https://uapro.tumblr.com/post/692166849732935680/the-fermi-paradox-bites-snails-from-a-spirited

It's a screenshot of an exchange, a snippet out of a thread,
from over in Talk.Origins dating to 2005...

I for one positively love, Love, LOVE the potential found in
alien life forms. And it doesn't have to be hyper advanced,
super intelligent, technological life either. No little green
men landing and asking that someone to "Take me to your
leader."

No, microbes will do just fine. At least for a while. Generations,
maybe.

See, we only have one model for evolution, the earth, and
it's SEVERELY limited by the stupidity of humans. Our
emotions.

All humans. No exceptions.

Humans aren't an intelligent species, we are an emotional
species that also includes an element of intelligence. But,
to call humans "Intelligent" is just plain wrong.

THE OCEAN

Choose one characteristic by which to describe the ocean.

Just one.

It's going to be water. Unless you're an twit, it's water. Saying
that the ocean is "A large body of water" isn't entirely inaccurate
but if we were to choose one and only one characteristic then
water it is.

"The ocean is a large body of salt."

Nope. Grossly inaccurate.

So we call it "Water" even if it's also salt, and life and of course
other minerals but "Water" is close enough."

And calling humans "Emotional" is like calling the ocean "Water."
It's not entirely accurate, there's other components, certainly
very important components, but all are dwarfed in their
contribution by emotions... in humans... or water, in the ocean.

Humans are emotional twits.

Yes, even you. There are no exceptions.

Want proof?

Darwin didn't "Invent" or "Discover" evolution. His greatest
impact on science was to hold it back for several decades,
by becoming the face of naturalism and rejecting Mendel, and
it is DEFINITELY a case that if Darwin had hung himself before
writing his first book then Wallace & others would have
published just the same, with extremely little chance of making
the same errors that Darwin made.

You knew that?

Well, Darwin didn't even believe in evolution. Oh, sure, he used
the word but if you ever heard of this thing called usenet, and
played on it long enough, you're totally accustomed to people
using words wrong. You don't even need to be on usenet, it
happens often enough in real life, we frequently encounter
people using words wrong, saying things wrong...
misunderstanding words...

I mean, when Darwin said "Evolution" he wasn't thinking of
evolution. No, what he had in his head exactly matched what
those who REJECTED evolution thought of in it's place.

Stalin & Mao made Lysenkoism the official "Science" of the
communist world. People risked their life and certainly their
freedom for teaching (or even practicing) the Capitalist
VooDoo of evolution. They taught Lysenkoism in it's place,
and Lysenkoism was virtually identical to Darwin's one and
only theory -- Pangenesis -- both being little more than
plagiarized copies of Lamarckism...

So, there. Your EMOTIONAL rejection of reality supersedes
any intelligence you may have. Though you are intellectually
capable of dealing with the Darwin hoax, you could probably
even figure it all out on your own, no help from me, you are
EMOTIONALLY castrated. You can't do it.

Must.. Defend... Darwin...

Darwin... god...

Science... Incarnate...

And that's the problem right there, lady.

So if we had alien life, any alien life, we could study it and in
so doing confirm or dispel a great many notions we now take
for granted.

It's not that we humans, all of us humans, impose our a-priori
assumptions on data & observations, it's that we often (usually,
always) don't know that we're doing it!

So from this perspective, it's actually quite possible that so
called "lower life forms" would be more valuable to us. After all,
the more highly advanced a species is, the more likely that they
have shaped the genetics of life on their planet, assuming that
our concept of "Genetics" even applies.

We want simple life to study, to show us the actual parameters
that evolution is working within.

Look. Even before technology, even being emotional beings with an element of intelligence instead of just intelligent, we humans were
changing the life around us. Domestication, for example. Extinction.

So life, even bacterial life from Mars or Ganymede, could harbor
the potential to completely rewire the human brain, as far as
leading with our assumptions goes. Or defending a favorite idea
instead of the soundest conclusion.

I am genuinely excited about the prospects.


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https://jtem.tumblr.com/post/692867215050047488

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