It's not Dawkins -vs- DeGrasse Tyson. It's two intelligent people, from different backgrounds, discussing topics of interest to them both, in order to gain a different perspective on their own beliefs.
Not the best analogy. I dig NDT and his entertaining antics but I don't think he's the genius that many prop him up to be. More of a guy who was continually in the right place at the right time.
Um, a stinger is a genetically grown appendage based on evolution, whereas the gun is a technological and inanimate tool, distinct and completely separate from the body. Really no comparison there. Oh Neil...
Sparta oh it is. This is a debate, except unlike most debates, where they pit one idiotic moron against one intelligent person (who's who depends on who you ask) and they scream at each other. This is a case where they put two extremely intelligent people up against each other, so all that's being said actually makes sense, thusly it ends up sounding more like a conversation, where they commonly reach an understanding.
Thomas Torrissen It sounds more like a conversation since there isn't a moderator and neither are exposing a point so that the other can disagree. They merely discussed things.
Dawkins brings up an interesting topic that should be studied more. The number of time particular traits have evolved. Maybe it'd just the nerd in me but I find this fascinating.
If you do a youtube search for evolutionary predictability you will find a fantastic Dawkins lecture about the subject. RU-vid, dollar for dollar blowing away a college education.
PoofyKittyPants I'd like to see you get a high paid technical job by listing a set of RU-vid videos you've watched instead of having a degree. I love educational RU-vid videos, especially science ones, but if your college education was comparable to them then you went to a terrible college.
SarthorS Yeah dude said he found evolutionary predictability fascinating so i steered him to a video about it. It would be pretty dickish to tell him to go to school.
PoofyKittyPants There's nothing to say you can't do both. But then if you end up studying a worthless degree in college that doesn't help you get a well-paid job, then it's your fault. My degree was in computer science and was well worth it. The whole damn point of college is to give you a solid foundation to launch a good career. People who actually want to 'grow' or 'experiment' will do that on their own without getting into huge amounts of debt to do it.
tyson was too busy trying to be the funny man and talking about movies . i like him but there are times when i get annoyed at the boisterous attempts at being funny
starfox Regardless of him trying to be funny or not, he was still adding to the conversation in regard to Dawkin's points. Whether he was talking about movies or not it was still the the same idea. And something else to think about is that he most likely knows that these are filmed and whatnot, so perhaps he uses movies or whatever else to let people (who perhaps aren't to familiar with what they may be talking about) learn in a much easier manner. Just a thought, no need to start a hate thread.
starfox Well, I didn't think he was too funny, I don't know where you got that from, but I'm not going to bash the guy. Either way, thanks for totally ignoring the initial point of my previous reply.
Yeah, Neil DeGrasse really should shut up. He's not making any points, he sounds like a religious person trying to participate in a scientific discussion.
To be fair, Dawkins is a biologist and Neil is an astrophysicist. So Neil knows more about aliens than Dawkins, so I wouldn't say it's a "versus", but more so educating, which is something Dawkins loves
well neither one of them know anything about aliens because aliens haven't been proven to exist. however, if they did exist neil would be able to tell us what they are made of and dawkins would be able to tell us why they are made the way they are.
I agree. While I generally disagree with Dawkins' radical and perhaps insensitive views, there really wasn't any of that in this discussion. I also generally like Tyson, but he seemed to be monopolizing and taking away from an otherwise well grounded and civil intellectual discussion.
+Aristarchus of Samos they are two different kinds of scientists, with different way of talking. But yeah, I do "prefer" Dawkins, he's a warrior of knowledge.
+Avatar BoB What do you class as a 'degree' in science? He has a doctorate from Columbia Uni, and Dawkins is a moron? lol only one moron here Avatar BoB and thats you sweetpea, go back to sleep, when you wake up smart people from around the world will have made your life much better!
Dawkins seemed like he was getting kind of annoyed, I don't blame him though, it felt like Tyson was interrupting him a lot and trying to cast his ideas over Dawkins.
I agree....a lot to do with the difference in energy between the two... Neil is very energetic...but yes I was annoyed when he interrupted while Dawkins was making a very good point...
