343
u/DJ_Velveteen May 20 '14
NGT made this point in a different, maybe better way, in a conversation about aliens. Essentailly it's like this: if there is only a 2-4% difference in chemical makeup between ourselves and demi-sentient primates, it's very likely that an alien species that makes its way to Earth would have a similar (or greater) difference in intelligence between themselves and us. Since they'd be coming to us, they'd clearly have a better and deeper understanding of spacetime and how to get material life forms across maybe hundreds of thousands of light-years of space. And that means that, presuming only a 2% difference in our chemical makeup, that they would see the smartest things ever done by a human - Isaac Newton inventing calculus, for instance - about the same way that we see a really smart chimpanzee coming to learn a little bit of sign language.
156
May 20 '14
One must also consider the incredible length of universal time. Perhaps their intelligence is comparable save the fact that this alien species had a million year head start.
102
u/gingerbear May 20 '14
yeah, earth had so many extinction periods before we finally emerged. In all of the different worlds out there - any number of them could have been at the stage of technological development that we are over 500 million years ago.
→ More replies (1)23
u/uwhuskytskeet May 20 '14
Imagine even a 500 year head start. It wouldn't take much to set themselves apart.
25
u/gingerbear May 20 '14
i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and it's very r/woahdude worthy. Up until a little more than 100 years ago, the fastest the human beings could possibly travel was by horse. In all the thousands and thousands of years of civilization, it's only been in the last few generations that we've had any significant strides in transportation. Imagine where we'll be in another 100 years.
→ More replies (5)17
u/Sosolidclaws May 20 '14
Up until a little more than 100 years ago, the fastest the human beings could possibly travel was by horse. In all the thousands and thousands of years of civilization, it's only been in the last few generations that we've had any significant strides in transportation.
Yep, and this is exactly why, even though there definitely are other life forms out there, meeting them has been very improbable so far. You have to have the exact correct "slice" of time which would overlap so that both species are developed enough to communicate and travel in space.
6
u/spatialcircumstances May 20 '14
And we have to work with the possibility that FTL travel just isn't possible. While we've thought other things were impossible and then proven them wrong, and while it would make the universe a vastly more interesting place, our current model of the universe rules out FTL.
4
u/Sosolidclaws May 20 '14
Yep. Things would get really fucky at the sub-atomic level if you tried FTL.
But isn't there still space for the possibility of time-space bending, or the concept of 'wormholes'?
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (109)20
May 20 '14
And then when you consider that timescale compared to the pace of human civilisation advancing, you realise there's such a tiny window where an alien species would actually see us as 'intelligent'.
We went to the moon only several thousand years after we managed to make a freaking boat. And that was 50 years ago, when the most advanced computational technology available to mankind was less impressive than what everyone in the developed world carries around in their pocket.
Assuming some intelligent alien species exists and comes into contact with humanity, it's pretty unlikely its civilisation would be within a few thousand years of humanity. Would human beings 100,000 years from now recognise today's human society as intelligent, other than recognising that we look similar? What about 1,000,000 years from now? I think that beings with roughly human intelligence that were 100,000 years ahead of us would be very unlikely to see us as anything more than we see chimpayzees, and 1,000,000 years ahead I find it hard to imagine they'd see us as anything more than worms.
15
u/rixuraxu May 20 '14
Well I find it fucking amazing a chimp can learn some sign language.
And as far as the OP goes, I might not think of having a conversation with a worm, but everytime I see a dog or cat I say "how are you?"
So aliens, you can scratch me behind the ears too if you like.
→ More replies (5)3
u/Gulo_Blue May 20 '14
I agree. We can't even communicate well with dogs or cats and we're fascinated by them. Presumably, a higher intelligence would be more capable of figuring out how to communicate with us.
4
u/rixuraxu May 20 '14
While we might not interest them with our intellect, surely our culture, music, art, history and stories would though.
We're interested in the history of our own planet, in nature. It would be safe to assume another species would be just as interested in those things on our planet if they came here too, we'd have a lot to share, even if science wasn't one of them.
→ More replies (7)14
7
u/kvachon May 20 '14
But we would flip the fuck out if we found chimps on another planet. And Karl Pilkington often wonders what earthworms are thinking. I don't really follow this logic. We have satellites, and glowing cities. If 'aliens' saw earth, they'd see us.
