; if UFOs and ancient astronauts are facets that help document the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, then the very existence of an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence with technology has to be plausible in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s a long hard road to get from inorganic chemistry through to E.T. and there are many possible bottleneck hurdles that have to be overcome before the one evolves into the other. Goldilocks factors – not too this, not too that, but just right – have to be with you every step of the way. IMHO the major bottlenecks are the transition from unicellular to multicellular life and the evolutionary development and use of technology.

It’s been pointed out by others, and based on my readings I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe (extraterrestrial intelligence) are a dime-a-dozen relative to biologists (life scientists), who hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

But now we come to our first and major bottleneck.

It took 0.5 billion years for the unicellular origin of life on Earth, or for microbes from space to take root on Earth, but then it then took nearly another 3.5 billion years between the appearance of that ‘simple’ single proto-cell life form and the eventual evolution and the resultant Cambrian explosion of multicellular (complex) life forms. For some reason(s), it appears to be biologically difficult to go from the simple single cell to a complex multicellular organism based on the only example we have to judge such things. Probably the overall obstacle to the early quick-smart establishment of multicellular (complex) life is that heretofore microbes (single cells) were 100% self-sufficient generalists. Complex organisms require the evolution of single cells to give up being generalists, become specialists, and work as part of a team. That degree of organization apparently takes lots of time, especially to the stage of where it can leave a large fossil presence, if it takes place at all.

Once you get to the multicellular stage, and in order to evolve further, well the trick is to survive, for the Universe is a dangerous place.

Planetary environments tend to be dangerous and rarely stable, and thus you need a lot of factors in place to ensure that even simple life even survives the long term and get the chance to evolve into multicellular life. Or, if you have evolved multicellular life, the odds are pretty good it’s going to get the Big “E” – Extinction.  I mean complex life is very vulnerable to environmental forces. A tornado probably isn’t going to bother bacteria, but it sure could tear you apart. That’s not to say bacteria can survive everything the cosmos can throw at them, but when nasties come, you stand a better chance of survival if you’re a microbe. So, in order to get to the first proto multicellular critter, and from that to us, you need a lot of Goldilocks factors operating in your favour.

But there are apparently just too many planetary Goldilocks factors at play to grant the probability that complex, multicellular, animal, life is common throughout the cosmos. You need to be in a quiet part of the galaxy – no nearby supernovas, black holes to suck you in, gamma ray bursters, etc. You need a long lived stable single star. You need a gravitationally stable solar system so that planets are not gravitationally disturbed out of their orbit and either plunged into the parent star or cast out of the parent system altogether. You should have a good Jupiter(s) to absorb and/or gravitational deflect comets and asteroids that would otherwise slam into your otherwise environmentally-friendly planet causing havoc to established life forms. You need a planet that’s in a pretty circular orbit, one that doesn’t stray too close or too far from the habitable zone surrounding the parent star. The planet must have a fairly stable temperature range over geologic time periods, and so you must have an atmosphere, and thus has to be massive enough to retain an atmosphere, without being so massive that you end up with a brown dwarf - a quasi-stellar body. The axis can’t have an extreme tilt, and it would greatly assist if the planet had a large moon around it to assist its long term stability. You need some sort of plate tectonics to ensure land building and the recycling of materials. If it’s intelligence, with technology you seek, the planet can’t be a water world. The planet must have formed in a region abundant in the heavier chemical elements (oxygen, sulphur, carbon, silicon, nitrogen, various metals, etc.). When you take all those factors (and more) into account, the number of suitable abodes where simple life can slowly evolve into complex life decreases rather quickly. And there’s no guarantee that there is really any directed purpose to evolution in that evolution doesn’t require simple life to become complex life. Survival and leaving offspring is what it’s all about, and if single cell critters do that what more is needed?

One note about planetary disasters or catastrophes is that these cut both ways. They can’t be frequent enough and/or large enough to wipe out the entire biosphere in total, especially the biosphere comprised of complex life forms, but on the other hand, infrequent small disasters can spur on evolutionary change by opening up environmental niches, but depending on who or what you are, when you are, and where you are, a disaster can be a double edged sword. I mean if you’re a T-Rex sixty five million years ago, its bad news. On the other hand, without the bad news for T-Rex, we wouldn’t be here, so for us, an asteroid impact 65 million years ago turned out to be good news!

It’s also difficult to naturally transport complex life around the galaxy, unlike microbial life. If a meteor hit Earth and blasted a chunk of terra firma off towards Mars, pity the poor cockroach going along for the ride. Cockroaches are tough, but not that tough. And even if a cockroach did make it alive to the surface of, say Mars, it wouldn’t survive long.

Anyway, once you have multicellular critters that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves.

IMHO, intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have evolved life forms with ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

Finally, for SETI to succeed, for UFOs to be alien spaceships, one needs our intelligent species to develop technology, and here’s where I see bottleneck number two. The evolution of technology isn’t inevitable and has a lot of just-so factors attached.

