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Originally posted by Knibblet:
Lucky for them, we're a peaceful race.

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
The ONLY intelligence out there is cow fetuses. Lucky for them, we're a peaceful race.

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Originally posted by Hero:
I'm as peacable as they come, so long as they stay on their side of the fork.

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
This interesting little tidbit caught my eye :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594683/

Perhaps other than humans, the only intelligence out there is cow fetuses.

Actually ... thinking about it ... humans aren't overly blessed with intelligence. The ONLY intelligence out there is cow fetuses. Lucky for them, we're a peaceful race.

"Just keep walkin, preacher man."

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
This interesting little tidbit caught my eye :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594683/

Perhaps other than humans, the only intelligence out there is cow fetuses.

Actually ... thinking about it ... humans aren't overly blessed with intelligence. The ONLY intelligence out there is cow fetuses. Lucky for them, we're a peaceful race.

"Just keep walkin, preacher man."

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Interesting article Knibs, but without planetary exploration it is only so much speculation. We would be highly arrogant indeed to think that we are alone in this vast 'verse.

Personally I think of the the, what, most likely millions of planets in the universe there are many other planets capable of supporting life, we just haven't gotten of this rock to go find them.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Originally posted by Noocyte:

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Originally posted by BrownCoat1:

Quote:

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
This interesting little tidbit caught my eye :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594683/

Perhaps other than humans, the only intelligence out there is cow fetuses.

Actually ... thinking about it ... humans aren't overly blessed with intelligence. The ONLY intelligence out there is cow fetuses. Lucky for them, we're a peaceful race.

"Just keep walkin, preacher man."

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Interesting article Knibs, but without planetary exploration it is only so much speculation. We would be highly arrogant indeed to think that we are alone in this vast 'verse.

Personally I think of the the, what, most likely millions of planets in the universe there are many other planets capable of supporting life, we just haven't gotten of this rock to go find them.

"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."

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Well, as for the "arrogant" part, I think this is only one of the attitudes which might accompany that belief, the other being "lonely." If there is no other life in the 'verse, then that places a GREAT responsibility on us, since that makes us, as Carl Sagan once said, "the universe made aware of itself." If anything, that makes me feel mighty humble and obliged to make a good account of myself, and to use this immeasurably unlikely windfall called consciousness to the best effect I can. After all (to quote "Angel"), "If nothing we do matters, then nothing matters but what we do."

As for the "getting off this rock" bit, I agree and disagree. I am a MAJOR supporter of moving out into the cosmos and seeing what is there (since, as previously noted, we are the only ones we know of who are actually looking). Where I diverge somewhat is in dissing the Earth so. This is one fabulously lovely planet we have here, and I think it would poison the stream of our explorations if our emerging mobility in space were to cause us to devalue our origins. I know that's not what you meant, Browncoat1 but, in case you haven't noticed, I tend to get hung up on the implications of even the most seemingly inoccuous words. I don't know about you, but the words, "Earth-that-was" fill me with tremendous sadness and loss. I suspect that this was part of Joss' intent. The characters of Firefly are people who can Never Go Home, and are adrift in a universe in which they lack the existential anchor which we take for granted. Heavy stuff...

In any case, the previously cited article spoke to the formation of extrasolar planets, which we are not likely to be jetting off, in person, to see for the next few generations at least (have to get out of low Earth orbit first, y'see!). Also, it pretty much spoke to theories which are advanced without much in the way of observation (since we have no scopes which can directly resolve anything around another sun [imagine trying to spot a candle next to one of those Hollywood spotlights at a range of a mile]). I think that article's tentative conclusions have to be taken with a bag of salt till we can gather more data. The one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to be surprised by what we find.

Keep flyin'!!



Department of Redundancy Department

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You are right Noocyte, I did not mean anything disrespectful towards the Earth when I used that phrase.

Personally I love this planet, and it feels me w/ a sense of dread to think that we may render her inhabitable because of our foolish, wasteful ways. I would love to see some conservation programs and safe, clean, alternate energy sources found to preserve the natural resources we have now.

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Originally posted by Noocyte:
However, there are manymanymanymanyMANY species on this planet which are doing Just Fine without a hugely swollen bulb of central nervous tissue allowing them to run analogue simulations of the world between their ears. We must be careful to avoid the "anthropic principle," and presuming that we stand at the TOP of some kind of evolutionary pyramid. There are lots of factors which confer an evolutionary advantage to an organism, and sentience is only one of them (and, I feel compelled to add, the long-term viability of that adaptation is still in question...)

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Originally posted by annik:

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Originally posted by Noocyte:
However, there are manymanymanymanyMANY species on this planet which are doing Just Fine without a hugely swollen bulb of central nervous tissue allowing them to run analogue simulations of the world between their ears. We must be careful to avoid the "anthropic principle," and presuming that we stand at the TOP of some kind of evolutionary pyramid. There are lots of factors which confer an evolutionary advantage to an organism, and sentience is only one of them (and, I feel compelled to add, the long-term viability of that adaptation is still in question...)

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Woo hoo! Let's give it up for the bacteria, folks!

Single-celled organisms *rule*.

Cheers,
Annik
... my sister's a ship. We had a complicated childhood.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Knibblet:
This interesting little tidbit caught my eye :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5594683/

Perhaps other than humans, the only intelligence out there is cow fetuses.

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