Argumentative Analysis: When Aliens Attack
Simon Sheets
Mrs. Owen
English III-H
28 February 2013
When Aliens Attack No one would believe that in the early years of the 21st century that earth was being watched by intelligence greater than his or her own. That while people busied themselves on their various concerns, they were being observed and studied. As if a scientist was looking through a microscope to study creatures not seen by the human eye. Slowly, the outsiders grow envy, watching as the humans waste away this wonderful planet like a McDonald’s Big Mac in a science experiment. Across the gulf of space, could unsympathetic intellects be slowly drawing their plans against the human race? Well that’s just a bunch of bull-shenanigans, but when one really thinks about it, …show more content…
is it really? The solar system contains over 100 billion galaxies, so it’s very plausible that one of them may contain a star, like the sun, that is able to support life to its planets. Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 1995, and since then, they 've spotted more than 800 worlds beyond the solar system (Space Mike Wall). If they have discovered so many planets with the small portion of space they can actually access with today’s technology, then the thought of no other life in the universe existing would be almost hogwash! In fact, famous astrophysicist and science communicator Neil Degrasse Tyson stated in a recent interview with Richard Dawkins “To say that life doesn’t exist anywhere besides earth, would be like filling a cup full of ocean water and stating there wasn’t such thing as whales, you’re going to need a bigger portion!”
Okay, all right, most by now probably get it, there’s a really, really big chance that earth isn’t the only planet that can support life, but if that’s the case, then where are they? Somewhere out there in this vast universe, there must certainly be other planets teeming with life, but why don’t astronomers see any evidence of it? This is a famous question asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950: Conspiracy theorists claim that U.F.O’s (Unidentified Flying Objects) are visiting all the time and the reports are just being covered up, but honestly they aren’t very convincing. But that leaves a real riddle. In the past year, the Kepler space observatory has found hundreds of planets just around nearby stars, and when they look at that data, it’s as if there could be half a trillion planets just in this very own galaxy (CNN Adamu). If only one in ten thousand had conditions that might support a form of life, that’s still fifty million possibly earth-like planets right here in the Milky Way. The earth didn’t form until nine billion years after the big bang. Countless other planets in the galaxy should have formed earlier, and given life a million, or maybe billion-year head start for life to underway. If just a few of them possessed earth-like conditions and spawned intelligent life that started creating technology, those technologies would have had billions or millions of years to grow in complexity and power. On earth, people have seen how dramatically technology can advance in just one hundred years. In millions of years, an intelligent alien civilization could have easily spread out across the galaxy. After all this time, wouldn’t it make sense for them to deliver their presence deliberately or otherwise through electromagnetic signals? Yet to this day, astronomers don’t see any convincing evidence of any of it. Why is that, this is the question that astronomers and Cosmologists have been asking over 50 years.
So let’s say that for some whatever reason, the first person to make contact with life outside of earth is tomorrow. Yes, very unlikely, probably isn’t going to happen, but it would be a good idea to think about it, what if it was really that close? Well for one: Most Historians and scientists today agree that this would be the most important moment in all of human history, and probably for the aliens themselves. In fact, it’s generally accepted that in generations to come, all of history would be divided into “Pre-contact” and “Post-contact” eras; instead of the “BC/AD” distinctions we use now (Space, Wall). So to put it one way, they’d be the most important person in all of human history. Think, even more famous than Jesus, but before someone starts hollering out their bedroom window claiming that they just made contact with extraterrestrials, they’re going to have to take a few steps before such a message is delivered to the media. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institution (SETI), stated that any person, public or private research institution or governmental agency that believes it has detected a signal from or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence should seek to verify that the most plausible explanation for the evidence is the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence rather than some other natural phenomenon or anthropogenic phenomenon before making any public announcement (SETI 101). Some cosmologist including Stephen Hawking, believe that with the numbers alone, there’s no doubt that there is life out there, but that it would be suicide to try and contact them. “With billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, the numbers tell me there’s life out there. The smartest forms could make it here. But we should not want that, says Hawking. Too much danger” (Bad Astronomy Hawking). They won’t speak any of earth’s languages, and they probably won’t be able to mess with people’s thoughts. They might not communicate through sounds, and may not even hear the frequencies humans talk through. Human language just won’t do it, which is why most scientists believe that the only way to communicate at first would be by using visible light, or drawing pictures, like a game of Martian charades; that is if the aliens have eyes. NASA has prepared several different ways to communicate if such an event occurred, including images of basic math problems to show human’s intelligence, and pictures of the human race. They won’t know who Einstein was, but they’ll know about relativity. They won’t call it “Newton’s Laws”, but they’ll know about the conservation of energy. They won’t know about the Mona Lisa, but they’ll know Hydrogen has one proton. When it comes to contacting extraterrestrials, scientists are basically like a lonely high school girl after a first date. They’re sitting next to the phone all day, hoping that they’ll call, hoping that they’re thinking of us, and when they finally do, prepare for an awkward conversation. Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore stated, “I don’t think we would be on any alien’s tourist list. We are a pretty boring planet, orbiting a boring star” (daily mail, Moore).
