There has been a recent upsurge in email coming my way. Some of it is very complimentary, thank you very much to all who have written in to say nice things about the blog, and some of it is extremely nasty (no thank you, I’m not interested in being sent to hell right now), but others … others are just weird.
No Idea what you’re up against
PZ,
You have absolutely no idea what you’re up against. At this very moment, several species of aliens are surrounding this planet. Oh yeah, out millions of stars and billions of years, we’re the only intelligent forms there are, and our hundred year old physics says FTL is impossible, etc. Everything is so nice and secure. Dumbass. NORAD, our government, and others know it all, but they won’t reveal anything untill the bitter end. Think those california drones were hoaxes? Think again.
You rock. That’s why Blockbuster’s offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.
I’m also getting weirded out by those ads that get appended to stuff sent through yahoo. Even the email that’s telling me God is going to enjoy rending me limb from limb close with that discordant claim that I “rock”.
Don’t tell this fellow, though, that of course I know all that he said — I’m just being paid tons of quatloos and the promise of being given dominion over al the fjords of Earth by the reptoids, if only I continue to spread disinformation through the interwebs. The California drones were hoaxes! Bigfoot doesn’t even know how to pilot a transdimensional alien probe through telepathy.
ITS A COOK BOOK!!!
At least this guy (or gal, but probably a guy) is more rational than the religionists. No, less irrational, is a better way of putting it. Of course some might argue against this, on the grounds that belief in Christianity is rational owing to the arguments from Authority & Majority.
What the heck, they’re all nuts.
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED.
Contributing to a crazy person’s delusions is wrong! You’re a bad man. Bad!
HEY! They promised ME the fjords of Earth! I’m starting to smell something fishy, and it’s not just the Mon Calamari people…
I told you that you needed the stupid filter!
I’m not worried. The leprechauns will sort things out in the end.
PZ I just sold my soul to a cephelopod! BTW. It said, “you rocked” too.
Hey I sent you that California Drones info!
Sorry. Didn’t know the Ufologists and David Icke types would eventually pile on.
I’m always wondering about claims like those–what the hell do they think you’re supposed to do about the aliens?
Sure, they might be there, or here, swarming, plotting, conspiring to take over the world. Even if so, though, we clearly can’t do anything about it, since we can’t even pin down their existence once and for all.
It’s sort of like ID. Even if it were true, it would hardly change a thing, since in the case of ID we’d have to use evolution as the only useful guide to science–even if it were not what happened.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Well do you want your fjords in N Europe or Africa?
Well I for one welcome our alien and evilutionist overlords.
People, please. It’s not ‘fjord’, it’s ‘fnord’.
Dang, that one sounds like my brother. I really hope it isn’t. It would make me feel too much like Ted Kazinsky’s brother.
JC
You only said ‘fjord’ because it’s inherently funny. Like ‘lizard’. Or (duh) ‘squid’.
So, I asked myself, “How different is this from nutball creationist claims?” Still talking to myself, and the person on the bus had moved to the next seat by this point, I answered, “Not much.”
This does sound a little bit like a Nancy Leider/Planet X rant. Maybe this is one of her followers…?
If the California Drones start singing sixties era soul songs, I am going to get very worried.
You should have seen the original, nixed version of Ratatouille.
Chef Gusteau’s book is actually titled, “Anyone Can Cook Humans”!
No, I said fjord because I really like fjords. When the reptoids take over, I’ll be living on an island in Puget Sound, shuttling off to Norway now and then in my Bigfoot-piloted flying saucer.
Now I’m worried … All this time I thought the aliens were here to help us … to save us from ourselves … I feel so used.
TO UNITE ALL MANKIND FREE! ALL ONE! ALL ONE!
Everyone knows the earth belongs to the mice, just go ask the dolphins. But be sure to take them some fish when you do.
Those Reptiloids are like those guys who try and sell you the Brooklyn bridge, don’t listen to them.
Re: “What You’re Up Against” email:
I think you should email Dembski back and tell him to leave you alone.
I’m just being paid tons of quatloos and the promise of being given dominion over al the fjords of Earth by the reptoids, if only I continue to spread disinformation through the interwebs.