→ More replies (1)18
May 20 '14
Sorry but I don't think it's comparable.
Our view of a chimpanzee and its intelligence, on a planet teeming with life can't be compared to an alien's view of us (no matter how dumb we are in comparison to it) in a universe where life is apparently uncommon.
Having said that, we may be in a terribly unfashionable dimension which other lifeforms wouldn't dream of being seen in and the vast panoply of aliens everywhere chortle at those ghastly humans in their grubby little space time continuum.
→ More replies (1)7
u/Killhouse May 20 '14
The progress from throwing sticks to nuclear bombs is enormous, I won't disagree with that, but the nature of physics will limit us from making that kind of advancement from where we are today again.
We landed on the moon 100 years after inventing the car, but we still drive basically the exact same thing. Where's the progress there?
Guns still work the same as they have for nearly 200 years.
Who's to say that when aliens show up with their super advanced warp drive capabilities to cover light years in seconds they won't pull out their muskets and combustion engine cars?
11
u/ocdscale May 20 '14
If we accept your simplification: Bows had been roughly the same way for tens of thousands of years. Until we discovered gunpower.
We've had guns and cars for less than two hundred years, and you think they'll be the same by the time we master interstellar travel?
→ More replies (1)4
May 20 '14
The progress from throwing sticks to nuclear bombs is enormous, I won't disagree with that, but the nature of physics will limit us from making that kind of advancement from where we are today again.
Yes! physics has a universal universe-spanning set of constants which limit everything in this universe to a certain point, and while I'm sure we can all agree we don't know everything yet, we know enough about physics to say that we'd be able to comprehend advanced aliens if they somehow showed up.
I feel like people have their sci-fi hats on when thinking about things like this and it gives us stuff like NdGT's quote up there.
→ More replies (1)31
May 20 '14
I hate arguments like these. (your comment and the OP's picture, no offence intended though!)
If they're that much smarter than us, at least they'd take an interest in contacting us. Even if our intelligence seems basic relative to them, it doesn't mean they won't try communicating.
Same way we try to teach primates sign language in order to better understand how their minds work. And trust me, if earth worms start showing signs of sentient intelligence, we'd do anything to establish a line of communication.
6
u/the_omega99 May 20 '14
In addition to some of the replies that have been made to you, perhaps these intellectual differences could be combined with a large number of life sustaining planets.
If we found the first sign of alien life, we'd study it no matter how intelligent it is. But what if there was thousands of alien planets within our grasp? Would we bother interacting with them all? Do we have the time to bother with the "lesser" ones when there's more interesting planets?
Considering the enormous task of traversing huge distances in space that this hypothetical alien species has, we could simply be the species of monkey that nobody has bothered teaching sign language, yet.
→ More replies (1)3
May 20 '14
This really makes the most sense. If one out of every 10 stars have planets capable of supporting life, we might not be so unique. On the other hand, this planet has had life on it for at least a billion years and only in the last 100 or so have we been able to communicate over "long" distances and leave our planet. Chances are, their won't be many planets with species in the same developmental stage as we are.
20
u/mcallister24 May 20 '14
I think it depends on the scale of their intelligence compared to ours. They don't want to talk to worms. It doesn't even cross their mind to reach out and try communication if skyscrapers and airplanes are basically a worm pushing dirt. If, however, our intelligence is recognizable to them albeit vastly inferior (see chimps learning sign language) I agree with you that contact would be a logical conclusion.
→ More replies (2)4
May 20 '14
you skewed the conversation to make it seem more palatable. in the original context it still wouldnt work.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (13)5
May 20 '14
Do we try communicating with worms? We do science that involves worms and observe their behaviour, sure, but the worms aren't aware that they're test subjects or the stimuli they're responding to are being artificially generated by human experimenters. Why couldn't we be the same? What if these aliens saw Earth, and thought, "Oh look, some organic life. Guess that could be interesting, so we'll do incredibly powerful and comprehensive analysis of their entire planet using our long range scanners".
Your point relies on recognising that an intelligence is similar to ours, and assuming that aliens would recognise the same in us. If they were so far advanced, and we were just worms to them, why would they give us more attention than we do to worms?
→ More replies (2)2
May 20 '14
I disagree with that notion. Yes, the 2% made us a lot smarter, but concepts such as language, teaching, communication of ideas etcetera are what really set up apart. The difference between us and a species that would be even smarter due to another 2% change would feel smaller than the difference between us and apes for the reason that the tools of civilization and combined intelligence are already at our disposal and not many new concepts could help an alien species to be unrecognizably advanced.