So assuming that one day, after so many years of waiting, earth does get that call from the one they’ve been so curious about. Would people’s minds immediately change when they promptly begin their plans to exterminate the human race? Many cosmologists like Stephen Hawking and John Roach argue that the search for life outside earth is a dangerous journey. “Whoever takes the trouble to come visit us is probably a more aggressive personality. And if they have the technology to come here, the idea that we can take them on is like Napoleon taking on the U.S. Air Force,” Roach stated. “We’re not going to be able to defend ourselves very well” (NBC News Roach). Hawking also added "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn 't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said (BBC Hawking). But others think differently, famous humanist Phil B. (Last name not available) argued; “If an alien race is technologically capable of interstellar space travel, then they do not need the raw resources such as metals, water, hydrogen, and gases that Earth has an abundance of. This is because sufficiently advanced aliens with interstellar travel would have the technology to robotically mine billions of asteroids, comets, moons, and planets where literally all resources exist in plentiful quantities. Finding these resources should not be difficult for aliens either. So, aliens would not be interested in attacking humanity for Earth 's raw resources. That means the only thing on Earth of any potential interest to aliens would be life” (Philforhumanity Phil B). Countless theories have evolved over time about the possible reasoning for such an event to occur. NASA stated that one theory could be the aliens are trying to save earth from global warming; why waste a perfectly good exoplanet? Astronomers in Pennsylvania and Washington State have so far jumped on one idea that extraterrestrial intelligence might attack earth not out of spite, “but instead out of a universalist desire to make the galaxy a better place.” In other words, Earth may get blown up to make way for a hyperspace bypass, because aliens value galactic infrastructure more than human’s lives (NG Jaggard). The talk about aliens is scary subject to think about, would it be a mass genocide to the human race with galactic laser guns and space cannons like in H.G Well’s, the War of the Worlds, or a peaceful, friendly, welcoming from our cosmic neighbors like in Steven Spielberg’s E.T? “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.” Added Famous theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking. Would aliens have the same basic functions that humans have today to survive? Could aliens one day come to the earth to simply live in harmony? Hawking says it’s highly doubtful:
One ridiculous feature of movie aliens is that they almost always look something like us bipeds with eyes, nose (or at least nostrils) and mouth. Sometimes they add some slime or mucous to make them a bit more foreign. These depictions are dazzlingly unimaginative. It’s really incredible how we can’t seem to let go of the idea that sentient aliens would just be “men from outer space. Truth is stranger than fiction, and since we have no real knowledge of extra-terrestrial life, we have no starting point for imagining them, other than ourselves (Avoiding Aliens Hawking).
Whoever they are, they must be quite different. Evolution would have taken an entirely different course on a different planet. This could make one wonder if that human quality, let’s call it compassion, that makes people smile inside while they witness, say, a cute baby putting on his dad’s shoes, would ever evolve anywhere else in the universe. Could the alien visitors possibly regard us with the understanding that we are not fundamentally like them, that we’re just some hardworking beings trying to make it in this crazy universe? Somewhere is this massive vast universe, there must be planets out there teeming with intelligent life.
It could take over hundreds of years to finally have an answer to this enormous riddle, or it may be closer than we think, possibly even in the next 50 years. If one wanted to get real deep in the subject, is it possible that the human race is the outcome of an alien evolution, and that people’s ancestors are secretly aliens that invaded this earth billions of years ago? Could this giant search for a galactic neighbor be a giant waste of time, because astronomers have been looking in the wrong direction, that we should be looking in the past, instead of the present? Or could it be that technology is the weakness? That no intelligent civilization is able to cope with advanced and complex technology for long enough time to embark on galactic space expeditions? Is technology a ticking time bomb, and key to every major civilizations failure? It’s best stop here, too many philosophical questions at once is too much to handle. With subjects like this, there really is no final solution, but just a final thesis. This solar system contains over 100 billion galaxies, so it’s very plausible that one of them may contain a star, like the sun, that is able to support life to its planets. The final question is: Are you …show more content…
ready?