Firstly, your home planet has got to come equipped with the right sorts of materials like oxygen and metal ores and other objects than can be turned into useful tools, and of course a suitable supply of various energy sources. That’s not a given.

Water worlds are out of the running since it’s difficult to discover and utilise fire in that sort of environment.

You can’t have all your required locomotive appendages in contact with the ground – some have to be free to manipulate objects in your environment. Birds have wings that are off the ground, but since wings aren’t good at making tools, that seems to rule out wings and birds of a feather pretty much as well

So, we’ve already ruled out dolphins and whales and the cephalopods being water based creatures, and the birds with their useless wings as far as building things is concerned, and all the four-footed walking mammals.

It might be conceivable that you can build up a technology using your mouth parts and/or using a tail to manipulate and build things, but we don’t have obvious terrestrial case studies, although you might argue that bees and wasps and termites and ants and birds can build elaborate structures using just their mouths.

It’s not all that obvious that technology actually adds all that much value towards ultimate long-term survival. Lots of technological advancements do, like controlling fire, developing agriculture, the rise of modern medicine and food technologies. But then lots of modern technological wonders, the automobile, CDs, sofas, microwave ovens, and thousands of other consumer products don’t really contribute to our overall survival – certainly cars don’t when considering the road toll! Then that brings up the fact that things technological can sometimes work in the opposite direction. Toxic this, pollutant that, nuclear the next thing; then throw in a bit of global warming; the rise of urban city living with overcrowding and in general overpopulation; chemical, biological and radiological warfare/terrorism; instruments of warfare in general, like guns; the overuse of antibiotics and the rise of antibiotic resistant germs; exposure to electromagnetic fields – well, the list of horrors or potential horrors goes on and on.

It makes for an interesting question: would mankind ultimately survive longer had technology never entered the equation, or not? It’s an unanswerable question in that 1) we can’t run the contrary as a controlled experiment, and 2) that the genie is well and truly out of the bottle and there’s probably no turning back now.

So, overall, SETI might not be able to detect our technological and communicating kin out there, and UFOs might not be alien spaceships right here, because it’s 1) hard to evolve multicellular organisms, and 2) technology isn’t inevitable and might even be counterproductive. Thus, Earth, with its multicellular critters and humanity with its technology, is quite the rare planet within the Universe – according to some.   

The main proponents of what is now called the ‘Rare Earth Hypothesis’ are the scientists Brownlee and Ward (see below), and they have certainly stirred up an astrobiological hornet’s nest with the idea. That’s good for science in the long term. The belief in an unproved but accepted scientific proposition, in this case that that there are lots of complex alien critters out there, needs to be challenged if fields of inquiry aren’t going to stagnate. However, make no mistake, it is the ‘Rare Earth Hypothesis’, not the ‘Unique Earth Hypothesis’, so religious fundamentalists who have taken this hypothesis to their hearts; who still need Planet Earth, and human beings, as some sort of religious special creation, should really not take comfort from these ideas.  The Copernicus Revolution is still alive and well.

Further reading:

Brownlee, Donald & Ward, Peter D.; Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe; Copernicus Books, New York; 2000:

Burger, William C.; Perfect Planet, Clever Species: How Unique Are We? Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York; 2003:

Morris, Simon Conway; Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans In A Lonely Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2003:

Are We the Proverbial “It”? Part One

Every one and their great grandmother has apparently had a go at, and calculated a value for the Drake Equation (named after radio astronomer and SETI scientist Frank D. Drake). The Drake Equation estimates (guesstimates is actually more accurate) the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy that could in theory say “Hi” to us and receive our “Hello” in return by examining all the factors that are part and parcel of that scenario. Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species has been around for only some 200,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial “It”? Here’s my two cents worth.

Are we alone in the Universe? That’s a question that’s been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word ‘alone’ implies alone in the sense of whether or not there exists elsewhere our rough equals, more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours across the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling answer to the question usually revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, etc. and the vastness of time, surely we can’t be the proverbial “It”. There’s unfortunately one slight flaw in that statistical approach. There’s a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be extremely long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one jot whether or not all the other factors are extremely probable, the overall result is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the overall answer will also be a close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty ultimately equals zero!

Rather than give an exhaustive list of all those factors required to give us cosmic neighbours, I’ll focus on six essentials.

Firstly, one has to have the right kinds of matter and energy that can produce beings like us, and a solid surface to stand on. That’s no problem. The Universe has lots of kinds of energy on tap; stars can manufacture and disperse the required kinds of matter, like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, etc. There’s lots of solid bodies (planets) out there. That’s one vote for certainty. 

Secondly, one has to have a solid planetary body turn into a habitable world; a suitable environment for physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology to do their evolutionary thing. Fortunately, that shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a lot of real estate out there and it comes in all sizes and flavours. While there’s only ever going to be one Planet Earth (I’ll avoid discussions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, the notion of parallel worlds, and the Multiverse here which could argue the contrary), there has been, is, and will be, lots and lots of earth-like abodes, just letter perfect for life-as-we-know-it to survive, even thrive. If one wants to throw in life-not-as-we-know-it, there will be lots of worlds suitable for those possibilities as well. So, that’s another vote for certainty.