So that’s why they wouldn’t offer me those.
Hey. Can we make a trade? I’ll give ya New Jersey for… ummm…
Well, probably for just about anything. Hell, make me an offer.
He must have been using one of those free email services that append ads to the end of every email. Exactly how do such places stay in business given that places like gmail and yahoo offer free email without any of that junk?
The bug-eyed, green-skinned alien
In orbit in his craft
Observed the humans down below…
And laughed, and laughed, and laughed!
Bad-
Wow. The aliens must have taken your brain in the last wave of abductions. Yahoo appends ads to practically everything. Fortunately, you can usually turn this “feature” off in your settings.
I’m just confused by the non-sequitor.
I mean, why write to you, PZ?
In general, you cover biology research, general science news, and cdesign proponentist woo.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cover alien woo, bigfoot woo etc. By the same token, there are bloggers out there who focus on that sort of thing. Did they get e-mail too?
Pinin’ for the fjords like a dead Norwegian Blue, are ya?
You should publish these in a “Hatemail” section like Bobby Henderson does on Venganza.org (Flying Spaghetti Monster). It’s like an online Creationist Zoo.
I think you meant this as a general question; maybe you meant “Did they get this e-mail too?”, I can’t answer that. But e-mail like this? You bet. I’d be interested in knowing how many Phil Plait gets, for example, but I bet it’s in the dozens every day.
One of my favorite features of Landover is that if you send them an email, they will post it, period. You should look through their archives. They tell you they will post it, email address and all. I’d thought about sending them a “Wow, you guys are doing great!”-type of email, but then I remembered, it’d be out there forever.
I now congratulate them telepathically.
Wait just a damn minute here. The Greys offered ME dominion of the fjords as well for my cooperation in disseminating false information on their eventual harvest of 50% of our population. Obviously the Reptiliods made a clerical error in believing that the fjords were free to give away.
On a side note, if people are starting to notice things, maybe we should turn up the dosage in the chemtrails.
I thought the “fjords” was a nod to Douglas Adams, actually. (We all know what the “fnords” is a nod to: ewige Blumenkraft . . . heh, heh, heh . . .).
I for one welcome our new alien overlords!
I’m actually glad you left the Blockbuster text ad in that e-mail. I smiled. It was cathartic. After reading that message and coming dangerously close to grokking the mind that generated it, finding out what deals Blockbuster was offering me allowed my brain to return to the real world.
I suggest that you append that to any e-mail you post, even if it wasn’t in the original message. It’s like one of those palette cleansing crackers you’re supposed to eat before taking sips of different wines.
Or popular bloggers like PZ, Steve Wells, James Randi, Phil Plait, etc, need to form a cooperative blog where they collecively post their more entertaining emails. Sort of a bad-emails to rational people blog.
Have I mentioned how I love that all the stupid people you quote are represented in Comic Sans?
#28, obviously the writer knows that the minds immeasurably superior to ours regarding this Earth with envious eyes belong to cephalopods.
HAIL SQUID.
Laugh it up chumps. They are here. http://isaaccaret.fortunecity.com/
God is coming back on April 20, 2008 at around 1800 GMT. I would suggest that all of you get right with the Lord before it is too late.
Be glad that I am sharing my revelation with you. GOD IS COMING BACK APRIL 20, 2008 AT AROUND 1800 GMT.
I’ve been blogging about it but no one seems to be paying attention. You’d think people would care that Jesus is coming soon.
But this guy with the alien talk, what a wacko.
DaveX –We’ll just have Slartibartfast cook you up some new fjords. The mice won’t mind.
I, for one, welcome our multi-specied alien overlords!
So have you followed your commanding superiors’ instructions to send more Chuck Berry records into space?
The thing I love about these kinds of claims is the perspective they provide.
The person’s beliefs are so clearly insane that even a creationist would instantly know he was a nutjob…
…yet even as obviously crazy as his delusions are, the possibility of them actually reflecting the truth is significantly higher than that whole Jesus bidniz.
This guy is MORE SANE than the religious. Poor fucking godbots.
Hey, that’s my wife’s birthday! Do you think he’d like some cake?