Bats are commonly mis-characterized as being blind. They actually have some incredible vision due to the fact that they are active during the night. Sonar is an addition to their sight. Bats very well may hear in color but it is not for a lack of eyesight.
Aliens in movies are very anthropomorphic because fingers allow a creature to effectively create tools and being bipedal allows such creatures to have a better reach, both of which are nice advantages for building spaceships. They then use these spaceships to visit other planets, such as Earth. If a hippo was smart enough to build a spaceship, would it be able to? No. Its not equipped for that. Its equipped for swimming and other hippo shit. Suck it Neil.
I do somewhat agree on the finger part, but couldn't they also be tentacles? Also they don't have to be bipedal per se, they could be an "underwater"(or some other liquid) civilization, at first this might seem stupid, but imagine their reality: they would be able to fucking fly in their environment, and that would make their advancement in technology vastly different, and their physical appearance as well. Liquid is in a way just denser air ( yeah I know, gases and liquids, compressing and stuff..)
And the reason why I said "bipedal per se" is that dolphins, seals, sea lions etc are not that different from us, they have two hands(the pectoral fins), eyes and all that stuff, and their "legs" are just fused together to form a tail. Think mermaids.
The reason we are bipedal is not to have reach. (See: Giraffe) but because our primate ancestors lived primarily in tall grass environments and therefore standing up was preferable for detecting danger.
+Winston S. Oh, you should've seen some of his remarks concerning Ray Comfort and alike. Dawkins can be funny when he wants to, he just seems to love science way too much to make fun out of it.
webdesignerguy Let me make another analogy - people need intelligence to fly in the air, birds do not.... So yeah it is very likely that aliens would travel to Earth by technological means but its not a given
webdesignerguy You sir have brought up a very good point that no one else has properly considered. In addition to technology, they would need a way to navigate their way to earth, and once here, they would need to know how to go on Google to check out interesting places to visit and look up decent restaurants.
The comparison between the hypodermic stinger in many species and guns was an odd one...bit a silly comment on Tysons part. Guns are hardly an evolutionary trait lol thats just tool use and a feat of ingenuity as a result of our intelligence
Pretty sure it was a joke. I'm guessing Dawkins is hard to amuse, so it fell flat... twice. Of course, you could also say that it's actually valid to include any of our tools as a subset of intelligence, thus making them equal to all the other abilities developed through evolution.
I know he was joking but it was kind of humourless and out of place in the conversation tbh :/ Well the subject was focusing on innate features, not features we create, I wouldnt be inclined to include tool use in that category
You misunderstand my point, it clearly is another step in evolution, however, what I'm saying is that the discussion was talking about innate evolutionary traits, i.e. eyes, opposable thumbs, ears, etc. A gun is not an example of the human equivalent of a stinger, even if I was to humour that argument, a hypodermic vs a projectile still doesn't work.
It's apparent that Richard Dawkins does not care whether his audience comprehends what he is talking about. If you don't understand, you're not worth his time in explaining. Educate yourself! Neil deGrasse Tyson seems to be more concerned with dumbing down his rhetoric so that the general populace will understand or identify with what he says. Looking for positive feedback. I tend to lean toward Dawkins rather than be a sycophant for Tyson. Educate yourselves people!
I would just like to note, respectfully, that I don't believe Dawkins is as snotty as you make him seem, and I do believe that he does in fact care about audience comprehension when he speaks; note how he explains echolocation @2:23, which, I don't think is a question, was done solely for the benefit of the audience. It seems that as the talk shifted from Tyson's initial open-ended rhetoric to a more conversational dialogue, Dawkins addressed Tyson scientist to scientist. And, even then, I would argue that he kept things pretty lay. I've heard this guy give some dense talks, as I'm sure you have. But, in agreement with your points, it may just be that Tyson, as an American whose programs mostly rely on American funding, is trying to make science interesting for America, while Dawkins, as a Brit, couldn't care less about American science initiatives.
Dawkins books are actually very accommodating to newcomers. "The greatest show in the Universe" for example goes into great detail to explain how biologists know what they know, or the various ways in which things are dated, from the ground up. In the case of dendrochronology he introduces it, but then continues to use the colloquial term 'tree ring dating' while he explains how it works. He also uses a lot of metaphors in his books and common language. I think the difference is just that Tyson is such an excellent speaker an communicator, he makes anyone next to him seem less engaging.