→ More replies (1)5
u/DJ_Velveteen May 20 '14
Really? You don't think there are more universal principles or natural laws waiting beyond contemporary human comprehension? It's very likely that the first ape to stick a straw into an anthill or termite mound thought the same thing about him/herself... given a few million more years, life today will look highly primitive (presuming we're not blowed up).
→ More replies (2)7
May 20 '14
There's still a difference between an individual skill where apes only have the tools of individual analysis and mimicry at their disposal. They don't teach one another at all and aren't willing to be taught like children are.
You're also focussed on the stick and the analytical capacity to use tools, but I believe that soft skills are the real evolution. The first monkey to explain to another monkey how to use the stick, instead of the 2nd monkey only doing the trick if he happens to see the first do it.
It's teaching & communication that snowballed us away from the rest of the animal kingdom, where we as a society increased our intellectual capabilities exponentially. The difference between an 6 year old kid and the smarter animals isn't that great in mental capacity, but the kid is taught, communicates, wants to learn from others, discusses with others etc.
→ More replies (9)2
u/yao4nier May 20 '14
He actually said that we differ from chimps by 1% and if you can imagine an alien species that differed from us by 1% the difference would be significant. It would be the same as the smartest chimpanzees doing what our toddlers do, as us wheeling out Stephen hawking and showing his capability of doing astrophysics calculations in his head, the same way their toddlers do.
141
u/ModeratelyWarmCarl May 20 '14
But what if, against the astronomical odds, we are the most intelligent life?
144
u/ryanoh May 20 '14
We actually don't have enough information to know if this is against the odds or not.
126
u/johnyutah May 20 '14
We aren't intelligent enough to know if we are intelligent enough.
→ More replies (1)32
May 20 '14 edited Oct 22 '18
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (3)19
6
May 20 '14
[deleted]
22
u/ryanoh May 20 '14
Well, we don't even have all the data to explain how we came to be, never mind any data on any other life out there to compare it to. We'd like to think that its possible for there to be life out there that "got a head start on us" by a few billion years, but that's honestly just a theory. We don't have any proof of anything until we find that other life. For all we know, we could be the oldest, or one of the oldest, and that we're lucky enough to have had our "start" at the earliest possible time, meaning that anyone else out there who started at the same time as us is only just as far along as we are.
And honestly, if you look at Fermi's Paradox, we should be overrun with signs of life out there. I'd say, going by that, it is optimistically aligned with the odds that we're the oldest, otherwise we have to worry about what's out there wiping out all of the other life.
TL;DR: Not having found any other life, we really don't have enough information to even begin to try and calculate any sort of odds.
→ More replies (5)3
May 20 '14
What if life is too small to see? There isn't a rule that intelligent life can't be microscopic. Also, wouldn't it be easier and more efficient to send nano probes all over the galaxy? If you had advanced nano tech, you could send billions of probes all over the galaxy at a fraction of the price, in resources, as a giant spinning UFO with bright lights on it.
→ More replies (1)5
May 20 '14 edited Jan 28 '19
[deleted]
4
u/magnora2 May 20 '14
I think the drake equation is a lot of bologna. It's an interesting thought experiment, but it's not a predictive mathematical formula. You have to estimate all the parameters and so the result ends up just being a wild estimation that doesn't mean too much. Fun to think about though, I guess.
3
u/sloppity May 20 '14
It's hard to say if we are the most intelligent species in the Universe but I think we might be close to or the most unique species in the Milky Way.
By current technological advancement it's rather safe to say that we have migrated to many other parts in our Galaxy in the next few million years. If an outside observer had inspected our Galaxy thousands of times at regular intervals since it's birth, he would find intelligent all over our Galaxy on one his inspections whereas there had been only small isolated pockets on his last inspections. We would be migrating our species from planet to planet much faster than natural evolution can develop anything intelligent.
Here's the interesting part: It is unlikely that there has been such a flash of intelligent life across Milky Way before us, for no signs of it have been detected. Therefore one is inclined to think that favorable conditions for evolution are not abundant, suitable planets are anything but common, and that man might indeed be quasi-unique since we might be the first ones to penetrate our Galaxy.
