[ UFOs and Extraterrestrial life]
Here's an idea that demonstrates the lack of education in our society.
A society which claims to educate the population.
Due to poor or deliberately bad management,
the monetary system has placed more emphasis on movies,
tragedy and drama,
leading citizens through a hallucinating state.
In the film "Alien"
a human being plays host to a parasitic alien,
until it's ready to be born.
This has long bothered biologist Jack Cohen.
Alien is not concerned with the biology.
You can't have a creature living in your chest, which is bigger than your heart
and you don't know it's there, and your immune system isn't turned on.
Particularly, it has never seen a human being before.
It doesn't work biologically
but it does work as a film.
Because you see the thing coming up from the chest and you scream "Ahhhh"!
And it's exactly what they want - it is a horror film.
Another classic hard image of extraterrestrials shows them as giant insects.
The alien of choice for the film "Star ship Trooper".
But according to the laws of physics
this kind of anatomy is impossible.
It's like bringing a mouse up to be the size of an elephant.
Its little thin legs wouldn't take the weight or they would break.
You have to redesign.
It is a lot easier to have a terrifying film with giant ants.
As unscientific as the oversized insects of the Star Ship Trooper's are.
At least they don't look like people.
By far, most films, even the ones with huge special effects budgets,
depict aliens that actually look like they evolved on Earth.
Because they have faces that resemble ours.
Nearly all the vertebrates we see around us,
humans included,
have faces.
With two eyes, two nostrils and a mouth below.
This configuration came from a common ancestor
who lived hundreds of millions of years ago.
Now, when we look at these aliens
and they've got faces with two eyes, the nose, the mouth,
they can't be aliens.
They must've been developed on Earth.
They must share that same ancestor or they wouldn't have faces like this.
We expect the living thing-the dog, the cat or even a fish,
to have a face.
Therefore, when we invent something for film
we give it a face.
And that realy enables the people who are watching
to get moved by it.
Real aliens can't be like that.
Do I believe in UFOs?
Or extraterrestrial visitors?
I'm not authorized to answer that question.
Where shall I begin...
UFO.
First, remember what the U stands for in UFO.
Now, there's fascinating frailty of the human mind,
that psychologists know all about.
And it's called argument from ignorance.
And this is how it goes.
Ready?
Somebody sees lights flashing in the sky.
They've never seen it before.
They don't understand what it is.
They say: A UFO!
The U stands for unidentified.
So they say I don't know what it is.
It must be aliens from out of space visiting from another planet.
Well, if you don't know what it is
that's where your conversation should stop!
You know, they say it must be anything.
ok?
That's what argument from ignorance is.
It's common, I'm not blaming anybody.
Psychologists kow all about it
and it may relate to our burning need
to have to know stuff,
because we are uncomfortable steeped in ignorance.
You can't be a scientist if you are uncomfortable with ignorance,
because we live at the boundary between what is known and unknown in the Universe.
Unlike what journalists write...
Have you seen journalists... any journalists here?
You know, journalists...
all articles about scientist ... begin:
Scientists now have to go back to the drawing board.
As though we're sitting up in our office, you know,
masters of the Universe, as if ooops...
somebody discovered something.
No,we are always at the drawing board.
If you are not at the drawing board you are not making discoveries.
You are something else.
So,
the public, it appears, seems to have that burning need
to have to have an answer to what is unknown.
And so you go from an abject statement of ignorance
to an abject statement of certainty.
So, that is operating within us.
Let's start there.
Second,
we know not only from research and psychology,
but simple empirical evidence from the history of science,
that the lowest form of evidence,
that exists in this world, is eye witness testimony.
Which is scary because that's some of the highest form of evidence in the court of law.
But we know from the second grade
where's my guy from second grade....
Grab the microphone for a minute...
Grab the microphone! Grab the microphone!
In your classes have you done the famous experiment where you play telephone
and you line up all the kids in class and one person starts with a story
and you hear it and you repeat it to the next person and the next person ....