Thirdly, physics has to become chemistry, and chemistry has to become biology. We need biology to have had origins, or an origin, an origin(s) of life that’s an inevitable outcome of the everyday ordinary interactions between physics and chemistry. Well, many will argue that the origin of life is as nearly predictable as death and taxes, given a suitable habitat. Many will also argue that the origin of life is a fluke! In my point of view, the origin of life need only happen once, and that clearly has been a certainty – we exist and we are life. Once there’s one origin of life, the rest is just distribution. Panspermia provides the ways and means of distributing (microbial) life throughout the cosmos. So, I’ll have to cast another vote for certainty again!

Fourthly – well, now we hit the proverbial brick wall.  You and your neighbours aren’t microbes – you’re a colony of microbes. In short, you’re a multicellular life form. We seek, in the cosmos, other multicellular life forms, on the grounds that the odds that a microbe or unicellular life form isn’t going to prove to be much of a companion or drinking buddy is a near given. So, we need to get from unicellular to multicellular, and therein lays the rub. And it’s here that we have to rely for guidance on a sample of one – Earth. Note: It’s dangerous to extrapolate from a sample of one, but what choice do we have? 

There’s no ecological niche on Earth occupied by multicellular critters that’s not also occupied by unicellular critters (microbes). The reverse isn’t true. You may think the world is totally dominated by multicellular critters – you, your partner, your family, your pets, your garden, your food, all the life you see around you is multicellular. There’s millions of species of insects – all multicellular. What’s more common than bugs? Yet, if you did a biological census, even in your home and your garden, you’d find that apparently common multicellular life forms are out-common-ed, vastly outnumbered, by unicellular life forms by a ratio of trillions to one. What you don’t see does matter!

So, are multicellular critters an evolutionary certainty? Is there anything a ‘colony’ of 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 cells can accomplish or fill a previously unfilled ecological niche that one cell can’t? And by the way, that 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 stage has got to be selected for before one can get to the two million and two billion colony stage. Well, clearly the transition happened here, albeit it took some three billion years to seriously kick-start the process, so it’s hardly some inevitable ‘law of nature’. I mean taking some three billion years to get to a colony of cells from a single cell doesn’t inspire confidence that the process is easy, necessary or inevitable. Anyway, it did happen here, so it’s obviously possible. I just don’t see it as a super-evolutionary development that confers immediate survival-of-the-fittest advantage. Of course a colony of two cells might be harder to eat than one cell, but at that level, ‘food’ tends to be absorbed at the molecular level. In any event, microbes can easily attack and ‘eat’ multicellular critters, causing sickness, death and decay. We’re ultimately food for the microbes and the proof of that pudding is how we spend small fortunes keeping them at bay. But, eventually, though you might win the battles against the microbes, you’ll lose the last one, and thus the war.

Another factor that argues against multicellular organisms being a universally common feature of the Universe is that it is also a lot harder to transport around the Universe by natural means – that concept of panspermia – multicellular critters. I mean getting a microbe from Earth to Mars is one thing. Getting a cockroach there is a whole different scenario.   

Multicellular development; its probability, can’t be zero since we’re multicellular, but, on balance, I can’t assign a high probability to the transition between unicellular and multicellular life on every habitable planet, every time. This one is nearing zero!

Fifthly, as noted earlier, you don’t want to interact with your neighbour’s multicellular pets or multicellular garden plants, but your neighbours. What do you have in common with your neighbours that you don’t have in common with your neighbour’s pet or garden plants? Intelligence (even if you probably think your neighbours are a few cents short of a dollar!).

The issue now is whether, having evolved to a multicellular stage, will one develop some higher brain function? Is there any further evolutionary advantage towards increasing one’s intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the answer is roughly ‘not likely’. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn’t inspire confidence that intelligence has inevitable value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don’t (can’t) stop to figure things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are an admittedly few exceptions.  Many wild birds would put our everyday companion animals to shame in the IQ department. I mean I love my cats, but little Einstein’s they’re not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher IQ bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart – by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain function. Take my cats. Is it to their survival advantage to ‘figure things out’ or to be just a bit faster afoot, hear just a bit better, see ever more clearly? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, it’s not the only game in town, and therefore doesn’t have what I’d call evolutionary ‘certainty’.  However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to figure things out, isn’t valuable and doesn’t have survival value; it’s just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an IQ of even one (the human average is 100). So, let’s say intelligence is somewhere between certainty and highly improbable.

To be continued...