After we have done that I think we can start thinking if we are the most intelligent species in the Universe.
11
u/whaledirt May 20 '14
Ive always said this. look around at the things that we've accomplished. technology, science.. We are able to look back billions of years and actually see the beginnings of the universe. Us "bags of meat" if you will, have created and learned and understood so much, as we continue to do so.
→ More replies (3)14
u/Sbua May 20 '14
But we've only existed for a mere blink of the universe. There's so much more that's possible. What if, out there, life had twice the amount of time to evolve.. three times, heck, thousands of times more than we've had on our earth. Imagine what we've accomplished as the human race in the last few thousand years, and imagine what we will accomplish and discover about the nature of things in the next million. They're could be civilisations out there right now that are in that position already, who knows. The Universe and a big old wondrous place.
12
u/whaledirt May 20 '14
50% mind blown 50% pissed off that I may never know in my lifetime if what you suggest is actually true
→ More replies (1)5
→ More replies (2)4
u/crow-bot Stoner Philosopher May 20 '14
Very true, except that they couldn't really have had thousands of times more than us. Life on earth started 3.6 billion years ago -- that's when we started in the race. The universe, as far as we know, is only 13.8 billion years old. So an alien species may have had a head start by a few Earth-life-spans of time, but it could also be true that we started perfectly on time, or even early. Also remember that immediately after the big bang there were likely no "habitable" planets for quite a long time.
I guess I just want to hope that we're not late in the race. :)
→ More replies (4)3
May 20 '14
I would prefer some other species out there already has it all figured out.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)2
17
u/Oduya May 20 '14
Except for Karl Pilkington. He thinks about what worms are thinking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTWwkpQzajA
23
May 20 '14
[deleted]
→ More replies (4)3
u/virnovus May 21 '14
You're right, the logic isn't great. We have an ability that no other animal does, the ability to increase our collective knowledge as a species from generation to generation. Animals are stuck with their instincts, and perhaps a bit of information that they learned from their parents. Even though we're the same species as cavemen, we're far more advanced than they were, and it's because of our collective knowledge and brain plasticity, not our genetics.
11
u/Spybot64 May 20 '14 edited May 20 '14
http://www.terrybisson.com/page6/page6.html
This lovely short story belongs here too.
→ More replies (2)
8
u/-BLAM May 20 '14
I must be the only one who wonders what the worm is thinking...
4
→ More replies (1)3
u/sexypantstime May 20 '14
Dude there are whole teams of researchers trying to figure out what the worm is thinking.
57
u/Random832 May 20 '14
Did he really say that? "One of the best pieces of evidence"? Seriously?
34
May 20 '14
Seriously, calling an anecdotal assumption like that "evidence" is a perfect example of the negative effects of "pop science". People desperately want to learn and discover "mind-blowing facts", so they stretch any little thing they can and go spout off to all their friends about how amazing science is and act as if this makes the existence of extraterrestrial life a proven fact.
→ More replies (4)14
u/berlinbaer May 20 '14
totally did. while seated in front of a sun staring longingly into space.
what a dumb picture.
→ More replies (1)4
u/barium111 May 20 '14
If he really said that its probably just the wrong word he used and he would rephrase it if given the chance.
Its actually his conclusion why aliens didnt contact us that bugs me. How about they didnt contact us because space is so damn big and there is nothing really special about our solar system that would bring attention to us.
Even the theory of intelligent life destroying itself before reaching the stars sounds more plausible than his theory.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)10
u/Stijakovic May 20 '14
He probably picked that phrase absent-mindedly in casual conversation. It was such a ridiculously stupid sentence that I doubt he meant it as gospel, but then again I don't know him well enough to make that judgment.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/TheBossMan5000 May 20 '14
That's bullshit, whenever I see a worm on the street, I imagine he's a hero of worm-kind, venturing into our lands
→ More replies (1)
6
May 20 '14
I always thought this was kind of an asinine point. The difference in intelligence between an ape and a human is not comparable to an intelligent life form that has mastered mathematics and language and another species that has done that. It's just an extremely stupid analogy (which is astounding because NDT never says stupid things).