Have you done this in class yet?
Yes.
What happens by the time you get to the last person
and they retell the story what happens?
It's like completely different.
Completely different, completely different. ok?
Because the conveyance of information
was relying on eye witness testimony
which in that case is ear witness testimony.
And so, let's take it, so he knows that.
So he knows it and he is a second grade!
right, so
Actually he should be in twelvth grade...
So...
So now, so now
it wouldn't matter if you saw a flying saucer.
In science even if you have something less controversial than a flying saucer,
if you're coming to my lab and you say : You gotta believe me I saw it!,
and you are one of my fellow scientists, I'd say: Go home!
Go back and retrieve some other kind of evidence that it's not just you saw it.
Ok? Because human perception system is rife
with all ways of getting it wrong, ok.
But we don't like thinking of ourselves that way.
We have higher opinions of our human biology
when in fact we should not.
I'll give you an example of how it reveals itself.
We've all bought and enjoyed books called optical illusions, right?
We all love optical illusions, but that's not what they should call the book.
They should call them "Brain failures".
Ok, 'cause that's what it is.
It's a complete failure of human perception, all right.
All it takes is a few sketches that are cleverly done and you brain can't figure it out.
All right?
So, we are poor data taking devices,
that's why we have such a thing as science.
Because we have machines
that don't care what side of the bed they woke up in the morning.
Don't care what they said to the spouse that day,
don't care whether they had their morning caffeine to get the data right, ok.
So maybe you did see visitors from another part of the Galaxy.
I need more than your eyewitness testimony.
And in modern times I need more than your photograph,
which photoshop probably has an UFO button
today sticked in
So, your computer!,
so here is what you do: I'm not saying we haven't been visited.
I'm saying the evidence thus far brought forth
does not satisfy the standards of evidence that any scientist
would require for any other claim that you're gonna walk into the lab with.
Then you're done, you come back and say: Look what I got!
Like I stole the ashtray off the shelf of the flying saucer
and then you bring that to the lab.
It's not about eyewitness testimony at that point
cause you have something of alien manufacture.
And anything you pull out of the flying saucer that cross the Galaxy
is gonna be interesting, ok.
Because even objects within our own culture .....
I got this device here,ok,
the iphone.
Ten years ago they would've resurrected the witch burning laws
had you pull this thing out.
Ok?
And that's in our own culture.
Our own culture produced this over 10 years back.
So if this is some technology that crossed the Galaxy,
that's gonna be some serious stuff to look at in the lab.
Then we can have the conversation.
Until then - I can't, I'm sorry.
Go ahead, keep trying to find it, I'm not gonna stop you.
But get ready for that time you are abducted,
because I'll be looking for your evidence when that happens.
and...
And last point on that is
there are people who look up all the time,
like for example the Community of amateur astronomers in the world.
I was an amateur astronomer. We come out of a building and we look up.
We are looking up.
UFO sightings are not higher among amateur astronomers than they are in the general public.
In fact, they are lower. You'd say why is that so.
Well, because we know what the hell we're looking at.
Because we study this stuff!
Do you know there was an UFO sighting reported by a police officer
because you think that when you have a badge or you are a pilot or whatever,
that your testimonies are somehow better than the average person.
It's all bad because we are human. ok?
So there was a police officer who was tracking an UFO
that was swaying back and forth in the sky.
ok, reported on the ... what it called the cop?
On the squad car chasing an UFO and the UFO was moving back and forth like this.
Ok? Later it turned out
the cop car was chasing Venus
and he was driving on a curved road.
but was so distracted by Venus he though Venus was the one moving
and he wasn't even thinking why he was doing this
I had a conversation with a layman about flying saucers -
because I am scientific I know all about flying saucers!
I said “I don’t think there are flying saucers”.
So my antagonist said,
“Is it impossible that there are flying saucers?
Can you prove that it’s impossible?”
