Would Aliens die if they visited Earth?
Hello,
Suppose we humans travelled in a spacecraft to another Earth like planet with the same gravity and atmospheric composition as our own Earth.
Suppose we landed on the surface.
Suppose we opened the door of the craft, and walked onto the planet surface.
Suppose we did not wear a spacesuit - or any protection - aside from 'normal clothing' (jeans and t-shirt).
Suppose we inhale a couple of breaths.
Would we quickly collapse and die?
I assume that, because we (and our ancestors) - our DNA - has not evolved over millions of years within the biosphere of the alien world, our immune system has not developed an immunity to the millions of microbes floating in its atmosphere - equivalent microbes which here on Earth pose no threat to us - but are slightly different in their design and function on this new world that our immune system simply cannot recognise them and is vulnerable to them.
So, my point is, even if we found an Earth like world - with similar gravity, atmospheric composition etc - this similarly is only superficial - and its biosphere - especially life at the microbial level - would make moving and colonising this planet impossible - unless we develop immunity to its biosphere as we have done here on Earth.
Some thought is appreciated. Thanks.
Suppose we humans travelled in a spacecraft to another Earth like planet with the same gravity and atmospheric composition as our own Earth.
Suppose we landed on the surface.
Suppose we opened the door of the craft, and walked onto the planet surface.
Suppose we did not wear a spacesuit - or any protection - aside from 'normal clothing' (jeans and t-shirt).
Suppose we inhale a couple of breaths.
Would we quickly collapse and die?
I assume that, because we (and our ancestors) - our DNA - has not evolved over millions of years within the biosphere of the alien world, our immune system has not developed an immunity to the millions of microbes floating in its atmosphere - equivalent microbes which here on Earth pose no threat to us - but are slightly different in their design and function on this new world that our immune system simply cannot recognise them and is vulnerable to them.
So, my point is, even if we found an Earth like world - with similar gravity, atmospheric composition etc - this similarly is only superficial - and its biosphere - especially life at the microbial level - would make moving and colonising this planet impossible - unless we develop immunity to its biosphere as we have done here on Earth.
Some thought is appreciated. Thanks.
Comments (57)
That said, the microbes probably would be the least of their worries since the microbes are equally not evolved to invade the alien host.
And then there's the inevitable greeting the humans would give. I have little faith in humanity's likely response to a visitor displaying obvious superior technology.
So how would we cope with alien micro-biology?
Microbes are either going to harm us by infection or poison. So given that their biology is bound to be too dissimilar for an infection issue, then only an inadvertent toxicity would be a problem. Being microbial in scale, and the poison production obviously not enough to alter the general atmosphere, then any harm is likely to be slow acting. But also of high probability just because our immune system would likely have a big allergic reaction to strange organic compounds.
So a lungful of alien air might send us into anaphylactic shock. But more likely is that there will be unpleasant consequences that manifest over a few more weeks on the planet.
The focus would be on the immune system, as you suggest, just not on whether we could fight an infection. It would be about the shock of alien organic chemistry on an immune system not brought up to deal with it.
Although panspermia is possible as far as I know, it is an unsatisfying theory. It doesn't really answer any question about the genesis of life. If life didn't start on Earth, it is just as much a mystery how it started elsewhere. Since all life on Earth we know of has the same type of DNA, it seems that all life evolved from the same source, wherever it came from originally.
Nobody knows what life that started on another world would be like. Would it have some sort of genetic coding that is recognizable? That's why finding life on another world will be the biggest scientific discovery ever. There is no way to know how life works extrapolating from a population with a sample size of one.
A lot of latitude has been given in the past for discussion of scientific subjects that are not specifically philosophical. I hope that can continue. I think many of them have interesting and important philosophical implications. I don't think this is pseudoscience, which I know is of concern to you, although it is speculative. It can be verified by the scientific method. There are scientific efforts going on now to identify life on other worlds, e.g. SETI.
Which speculative claims exactly? And how is science not able to constrain the speculation involved?
Sounds like an updated version of "War of the Worlds".
If we had the tech to make it to another live-able planet, I think we would have the tech to confirm it was live-able.
This never stopped Kirk.
There are those like Nick Lane who make a good case that the basic metabolic options for creating life are so limited that it is much more likely that all life would have quite a lot in common in terms of the basic respiratory chain machinery. That counts as a surprising recent twist in theoretical biology.
