Well I’ve always thought that there is other life in the universe. I envisage creatures similar to us who have mastered technology in some form, able to cure diseases and willing to share knowledge that will advance our species.
Reading this article though it seems that although scientists also think there is life. It is much, much simpler. The basic building blocks of life. I must admit that the odds are actually for this as extraterrestrial life rather than something like the different races in the Sci-Fi movies which is a bit of a blow.
It’s also a moral problem for us. The first is we won’t actually learn all that much. Sure it’ll be a field day for the life science geeks. They will have enough to keep them going for several lifetimes and careers will be made there. The big problem though is we would quickly colonise the planet and become the dominant creature on that planet. Sure, we will get eaten by some blue slug thing that looks like a balloon but only till we learn it’s routines and find out how to kill it.
It’s one of our moral dilemmas we need to resolve before we go into space and it’s one we will probably ignore when it suits us. After all what would you do if you found a planet exactly like Earth with all it’s vegetable and mineral glory and you found in an isolated island a small pygmy proto human species but clearly developing. The little pygmies better hope they are met by scientists rather than prospectors that’s all I can say.
We really have a low opinion on life and if it isn’t near our level of intelligence I’m betting that most of us wouldn’t blink before eradicating it. Just something to think about while we search for life and we need to make some decisions about how we are going to handle all these different types of life.
Yes, we could not stand to find other intelligent life only for them to be superior to us.In fact, maybe they’re so intelligent they are making us go through the expense and hassle of finding THEM so that they can colonize US.
It’s one of our moral dilemmas we need to resolve before we go into space…
You think it could ever be resolved without a strict moral code everyone adheres to?
Uber,
Any life that made it here would be superior to us and any that found us, examined us and then left us would clearly be superior as well. They will wait for us to fall back to a non technological stage and then take over. If the whingy whiney greens have their way that will be 2015.
James,
I think if we need to define a strict moral code we are not anywhere near there yet. These morals used to be part of our society and have been lost. Luckily it is linked to our technological advances which have also declined so it’s not likely we will have the chance to do anything for a while. That should get our society on track.
Your brave new world, Lord T, is the bacon butty of the future – we’ll all be gobbling it up.
Mmmm. Bacon.