#45: The LORD has revealed to me that, yes, as long as it is not angel’s food cake, he would like a slice and I would be glad to take it up to him for you.
Part of me wants to ask what that person thinks PZ did to warrant such an e-mail, but I figure the answer would be something like “Flurp chuzzle wazoom spatzlenert,” so I might as well let it go.
So have you followed your commanding superiors’ instructions to send more Chuck Berry records into space?
Hey, if those commanding superiors aren’t asking for Geeshie Wiley instead, they just have no taste. They’ll probably fit right in if they land in the US.
AhEM. See #11, Thomas (and Dave X)
“Don’t you see them? There! Evil, pure and simple, by way of the Eighth Dimension!”
Well PZ,if it isn’t religious vermin inundating you with
insane crap, it’s the alien wackos and assorted demented
halfwits with their brand of insanity. Of course, it all
had it’s inception with the biggest dementia of all,
freaking religion!
#36 – that would be great. They could fnord even have contests of “guess to which blogger this crank mail was addressed!”
Of course, we never would have fnord gotten this one right – I’m pretty sure everyone would have guessed it was Phil’s.
The best part of that email is the “Oh yeah …” as if the writer could hear the reader say to himself, “What?” and then responded.
The blessings of Cthulhu be upon you, may you and yours be eaten first.
Have you dominioned a fjord … lately?
;^D
~David D.G.
MASSACHUSETTS
12 GALAXIES
QUINTRONIC CRIMINALS
TIME MAGAZINE: STAR
HEXTROTRONIC
OSCILLATING
EBULLIENT INOCULATIONS
The loonies all used to write to the President, but that would be extraneous now that the President is entirely surrounded by loonies.
PZ is the next best option.
There’s a train a-comin. Woo-woo-wooo.
I’ve been blogging about it but no one seems to be paying attention. You’d think people would care that Jesus is coming soon.
But this guy with the alien talk, what a wacko.
Posted by: Kyle R.
He’s gonna cover us with leaves and a blanket from the moon.
Maybe Jesus is the alien.
The loonies all used to write to the President, but that would be extraneous now that the President is entirely surrounded by loonies.
Posted by: xebecs
I have to disagree with you on one point. Dubya is the looniest of them all. The surrounding loons are there to protect him from reality. Call them Yes Loons.
Meh – doesn’t even register as a cTC. Much too short.
Can’t blame you for wanting those fjords. Slartibartfarst is quite the artisan.
By the way – it’s nice to see that by the year 3441 you have finally received all your augmentations become a revered squiff professor. – Or peradventure it is one of your spawn. You, yourself, strike me as too pacifist to serve as head of a command school.
It’s not a Cook Book, it’s a Kook Book! (offstage mumble) Oh, we’re not talking about the Bible? Oh, never mind…
BTW though, there is a typo ‘al’ for ‘all’ when you’re talking about Fjords.
How are Quatloos holding up against Euros?
100 year old science? Don’t they know that PZ is working for our cephalopod overlords? Thye don’t call them “Great Old Ones” for nothing you know.
GOD IS COMING BACK APRIL 20, 2008 AT AROUND 1800 GMT.
Awww, damn, that means I still have to file my tax return. Can’t he come back a week earlier?
Hey, PZ, can I come clean your fjords in exchange for rent? I’m gonna need some place to live when the FTL aliens take over the world, bwahahahaha!
I’ve got my own rake and shovel. I’ll even clean your Fords, if that’s what it takes. Please, please, purty please?
You can get an extension – Form 4868. I recommend you pay what you think you might owe. Extending for six months only applies to filing, not paying. If you owe, and don’t pay, there is a “Failure to Pay” penalty, plus interest.
the Loony wrote:
You really should email him back and tell him that he’s blown it. You’ve known all along about the alien presence on our world because you’re working for the aliens and he’d better get on his tin foil hat and run because they’re going to be coming after him soon.
I, for one, welcome our new alien overfjords!
Wait a minute. According to the April 2008 talking points memo from the DI, the Darwinists all believe we were created by aliens.
to #1 “ITS A COOK BOOK!!!”
No… its a KOOK BOOK!!!