But then while it might be that protein structures formed from amino acid sequences is somehow evolutionary optimal, would the DNA coding machinery have to look so much the same? Arguably not if all the code has to do is represent the instruction to go grab some particular amino acid.
So logically, the metabolic similarity might be surprisingly more close than expected, while the genetic coding mechanism would almost surely be a completely different kind of language as the meaning of a sign is essentially arbitrary.
Wouldn't you love to find out for sure? It only takes one example. I hope I live long enough to find out - as long as "To Serve Man" is not a cookbook.
The worry I am experiencing here is the scope is broad and beyond verifiable observations that impulse grand narratives justified by highly technical modes of thought that obscurely engages within the sphere of natural science. The result would be perennial criticisms that lack any real relevance. You can discuss the atomic structure of our biology in an attempt to constrain this speculation, for instance, but unless you are attempting to form a hypothesis, it becomes rooted in very clever but unreliable claims that overall remain non-productive. We confuse speculation with experimental data.
Philosophy of science is "a field that deals with what science is, how it works, and the logic through which we build scientific knowledge" and thus about the methods and implications. I understand your point of view because you and others are capable of this capacity to constrain, but even so, I would still like to understand how this question bears any relevance to the philosophy of science.
Do tardigrades have the same type of DNA as humans?
Because Kirk & Company had series continuity, a powerful feature of televised life forms. He HAD TO SURVIVE all aliens, or it would have been the premature end of the show, and that in turn would have violated a contract. Our first visitors to an alien planet will not, nor will our first alien visitors here have the powerful protection of series continuity.
They'll take a deep breath, croak, and that will be that.
Or not.
So it is certainly within the bounds of science. It is not regarded as impossible or uninvestigatable.
But it is published theory. Experiments have been done. The issue you raised was whether it is sufficiently within the purview of the scientific method. Clearly it bleeding well is. End of.
"However, astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University thinks the study team should have performed such follow-up analyses, and consulted diatom experts, before publishing its provocative claim."
The scientific community is very competitive.
But it remains the case that science treats it as a possibility even if an unlikely one. That seemed to be what you were asking for opinions on.
Because, as I said earlier, if you are attempting to form a hypothesis, then speculative theories are understandable, but it is easy to confuse speculation with experimental data and it can become a very clever way to justify unreliable and non-productive claims just like extraterrestrial life or worse, things like Would Aliens die if they visited Earth?
I thoroughly enjoy threads like this and my asking opinions from others is really to ascertain where to strike a balance because to me, the OP is one giant splatter of nonsense. Anyway, thanks and I will think about speculative theories and the boundaries to scientific method a bit more.
I sounds to me, and I'm sure to others, that you are considering stopping or deleting this thread. Whether or not that's true, as a moderator, and one who has explicitly taken on a role to tighten restrictions on what you consider pseudoscience, your opinion is no longer just your opinion, it is a potential threat.
Your responses have been dogmatic and you don't seem to have listened to the reasonable arguments from people who know and care about science. I know you also have scientific credentials. The subject being discussed is not extreme science, fringe science, or pseudoscience. It's not even weird. I have commented before that the moderation of science posts on the forum has been pretty lax. It seems like maybe you plan to take it way far in the other direction.
I worry that if you are considering drawing a line at a point I consider pretty mainstream, you will object more strongly to other subjects that I and others consider appropriate for discussion but which are even more speculative. Here's what it comes down to - although, as I said, moderation of speculative science has been lax, I can't see any evidence that it has undermined the voice, quality, or credibility of the forum. We are not overrun by pseudoscience. I endorse your goal to crack down on goofy theories, but I think you are being heavy-handed.
US Defence Department this week acknowledged for the first time that they ran a UFO program.
Parts of their shadowy work — which is still continuing to this day — are classified. But the Pentagon confirmed that audio and video of two US Navy pilots chasing an unidentified flying object near San Diego was investigated as part of the program.
The footage, released in August, showed that the UFO rotated and maintained a “glowing aura”.
Are you done? It is not mainstream science. And clearly the thread is still here so what exactly is your point? There are just as many people who would disagree with you and say that the level of PhilSci is lacklustre at best and should be moderated.
You appear to be confusing mainstream research with mainstream belief. If you check, you will find there are journals of astrobiology and centres of astrobiology these days.
A good example of credible research is https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0403049.pdf
Now cynics like me would also be quick to point out the self-interest NASA has in generating public hype about the value of a manned Mars mission. Why wouldn’t it seed curiosity by supporting panspermia research?