I don't think that's the case. Tyson is much more intelligent than Dawkins. Dawkins seens to be only talking with no objective. Tyson showed his point was wrong in an intuitive way. Tyson is smarter and more charismatic, but i like Dawkins as well.
Why do you not want more people to be interested in science? Educate yourself? really how many people do you know who would educate themselves about this stuff. It takes someone honestly trying to share the love and beauty for science to get them interesting. I'm sure it annoys a lot of people when things are "dumbed down" but I honestly believe that when Science becomes something approachable and not just a sanctuary for intellectuals then that just becomes generally good for the human race. So yeah I like how approachabel Neil makes science.
Horses MAY be able to see directly behind them but it is the predator, with forward seeing eyes, that hunts creatures like the horse, and in doing so develops, generally, greater intelligence than the prey. This is why it is not unlikely that intelligent aliens might have forward looking, binocular vision. It is also very unlikely that the organs for sight, smell, and hearing will be located far away from the brain (many scientists like to postulate a creature with a mouth on its belly or something similar) due to the need for nerve impulses to travel quickly to the brain from these organs - hence the reasons higher life forms have this configuration. And, if they're going to have technology on par with anything like ours, they will have to have some way of manipulating their environment in a similar manner as we - i.e. putting a screw in a hole and spinning it - this takes hands. There is no other animal with any other appendage on our planet that has the dexterity that humans do that can achieve this. So I think it is more likely that aliens that CAN travel to our planet will resemble us more than they will resemble any other organism that we are familiar with.
I was annoyed by that, I do love it when he talks on his own, but interrupting someone to make someone else outside that conversation laugh is just... I dunno.. stupid? And Dawkins wasn't even that dull, I think he was getting rather interesting, until deGrasse interrupted him once again. You can see the frustration building up. I almost shouted "let him finish god damn it" at my screen..
I like Neil deGrasse Tyson but I think he loves his own opinions more than other people's. It's frustrating how he always interrupts people. He does it all the time.
If i'd watch this a year ago (17 years old) i would probably be so bored, but now i absolutely love these kind of conversations between two very intelligent people. My mind amazes me
I personally believe that natural selection will make the same decisions to overcome the same challenges no matter where those challenges lie. I feel that if you roll the dice a million times and only one yields an improvement to survivability, then that's what should generally win out, excluding outside tampering, a backwards culture or other extraordinary circumstances. In this, I feel like it isn't far-fetched to expect a very human-like being to walk down the runway of a UFO, complete with two arms, two legs, a head featuring two eyes and a mouth, a large brain and waving a weapon that ergonomically resembles one that we would have invented since technology follows similar lines: if it works, keep it, otherwise throw it out. I have no problem with Star Trek aliens being humans with minor cosmetics applied, but I likewise won't rule out other forms because maybe the planet they call home is different enough to cause evolution to make different decisions. I expect that life from an earthlike planet (similar temperature, water content and so forth) to look and feel very familiar, right down to having diverse cultures sporting multiple religions, each vying for control of the populace. Considering what we know of life at the present time, I wouldn't expect the diversity required to spawn intelligence to come from anywhere BUT an earthlike planet, where we have the luxury of an abundance of water and energy in just the right quantities to be more than just organisms fighting for survival. Maybe there are other situations, and the more bizarre it gets, the more alien the alien, and TRULY alien aliens should be so incomprehensible as to be bad for storytelling. Therefore, Hollywood can continue feeding us humanoid aliens all they like; it's perfectly feasible in my mind.
Once again Tyson and I agree on another bothersome perception. A world, as tiny and diverse as this one should show it's very possible foreign life won't have anthropomorphic resemblances. And, like Tyson, I watch a lot of movies too. Avatar showed a whole range of different animals - but, unfortunately, just like Earth, the "star" species was anthropomorphic.
Possibly. However, as Dawkins pointed out, evolution is not random and that gives good reason to expect similar forms of life to have evolved on other planets in the universe.