Holy shit! REPTOIDS?!?? Nooooo!!!
Rey Fox: “According to the April 2008 talking points memo from the DI, the Darwinists all believe we were created by aliens.”
No, you were “intelligently designed” by aliens. There’s a difference, and don’t you forget it. Or else.
Puny humans, you are not to discuss my species’ impending invasion of your planet.
our hundred year old physics says FTL is impossible
Haven’t the quantum entanglement guys done FTL?
Stutterwarp here we come!
Norman @ #67 – it’s not a tin foil hat, we refer to them as Personal Faraday Cages.
You do know what fjord stands for, right? It’s an acronym for “Found Just Off the Road Dead”.
Makes you think, huh?
By the way, PZ, if they’re paying you in quatloos you’re getting shafted, like the Native Manhattanites taking a box full of costume jewelery for their island. The real interplanetary currency is the BUX (Basic Unit of eXchange), as you should know by now. Sheesh.
First Charlton Heston goes down… Fast food burgers are made of people!!!
Hey, the aliens and I have been talking for weeks. You guys must not have the right settings on your interociters.
Sweet a free month of Blockbuster Total Access! Wow PZ, you really do rock!
Hairy Doctor Professor:
I would suggest you just render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, lest an eternity in Hell sounds pleasing.
IRS + EBE = HEL?
Weird.
Don’t worry PZ, We will just release the “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict” and their done for.
He’s gonna cover us with leaves and a blanket from the moon.
Maybe Jesus is the alien.
Posted by: Janine.
That vid was good, cheered me up. Tom is one of the best.
Off Topic:
PZ may be tickled to learn that if you google “pharyngula” there is a single “sponsored” link over to the right with this in it:
PZ Myers Interview
Come see PZ Myers in the movie
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
http://www.expelledthemovie.com
Yet, if you google “expelled the movie” or “expelled”, you get a total of 3 sponsored links, yet neither are for the expelled movie website itself. So, rather than paying google to have a link to their movie come up when someone types “expelled” into google, the expelled crew payed to have it come up when people type “pharyngula”. I wonder why… I hope they’re sending PZ a cut of that fat check.
Here are a lot of images of the “californian drones”:
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1402&category=Environment
I think the drones look pretty creepy, ominous and out-of-this-world.
Silly people. There’s nothing going on here. Just weather baloons and swamp gas. You all will remember nothing. You need a rest, that’s all. You’re just dreaming.
I recommend a trip to the brain slug planet. Just walk around not wearing hats.
Steve “All will be well after you get some sleeeeep”James
The space aliens are no threat. They took one look at the Creation Museum and decided we weren’t worth conquering. Yes, that’s right: Ken Hamm’s stupidity saved the world!
They also look like something straight out of Halo.
They’re not even hard to render using off the shelf 3D software.
Gort! Klaatu barada nikto, you damn dirty ape!!
:P I think that it’s pretty obvious this guy’s pulling your leg.
………………….right?
Re: Becksi’s link – doesn’t the top of the “drone” in the first couple of pics look for all the world like a metal whisk w/the handle airbrushed out?
Surrender, earthlings, or we’ll whip you into soft peaks!
You see dud people.
Its not my damn planet, Monkeyboy!
On a side note, if people are starting to notice things, maybe we should turn up the dosage in the chemtrails.
Okay, now that was just all kinds of funny.
No, I said fjord because I really like fjords. When the reptoids take over, I’ll be living on an island in Puget Sound, shuttling off to Norway now and then in my Bigfoot-piloted flying saucer.
2 things PZ
#1 Are the reptoids gonna halt global climate change since your personal fjord kingdom might be under water if they don’t.
#2 Do the fjords have Blockbusters on them? I mean, like, how else are you gonna be able to use that coupon?
Like hellloooooo :)
I likes mah flyin’ saucers with ‘FORD’ imprinted on the undahside . . . ats least they knows to buy ‘merican.
it’s not a tin foil hat, we refer to them as Personal Faraday Cages.
Tinfoil hats only deflect the orbital mind control rays, the personal Faraday cage also protects you from rogue Tesla coils.