“No”, I said, “I can’t prove it’s impossible. It’s just very unlikely”.
At that he said, “You are very unscientific.
If you can’t prove it impossible
then how can you say that it’s unlikely?”
But that is the way that is scientific.
It is scientific only to say what is more likely and what less likely,
and not to be proving all the time the possible and impossible.
To define what I mean, I finally said to him,
"Listen, I mean that from my knowledge of the world that I see around me,
I think that it's much more likely
that the reports of flying saucers are the results of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence
rather than of the unknown rational efforts of extra-terrestrial intelligence."
If you look at our closest genetic relative
to human beings- the chimpanzees-
we share like 98+% identical DNA,
we are smarter than a chimpanzee.
Let’s invent a measure of intelligence that make humans unique.
Let’s say intelligence is your ability to compose poetry,
symphonies, do art, math and science, let’s say.
Ok?
Let’s make that as the arbitrary definition of intelligence for the moment.
Chimps can't do any of that
yet we share 98% - 99% identical DNA
Ok?
The most brilliant chimp there ever was
maybe can do a little bit of sign language
well our toddlers can do that
Toddlers.
So
here's what concerns me deeply, deeply
Everything that we are, that distinguishes us from chimps
emerges from that 1% difference in the DNA
It has to because that’s the difference.
The Hubble telescope, the grand… that’s in that 1%.
Maybe...
everything that we are that is not the chimp
is not as smart compared to the chimp as we tell ourselves it is
maybe the difference between constructing and launching a Hubble telescope
and a chimp combining two finger motions as a sign language
maybe that difference is not all that great
we tell ourselves it is
just the same when we label our books
optical illusions
We tell ourselves it's a lot. Maybe it's almost nothing.
How would we decide that? Imagine another life form!
That is 1% different from us!
In the direction that we are different from the chimp.
Think about that.
We have 1% difference and we are building the Hubble telescope.
Go another 1%.
What are we to they?
We would be drooling, blithering idiots in their presence.
That’s what we would be.
They would take Stephen Hawking and roll him in front of their
primate researchers and say well
this one is like the most brilliant among them
cause he can do sort of astrophysics in his head
Oh isn't that cute! Little Johny can do that too
Oh!!
Let me get it it's on the refrigerator door here it is
he did it in his elementary school class
Think about how smart they would be!
Quantum mechanics would be intuitive to their toddlers.
Whole symphonies would be written by their children, and like I said just put on the refrigerator door
the way our pasta collages are on our refrigerator doors.
So the notion, that we're gonna find some intelligent life
and have a conversation with it!?
When was the last time you stopped to have a conversation with a worm?
Or a bird?
Well, you might have had a conversation but I don’t think you expected an answer, alright.
All right? So...
We don't have conversations with any other species on earth
with whom we have DNA in common.
To believe that some intelligent other species
is gonna be interested in us? Enough to have a conversation?
they’ll look at our Hubble telescope and say, “isn’t that quaint… look at what they’re doing.”
So I lay awake at nights wondering whether simply we as a species
are simply too stupid to figure out the universe that we are investigating
and maybe we need some other species 1% smarter than we are
for which string theory would be intuitive,
for which all the greatest mysteries of the universe, from dark matter, dark energy, the origins of life
and all the frontiers of our thoughts
would be something that they would just self intuit.
I'm jealous of that possibility
because I want to be around for those discoveries.
[ Alternative solutions ]
UFO associated with extraterrestrial life
presents, very well, the aberrant approach of the monetary system.
Thus, the solution is proper education of human beings
and a reorganising of our system
so that our priorities are aligned with natural necessities.
The monetary system is unable to achieve this
because it's main concerns are profit and consumption.
It's disheartening that human beings consume their curiousity
Through films or discussions rather than inquire through science
What is even worse is that this organization called the monetary system
allows and perpetuates this situation
It does not give enough attention to science
Instead it focuses on consumption and profit