One of the reasons the navii are anthropomorphic is mainly because there is a "love story" involved and the audience would probably not accept a non humanoid emotional relationship unfolding in a movie and take it seriously.
Eddie Cheng No doubt the environment around us limits our imagination. However, certain traits are predictable outcomes of evolution. For instance we would not expect to find alien life forms with a three eyes since two provides the majority of the evolutionary benefit. Evolution is not completely random.
I'm pretty sure the reason Hollywood anthropomorphizes its aliens is so that the common man can relate to them. Truth be told, I agree with both; there are, somewhere in the universe, aliens that look and function very similarly to us. But the vast, VAST majority of intelligent aliens probably do not.
It's totally reasonable to expect an alien with a head and a body like ours (give or take appendages), because it's completely logical that another species would evolve with the most of the senses located at the top of the body and nearest to the brain.
I agree with a vision but it all depends on the enviroment, eyes could be also mounted like on a submarine, think about it, you lie down and move your eyes up to see while remaining hidden. Brain could also be placed in the center of the body to provide better protection.
+jakub mike Yes, but the point is that highly intelligent and advanced aliens are not going to have such extreme traits. since their evolution would be aimed at their brain growth. thus the "end results" are likely to be somewhat "familiar" to us. the most "extreme" design that i can think off that could probably work for a intelligent and advanced spieces, would be a creature with highly advanced tentacles instead of limbs, feet, hands, fingers, etc..
Also to be highly intellectually/technologically advanced you need to be at the top of the food chain, so you have no need to hide, thus they have no need to evolve in such way. How would any race develop interstellar travel, if they need to hide themselves constantly?
'It can't be that important for survival.' I don't think evolution has any predictive capabilities? these features arise due to the situation and environment the species is put in. Intelligence obviously isn't compulsory for survival, but that doesn't mean it's not very beneficial. Our features that make us distinct from other apes would have arisen due to something different about the environment we were in. These are just me speculating, they're likely incorrect. Standing upright- our ancestors were in a place with few trees and long grass, they had to stand tall to see over the grass in order to look out for predators. Less fur- When we started to wear clothing we got our needed insulation from this and had no need for fur anymore. Intelligence- we probably accidentally came about to tools? using the tools would have been a good survival technique that would be passed on, the better knowledge we had on how to use the tools against predators it would better our chances for survival and that knowledge would be passed on, eventually leading to an advanced intelligence. So maybe it was all from that one accidental discovery of tools that we gained intelligence and no other animal has been fortunate enough to do the same, it doesn't diminish that 'intelligence' is a beneficial survival feature though.
It depends on what kind of alien you want. For a sentient intelligent alien species you probably have to have certain criteria. - you cant be stuck in one dimension like a dolphin or fish - an entirely aquatic species will never develop cultural intelligence ( a dolphin wont build cities ) - cant be one that is always on the move like birds or flying insects - would have to be stationary for a large part of the time and land based - way for communicating to each other and a way to process this information ( a brain ) - the ability to interact manipulate it's environment to gain resources food etc. ( would have to have limbs to move around to obtain the above ) - a way to see it's environment otherwise it will remain lower life - ability to produce sound and sense of smell ( if something is on fire or makes a loud boom you want to be able to smell it or move away and hide )
It's pretty disappointing to see so many people in the comments here unable to identify with someone who doesn't base all their concepts on popular culture. Personally I would have liked it if Tyson didn't keep using popular culture as a crutch. "Oh that's like that time in that one movie"... Well actually, no, that movie draws from examples present in the natural world. When Dawkins talks about echo-location he speaks of bats which are real. Tyson talks about Dare Devil which isn't real. You can't use fantasy to support conjecture. Use reality to support it instead.
To be fair, they were discussing how echo-location would actually be perceived within the brain. Saying it's probably interpreted visually is fine and I'm sure most people can manage imagining it, but referencing something popular that actually depicts that happening (Daredevil, more or less) can make it more real for a mass audience, something Tyson seems to have a much better handle on. Also, just because something is fiction doesn't mean it doesn't have valid ideas to draw from or make reference to.