Here is a good example why creationists are wrong and that blind faith makes you stupid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm
Or why the sun VY Canis Majoris is many, many times bigger then our sun for instance (it is only 5000 light years away, that is going to be a light show when it goes off).
They also don’t wonder why we get super-eruptions every now and then that kill most things nearby. The last one happening 70.000 years ago.
They don’t ask questions that needs answers, because it disproves there believe and there god. They also try to silence people how do ask the questions that needs answers because they know that they are [creationist] weak.
Thanks for a great blog. I look at my self as a citizen scientist, as I have problem getting degrees from school (problem with learning) and I can’t get the help I need.
Here is a good example why creationists are wrong and that blind faith makes you stupid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4278005.stm
Or why the sun VY Canis Majoris is many, many times bigger then our sun for instance (it is only 5000 light years away, that is going to be a light show when it goes off).
They also don’t wonder why we get super-eruptions every now and then that kill most things nearby. The last one happening 70.000 years ago.
They don’t ask questions that needs answers, because it disproves there believe and there god. They also try to silence people how do ask the questions that needs answers because they know that they are [creationist] weak.
Thanks for a great blog. I look at my self as a citizen scientist, as I have problem getting degrees from school (problem with learning) and I can’t get the help I need.
Silly people. There’s nothing going on here. Just weather baloons and swamp gas. You all will remember nothing. You need a rest, that’s all. You’re just dreaming.
Even the former leader of your United States of America, James Earl Carter Jr., thought he saw a UFO once, but it’s been proven he only saw the planet Venus. Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I assure you, it was Venus. Your scientists have yet to discover how neural networks create self-consciousness, let alone how the human brain processes two-dimensional retinal images into the three-dimensional phenomenon known as perception. Yet you somehow brazenly declare seeing is believing? Mr. Crikenson, your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder, and I wouldn’t flaunt your ignorance by telling anyone that you saw anything last night other than the planet Venus, because if you do, you’re a dead man.
I picked one of the “drone” images at more-or-less random (the last one of the “Chad” series apparently looking straight up at the “drone” with a blue sky background). First off, the metadata within the JPEG has been timestamped as having been processed by “Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh” on “2008:03:20 22:40:06”. That proves nothing per se (it could have been innocent triming or similar), albeit the date seems a bit odd given the report’s claim of having received “Chad”s images sometime in 2007.
But the best bit is when I magnified the image 8x and looked at it with a negated colourmap. There are at least five very obvious Phillps screwheads. Very large Phillps screws if you believe the scale (size) of the “drone”…
there’s some images that look like lab photos of a drone.
and it’s obviously using mirroring and default shading from the program.
There’s videos on youtube that pick apart the images really well.
This kind of makes me wonder what type of email Ken Ham gets.
Ken Ham’s e-mail? ALl CaPS!!! (LAKEE HTiS .( poINTG iS EVILOLOLONISTS AeR MEKINA) desTROyedingtf!!!.!.. )juTS MIx wiTH H20 & WIYCH THE FRROGSIES 4 JESSUS!
!)None if he has a rationality filter.
Oh that’s right… his brain is one.
Actually, it’s a processed vegetable substrate. There’s no actual meat in the Doublemeat Medley.
But if I use “The Secret” I can stop all this from happening, right? OK, I’m wishing real hard…
Now this just pisses me off. Here I was about to email you my very own insane diatribe regarding the quantum shifting lycanthropes who are about to be beamed down in Morse Code from the nearest functioning pulsar, and this guy beats me to the punch. What a world.
I received a similar email, but the end was a little different, it read:
“You’re an alright guy I guess. But that’s not why Blockbuster’s offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost. It’s cause we’re freakin’ kuh-razy!”
I’m starting to smell something fishy
Hey, don’t look at me!
Dr. Myers, this is something I’ve wondered about the possibility of alien civilizations (not just alien life, or even intelligent alien life), and I’m wondering what you think.
Homo Sapiens has been around a few hundred thousand years, and human ancestors have been around for millions, but civilization, government, organized religion, and agriculture have only been around for 8-10,000 years – the evolutionary blink of an eye. We didn’t evolve into it, either. We are, physically and mentally, exactly the same as our ancestors of 300,000 years ago.