Crop Circles: The Julia Set Near Stonehenge: July 1996

While crop circles have been reported from around the world, in the main they tend to be associated with the English countryside in the warmer months when crops are high and agricultural graffiti artists can strut their stuff. Just who these ‘artists’ are hasn’t been proven in any sort of scientific (or legal) court, but just like we all know ‘the butler did it’, well it’s obvious the whodunit here is from the same species as the butler. We have to believe that, because if the butler didn’t do it, we got a major mystery on our collective hands that most of us would rather not acknowledge. Here’s part of the reason the butler didn’t do it.

Apart from a few deluded New Age hippy types, everyone just knows that crop circles are human made hoaxes. That’s despite all the obvious logistical problems in creating perfect, yet massive geometric patterns in near total darkness. That’s despite the fact that hardly anyone has ever been caught in the act. That’s despite the fact that sometimes the overnight weather was wet with rain (this is England after all). Still, what else could they be? But even one exception breaks the ‘everyone knows it’s a hoax’ rule. Consider the 1996 Julia Set.

Most crop circles are discovered in the morning by farmers or farm hands that are up early and out and about to start their day’s work in the field(s), though some discoveries are by motorists, passersby, sometimes pilots. Still, the discoveries tend to be made sooner in the day rather than later in the day. 900 foot crop circle formations are rather hard to miss, even from the ground, and some are way bigger than that.

Translated, that suggests that this agricultural graffiti was constructed and produced overnight, under cover of darkness, the obvious implication being human hoaxers operating in the dark thus avoiding detection.

Despite the fact there are massive problems with that theory – it’s like trying to make then assemble a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle using just starlight and complete it perfectly in a few hours; no flashlights allowed giving your position away. What isn’t reported to the police isn’t of concern to the hoaxer(s). Still, you’d have to have a few screws loose, tramping around in a muddy field in the dark of night, carting around all sorts of equipment, planks and rollers and ropes for hours on end, just to produce something for which you can’t ever receive public recognition for – least you get paid a visit by the police for trespassing and willful criminal damage.

Let’s accept the universally accepted basic logic anyway. Crop circles are human hoaxes. But could a hoaxer(s) do a crop circle pattern or formation in broad daylight, of a size demanding many hours of labor, with eyewitnesses around, and escape detection?  Or could a massive crop circle avoid being seen in broad daylight in a heavily trafficked area? I suggest that’s highly unlikely on both counts.

It’s late afternoon on a sunny English summer Sunday – July 7^th 1996 to be exact. The location, a farmer’s (identity known) field within a stone’s throw of a major tourist attraction – Stonehenge (you may have heard of it). A major highway, the A303 separates the field from the Stonehenge site - Lots of motorists passing by. Security guards are present at Stonehenge 24/7 as tourists aren’t allowed anymore to wander within the standing stones. Stonehenge is strictly a look from the outside and don’t touch attraction now.

There’s usually a lot of aerial traffic too – lots of private planes operating out of nearby Thruxton Airport, often giving tourists an aerial view of Stonehenge. Now one such pilot (identity known) with one passenger taking off out of Exeter, passing over Stonehenge late that Sunday afternoon, while glancing downwards, sees nothing out of the ordinary. That same pilot, on the return flight, again passing over Stonehenge just 45 minutes later, sees a massive centipede-like geometric pattern (a Julia Set fractal pattern) comprising 149* individual circles (ranging from 50 feet to 14 inches in diameter) spanning 915 feet in length tip-to-tail and 500 feet in width in the farmer’s field, well within the view of passing motorists and the Stonehenge security guards (and tourists). 

Needless to say, prior to the pilot’s return flight and his subsequent sighting, nobody (tourists, motorists, farm hands, security guards) saw a thing. That suggests that, in broad daylight, the entire Julia Set complex was constructed in actually less than 45 minutes. That’s unaltered by a few motorists, over a decade later, who have claimed to have seen at that time and place a strange mist. Whether they did or didn’t isn’t relevant to the basic facts that human hoaxers aren’t in the running as culprits in this specific crop circle episode.

But if they (hoaxers) are, in the running, how did the hoaxers do it? One person (identity known) has claimed that he along with two other people created the Julia Set complex in under three hours early that Sunday morning while it was still dark. One notes by the way that security guards are present at Stonehenge around the clock, so clearly the hoaxers, if they really existed, didn’t use any lighting. That further suggests that this massive formation went unnoticed and unseen in broad daylight for nearly 12 hours within sight of the top tourist attraction in England and a major motorway! Check out the photographs on the WWW and tell me how they done it! Could you and any two of your friends produce that complex geometric formation in darkness in less than three hours? It’s yet another case of someone claiming to be a bank robber for the publicity because that’s easier than actually being a bank robber which results in not only getting publicity but a prison sentence as well. The other alternative is that this person has so flown his anti-crop circle flag up the flagpole and publicly saluted it that he can’t back down now, no matter what!

Over 14,000 tourists visited the Julia Set formation before the farmer had to do what farmers do and harvest what was left of his crop; there are lots of photographs available in post 1996 crop circle books and on the Internet that verify the proximity of the Julia Set to Stonehenge with the A303 Motorway bisecting. It’s easy to plug in something like “Julia Set” plus “Stonehenge” into Google’s search engines, like Google Web and Google Images and judge for yourself the bona fides.