I have to disagree. Did you both even watch the freakin' video? This is Dawkin's field of expertise. He is a biologist. Tyson is an astrophysicist. What I saw was Tyson asking Dawkins questions about evolution and how alien life would evolve. The person who provided the most information was Dawkins. From how many times a certain trait evolved independently, to echolocation and how bats use it to detect color. Perhaps you prefer Tyson's delivery (as most people do. It's much easier to absorb than Dawkin's scholarly, no-nonsense professor style). But that doesn't mean Tyson "schooled" him. The one providing the schooling here was Dawkins. Tyson said almost nothing besides the opening bit, and just asked questions and listened.
Wanderlust Nova Dawkins only spoke about, authoritatively of course, what has occurred in the evolution on earth. Tyson spoke using examples of the diversity of life on earth and how it could evolve into something else on another planet.
Wanderlust Nova So, Dawkins is not an expert on religion or theology but expresses his opinion on the topic. The truth is neither of them have an idea of what a real alien looks like, they are both speculating.
It is very reasonable to believe that on a planet similar to Earth in a different solar system intelligent life, if it did emerge, would look quite similar to humans.
dawkins had some very interesting things to say... i was disappointed with tyson on this one. normally i hang on tysons every word as it is always brilliant. this time, i wanted him to stop interrupting and citing movies he had seen.
I really like Richard Dawkins, I didn't used to but now I really do and I agree with most of what he has to say. BUT, I LOVE Neil deGrasse Tyson! and I have yet heard him say anything I disagree with including religion which he is classically stand offish about because he does not want that to be a focus. On religion he wants it held as far away as possible because he does not want it to be a factor and I applaud him for that. He is not religious and he does not believe there are gods and that is enough, he does not define himself on his beliefs like Dawkins does. I am almost embarrassed that in the last few years I have come to define myself on my views on religion (thought my family thinks it has been a lot longer) but unlike Tyson who has much better things to be concerned with, I can speak out against the influences of religion without loosing my focus on more important things. Neil deGrasse Tyson IS the voice of what atheism should be, a lack of concern as to the question of god. As an atheist I wish it could be as easy as "You're an atheist? So you don't think there is a god? OK." AND MOVE ON. I DO NOT WANT to be defined by my stance on god, I don't think there is one so I don't want to be defined by it. BUT too many people are TOO concerned with the question of god and THEIR beliefs DO affect me and typically in negative ways so I DO speak out for that reason. But not Neil, bless him, he has more important things to worry about and for THAT reason he is my Hero.
The problem is, that collectively as atheists, we have tended not to speak up about religion in the past. We chose instead to not really consider or discuss the issue as you say, because we don't believe in the whole thing. But that stance is longer viable as secular states have allowed religion and religious views to dominate their politics and led to the ridiculous situation of having creationism taught in schools and a belief that science is 'just a theory'. This is why we have had to band together and form humanist organizations, FSM, and free thinking foundations in order to combat the religious pressure groups. But I'm sure I'm "preaching to the converted" here Tom :-)
Peter Everett Well, that's why I am outspoken, and why Dawkins is outspoken (said the ant about the giant). I've seen Tyson talk and you can tell he is discouraged that region matters and that people want to label him and I share his pain. But yes, I agree with you, religion is something that needs to be spoken out against as it does threaten to take over politics and education.
Tom Leeds (original post edited for autocorrect typos) That is the utopia though Tom! An age when we don't need to talk about religion outside of the context of a weird historical thing that we don't do anymore but look upon it all with pity and say things like "ah bless... imagine actually believing something like that!?"
Peter Everett Some day the christian god will join the Greek Gods and the Roman Gods and the Egyptian gods. Some day there will be a new god and even Scientology will seem reasonable in comparison, or at least as reasonable as Mormonism. Hey Cara Santa Maria do you think Scientology will ever be as reasonable as magic underwear and getting your own planet?
Religion is just a subset of results from the processes with which the human brain approaches big stochastic systems; another subset is politics; another item is atheism, how it may ever intersect religion. Most humans will never develop the ability to do this well; just as they will never develop the ability to free-climb mountains or work with differential geometry; so, for many humans, this realm of processing reduces into a coping mechanism, with selective ignorance "capping" questions that would cause great amounts of stress and spend large amounts of energy - an efficiency measure, ultimately.