However as a general issue of policing debates here, this site ought to be enforcing standards of critical thinking, not trying to enforce some mainstream belief system. It is how folk handle what seem to be extraordinary claims that matters. And going and checking the facts - is panspermia a mainstream research topic? - would be an example of critical thinking in action.
I have seen some amazing responses in other threads that could parallel the potential mainstream belief issue you are attempting to convey - because I agree that it is about ascertaining the scientific amidst the broad and often highly imaginative narrative - but this constraint is reliant on both on the OP and on the posters. I respect you as a poster and know you are capable of this, but when you reflect back on this thread, has there really been any critical thinking in action? An octopus is now an alien and they probably can start predicting who will win the world cup. That is not probability theory, that is just insanity. I do respectfully agree and reiterate that I will certainly be cautious before ever making a decision otherwise, but my intention really was to understand whether this subject could indeed be considered Philosophy of Science and not about moderating risks and what not.
I have actually been to a lecture by Davis, by the way, and I find his ideas on evolution and cancer research to be really compelling. His suggestions about tracing this works similarly to his ideas of Mars, of going back to a time when it may have been habitable and how this could indeed initiate the biosignatures now on Earth. It is also not without controversy.
I'm confused as the OP did not mention panspermia let along tardigrades and octopuses.
If that is your specific concern here - you haven't mentioned a specific criticism of the OP - then that should have been stated in your expression of moderatorly discomfort. You could have just called Wayfarer out for doing his usual thing of introducing panspermia into the conversation at every opportunity and, more especially, asked him to source his comments about tardigrades and octopuses (but only if you wanted to encourage him to derail the OP - a reason I passed over it in silence).
Panspermia research does offer the evidence of extremophiles like tardigrades. But talk about octopuses being alien is - as far as I can see - just a meme. Wayfarer might be able to show to the contrary that it is part of panspermia as a serious hypothesis. So if you were really looking to draw some line, tardigrades would be some kind of accepted science, octopus become the lunatic fringe.
So you are attempting to justify drawing a boundary line in terms of hyperbole - "An octopus is now an alien and they probably can start predicting who will win the world cup." But hyperbole is a rhetorical device and not a suitable method for the drawing of fine distinctions. If you defend your position, as you have, with hyperbolic statements, then that is a bigger failure in critical thinking than the one you meant to criticise.
Quoting TimeLine
Cool. But again the OP seems utterly unproblematic in that light. It sets out a chain of reasoning in full. It asks a question that is worth answering - on moral grounds, if we are going to cart our bugs to Mars, if nothing else.
It contained a "scientific error" at the last step, in my opinion. The OP assumed that our immune system has to be evolved to recognise invasive biological threats. But we now know our immune system instead can learn because it generates a variety of antibodies on a "just in case" basis. It doesn't know what might be coming down the pipe, so it produces a range of receptors and uses these to discover what might be "alien" in terms of what it knows to be not "the usual biology out which 'I' am constructed".
Quoting JohnLocke
So - given the OP's constraints around this other planet having a very Earth-like chemistry in other respects - it is reasonably unlikely that alien life would escape detection by our immune system, especially if the life was biologically similar enough to be infective. And even just being an unrecognised organic chemistry would be enough to set off an allergic reaction.
But because our immune system learns, then it is possible we could adjust in months rather than millions of years.
Thus the OP asks a completely reasonable question - one that is speculative and yet also one we can start to make more precise sense of; break it down into more specific questions to be answered.
Wayfarer of course went off at a tangent. The idea that octopuses could be aliens in our midst is a risible hypothesis with little to no scientific motivation.
If Wayfarer thinks something he read somewhere does provide proper motivation, he can cite the source. He would need to present a similar careful chain of reasoning that leads towards some central well-focused question - a question that would have maximum impact on the holding of the theory outlined.
And then even a risible hypothesis is meat for philosophy of science. Learning how to deal with crackpot suggestions is central to learning critical thinking. Bad ideas teaches how good science should work.
If PF has a serious function, it should be not to close down uncomfortable discussions but instead to expose what faulty thinking looks like.
Quoting TimeLine
Davies is one of my favourite scientists. He is more prepared than most to speculate wildly because that speculation could bring great rewards.
And unlike Crick, his speculation is careful. It always has a good metaphysical grounding.
Quoting TimeLine
How could any new and good idea be anything else than controversial? I don't get why you seem to think that a lack of controversy is a plus. If you aren't challenging accepted paradigms, then what is the point?
