What to do if we find extraterrestrial life

[Swede]

This month the Royal Society held a two-day meeting to work out a "scientific and societal agenda" on extraterrestrial life, following up on a similar meeting in January. The discussions generated controversy, conspiracy theories and a little bit of acrimony. So what happened? I was there on both days, and here's the inside story.

Scientists are searching for extraterrestrial life in a number of different ways and places. One aspect of this is the search for extrasolar planets, on the basis that an Earthlike planet around a sunlike star might be a good place to look. The first super-Earths have been discovered, and the longer-term goal will be to undertake spectral analysis of the atmospheres of such exoplanets, looking for oxygen, ozone, water and other potential indicators of life. The recent excitement over Gliese 581g brings such work into focus — though even the very existence of this world is now the matter of some debate.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39675346/ns/technology_and_science/

[Demeter]

1. See If It Tastes Like Chicken

of course

[Newsjock]

2. What's with all this 'alien ambassador' stuff in the news lately?

If I had a :tinfoilhat: on, I'd think that The Powers That Be already know something that they're not sharing with us until we can be ... prepared. (Prepared for dinner? IT'S A COOKBOOK!)

[Merlot]

9. "It's a Cookbook!" OMG!

That was a classic moment.

I think the "aliens" will find us before we find them...

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. The UN will sterilize them

I kid you not, it's already in the rule book.

[Merlot]

10. Do they even know how the aliens reproduce?

They could split like amoebas, they could hatch from star dust. Good luck finding the proper organs to tie off, or even figuring out which aliens are the "male" and which are "female."

What if they're androgynous?

[Posteritatis]

14. No, it is not. (nt)

[Cronus Protagonist]

16. Foot, meet mouth. - it's TRUE!

:fistbump:

(I really like to get to back up my statements)

:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

Under the Outer Space Treaty on 1967, which Unoosa oversees, UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by “sterilizing” them.

http://www.menwithfoilhats.com/2010/09/un-to-appoint-alien-greeter-members-divided-over-o-s-treaty-to-sterilizing-newcomers/

:loveya:

[Posteritatis]

21. Try backing them up competently next time

Unlike the authors of that article - who also bandy about that falsehood about the UN appointing an alien "ambassador" of some sort - I've actually read the Outer Space Treaty. It's not in there.

But feel free to cite some conspiracy-theory blogs to tell me otherwise. After all, they outrank reality itself when the two come into conflict.

[Orrex]

30. You're full of baloney. David Duchovny hosted a documentary series about this years ago.

Incidentally, here's the wiki entry on 1967's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty">Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies. Curiously, no apparent mention of sterilizing aliens.

If such a provision existed in the treaty, it seems likely that wikipedia would be only too happy to discuss it.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Let them know we have an unlimited supply of teabaggers they can take.

For food or anal probing.

[stray cat]

5. Why does anyone think they would come in peace.

[Liberal Veteran]

7. It seems likely that if an alien civ capable of intersteller travel...

...wanted to destroy us, they could probably do so fairly easily.

Unless of course they are really stupid aliens like in Signs and the entire invasion can be thwarted by a super soaker.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Or like the aliens in Independence Day

who were using unprotected Windows 98 in their master computer :rofl:

[Merlot]

11. Why does anyone think they would want war?

Maybe they are already over the whole "war" thing, and have figured out that no one really wins.

[Odin2005]

17. They have to be peaceful or else they would have destroyed themselves by now.

[Occulus]

20. Hive ship. n/t

[Phoonzang]

23. I never understood this argument.

Just because the aliens haven't destroyed themselves, even if they no longer fight intraspecies wars, who's to say they'd be peaceful towards us? Maybe they'd have no problem exterminating or subduing an alien species. Maybe they achieved their "peace" through a global war during which one faction wiped out all the others. Maybe they follow some religion that requires all non-believers to convert or die and all non-believers on their own planet have been wiped out...creating peace. Maybe their thinking is so alien we can't understand their motivations at all.

