MICHIO KAKU: I love to watch science fiction
movies but I cringe, I cringe whenever I see
a depiction of the aliens.
First of all, the aliens speak perfect English.
ALIENS: Did you ever see such jerky looking
creatures?
And one head yet.
Typical Earth men.
MICHIO KAKU: I mean, we have Hollywood special
effects so why can't we get better aliens?
E.O.
WILSON: I would admonish scriptwriters for
Hollywood films that have space and alien
monsters invading Earth.
Don't give them claws.
Claws are for carnivores and you've got to
be an omnivore to be an ET.
There just isn't enough energy available in
the next trophic level down to maintain big
populations and stable populations that can
evolve civilization.
JONATHAN B. LOSOS: Some people have gone so
far as to say that, in fact, human type organisms,
humanoids will occur on other planets.
So there will be intelligent beings that if
we saw them they would be recognizable which,
of course, is what Hollywood tells us.
If you watch almost any science fiction TV
show or movie the intelligent life form is
bipedal, a couple of arms, a mouth.
Maybe they only have three fingers and pointy
ears and they're green but they're pretty
humanoid.
And so some people say yes, that's actually
very likely that humans are a very successful
life form here on Earth that we are extremely
well adapted to our environment which ancestrally
was occurring on the plains of Africa, but
we adapted so exquisitely that we now dominate
the world.
So if this is such a good adaptation here
on Earth it would similarly be a good adaptation
on another planet and evolution would be likely
to take the similar course.
That is the argument that is being made in
some corners.
KAKU: But when we look at aliens in the movies
we're basically projecting our own consciousness
in aliens.
Our fears, our desires are projected and they
are a mirror of who we are, not a mirror of
who they really are.
For example, if you take a look at a bat or
a dog, the dog's brain is mainly interested
in smells.
It's swirling in a universe of smells while
a bat's brain mainly is concentrated on sonar,
on detecting clicks and echoes.
The same thing with the dolphin brain.
Their consciousness is totally different from
our consciousness because they see things
differently than us because of their evolutionary
history.
For example, when we see a cat and the cat
comes up to us and starts to purr next to
us we say to ourselves oh, nice cat.
Cat is being affectionate.
No, the cat is not being affectionate.
It's simply rubbing its hormones on you and
saying I own this human.
This human is mine.
I'm marking my territory.
This human feeds me twice a day.
I've trained him.
So a cat sees the universe totally different
than we do and yet we impose our thinking
on an alien.
WILSON: ET is out there.
There just has to be in that hundred million
star system.
Here's what I did.
I looked over the many examples of the origin
of whole new lines of animals that have occurred
on the land since the early Paleozoic.
Here is what they all have in common.
First, it has to be on the land.
It can't develop advanced societies and anything
like civilization.
Well, why not?
Why no marine fresh water creatures?
Because they don't have fire.
In order to build tools beyond chipping some
rock or stone away you don't have any way
to create more advanced technology without
concentrated power source that you can transport
from one place to another.
ET.
I'm now drawing this again from the record
of multiple origins of animal lines on Earth.
ET has got a head and the head is up front
and the head contains central organizing centers
for all of the senses that are spread out
through the body.
ET has got a small number of limbs, multiple,
maybe six.
Who knows?
Maybe eight like a spider.
But not that many.
Relatively few and ET has on these limbs fingers
or tentacles, something with strength and
flexibility that are free.
You have to have soft, pulpy fingertips.
Think about the primates you know.
Old world and new world.
That's a primate trait.
Soft, pulpy fingertips.
You need to be able to manipulate bits of
food like plucking free a piece of fruit.
Plucking seeds out of a fruit.
Taking a flower and opening it and eating
it and so on.
KAKU: Now some people say that we should not
try to make contact with them because they
could be potentially dangerous.
[Danger Will Robinson.
Danger.]
For the most part I think they're going to
be peaceful because they'll be thousands of
years ahead of us but we cannot take the chance.
So I personally believe that we should not
try to advertise our existence to alien life
in outer space because of the fact that we
don't know their intentions.
Then the other question is what happens if
they're evil?
Well, I think the question of evil is actually
a relative question because the real danger
to a deer in the forest is not the hunter
with a gigantic rifle.
He's not the main danger to a deer in the
forest.
The main danger to a deer in the forest is
the developer.
The guy that's going to pave the forest and
perhaps destroy whole ecosystems.
In other words, the aliens don't have to be
evil in order to be dangerous to us.
They might not care.
They just may not care about us and in the
process pave us over.
And so I think that is a potential problem.
We could be in the way of a very advanced
civilization that simply is not evil but simply
views us as we would view squirrels and deer
in the forest.
So, personally I think that we should not
advertise our existence when we go into outer
space.
For the most part however, I do think they
are going to be peaceful.
They're not going to want to plunder the earth
because there are plenty of planets out there
that have nobody on them that they could plunder
at will without having to worry about restive
natives called humanity.
And so I think they're not going to come to
visit the earth to plunder us, to do all sorts
of mischief.
For the most part I think they'll just leave
us alone.
BILL NYE: I don't think they're going to visit.
However, very reasonable that we will in Carl
Sagan fashion detect a signal from some other
star system.
That's very reasonable.
I make no guarantees.
It's the Christmas light problem, the holiday
light problem where the lights are blinking.
Our light of being able to receive electromagnetic
wave from another civilization has to be on
when another blinking civilization light is
on so that we can cross paths not only in
space but in time.
We have to have both civilizations existing
at the same time.
And with a universe that's at least 13.6 billion
years old it's not necessarily a given thing
that everybody their lights will be on at
the same time.
LOSOS: What would life be like on other planets
if it is evolved?
Would it be like the world today here on Earth
or would it be completely different?
This question has taken on some increased
urgency or at least interest in recent years
because we now realize that there are many
planets out there that are like Earth.
We used to think that Earth was perhaps unique
and so perhaps life as we know it is unique
because we're the only place that it could
evolve.
But quite the contrary.
We've now discovered there are lots of what
are called habitable exoplanets.
Some people estimate millions, even billions
just in our own Milky Way Galaxy.
If there are really that many Earth-like planets
many people think that it's very likely that
life has evolved on them.
And so the question is what will that life
look like?
NYE: It's very reasonable, absolutely not
proven.
We may have the means to prove it, very reasonable
that you and I are descendent of extraterrestrials.
We just found liquid water on Mars.
Super salty water on Mars that apparently
flows every Martian year, every time Mars
goes around the sun and gets warm enough in
this one area liquid water flows for a while.
Briny water evaporates.
It's very reasonable that there's something
alive on Mars or certainly that there was
something alive on Mars.
Then it's very reasonable that Mars was hit
with an impact.
You can show that Mars was hit with an impactor,
a comet or asteroid, about three billion years
ago.
And some of the material of Mars was thrown
off into space and some of it landed here.
We find rocks on Earth that are clearly of
Martian origin.
I bought one online for kicks and suppose
some especially robust Martian microbe, a
Mars-crobe, was in this piece of material,
landed on Earth at an especially fertile time
here on Earth three billion years ago.
And you and I are descendants of Martians.
Do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do.