The trick is to be able to tell the difference between well-motivated challenges and charlatanism. But if you aren't living on the edge of controversy, you just ain't living.
Perhaps the prime moderating rule here should be "this isn't sufficiently controversial". :)
The octopus is an alien? What about the squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids (mollusks) they are related to? Also alien? [s]Cuttle fish, for instance, have complex brains -- it takes a lot of brain power to operate their expert pattern and texture matching facilities. They are as intelligent as some other smarter creatures, and are far, far smarter than even your brilliant clam, to which they are related.[/s] irrelevant to present discussion...
As for tardigrades... Why would we think they are from elsewhere in the galaxy? Yes, they are remarkable creatures, for sure--very tough--but they are not extremophiles--that is, they don't thrive in extreme settings even if they can survive +300 degrees F to -200, terrific pressure, vacuum, and radiation -- but not indefinitely. They aren't indestructible.
While they have been retrieved alive from a module exposed to radiation and the vacuum of space, they weren't floating in space for months, years, decades, or centuries. They can go into something very close to stasis, at about .01 percent of their normal metabolism, In stasis they have low moisture content, antifreeze, antioxidants, and other chemical defenses.
Panspermia may be true, but picking out a couple of oddball species (Octopi and tardigrades) and identifying them as cosmic travelers doesn't wash.
The OP was about the supposition that if we as humans travelled to another planet with the same atmospheric composition would we survive, and this together with the title about aliens arriving on earth can cause - by extension - the octopus result. It could have rendered a plethora of other possibly ridiculous outcomes. It is precisely because the OP did not mention or specify - as you have - that enables absurd outcomes and it is the same when questioning metaphysics or quantum mechanics; specificity is a must and my intention with the octopus hyperbole is to show how one absurdity can possibly lead to another. It is also very difficult to argue with someone who believes in questionable theories and you should know this from metaphysics.
It is not necessarily about posters and whilst it is true that the ability of reducing the prospect of these ridiculous outcomes is determined by the poster' capacity to weed out the absurdity to find something scientifically intelligible, how this is achieved is rather ambiguous and so it would be preferable if the post itself - the original post - is more appropriately aligned with mainstream research from the get-go, to say something like "Davis wrote about martian biosignatures, what do you think?" and it is easy to forget with all the rubbish that exists out there that content and context matters in both philosophy and science.
Quoting apokrisis
I agree, except that the question was not a moral one at all but that is how you interpreted the broad speculation that returns back to my abovementioned issue. I guess my intention of questioning whether this was philosophy of science was really brought up because of the Wayfarer response and indeed applying this expose of faulty reasoning through a reminder of sorts. I like what you said, actually, about uncomfortable discussions; that will definitely remain something I will always remind myself of.
Quoting apokrisis
He is a nice guy and I am doing a subject on astrobiology next year so I would be interested to read more about the subject as a whole, despite my concessions. A close friend is studying her PhD in astrogeology and knows him pretty well.
Anyway, carry on!
It was mentioned in Fred Hoyle and Chandrawickramasingha's book The Intelligent Universe, which is my sole source of info on the idea, aside from a website by an amateur but well-informed researcher by the name of Brig Cylce. I don't have a serious interest in the topic, but it makes perfect sense to me. Hoyle argued that there are massive clouds of proto-organic matter drifting throughout the cosmos, and that wherever the conditions are suitable, life begins to take root and evolve. I's like what happened on the Galapagos Islands, but on a cosmic scale. I just see no reason why this is not a plausible idea. The image of the comet as sperm (hence, 'panspermia') and a fertile planet as an ovum, strikes me as metaphorically compelling.
My general view is that the Earth IS our spaceship, the only one we have. We're never going to physically 'go where no man has gone before', i.e. to another life-bearing planet, because it's physically impossible. Interstellar distances are simply too vast. I see space travel as a sublimated wish to go to Heaven, now that 'the cosmos' has more or less replaced God in the popular imagination.
(That also means I am extremely sceptical that UFOs are literally alien spacecraft. I am sympathetic to Jung's interpretation of them, although I've never studied it in depth.)
Earth is a planet.
Indeed, interstellar distances are incredibly vast, so why exactly do you believe in something like "cosmic sperm" just because the speculation appears metaphorically compelling? There are a lot of metaphorically compelling things out there, like people bending spoons with their mind or teleportation. Unless you are conscious of it being pure speculation and make that clear that you obtained the information from dubious sources, your respectability on the subject becomes questionable.
And no, space travel is about gaining knowledge.