Casey Speaks It may not be possible at all, ever. Ever ever. As in, not with 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 exabytes of running memory and an intelligence 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more intelligent a human.
Yes Steve, Neil certainly has a healthy interest in Sci Fi, that's another reason I like him so much. He's just like us (but with a bigger brain) - also he's one of the few people besides me who has seen "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension".
Hollywood protagonist aliens need to be relateable, and relateable means automatically a humanly recognizable face, arms, hands, and legs. If E.T. was unrecognizable (eg no eyes or face), children would not recognize it as a living thing that has feelings, or in other words, it would suck. The blob is not relateable, but then again, it's quite evil, and if its evil, unrelateable is good, because what you want is to hate it, not feel sorry for it.
We see "intelligence" in some rather unusual and unexpected places, but as humans we have a strange way of defining intelligence. Facts: we have crocodiles which use sticks to hunt, we have birds which use bread to fish! we have dogs that get excited when their owners seem to be about to take them for a walk. All these in many species i would argue is a definate sign that intelligence across species is the NORMALITY and NOT the exception. Sure a crow cant do quantum science, but there is a youtube video of one raising water levels to grab food. Now to me that is intelligence. So if we use an environmental advantage to be able to learn or mimmic, then intelligence exists in all species, on that basis there are no exceptions known at this time. On earth intelligence is an evolutionary advantage to any species and would therefore have a higher probablitiy of being passed on generationally. Therefore should we find animal life anywhere else, whilst unknown, there is a high possibility it will have some kind of intelligence even if we dont regard it as useful.
Is this really a Dawkins VS a Tyson? 'VS' really? And it's posted through 'neil deGrasse Tyson Videos'? Tyson is a competitive ass with an enormous ego desperate for attention. Perhaps tyson ought to have been a boxer.
Why is it on every single video I've ever seen Dawkins on he always make's sure to insult religious people/religion? Is this guy obsessed? I mean even his website, "The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science" is composed almost completely of anti-religious articles rather than things that actually educate people about the universe we live in and promote science. As an agnostic myself (leaning closer to atheism rather than theism) I believe that bashing religion might be the worst thing you can possibly do to actually deter religion. All you're doing is convincing them that atheists are assholes (as many theists are who stand at the pulpit bashing atheists for not believing in god) If you actually want to help the world in taking off its blind fold of religion, instead of being a religion basher and pointlessly bucking heads with religious people, simply promote the truth. No religious person will want to ever listen to you if you're going to childishly insult their beliefs and tell them how superior and how much more logical your beliefs are compared to them, instead educate them of the AMAZING universe that we live in and share with them the PROFOUND amount of knowledge that our species has worked so hard to accumulate and the blind fold of religion will naturally come off, I say this because I was indoctrinated into a religion ever since I was an infant but by simply by watching a ton of Carl Sagan as a teenager, I turned agnostic. Sagan is a great example to follow for all atheists, a great man who was very respectful to everybody and had a genuine desire to share his wealth of knowledge with everybody in the world. Also the new guy who redid the Cosmos series is also fantastic from what I've seen. Neil deGrasse Tyson is his name I believe. Follow their examples, not Dawkins if you actually want to get through to religious people.
Bullshit! Religion is in *desperate need* of being openly ridiculed and criticized for the brainless and dangerous delusion which it is, a delusion which causes real harm to real people and real animals on a daily basis all over the world - a delusion which needs to be *destroyed utterly* for the good of all life on earth!
amazing video! difference in opinion is an inevitable affliction of all living things ! contrast how difference are tackled by using science like displayed here, with how difference are settled using religion............................the absence of respect for the only literal views that matter, facts and evidence = an absence of rationality which depressingly, in 2016 still leads to the loss of precious life! do you ever hear of biology students massacring physiology graduets, or chemistry students blowing up arts classes...?....religion is a remnant of the infancy of human unintelegence, and there is nothing better the world could do without!
