Aliens and Religion

[Jack Stutler]

I don't know, what do you mean by communicate with us? Do you mean conversation such as this? or very very basic such as a dog barking and whining at the door because it wants to go outside?

I'd say there's tons of instances of communication here on earth, not including humans. A meercat on the lookout for predators emits a loud screech, which warns others nearby that something is coming which could be a threat, and so they hide. Communication? I'd say so, at the very basic of levels.

And look at our own planet, we've had life here for millions of year, but how long has intelligent life been around? A blink of an eye. With enough time, I agree, life would evolve to a point where a organism is sentient.

I'd almost argue that once sentience is reached, physical evolution comes to an end(given the only thing to study, which is ourselves). We're no longer evolving traits that increase our survival and reproductive chances, because we are able to design environments free from any outside form of predation.

[Jeremy]

By communication, I mean be able to convey any kind of message to us. Meercats definitely do communicate and if an alien popped out of a hole and screeched at me, I'd accept that as aliens communicating as well.

I think your statement about life eventually evolving to become sentient is flawed. It assumes that sentience in life is some kind of mark of progression. Does this mean that apes are more evolved than trees because they are more sentient? Of course not. All life alive today is equally evolved regardless of their level of sentience. Sentience is not a measure of evolution at all - it is just an abstract human measurement with no relation to the natural world or evolution. Evolution merely results in the life forms with the best chance of survival in their current environment becoming more dominate over life forms of the same species with a lower chance of survival due to genetic differences. It has no goal or direction and it can only be measured by continued survival (not sentience, running speed, nose length or any other arbitrary measurement).

You are also completely wrong to state that "once sentience is reached, physical evolution comes to an end." Actually the scientific evidence shows clearly that humans are evolving at a very rapid rate right now. Rapid at least in terms of evolutionary speed.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007 ... lving.html

Of course there is no aspect of evolutionary theory that would suggest that evolution of a species would stop when that species became sentient, so your suggestion cannot be based on science. While you are free to argue whatever you believe to be the case regardless of reality, you certainly won't convince me over directly observational and repeatable evidence.

[Blue_turnip]

simply put - I doubt greater intelligence would make meercats root more than they already do.

[Zac Miley]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/2 ... index.html

[james]

evolution does have a direction and that direction is people failing at understanding it