I like maybes.

[Occulus]

26. That's what I meant with my "hive ship" comment.

We don't know what's out there. It is not implausible that, somewhere in the Universe, there is an extremely advanced race of insect-like creatures that communicate chemically, somewhat akin to bees. Their colony exists to protect their queen, which is the only one with anything like what we would call "sentience".

Such a race would have not only no problem wiping us out without a second thought, but would in fact do so for no other reason than because it's just what they do. We simply cannot take for granted that such a creature is not disturbingly close to our own system.

I don't think it matters one whit how advanced they are. They'll do what they do, and if "what they do" is in any way instinctive, they will feel no "moral compunctions" at all.

[Fire Walk With Me]

29. Sadly, it is not so.

At least as stated by Kriyananda in his take upon the Bhagavad Ghita.

[discocrisco01]

6. It Is Not The Death of Religon

If I was Christian (I am not), I would already have this belief in my belief system. It is simple belief: God created infinite worlds, infinite universes, and therefore infinite universes.

Heaven and Hell are seperate universes. The Bible and the doctrine of sin applies to man and mankind only. The bible only discuss the doctrine of sin for being for man. It does not disclose how God would reveal himself for alien species. It is specifically written for Homo Saipens by Homo Saipens

There is a lot of reasons why I do not believe the bible is true, but finding alien life (even intelligent life) does not disprove orthodox Christianity for the reasons that I discuss above.

You do not hear Christians argue this message, but I believe if I went to returned to the church, this is what I believe.

[Tesha]

8. Declare them "terraists" and try to kill them, of course.

It's our natural reaction to nearly everything.

Tesha

[bananas]

13. Hide the evidence and pretend nothing happened, like we did with Viking.

[Posteritatis]

15. Nothing was hidden with Viking. (nt)

[Odin2005]

18. LOL, soil peroxides are not life.

[Posteritatis]

22. There actually is a plan to redo the experiments on one of the next probes out there

Some researchers recently tried the Viking experiments in the Atacama desert and got the same results the Viking probe did on Mars, which got people to wondering.

Of course, "looking at the data again some time later and wondering if we missed something" is rather different from that poster's claim that they found something and Will Smith had it suppressed for our safety or whatnot.

[Nihil]

19. Oh *that* Viking ...!

I thought you were referring to the whole "Of course Christopher Columbus got
here first" bullshit that so many still seem to believe to be true ...

:hide:

[provis99]

24. what to do? Tell them they can run the Earth.

I, for one, would welcome our new insect overlords.

[charlie]

25. Hitch a ride out of Teabagger Dumbfuckistan n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Pass A Law That Makes It Harder To Become A Citizen

That's what Sarah Palin would do.
GAC

[Fire Walk With Me]

28. Pray that they are positive and keep the MIL/IndusComplex away from them.

[intaglio]

31. What sort of life?

Something on the inner planets is likely to be pretty simple so probably no real problem except from preserving it if we can.

If it is more complex and on the Jovian or Saturnian moons then study will be hugely important because it means there is lots of life beyond the solar system. Human interference is less of a problem as these environments are hugely inimical to earthborn life and uneconomic to exploit even in the very long term.

Radio or laser signals from another system in response to early earthly signals, well these people are more advanced than us but probably safe i.e. they have not yet arrived here and are probably at least 60 years away from physical contact with us.

Signals from outside but unaware of us - depends on distance. If they are 10 to 100 ly away probably safe, they're probably about the same tech level as us. 200 ly or more then they have had a lot of time to develop interstellar travel in normal space or some version of FTL (if either is feasible); if so, don't worry, they are so far ahead that if they wanted to do us harm we couldn't stop them and if they don't want to do us harm we come out ahead.

This last case also applies to a signal coming from interstellar space or within the solar system. Because they are a long way ahead we'd better hope that they are nice but let us try and establish silent colonies on the Moon and Mars.