Dawkins makes a good point about aliens having anthropomorphic features. How would an alien species develop advanced technology without appendages that allow them precise manipulation of objects, and eyes that give them accurate depth and color perception? Tyson's point about Daredevil is off-base, considering the imperfection that type of "sound" location would cause in an alien's ability to create objects that are extremely precise in their dimensions. Not only that, but even with eye sight's imperfections, you can see things up close and far away in great detail with microscopes and telescopes. Whereas, with sound, your ability to precisely gauge spacial distance and object size/structure would be extremely imprecise by comparison. I like Tyson a lot, but his arguments seem pretty weak to me.
There are probably more factors in the intelligence in the animal kingdom question. One of the main ones being that with higher intelligence comes a mean-streak as we know from our own history & contemporary times- anything as intelligent or capable as us we perceive as a threat & attempt to kill! We've never stopped trying to kill each other & anything else that may have shown signs of being smart & able to create or make things, communicate, etc if we encountered it in ancient times we certainly would have tried to kill it & we know we succeeded because we're still here!
***** Absolutely, & if we are unable to take advantage or enslave them we usually try to destroy them instead. Bit of an outburst but as a general rule I so love Tyson for generally being much less egotistical than most scientists in the public eye- maybe its the whole celebrity thing that ruins them & now its doing the same to him. Theres no denying how intelligent & brilliant they are, but man wish they'd get over themselves & acknowledge that their chosen field of expertise is not the be all & end all of everything. Dawkins is a prime example, he has irked me for years because of his unshakable belief in his own superiority over all other humans because he has such a firm grasp on a singular & highly specific aspect of existence. Over-specializing (which all scientific fields are nowadays) narrows a view intensely- its like falling into a well with all this information written on its walls which gives you huge insight into this one thing, but as you fall deeper you gradually lose sight of the rest of the world & disappear up your own ass! ;) They don't have any view at all of the bigger picture, they can't have because to get where they are they have to immerse themselves completely in their field. They can't look at things alongside everything else objectively it seems, only from the perspective of their field. If you watch Michio Kaku, love him too generally, but he says soooooooo many times, with this conceited tone of voice & look which tells you he believes himself to be 2 evolutionary steps from god, "we physicists" have done this, that, allow you mere mortals to live in our world etc. They're intellectual supremacists basically, they think what they know is all there is to know or worth knowing...& the funniest thing is in 100-200 years time virtually everything they know will have been overturned or updated or just proven plain wrong as it has been throughout history with everything else we thought we knew at some point. Tbh I don't think theres much difference these days between them & the church of old- dictating reality & truth to the masses & expecting their acquiescence & worship in return! Exactly the same mentality- arrogance. Just a material & empirically based arrogance instead of spiritual- identical state of mind in diametric opposition. Clergy used to think they were above everything else because of their unique relationship with god, these dudes because of their unique knowledge.
***** I'm sure if there's intelligent life out there they have also got their own history of atrocities, and if they ever had to visit us they'd be a mature society looking to expand their scientific understanding. Think if we had to travel millions of years to reach another planet, I highly doubt we'd go and kill everything, we'd probably study their planet and try and communicate.
***** it obviously cares about reproduccion, and survival, for some reason that i cant understand life is somehow better than non life, evolution is the constant struggle for survival throughout adaptation, but why is surviving important at all? i like to be alive but i dont see the relevance. the universe is empty space, somehow consciousness occurred and a set of tools to protect it.
A clear example of what to expect from one scientist that has ceased using his imagination compared to another scientist that enjoys using his imagination.
Because I was told by a starch atheist professor when I asked her about, aliens and the possibility that they exist in different forms, I defense of my bio-thesis, she told me that life is only possible here, (earth) because of the goldilocks zone. Which isn't apparent anywhere else in the recorded and know universe. I said, "why cant they evolve to not need light or oxygen or breath in a mercury enviroment?" She then openly told me in 60+ years of scanning the universe, and 200 years of Arabic cosmology, there haven't been any, other planet with a glimpse of life. And you NEED a sun. I then asked her, can a actually ask a astrophysicist, she then gave me a no, and a 60% on my paper. So long story short, its just us, and there no reason to even belief in aliens or even discuss other idiotic ideas. We need to destroy irrationality. Theres enough of that going on,
"can a actually ask a astrophysicist," you mean "I ask an astophysicist?" ? Why won't she let you? "because of the goldilocks zone. Which isn't apparent anywhere else in the recorded and know universe." This goldilocks zone actually exists on all stars. It's a range of orbit, for example, like 5million - 8-million km from the star. It varies depending on the size and temperature of the star, and the Kepler telescope has found multiple stars with possible rocky planets within it's goldilocks zone. The problem there is that a lot of stars don't have planets on their goldilocks zone. "why cant they evolve to not need light or oxygen or breath in a mercury enviroment?" This is actually possible. Problem is, we don't know how non-carbon-based creatures function, or what their environment will be like, or what traces their existence would leave for us to find. So then we are limited to finding life forms that are similiar to us, since we know what traces to look for, what planet to live on, what goldilocks zone to look for. Besides, being atheist doesn't necessarily mean anything else aside from not believing in a deity.