Works Cited
Annalee Newitz. "7 Good Reasons Why There Might Be Life on Other Planets." Io9. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2013.
Booth, Billy. "If We Receive an Alien Signal, Then What?" About.com UFOs / Aliens. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Freitas, Robert A., Jr.
"Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Solar System: Resolving the Fermi Paradox." Extraterrestrial Intelligence In the Solar System: Resolving the Fermi Paradox. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2013.
Freitas, Robert A., Jr. "The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA)." THE. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
H, Phil. "Contacting Aliens." « Phil for Humanity. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013.
Hart, Micheal H. "1975QJRAS..16..128H Page 128." 1975QJRAS..16..128H Page 128. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Hawking, Steven. "SETI, Hawking, and Alien Contact | On Point with Tom Ashbrook." On Point with Tom Ashbrook RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Jha, Alok. "Is Stephen Hawking Right about Aliens?" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
Moore, Patrick. "ET Would Find Earth Boring, Says Sir Patrick Moore as He Predicts Alien Life beyond the Solar System Will Be Found within 50 Years." Mail Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
Roach, John. "When Aliens Attack, Will We Put up a Fair Fight?" NBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Shostak, Seth. "Contact: What Happens If a Signal Is Found." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2013.
"Six Frontiers for Alien Life." Msnbc.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb.
2013.
"Top 10 Evidence for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Power of the Unknown. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.
Tough, Allen. "What Role Will Extraterrestrials Play in Humanity 's Future?" Http://ieti.org/articles/future.pdf. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.
Wall, Mike. "First 'Alien Earth ' Will Be Found in 2013, Experts Say." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2013.
Zuckerman, Ben. "Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?" Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
Mrs. Owen
English III-H
28 February 2013
When Aliens Attack No one would believe that in the early years of the 21st century that earth was being watched by intelligence greater than his or her own. That while people busied themselves on their various concerns, they were being observed and studied. As if a scientist was looking through a microscope to study creatures not seen by the human eye. Slowly, the outsiders grow envy, watching as the humans waste away this wonderful planet like a McDonald’s Big Mac in a science experiment. Across the gulf of space, could unsympathetic intellects be slowly drawing their plans against the human race? Well that’s just a bunch of bull-shenanigans, but when one really thinks about it, …show more content…
is it really? The solar system contains over 100 billion galaxies, so it’s very plausible that one of them may contain a star, like the sun, that is able to support life to its planets. Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star in 1995, and since then, they 've spotted more than 800 worlds beyond the solar system (Space Mike Wall). If they have discovered so many planets with the small portion of space they can actually access with today’s technology, then the thought of no other life in the universe existing would be almost hogwash! In fact, famous astrophysicist and science communicator Neil Degrasse Tyson stated in a recent interview with Richard Dawkins “To say that life doesn’t exist anywhere besides earth, would be like filling a cup full of ocean water and stating there wasn’t such thing as whales, you’re going to need a bigger portion!”
Okay, all right, most by now probably get it, there’s a really, really big chance that earth isn’t the only planet that can support life, but if that’s the case, then where are they? Somewhere out there in this vast universe, there must certainly be other planets teeming with life, but why don’t astronomers see any evidence of it? This is a famous question asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950: Conspiracy theorists claim that U.F.O’s (Unidentified Flying Objects) are visiting all the time and the reports are just being covered up, but honestly they aren’t very convincing. But that leaves a real riddle. In the past year, the Kepler space observatory has found hundreds of planets just around nearby stars, and when they look at that data, it’s as if there could be half a trillion planets just in this very own galaxy (CNN Adamu). If only one in ten thousand had conditions that might support a form of life, that’s still fifty million possibly earth-like planets right here in the Milky Way. The earth didn’t form until nine billion years after the big bang. Countless other planets in the galaxy should have formed earlier, and given life a million, or maybe billion-year head start for life to underway. If just a few of them possessed earth-like conditions and spawned intelligent life that started creating technology, those technologies would have had billions or millions of years to grow in complexity and power. On earth, people have seen how dramatically technology can advance in just one hundred years. In millions of years, an intelligent alien civilization could have easily spread out across the galaxy. After all this time, wouldn’t it make sense for them to deliver their presence deliberately or otherwise through electromagnetic signals? Yet to this day, astronomers don’t see any convincing evidence of any of it. Why is that, this is the question that astronomers and Cosmologists have been asking over 50 years.