Therefore, even though a humanlike species (or something much much more intelligent) could possibly be living very happily on another planet or a million other planets, I highly doubt that they have or will ever reach the “civilized” point that allows for something like space travel.
At least, I hope they don’t. One is enough.
Is this you PZ?
via BoingBoing
Well, I don’t think God hates you….
You see, I came across his blog recently! It’s at wordpress. In it he lists ‘Stuff God Hates’.
Seems that the thing he hates most is people bothering him with all those prayers – he hates whiners.
(I don’t know the guy, just think his take on ‘stuff’ is refreshing.)
@blf #99:
Where do you think Phillips got the idea, eh?
To #98:
I think I [bleeping] love you.
There is a linkage between creationism and aliens you know.
Check out the friday evening session at the “creation supercamp” about alien abductions http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/5528
Yep, #1 and #44 saw the point here, #47 and more missed it. The aliens-statement is fabulously false, but at least it is a semantically meaningful sentence expressing an empirically testable claim. Religious claims, on the other hand, are of dubious logical cogency (all-powerful, perfectly good beings who still allow evil to exist? That’s just the first problem) and violating all principles being good hypotheses. The reason Jesus-talk might seem less implausible is merely because it’s more familiar.
The problem stems from the scarcity of tin foil. Aluminum foil just does not block the signals as effectively as good old fashioned tin foil.
MH@112: No, no, that’s backwards. Why do you think the reptoids’ flying saucers are filling up the orbital parking spaces and flooding the economy with quatloos? Mr Phillips was a very smart man, appreciated throughout the looniverse.
Why I don’t get is why THEY didn’t choose the supposedly superior Robertson screw? (Probably because it’s Canadian. ;-) )
blf, those are the screws holding my porch railing together. Good stuff, even if it is from America Lite. ;)
And at the bottom of the deepest fjord of all, Chthulu is licking his mighty chops:
“MMMM…Alien Overlords!”
You can get an extension – Form 4868. I recommend you pay what you think you might owe.
I would suggest you just render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, lest an eternity in Hell sounds pleasing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah — in this case Caesar needs to render unto me, but if the world’s gonna end anyway I’d just as soon not have to do all the paperwork beforehand. As I can’t depend on that happening, I guess that means a few long nights with the computer and the W2 forms. World ending – filling out forms – world ending – filling out forms; I tell ya guys, it’s a tossup. Which accountant does Bigfoot use?
Questionable. I’ve seen varying estimates of when our ancestors start counting as “modern” humans, typically more recent than that… but, for the sake of argument, let’s say that 300,000 years is about right. You’ll still have to explain how this…
…is a “therefore”. Seriously, I’m not following your logic.
you need to respond with a really thankful and urgent insistence that you believe everything he is trying to tell you and would like to build a bunker somewhere with him to be ready when the aliens attack.
Nemo, I too find problems with that logic. Time passes here at the same rate as there, correct? And if “they” had no Dark Ages or horrific wars like we’ve had, they could easily be far advance from us. The real problem is any observations we make our sooooooo old.
My inner grammar nazi fails me tonight:
advanceD
ourareOn June 13th 1986 the Lord God Almighty went for a walk around the city of New Brunswick. After an hour He headed for home, muttering, “It’s going to be a long eternity.”
He is not expected to return.
All…hail…glorious…HypnoToad
That Wash Perry (Bill Phipps). If only he hadn’t welcomed the Martians to California back in ’53!
It is the End of the world. The world is going to end in the year 1914, July 7 @ 4:15pm. Just because that date past doesn’t mean the world isn’t going to end on it.
BTW: You Rock, how about going down to chili’s and trying our new Smokehouse Bacon Burgers, mmmmmmm. delicious.
I can’t believe you sold out to the reptoids. What are the cephalords going to say?
I have seen those Californian drone pics before, including their debunking. It isn’t just the Phillips screws what they are is a part of a model of some sci-fi spacecraft. I looked but it seems I didn’t bookmark it, doh!