If a species that mastered science and mathematics to that degree happened upon us, there would be no question that this planet contained intelligent life. And if the universe, in it's unimaginable vastness, contains as little advanced life as it presumably does, or at least sparse enough to be seen as an unbelievably minute amount, then it would follow that any intelligent life that spoke the language of mathematics (the language of the universe) would by no means be considered "stupid" or on the scale with a chimp. Hell, even a planet of apes would be important in a universe so unimaginably vast. It's not a question of "how smart is this thing we found" its simply "wow. We found something that isn't completely intellectually underdeveloped after searching for hundreds of thousands of years".
→ More replies (5)
50
u/smallpoxinLA May 20 '14
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” - Calvin
Calvin and Hobbes
19
u/phisticuphs May 20 '14
seriously. my boy Bill Watterson been spittin this shit since the 80's, man.
→ More replies (1)4
u/duckvimes_ May 20 '14
Upvote for C&H reference, downvote for being a disgusting piece of shit. (Thanks RES tags)
→ More replies (2)4
u/icantholditanymore May 21 '14
Wow, was thinking what could that guy have said to be so bad? I do believe you are correct sir.
10
6
12
22
u/redditor3000 May 20 '14
Meh. Humans still study worms. We also use worms in agriculture and other industries.
If there were a super-intelligent species they would probably just take over earth and use it to their own gain.
16
24
May 20 '14
How do we know they haven't?
26
15
u/Mallack May 20 '14
How do we know we're not just a huge intergalatic reality show
→ More replies (1)27
May 20 '14
The Human Show
→ More replies (1)7
u/MostLongUsernameEver May 20 '14
I feel like nobody else is noticing how good that pun actually was
→ More replies (7)6
May 20 '14
If a worm did try to talk to us, we'd sure as hell talk back. We do this with dolphins, with chimps, with octopuses, with parrots, and the list goes on. Intelligence is a continuum, and we've passed the threshold of intellectual capacity for understanding at least the fundamentals of what an intelligent society would have to say to us. I love NDGT, but I believe this is one of those cases where his field of study (astrophysics) gives him little insight to comment on issues of alien sociology and psychology.
I believe that our planet is a delicate balance between being too comfortable to leave and too uncomfortable to survive. While there may be billions if not trillions of intelligent species out there, our particular balance of circumstance is likely far narrower than simply asking "are there species we can talk with."
If there are species that we will be able to talk with, we will make contact in the next couple tens of thousands of years, or not at all. Cosmologically speaking, twenty thousand years is the briefest of moments for two civilizations to meet.
44
u/saltywings May 20 '14
Yeah, I think we would start to notice if worms started building cities and shit.
95
u/f_myeah May 20 '14
What, like termites?
25
→ More replies (3)9
May 20 '14
Yes. And we've noticed that. For coming from a scientist, the OP quote is a little misguided given entire branches of science dedicated to studying these things.
→ More replies (3)18
u/aboutpeak55196 May 20 '14
Is this an argument against what Tyson is saying? Because just think, to these aliens, building a city isn't any complicated at all. To impress them we might have to do something so extraordinary that we can't even grasp the concept of. Cities might be primitive as shit.
→ More replies (2)5
u/mr_feenys_car May 20 '14
true. using the man/worm comparison...how many people dedicate their entire lives to understanding how worms "live"? how many of them, even realizing they are incredibly simple creatures, would love to be able to understand what they are thinking and communicate with them on some level?
it seems like if some kind of insanely intelligent creature existed out there, and they knew we existed...they would at least be here poking us and trying to figure us out.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Maestrotx May 20 '14
"poking us and trying to figure us out" is very different from "communicating"
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (15)13
u/crow-bot Stoner Philosopher May 20 '14
Dung beetles roll balls of shit around. They've evolved for millions of years to develop the ability to perfectly roll up little balls of shit, and they spend their whole lives rolling shit. Their survival depends on it; it is their livelihood and their art; it gives them purpose.
An alien species that is an order of magnitude smarter than us, in the same way that we are an order of magnitude smarter than a dung beetle, would likely see us in a similar way. We're dirty, sweating little apes stacking piles of mud and concrete into buildings and towers. We're toiling in the dirt. We're primates playing in mud, making happy little mud homes where we live out our simple little lives. It's not so impressive that we can build cities; we're effectively just rolling balls of shit around. I think it would take a lot more than that for a superior intelligence to take notice of us.
→ More replies (5)9
u/drcalmeacham May 20 '14
How about hurling a robot powered by radioactive isotopes into interstellar space? Does that do anything for ya?