Now I don’t know how the Julia Set near Stonehenge in July of 1996 was created; or what intelligence created it. I am (along with those New Age hippy types and other open minded people) convinced the intelligence wasn’t human. I’ll just leave it at that.

*Some sources originally gave the set as containing 151 individual circles, not 149, but 149 is the correct number.

Human Evolution: By Natural or Artificial Selection? Part Two

If you’re reading this, I’d be 99.99% sure you’re human. That being the case, you probably are aware that humans evolved from our primate ancestors, most likely the chimpanzees, starting many eons of time ago in deep, darkest, equatorial Africa. From that point of origin, humans colonized the globe, including whatever part of Planet Earth you currently call home. That’s the be-all-and-end-all of the origin, evolution and colonization of and by the human race. Well, I think there are some flies in that ointment, especially the bit about our evolution.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Though there are some limited advantages to standing upright (apart from freeing up two arms to do things with like grab forbidden fruit slightly higher up in the trees)  – you can see farther; wade slightly deeper waters, in general a bipedal stance comes at a considerable cost. Two limbs now have to take up all the body weight instead of four legs (or six - if you’re a bug; or eight – if you’re a spider). If one of those two limbs fails, you’re in deep poo. However, survival is more probable if you have four (or six or eight) legs and one fails.

Further, if you’re bipedal, your centre of gravity shifts, making you way more prone to losing your balance and falling over. Also, bipedal animals tend to run slower than a quadrupedal one. Most dogs whose backbones are at my knee height or more, and cats, can easily outrun me. The same goes for alligators, even with their splayed out limbs when they’re going full tilt. The upshot of all of that is that in the animal kingdom, only birds (and their ancestors, the theropod bipedal saurischian dinosaurs) are (or were) bipedal – for fairly obvious reasons. Two of their four ‘legs’ have evolved for flying. Humans have no such fallback since we can’t flap our arms and fly.

You don’t have to be a professional zoologist or expert in anatomy to realise that any creature going from a quadrupedal gait to a bipedal one has to have a massive amount of anatomical alterations to its basic structures. Bone and muscle lengths and widths will change; there must be alterations to the various joints, nearly all muscle attachments to the bones will alter; support structures for many internal organs will need rethinking, etc. Imagine the anatomical changes you’d have to make in your dog or cat or horse for that animal to walk in the same manner you do; imagine the changes that would have to be made in your anatomy for you to walk like a dog, cat or horse. It’s a big ask of natural selection to go from quadrupedal to bipedal without some clearly defined survival advantage(s); perhaps not so much of an ask if the shift is artificial selection; guided by an intelligence using bioengineering or genetic engineering techniques.

Now various animals can, and do, for brief periods, stand upright, say prairie dogs, chipmunks, bears, etc. Some animals can be taught to briefly stand up like circus elephants. Kangaroos, wallabies and related are usually bipedal, but they hop, not walk or run. Not even our primate relations routinely walk around on two legs although many can and do so for brief periods.

I think the advantages of a bipedal way of posture and locomotion are overstated, otherwise way more animals would have evolved that posture; you’d expect our cats and dogs to not so much as sit-up and beg but stand-up and beg for special treats. Out of millions and millions of vertebrate species that have existed over the past 300 or so million years of geologic history, only a relative tiny handful have adopted the bipedal mode of lifestyle. It’s not proved to be exactly an evolutionary success story unlike the more universal backbones and rib cages and skulls all vertebrates have.

Overall, in the biological scheme of things, we’re not just a little bit more advanced in a bipedal way, we’re WAY MORE advanced. The question is, why? Again, why are humans so obviously bipedal? And if we’re not so inclined to be bipedal by natural selection, perhaps then we’ve been so evolutionary inclined by artificial selection – by the ‘gods’ to free up our upper limbs, a useful trait if the ‘gods’ put us to work.

Now humans are smart. We’re top of the ‘food chain’ when it comes to IQ. We have very large brains relative to our body size. We have very complex brains. But all that size and complexity has a cost. An infant’s head has to be pretty soft and squishy and malleable and hence very vulnerable in order to fit through the birth canal, and even then it’s a struggle and a pretty dicey part of an infant’s and mother’s life.

Another high IQ evolutionary drawback is that it takes a lot of energy from the food we consume to power the brain and brain functions/activity, including thinking and processing thoughts. Higher IQ translates into the need to consume more calories. In the ancient world that took additional time to find or harvest food; in the modern era, it costs you more, say pound for pound to feed you vis-à-vis your lower IQ companion animals. 

Now intelligence, the ability to figure things out, must have a degree of natural survival value. Cats and dogs and pigs and many wild birds and dolphins and the humble octopus and our primate cousins aren’t dumb. Again, unlike the universal vertebrate backbone, rib cages, and skulls millions of vertebrate species have (or had) only one has excelled – top-of-the-pops – in IQ. BUT, we’re not just a little bit more advanced in the IQ department. We’re massively more advanced.

