Not sure what to make of this

[Ken L]

@ Ken.L---I was using them as an example only. But again if ET came down on an uneducated and ignorant population he could control, manipulate and become "God".

 

Possibly - but there comes a point very early in a civilization's development where irrespective of the level of technology displayed by a visiting culture or species, we would recognize them as biological entities and not gods.

When European explorers visited stone age cultures two centuries ago, they were met as men not gods and in many cases, they were met as crude and uncivilized men, even by those who found themselves technologically outmatched.

We would do the same. If the proverbial ship landed on the White House Lawn, we absolutely would not great it's occupants as gods no matter how "magical" their technology appeared.

 

One thing worth bearing in mind is that there are very, very few examples in human history where a technologically advanced culture has met a less advanced one where that meeting hasn't negatively impacted on the less advanced peoples. Alien visitation with the technology to span the stars probably wouldn't work out well for us and the idea of fighting off an invasion is laughable.

[Renrag39]

We're too young and aggressive for any Alien civilisation to purposely help us expand further into space!

I reckon there is the possibility we're being watched though, sort of a nature reserve until they believe we're ready for 'official' contact.

 

But I also read far too much Peter F. Hamilton...

[chesters1]

Don't knock incest too much, it may be taboo but without it neither you nor I would be here. Below is a simple treatise on incest and population genetics.

 

There is a simple mathematical equation for calculating how many progenitors you have at different generations. The formula is 2^{^n} where n is the number of generations one wants to go back. Using this formula we can generate the table below. The left hand column is how many generations you want to go back, and the right hand column show the number of direct ancestors at that generation. Sorry about the crappy formatting but for some reason AN does not support the BBCode Table tag.

1	2	 2	4	 3	8 4	16	 5	32	 6	64	 7	128	 8	256 9	512	 10	1,024	 11	2,048	 12	4,096	 13	8,192 14	16,384 15	32,768	 16	65,536	 17	131,072	 18	262,144	 19	524,288	 20	1,048,576	 21	2,097,152	 22	4,194,304	 23	8,388,608	 24	16,777,216	 25	33,554,432	 26	67,108,864	 27	134,217,728	 28	268,435,456	 29	536,870,912	 30	1,073,741,824	 31	2,147,483,648	 ... 64	18,446,744,073,709,600,000

If your parents had not copulated precisely when they did, perhaps to the nano-second, you would not be here, and if their parents had not procreated in a similar timely manner, you wouldn't be here, and if their parents and their parents before them had not bonded in a similarly precise manner, you would not be here.

 

March backward through time and your ancestral debts begin to add up.

 

Go back just eight generations to the time of Charlie Darwin and Abe Lincoln and there are 256 individuals upon whose timely couplings your existence depends.

 

Go back fourteen generations to the time of the voyage of the Mayflower and there are 16,384 ancestors diligently exchanging genetic code in a way that would eventually and miraculously result in you.

 

Twenty generations ago and there are 1,048,576 individuals procreating away on your behalf. Five generations before that and there are 33,554,432 upon whose tireless couplings your very existence depends. Can you see where this is going yet?

 

By thirty generations ago your total number of forbears, (remember we are not talking about cousins or aunts and uncles, just parents and parents of parents) has risen to 1,073,741,824. If you go back sixty-four generations to approximately the time of the Romans and there are 18,446,744,073,709,600,000 which is approximately 171,433,828 times more than the number of people who have ever lived. Has something suddenly gone wrong with my maths here? The answer is that neither your line nor my line nor anyone else's line is pure. None of us could be here without quite a lot of incest taking place at a genetically discrete remove. With so many millions of ancestors in your family tree there will be many times when someone on your mothers side of the family tree procreated with some distant cousin from your fathers side.

 

If you are in a partnership with someone of ones own race and country the chances are excellent that you are at some level related to each other. If you look around you on a train, a pub, or any busy place most of the people that you see are very probably relatives. In the most fundamental sense we are ALL family. Compare your genetic material with ANY other member of the human race and they will be 99.9% the same. This is what makes us a species. The tiny differences in that remaining 0.1%, about one nucleotide base in every thousand is what gives us our individuality.

 

You have probably heard much over the last few years about the human genome, but there is no such thing as THE human genome. Every human genome is different, if not we would all be identical. It is the continuous recombinations of our genomes that makes us what we are, as individuals and as a species.

 

trouble is if you turn that chart on its head you then get Adam and Eve and still were all related

[corydoras]

trouble is if you turn that chart on its head you then get Adam and Eve and still were all related

No, no, no; not so fast. The table is applied to ANY human alive today There never was a time when there were only 2 human beings (or of any other organism) on earth.

[Andrew]

No, no, no; not so fast. The table is applied to ANY human alive today There never was a time when there were only 2 human beings (or of any other organism) on earth.

 

Can that be proven Cory ??? ( highlighted text )

 

Did life spring up in abundance ? or did life spring from one singular atom, molicule, or whatever is sprang from ?

Edited February 21, 2012 by Andrew

[chesters1]

No, no, no; not so fast. The table is applied to ANY human alive today There never was a time when there were only 2 human beings (or of any other organism) on earth.

 

i was speaking biblically

[corydoras]

Can that be proven Cory ??? ( highlighted text )

 

Did life spring up in abundance ? or did life spring from one singular atom, molicule, or whatever is sprang from ?

Proven as in absolute certainty or within reasonable doubt? Either way I'm not sure Andrew, I'll need to do bit of digging to find a reference, but from what I understand of evolution the answer is yes. We don't know much (bugger all really) about abiogenesis, that is how life got started in the first instance. Lot's of ideas, half formed hypothesis and there are quite a few making it their lifes work.

[corydoras]

i was speaking biblically

I knew that

[Andrew]

Proven as in absolute certainty or within reasonable doubt? Either way I'm not sure Andrew, I'll need to do bit of digging to find a reference, but from what I understand of evolution the answer is yes. We don't know much (bugger all really) about abiogenesis, that is how life got started in the first instance. Lot's of ideas, half formed hypothesis and there are quite a few making it their lifes work.

 

Surely a single cell being ( cannot think of the owrd for a singe cell life force )would have been the first type of animal/being. Then life evolved from there ?,

[corydoras]

Surely a single cell being ( cannot think of the owrd for a singe cell life force )would have been the first type of animal/being. Then life evolved from there ?,

It's getting to that single cell that is difficult Andrew. You have no idea how incredibly complex a single cell is. Even the cell of a prokaryote (that is an organism without a nucleus in it's cell) is an incredibly complex molecular machine that we haven't a hope in hell in replicating in a laboratory at this time.

 

If you manage it fame, fortune and a Nobel Prize (at least) await you.

 

A single celled animal without a cell nucleus is a prokaryote.

There are two types; Bacteria and Archaea.

 

All other organisms whether single celled or multi-celled are Eukaryotes

 

Single celled eukaryotes are called protists, although when you and I were at school the were called "protozoans". Examples of protists would be amoeba and paramecium. When we were at school they Paramecium were called "slipper animacules"