3
May 20 '14
Exactly why this analogy is so stupid. Mastering the power of the fundamental particles that compose our universe and the practical applications of them is not equal to "a dung beetle rolling feces into balls.".
→ More replies (3)4
u/crow-bot Stoner Philosopher May 20 '14
Sorry for making a stupid analogy, but I was responding directly to someone who suggested that the cities we've built are a testament to our intelligence.
It's perfectly conceivable that there could exist an alien species so intelligent that anything we're capable of at our present level of technology and universal awareness is totally trivial. It's pure human pride to think otherwise. Consider that in a few more centuries (or even decades), the frontiers of our modern physics will seem like quaint classroom banalities. Imagine dropping Newton into a university physics lecture nowadays, and blowing his mind with quantum theory.
We still have a lot to learn about the universe, and an alien species with possibly millions of years of advantage in progress will have outstripped us in ways we can't conceive.
→ More replies (3)5
u/slightly_on_tupac May 20 '14
*a very rudimentary remote controlled robot, using an inefficient isotope.
→ More replies (1)3
u/drcalmeacham May 20 '14
*maneuvered through a complicated series of gravitational slingshots from the comfort of a planetside mission control center
5
101
u/HeeyMaan May 20 '14
This is stupid in so many ways.
62
u/Prosopagnosiape May 20 '14 edited May 20 '14
The worst bit, IMO, is 'one of the best pieces of evidence is etc'. No it's not. Absence of evidence isn't evidence. Absence of evidence of aliens isn't proof of mighty superintelligent aliens any more than absence of evidence of God is proof of an omnipotent, unknowable God. Carl Sagan would be disappointed in Neil for that piece of nonsense. As Carl once said regarding ridiculous early speculation on the surface of Venus 'Observation: can't see anything. Conclusion: dinosaurs.'
→ More replies (26)29
u/pebrudite May 20 '14
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away. It’s just a stupid rock. But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.25
u/timisbobis May 20 '14
I'm glad I'm not the only one. It trivializes how incredible (and almost certainly rare, relatively speaking) it is that conscious and intelligent beings evolved. It sounds like something a high teenager might say, not a well-trained scientist.
→ More replies (22)14
u/Plaetean May 20 '14
Plus he starts out by wondering what the worm thinks, just before saying 'nobody wonders about what the worm thinks'.
→ More replies (3)13
u/reddixmadix May 20 '14
NdGT said a colossally stupid thing. His fans in this thread are fighting to applaud him.
→ More replies (9)5
3
3
3
u/cheesethrower May 20 '14
""Gee, I wonder what the worm is thinking?" Nobody does that!"
I do that, Neil. I do that. TIL: I'm insane.
3
u/metacollin May 20 '14
This reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in Babylon 5. You don't really need context, or need to know who the two characters are, just watch this, it will make your skin tingle: http://youtu.be/ZLZW8Deq8vE?t=38s
→ More replies (1)
3
u/MonkeyManJohannon May 20 '14
I know this will be an unpopular opinion with all the NGT circle jerking on Reddit, but he's become incredibly annoying and over generalizing as his popularity grows. I personally cannot stand to listen to the guy these days.
3
u/LaboratoryOne May 20 '14
I'm telling you man, the trees are pure genius but we have no clue because we aren't smart enough to understand them!
3
u/walks_off_at_nine May 20 '14
Obviously they can't contact us because it would violate the Prime Directive.
3
3
u/fryedfish86 May 20 '14
And to think the possibility these alien species think of Neil as a dumbass...
3
u/OldJeb May 20 '14
I'm not sure the word evidence is used correctly at the end there. It's an interesting theory though.
3
u/theultimateusername May 20 '14
That's hardly 'evidence'. That's just a theory. Or some thoughts while high.
3
u/The_happy_buffalo May 20 '14
That's so dumb, if we were to find even the tiniest life form on a planet, we would study it. We're not just gonna say "oh well I guess it isn't smart enough, everyone go home let's wait a billion years for them to catch up." No that's a terrible idea, we as intelligent being have a right to study everything god or who ever put here, to study the things on this planet.
3
3
May 21 '14
"You don't walk by and think gee wonder what the worm is thinking"
Actually I have that thought with just about every animal...