So let’s say that for some whatever reason, the first person to make contact with life outside of earth is tomorrow. Yes, very unlikely, probably isn’t going to happen, but it would be a good idea to think about it, what if it was really that close? Well for one: Most Historians and scientists today agree that this would be the most important moment in all of human history, and probably for the aliens themselves. In fact, it’s generally accepted that in generations to come, all of history would be divided into “Pre-contact” and “Post-contact” eras; instead of the “BC/AD” distinctions we use now (Space, Wall). So to put it one way, they’d be the most important person in all of human history. Think, even more famous than Jesus, but before someone starts hollering out their bedroom window claiming that they just made contact with extraterrestrials, they’re going to have to take a few steps before such a message is delivered to the media. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institution (SETI), stated that any person, public or private research institution or governmental agency that believes it has detected a signal from or other evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence should seek to verify that the most plausible explanation for the evidence is the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence rather than some other natural phenomenon or anthropogenic phenomenon before making any public announcement (SETI 101). Some cosmologist including Stephen Hawking, believe that with the numbers alone, there’s no doubt that there is life out there, but that it would be suicide to try and contact them. “With billions of galaxies, trillions of stars, the numbers tell me there’s life out there. The smartest forms could make it here. But we should not want that, says Hawking. Too much danger” (Bad Astronomy Hawking). They won’t speak any of earth’s languages, and they probably won’t be able to mess with people’s thoughts. They might not communicate through sounds, and may not even hear the frequencies humans talk through. Human language just won’t do it, which is why most scientists believe that the only way to communicate at first would be by using visible light, or drawing pictures, like a game of Martian charades; that is if the aliens have eyes. NASA has prepared several different ways to communicate if such an event occurred, including images of basic math problems to show human’s intelligence, and pictures of the human race. They won’t know who Einstein was, but they’ll know about relativity. They won’t call it “Newton’s Laws”, but they’ll know about the conservation of energy. They won’t know about the Mona Lisa, but they’ll know Hydrogen has one proton. When it comes to contacting extraterrestrials, scientists are basically like a lonely high school girl after a first date. They’re sitting next to the phone all day, hoping that they’ll call, hoping that they’re thinking of us, and when they finally do, prepare for an awkward conversation. Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore stated, “I don’t think we would be on any alien’s tourist list. We are a pretty boring planet, orbiting a boring star” (daily mail, Moore).
So assuming that one day, after so many years of waiting, earth does get that call from the one they’ve been so curious about. Would people’s minds immediately change when they promptly begin their plans to exterminate the human race? Many cosmologists like Stephen Hawking and John Roach argue that the search for life outside earth is a dangerous journey. “Whoever takes the trouble to come visit us is probably a more aggressive personality. And if they have the technology to come here, the idea that we can take them on is like Napoleon taking on the U.S. Air Force,” Roach stated. “We’re not going to be able to defend ourselves very well” (NBC News Roach). Hawking also added "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn 't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said (BBC Hawking). But others think differently, famous humanist Phil B. (Last name not available) argued; “If an alien race is technologically capable of interstellar space travel, then they do not need the raw resources such as metals, water, hydrogen, and gases that Earth has an abundance of. This is because sufficiently advanced aliens with interstellar travel would have the technology to robotically mine billions of asteroids, comets, moons, and planets where literally all resources exist in plentiful quantities. Finding these resources should not be difficult for aliens either. So, aliens would not be interested in attacking humanity for Earth 's raw resources. That means the only thing on Earth of any potential interest to aliens would be life” (Philforhumanity Phil B). Countless theories have evolved over time about the possible reasoning for such an event to occur. NASA stated that one theory could be the aliens are trying to save earth from global warming; why waste a perfectly good exoplanet? Astronomers in Pennsylvania and Washington State have so far jumped on one idea that extraterrestrial intelligence might attack earth not out of spite, “but instead out of a universalist desire to make the galaxy a better place.” In other words, Earth may get blown up to make way for a hyperspace bypass, because aliens value galactic infrastructure more than human’s lives (NG Jaggard). The talk about aliens is scary subject to think about, would it be a mass genocide to the human race with galactic laser guns and space cannons like in H.G Well’s, the War of the Worlds, or a peaceful, friendly, welcoming from our cosmic neighbors like in Steven Spielberg’s E.T? “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.” Added Famous theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking. Would aliens have the same basic functions that humans have today to survive? Could aliens one day come to the earth to simply live in harmony? Hawking says it’s highly doubtful:
One ridiculous feature of movie aliens is that they almost always look something like us bipeds with eyes, nose (or at least nostrils) and mouth. Sometimes they add some slime or mucous to make them a bit more foreign. These depictions are dazzlingly unimaginative. It’s really incredible how we can’t seem to let go of the idea that sentient aliens would just be “men from outer space. Truth is stranger than fiction, and since we have no real knowledge of extra-terrestrial life, we have no starting point for imagining them, other than ourselves (Avoiding Aliens Hawking).