One might expect, based on natural selection, that if our average IQ was 100, perhaps our primate relations might have an average IQ of say, 90. That’s not the case. Most of the mammalian kingdom is clustered around a relatively narrow range of IQ way lower than ours. A dog isn’t a 100 times smarter than a cat or vice versa. But, humans are a 100 times smarter than our mammalian (and all other vertebrate) relations. Why? What natural evolutionary pressure did we face than thousands of other vertebrates, especially mammals, and especially, especially the primates, didn’t? Some human-only evolutionary pressure drove up our IQ levels to such extraordinary heights, but what evolutionary pressure?

You’d be hard pressed to think of any other terrestrial bipedal, high IQ species that could build the pyramids – in fact the answer is no other terrestrial species could.  Again, why were humans so blessed? And if we’re not so blessed with a high IQ by natural selection, then perhaps it must be by artificial selection; selection by, or genetic bioengineering by, the ‘gods’?

Moving on down the line, as each step in the ‘gods’ enforced artificial evolution of humans was achieved, slightly more upright posture; slightly higher average IQ, the previous lot – the less advanced hominoid species – were left to their own fate – extinction. There’s a lot of extinct hominoid species (for example, Homo habilis, Gigantopithecus or the Neanderthals) that are evolutionary links separating us from our primate ancestors, most probably chimpanzees, now our closest modern kissing cousins. 

When the ‘gods’ had at last achieved a reasonable facsimile of their objective, they gave us the gifts of knowledge (the basics anyway) and helped kick-started us on our road to civilized society. At some point or other we probably – ungrateful twerps that we tend to be – pissed them off and they packed their bags and left, perhaps leaving behind a token presence (UFOs) to monitor us to ensure we don’t ever become a threat to them and reverse the roles of slave and master.

To be continued...

Exobiology: Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate intelligent life-in-the-Universe one needs to look at whether the trait of ‘intelligence’ is something that Mother Nature, via biological evolutionary mechanisms, will be selected for. Does intelligence have survival value? We’d say ‘yes’ because we’re intelligent and we exist. However, when viewing all the species of life that currently are and have been, well, we’re a fluke – an intelligent fluke but that very intelligence makes us that fluke of nature nonetheless. Based on terrestrial sampling, Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI) will be equally somewhat a cosmic fluke, hence rare.

It’s been pointed out by others, and based on my readings I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe (extraterrestrial intelligence) are a dime-a-dozen relative to biologists (life scientists), who hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?

Anyway, once you have multicellular critters that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves.

IMHO, intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have evolved life forms with ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

However, if the evolution of intelligence were the be-all-and-end-all to ensuring survival and being fruitful and multiplying, then your everyday household moggy would be catching mice through pure intellectual genius and setting down moggy-made mousetraps – and the ever evolving intelligent mice avoiding the cat by figuring out what the cat was planning!

No, there are many evolutionary pathways to success and survival and reproducing. In the case of the moggy, evolving faster reflexes, being able to run faster for longer durations, evolving ever more acute hearing and vision – well that’s probably going to ultimately catch more mice than pure brainpower.

So, yes, intelligence will be selected for, but that trait is in serious competition with other traits in terms of ensuring that you live long and prosper. Just like there are many roles or occupations humans play and work at in society, not all roles or occupations are equal in ensuring success and longevity, yet maximizing whatever abilities you have at least give you the maximum odds that whatever role or occupation you have will ensure you have the maximum chance of living long and living in prosperity. 

While humans are currently top of the pops in the I.Q. stakes, it’s been speculated by at least one evolutionary biologist/vertebrate palaeontologist (Dale Russell) that had that asteroid not wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago, well there might now be dinosaurs on the Moon. One dinosaur-critter in particular, called Stenonychosaurus or Troodon (dinosaur names can change as quickly as the seasons) had all the right sorts of attributes, large brain size, manipulative digits, upright posture, that with just enough evolutionary tweaking... Well, that asteroid came along and as a result we landed on the Moon, not the dinosaurs.

Exobiology: The Final Proverbial “It”

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate the probability of intelligent life-in-the-Universe one needs to examine how unique we humans are. Can we determine, theoretically, our uniqueness? The Drake Equation (named after radio astronomer and SETI scientist Frank D. Drake) estimates the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy that could in theory say “Hi” to us and receive our “Hello” in return by examining all the factors that are part and parcel of that scenario. Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species has been around for only some 200,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial “It”? Here’s my final two cents worth.

Lastly, there’s the issue of longevity. If your neighbours move in, but then move out again in less than 24 hours, that doesn’t allow much time to meet them and chat over afternoon tea - blink, and they’re gone. But if you’re both on the block for twenty years, that allows lots of time for afternoon teas, philosophical chats and bridge games, etc. So, how long do technological civilizations last?  