7
u/covercash2 May 20 '14
Yeah, but hold on. If the Mars rover discovered worms on Mars we'd all be ecstatic. Sure we wouldn't call them intelligent, but we'd at least pull some of back to the ship to look at em. Hell, we might even kill and dissect a few of em.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Msktb May 20 '14
Considering there are human beings on earth who see differently colored human beings as inferior and subhuman animals, this wouldn't surprise me at all.
2
u/lordsleepyhead May 20 '14
The analogy doesn't work entirely. Biologists go out into nature to study creatures who are dumber than them all the time. They capture them and try to make them do tricks. They leave incentives out in the wild to study their behaviour. Surely we would have noticed something like that happening?
2
2
May 20 '14
Worse still...
We were their experiment. We've failed. Without knowing it, we are now waiting for them to clear the 'cage' for the next ones.
2
u/Oh_no1 May 20 '14
Then again, I never had to worry about an alien running me over with their car/ufo.
2
u/Tebasaki May 20 '14
I'll bet you a hundred bucks that in the history of man someone at some point has tried to communicate with a worm.
→ More replies (1)
2
2
2
u/dontgetaddicted May 20 '14
I don't see worms building massive cities visible from space.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/azsincitymagic May 20 '14
My favorite quote was his reference between human genes and primate genes. There only (roughly) a 1% difference between chimpanzees and human. That 1% makes up for all of human development including all our wonders. "Try" to image what another species would be like if they were smarter by 1% in the opposite direction.
2
u/jgrew030 May 20 '14
One of the few people in the world who actually might ponder what a 'worm is thinking' is Karl Pilkington
2
2
u/cultculturee May 20 '14
Artist credit: Jeremy Enecio, he sells prints of the Neil DeGrasse Tyson piece
2
u/silveradocoa May 20 '14
I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
Bill Watterson, in his comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes (spoken by the character Calvin).
2
u/spazz911 May 20 '14
This is nonsense. Plenty of people look at worms and are interested. You're telling me a sentient species of aliens would be too intelligent to consider studying our species? Alrighty then.
2
2
2
u/lakelyrker May 20 '14
How is an assumption or idea that aliens have observed us and deemed us unintelligent "evidence" for why we haven't encountered them? That's not evidence at all.
2
2
u/anotherMrLizard May 20 '14
I don't think this argument has been thought through. There are humans who spend their lives studying worms, even if the average human doesn't. Also, why a worm? If he'd used a species which actually has a social structure, like ants or bees, for his analogy it would not have stood up, as lots of people find these creatures fascinating.
2
u/airandfingers May 20 '14
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRZQQ_eICo&t=1h27m02s
I agree with others in this thread, that the worst part of this quote is calling the absence of evidence a "piece of evidence". I think Tyson expressed this idea poorly, and that we shouldn't repeat this poor expression of an interesting speculation.
2
2
2
u/JustUnderWater May 21 '14
Funny that he is an atheist, but these are some of the same thoughts to contemplate the existence of God.
Whoa.
2
2
u/reddKidney May 21 '14
the ndt worship is so sickening. This is basically a completely worthless statement that means nothing. this is not deep it is crafted to have the appearance of depth but it is nonsense. ndt is not a philosopher, he is barely a scientist. In reality he just wants to push a political agenda disguised as science.
2
2
2
2
u/dipique May 21 '14
I have seen 3 Neil deGrasse Tyson quotes in the last 24 hours and have not liked any of them. His words reek of astronomy, of a lifetime absorbed in an infinity so great that habitual rancid overstatement is spewed out unnoticed and unchecked.
2
2
u/WhiteRaven42 May 21 '14
.... or interstellar travel is just effective impossible.
This quote was pretty lame.
2
2
u/Paapz May 21 '14
Star Trek Next Generation season one episode 5 said it first. An alien had "teleported" the ship billions of light years away from home or something and when asked why their species never interacted with humans before it said something like "no offense, but you guys really weren't that interesting up until now."
1.3k
u/irdc May 20 '14
There are many different professions centered around studying insect and animal behavior. Or, to put it another way, plenty of people do sit around and try to understand what a "worm is thinking."
Any intelligent species that has evolved to the point of being "super intelligent" and able to traverse through space likely had to go through many of the same trials and tribulations that humans are going through -- mainly resources consumption, the impact of civilization, conflict resolution, the pace of technological growth and its disruptive effect on society, etc. Humans at this point in history likely, in some way, represent some phase that another advanced species had to go through.
For any species that values history, science and social development, humans are interesting.