Whoever they are, they must be quite different. Evolution would have taken an entirely different course on a different planet. This could make one wonder if that human quality, let’s call it compassion, that makes people smile inside while they witness, say, a cute baby putting on his dad’s shoes, would ever evolve anywhere else in the universe. Could the alien visitors possibly regard us with the understanding that we are not fundamentally like them, that we’re just some hardworking beings trying to make it in this crazy universe? Somewhere is this massive vast universe, there must be planets out there teeming with intelligent life.
It could take over hundreds of years to finally have an answer to this enormous riddle, or it may be closer than we think, possibly even in the next 50 years. If one wanted to get real deep in the subject, is it possible that the human race is the outcome of an alien evolution, and that people’s ancestors are secretly aliens that invaded this earth billions of years ago? Could this giant search for a galactic neighbor be a giant waste of time, because astronomers have been looking in the wrong direction, that we should be looking in the past, instead of the present? Or could it be that technology is the weakness? That no intelligent civilization is able to cope with advanced and complex technology for long enough time to embark on galactic space expeditions? Is technology a ticking time bomb, and key to every major civilizations failure? It’s best stop here, too many philosophical questions at once is too much to handle. With subjects like this, there really is no final solution, but just a final thesis. This solar system contains over 100 billion galaxies, so it’s very plausible that one of them may contain a star, like the sun, that is able to support life to its planets. The final question is: Are you …show more content…
ready?
Works Cited
Annalee Newitz. "7 Good Reasons Why There Might Be Life on Other Planets." Io9. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2013.
Booth, Billy. "If We Receive an Alien Signal, Then What?" About.com UFOs / Aliens. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Freitas, Robert A., Jr.
"Extraterrestrial Intelligence in the Solar System: Resolving the Fermi Paradox." Extraterrestrial Intelligence In the Solar System: Resolving the Fermi Paradox. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2013.
Freitas, Robert A., Jr. "The Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA)." THE. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Feb. 2013.
H, Phil. "Contacting Aliens." « Phil for Humanity. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Feb. 2013.
Hart, Micheal H. "1975QJRAS..16..128H Page 128." 1975QJRAS..16..128H Page 128. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb. 2013.
Hawking, Steven. "SETI, Hawking, and Alien Contact | On Point with Tom Ashbrook." On Point with Tom Ashbrook RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Jha, Alok. "Is Stephen Hawking Right about Aliens?" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 19 Feb. 2013.
Moore, Patrick. "ET Would Find Earth Boring, Says Sir Patrick Moore as He Predicts Alien Life beyond the Solar System Will Be Found within 50 Years." Mail Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Feb. 2013.
Roach, John. "When Aliens Attack, Will We Put up a Fair Fight?" NBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2013.
Shostak, Seth. "Contact: What Happens If a Signal Is Found." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Feb. 2013.
"Six Frontiers for Alien Life." Msnbc.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Feb.
2013.
"Top 10 Evidence for Extraterrestrial Intelligence." Power of the Unknown. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2013.
Tough, Allen. "What Role Will Extraterrestrials Play in Humanity 's Future?" Http://ieti.org/articles/future.pdf. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2013.
Wall, Mike. "First 'Alien Earth ' Will Be Found in 2013, Experts Say." Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Feb. 2013.
Zuckerman, Ben. "Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?" Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.