Dammit! This panel is incomplete! Where is Sam Harris to talk about ESP and how Muslims cause earthquakes!? The conversation is far too rational without him!
Some blind individuals who have learned to use echo-location (rapidly clicking the tongue), have reported that in their mind they pretty much "see" things around them. These are people who originally had sight but lost it. They develop such a sensitivity to the reflection of sound being indicative of shape, size, and texture, that they start to perceive images in their mind. Nothing in color. Blurry shades of gray mostly. Since the brain does do a translation from optic nerve impulse to nerve cluster located in the brain, it is taking light waveform and interpreting it. I presume the same thing can be done with a sound waveform for creatures having innate echo-location ability.
As for The Blob, I must disagree with Mr. Tyson there. It's much more reasonable to assume that aliens will not be anthropomorphic, but will at least be something like life on Earth (as they will probably be also carbon-based). So they will have legs, a respiratory system, some sort of eyes, something like a mouth to ingest nutrition, and so on and so forth.
Hollywood aliens are that way because the audience may be able to realize about the characters' development. George Lucas explain it in a Star Wars special, He had a lot of diverse aliens that were drop out because nobody could understand where the aliens were looking at, or thinking about, or anything. So, he started giving them eyes, mouths, faces, arms, etc so the audience could understand and George Lucas could make a movie about Star Wars' plot and not spending time explaining the aliens and how they work
I'd like to point out something I'd like to say in opposition to Mr Tyson. Tyson states that if intelligence was critical to survival, that we would have seen it develop in other life forms across the several billion years of earth's existence. My argument is that intelligence is critical for survival of species to survive longer then just billions of years. That is to say, if mankind is to continue developing after earth's collapse, we will only have survived due to the intelligence and capacity to commute to a new setting. So in regards to Tyson, I think over a longer period of time we will have seen different forms of intelligence develop independently, but the timeframe needed to observe and document other forms of intelligence will need to be dramatically longer. Isn't it cool that we can speculate on things like this?
While I like his ideas, I can't have sex with a blob. So I will take my anthropomorphic aliens thank you. Really the most 'non-human' I can get is Venom, as the alien is the suit.
While there is no requirement of being humanoid to be intelligent, the evolutionary pressures that led to us developing intelligence would have to be satisfied in any other life form. The most obvious requirement for intelligence is brain capacity, and we must ask under what conditions could another species develop that capacity.
Tyson seemed to be the one who was asserting a valid point, and Dawkins was trying to disagree with him and struggling to find the exact words to say how so and defend the point that Tyson has reason to not buy into. I've been in Dawkins's shoes many times arguing against the role Tyson is fulfilling. This hits remarkably close to home, even though it involves a completely different topic than the ones I've been in that position for.
Other species have primitive forms of communication, tool use, culture and cognitive abilities. I suspect the development of society is accidental rather than innate in a species. And once it begins it snowballs from there, as the intelligence creates an arms race of evolution within the species.
This is a good video with a bad title. This was a discussion, not a "vs." And it was not so much about aliens as it was about the natural selection aspect of evolution.
It felt like Dawkins wanted to call Tyson out for comparing a projectile to a syringe, couple other times he seemed a bit agitated with the way Tyson went astray. Like them both, that was funny though. Like maybe he was thinking "Please, do try to keep up ok?"
Considering that the use of tools is widely believed to have led to the evolution of intelligence, I would expect many intelligent alien races to have hands of some kind