Anyway they are a definite and catalogued hoax.
blf:
Epikt, it’s just like Douglas Adams’ whuisgian soda/whiskey and soda/wizz guy in soda…
“You’ll still have to explain how this is a therefore. Seriously, I’m not following your logic.”
Well, it would seem that since not only our evolution but our social development is based on a series of accidents (The ice age, a “fertile crescent,” etc), it seems highly unlikely that even another species who has been around much longer and is much more intelligent would have come up with an idea as seemingly weird as hierarchical civilization. Of course, I’m thinking anthropomorphically here, but I think it at least needs to be questioned.
Also, let us keep in mind that we don’t know the odds of an intelligent race developing, say, opposable thumbs or an equivalent physical structure capable of allowing the development of agriculture and the building of homes and cities, much less space-faring ships. They could be highly intelligent plants or even protozoa. We just don’t know.
I’m not saying any of this is impossible, however; that would be very unscientific. I’m saying it seems that the odds are stacked against the idea even more than I ever year anyone say.
“Time passes here at the same rate as there, correct? And if “they” had no Dark Ages or horrific wars like we’ve had, they could easily be far advance from us.”
Well, the Dark Ages and horrific wars require as a prerequisite a hierarchical civilization, since the means to make war and oppress others requires organization of a hierarchical quality. Again, I know that’s very anthropomorphic of me, but to clarify my logic, that’s what I mean. I think it’s also anthropomorphic thinking to assume that another species would ever evolve into anything even remotely human or simian or even mammalian.
maybe so, George, but even ants and plants make war. Anyway, it’s a damned big universe, so I think we’ll never encounter an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Well, except maybe for a super-intelligent shade of blue.
#83:
I just googled “Pharyngula” and the sponsored ad was this:
Sponsored Links
Expelled Movie Exposed
What isn’t Mr. Stein telling
you about Intelligent Design?
http://www.ExpelledExposed.com
oh I don’t know. I mean if Evolution was a fact then you would not have to defend it. It would defend itself.
I guess facts are not enough. oh wait what facts?
It is just evidence that has been backed with an Atheist world view.
Oh wait, There is no God, only Science. Wait! What happens when science can’t save humankind and it’s all blown up? We will evolve back into monkeys again!!! That’s it!!!
It’s like the Planet of the Apes, but in reverse!
Thanks to science, I think we can all be enlightened and we can learn new ways of destroying ourselves over and over and over again.
PlanetKiller, stop using that computer, it’s a product of science!
Or you could try using it to actually learn about evolution, instead of believing the lies cooked up by your pastor? Unlike him, we actually have evidence to support our views.
PK wrote
What, not content with merely putting every man, women, child and livestock to the sword?
Truebob: don’t forget to spare the female virgins!
What happens when science can’t save humankind and it’s all blown up?
well, if it’s all “blown up”, then you’d have to say any putative deities rather failed at the task as well, right?
you could test your idea quite simply.
start with yourself, and see if a deity or science comes to save you if you do something entirely self destructive.
I’d recommend testing gravitational theory by jumping off a cliff.
let us know if any angels catch you.
man there sure have been some serious whackadoos showing up on Pharyngula lately.
I pledge my allegiance to the dark lord of the universe, PZ Meyers. I always knew he was not of this world. Can I get one of the moons of Saturn if I do your bidding?
Please, please dark lord, don’t EXPEL me from your future kingdom, or I’ll start writing nasty stuff with chalk on a blackboard!
The hillbilly hosts say “That blowed up REAL good! Ahyuk.”
george:
You are making a few assumptions:
Any other civilization is going to be moving along the exact same timeline as we are. Frankly, this possibly one of the dumber things I’ve heard. The universe is 14 billion years old. We’re a tiny spec in that time. The fact that it took us a few hundred thousand years to get things going is like complaining about a drop of water in the ocean.
Hierarchical organization is hardly unique to humans, even on earth. It seems to develop in a huge proportion of social animals. Its not something we came up with recently, its been in our genes for far longer than that. It seems to be a direct result of socialization, and not really hard to imagine occurring on other plants.
You seem to be anthropomorphizing to the point where you don’t consider how anything except humans could ever evolve. Things don’t have to be the same.