Well, the pessimist will look around and cite global warming, probably antibiotic resistant germs giving rise to pandemics, chemical, biological and radiological warfare and/or terrorism, the extinction of species, rampant pollution, and in general an overall quality of life heading rapidly down the gurgler, right down to the point that the human race will to extinct – by our own hand. But if you’re an optimist, then the sky’s the limit.

Longevity – It’s hard to imaging what human civilization, what humans themselves, will be like 1000 years from now, but if you could come back 1000 years hence, would you indeed find a human civilization, indeed find recognizable ‘humans’ at all? Once you have evolved to the stage of being a multicellular critter with intelligence and technology, then physics and chemistry and plain everyday evolutionary biology are no longer in control of your evolution. You are now in control! You are in control not only over the future evolution of other species (artificial selection instead of natural selection) but of your own evolution. The age of the designer baby is already upon us, albeit still in its infancy (pun intended). What will another several more decades bring to this now embryonic field but obviously an ever ongoing and continuing maturity! 

Humans will probably go kaput within 1000 years, not because of a global nuclear war, or pandemic, or asteroid strike, but because they have by their own hand evolved into something else, and the process has already started. In fact, it’s possible that in 1000 years there could be two humanoid species on Earth. One will be an amalgamation of flesh and blood plus ‘iron and silicon’; the other pure ‘iron and silicon’ (robots).

The first is not too difficult a swallow. Just replace or augment flesh and blood bits with ‘iron and silicon’ bits (or wood bits, or ceramic bits, or plastic bits, etc.). Look at most pirate films and you’ll see those beloved peg-legs and hook-hands. Do you wear glasses or contact lenses? What about a hearing aid? Perhaps you have an artificial joint(s) or a heart pacemaker. You surely have a dental filling (or two), maybe even dentures. Then there’s artificial skin and all manner of other internal or external types of technology that have replaced your failed flesh and blood – like kidney dialysis. There’s now serious talk about the development of a bionic eye within a few years (to go with the bionic ear). What further artificial bio-bits will be available in another 20 years, another 50 years, or another 200 years? The era of the “RoboCop” or an actual “Six-Million Dollar Man” (and “Woman”) is nearly upon us.

Within 200 years or so, I can envision that one will be able to download the contents of a human mind into an ‘iron and silicon’ equivalent.  Why? Well, does the word ‘immortality’ (or as close to immortality as makes no odds) suggest a possible reason? You don’t think anything of endlessly replacing worn automobile parts for new parts to extend the useful lifetime of your car. Why not endlessly replace your worn parts. Your mind (brain) won’t last forever. Replace it - transfer it to a more durable technology Do it again, and again and again as is necessary. In fact, one might create a mega-mind or super-mind by merging into an ‘iron and silicon’ body a lot of minds. By merging the minds of say a cosmologist, general relativist, quantum physicist and mathematician, one might speed up the development of the Holy Grail of physics, the Theory of Everything (TOE) – which is a theory of quantum gravity. 

Once your mind is contained in an ‘iron and silicon’ ‘head’, just attach that to an all ‘iron and silicon’ ‘body’. Immortality indeed!

All of which leads to a future Earth inhabited by a humanoid robot species, artificially evolved from today’s human species. That process too has already started. Robotic appliances, even artificial ‘iron and silicon’ ‘pets’ are on the market. Research into artificial intelligence is ever ongoing. Watch that final minute of the final episode of the TV revision of “Battlestar Galactica’! How about those sci-fi “Transformers” or “Terminators”, or Data (from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”)? Then there’s “Doctor Who’s” Cybermen or Daleks (though they’re part machine; part organism). Think of those robots from “Westworld” or “Futureworld” where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong… Then there’s “The Stepford Wives”, “Cherry 2000”, the original “Battlestar Galactica” Cylons, and many more. It might be just science fiction today – could it be science fact tomorrow? There doesn’t seem to be any violation of physics involved. Everything not forbidden is compulsory! However, some of those sci-fi scenarios suggest that perhaps ultimately there might be a conflict between the (part) machines we become, and the (artificially) intelligent machines that we create!

Of course we’re in control, so a robotic future isn’t of necessity compulsory. But I suspect it will happen. Why? There are rational reasons for humans deliberately abandoning their flesh and blood existence and evolving themselves, if not 100% into ‘iron and silicon’ then at least into something part flesh and blood coupled with part ‘iron and silicon’ – sort of like we have today (recall those dentures and peg-legs). 

Quite apart from immortality arguments, it’s nice having more indestructible bodies and bodies that can be more easily repaired. Death won’t go totally away of course – accidents still happen. Presumably, your mind will be able to absorb 10, 100, 1000 times the amount of experiences and memories and knowledge, etc. than is currently the case. You might be able to explore environments now closed to you, like taking a stroll across the sea bottom – kilometres down – in your robotic ‘birthday’ suit. All of which then opens up the entire ‘boldly going’ experience. What’s the hardest part of going to Mars? – it’s the flesh and blood frailty of the human body – the need for gravity and oxygen and organic food and water, and space suits, and how you can’t carry spare flesh and blood parts along too, etc.  Extrapolate to our exploration of the entire solar system, then our stellar neighbourhood, eventually the galaxy. Even if you don’t want to go yourself, well, there’s artificial intelligence housed in perhaps nanotechnology bodies, spreading throughout the cosmos like so much cancer.  

The ultimate point of all of this is that if eventually us (humans), why not them (extraterrestrials) now? Translated, after a relative short period of biological development, a civilization can obtain longevity that evolutionary development into ‘iron and silicon’ provides, coupled with far easier expansion into the realm of outer space.

This level of technology can also partly undo the bottleneck created by the relative improbability of multicellular evolution. There maybe relatively few multicellular infested planets, but once technology of the ‘iron and silicon’ kind happens on them, then boldly going, being fruitful and mechanically multiplying and colonizing the cosmos rapidly fill that gap.

All of which doesn’t mean that we are, in the here and now, the proverbial “It’. However, there are enough ‘probability one’ or certainty factors that suggest this is rather unlikely. The proof of the pudding will be to find them; or for them to find us.

The UFO ETH: Pro and Con: Alien Intelligence Doesn’t Exist

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena, this time the endless stalemate between those supporting the UFO ETH, and those sceptical debunkers of the UFO ETH starting with the most basic of all arguments, UFOs can not be extraterrestrial because while there are extraterrestrials, they have never evolved an intelligence. No extraterrestrial intelligence; no extraterrestrial UFOs.

Ultimately, what this all boils down to; the three key points to be discussed, are whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence exists, and if so, does extraterrestrial technology, technology that can get E.T. from there to here, evolve of necessity? Lastly, having evolved a sophisticated advanced boldly going technology, how long do you have it? Translated, we need to answer whether or not Darwinian evolution, natural selection, will favor intelligence, technology and long-term survival.

OBJECTION #2: Extraterrestrials exist; extraterrestrial intelligence doesn’t. No alien intelligence means no-go to the UFO ETH.

ANSWER: Again, not even respectable SETI scientists would propose this an objection to the UFO ETH since that would undercut their own work. Clearly the evolution of intelligence, albeit being just one of many competing traits for biological survival of the fittest, does have ultimate survival value. The Earth provides a practical example of that as many species can be attributed a reasonable degree of an ability to figure things out, and that it is possible to evolve extremely high levels of intelligence is witnessed by ourselves. If Mother Nature can evolve one biological highly intelligent species, she can do it again, and again, and again on other worlds. 

Some people object to the UFO ETH on the grounds that we (humans) are the proverbial be-all-and-end-all of the cosmos in terms of overall smarts and being tool makers – there are no other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, therefore UFOs can not have anything to with extraterrestrial intelligence. Translated, they adopt the more religious point of view that humans (and human intelligence) were created in the image of God and therefore no other intelligences can exist. No alien intelligence means no-go to the UFO ETH.

The answer to that issue, that extraterrestrial life exists, but not extraterrestrial intelligence (for religious reasons or otherwise), well, the answer is yet again that not even respectable SETI scientists would propose this as an objection to the UFO ETH since again that would undermine their own work. Clearly the evolution of intelligence, albeit being just one of many competing traits for biological survival-of-the-fittest, does have ultimate survival value. The Earth provides a practical example of that. Many species can be attributed to having a reasonable degree of ability to figure things out, and that it is possible to evolve extremely high levels of intelligence is witnessed by us existing. If Mother Nature can evolve one biological highly intelligent species, She can do it again, and again, and again on other worlds. 

Now based on a statistical sample of one, it’s been a long tough road to get from microbes to ferns to jellyfish to sharks to newts to crocodiles to crows to cattle. Once you have multicellular critters (like ferns and cows) that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve into intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves. Again, no alien intelligences translate into UFOs having zip to do with aliens.

The issue now is having evolved to a multicellular stage (like magpies and buffalo), will organisms develop some higher brain function? Is there any further evolutionary advantage towards increasing one’s intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the answer is roughly ‘not likely’. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn’t inspire confidence that intelligence has inevitable value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don’t (can’t) stop to figure things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are a few exceptions.  Many wild birds would put our everyday companion animals to shame in the IQ department. I mean I adore my cats, but a little Einstein they’re not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher IQ bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart – by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain functions. Take my cats. Is it to their survival advantage to ‘figure things out’ or to  just be a bit faster afoot, have a bit more acute hearing, have sharper vision? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, intelligence is not the only game in town, and therefore doesn’t have what I’d call any evolutionary ‘certainty’ or destiny.  However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to figure things out, isn’t valuable and doesn’t have any survival value; it’s just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an IQ of even one (the human average is 100). So, let’s say intelligence is somewhere between near certainty and highly improbable. That’s a rather ‘have your cake and eat it too’ position.

IMHO, the bottom line is that intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have life forms that have evolved ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

So IMHO, the second objection fails.