So the very mention of "aliens" opens the Pandora's Box of crackpottery, hey?
My argument was that only the most tenuous "extension" let Wayfarer introduce his personal hobbyhorse of panspermia. His barely acceptable justification (implied if not stated) was, hey look, we've already been exposed to possible alien biology - who hasn't eaten an octopus?
So sure, you might have grounds to clamp down on derailing a thread. But Wayfarer would still have been able to legitimate his extension - if only just.
And again, any comments about the merit of the OP should focus on the OP's actual content. As what is reasonable about expecting it to explicitly add "...and don't go running off and talking about panspermia, anyone".
The onus was never on the OP to rule out every possible derailment of its stated focus.
Quoting TimeLine
Well then, why not just rebut Wayfarer in the first place? Use your more serious interest in the subject to say something worthwhile.
It just increases my confusion here that you say you are about to study the very subject that you seem to want to rule fringe science at best. What are you going to write in the exam when its says discuss the evidence from extremophiles like tardigrades?
Even if aliens didn't land, let's say that SETI hits the jackpot and receives clear, unambiguous messages from a civilization somewhere. People suddenly have process several questions: A. we are, in fact, not alone. We are not as unique as we thought. What territory do earth-bound religious cover? Does the God of Israel (or whatever gods one follows) have jurisdiction over a planet 10 light years away? What do we think their real intentions are -- never mind what they say.
Would it be better if the aliens looked very much like us, or would it be better if they looked weird (unconditionally alien, no similarities)?
What sort of gift might they give us (using your imagination) that would lead us to think that maybe this would work out OK, or contrariwise, who sort of event or threat might they offer that would suggest our days were numbered in fairly low digits.
Paul Davies was Fred Hoyle's student by the way. Davies (and Lineweaver) have done the maths to convince that interstellar panspermia couldn't feasibly be the case - not enough time to cover the distances involved. So it could only be Mars impregnating the Earth now.
(And hey - science politics at work - a space agency has good reason to drum up interest in spending a trillion getting there. Trump thinks its a noble idea. By now every bullshit detector should be flashing red alert.)
We already had such a moment when we went into space and looked back at the Earth. Suddenly we realised it was a tiny and delicately balanced "spaceship". We immediately resolved to look after its ecology, change our wicked ways.
So evidence of aliens would produce an existential shock that would turn into a psychological shrug as we turned back to business as usual.
Hey I hadn’t thought of that, but thanks. Although I must add I went off octopus after the first Alien :-)
There is some astrogeology going on that we know about. What are you going to learn/say/write about astrobiology, of which there is zero evidence, so far. (Or does growing asparagus on a space ship count as astrobiology?)
I have no idea. I would have asked Paul the Octopus, but he dead.
It's Christmas, but still seems relevant......
Hoyle's book was detailed, and I thought at the time, plausible. I mean, Fred Hoyle had his eccentricities, but he wasn't a fringe scientist. The idea that proto-organic material - or would that be 'information?' - is found throughout the cosmos, awaiting a fertile planet on which to form and evolve, is intuitively plausible, because that is exactly how life works on Earth. It's the same model, but on a much larger scale. I simply can't see anything logically to far out about it; it seems a lot less far out than Everett, for instance.
As I understand it, during the formation of multicellular organisms there were whole classes of organisms that combined symbiotically to form single cells. Hoyles' idea was that some of this kind of genetic information arrives in interstellar debris, such as comets and meteors, and becomes part of the synthesising process. He thought that this might account for the origin of some epidemics.
Wickeramasinghe is still active, although I agree his methodology appears highly dubious. He claimed to have found a life-bearing meteorite in around 2013, but I think it was debunked by the fact that he didn't rule out contamination from local sources. So I don't actually believe that anything has been proven, but I'm amendable to the idea. (Incidentally, Davies' own cosmological speculations, as explained in for example The Goldilocks Enigma, are far more exotic than panspermia in my view.)
As for tardigrades - the arguments about their exotic origin was based on two observations. The first is, they're a unique phenotype - they don't appear to be related to any other genus (forgive me if I don't get the taxonomy correct.) And also they're able to survive in conditions approximating interstellar space - as per this story.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Indeed. Typical farside. I love his stuff.
The problem with Tardigrades is not that they are too flimsy. Rather, thinking they could make it in the vacuum and cosmic radiation bath of space for a long time (6 months, say) is quite a leap. Not all of the Tardigrades in the orbital experiment survived, and that was only after 10 days. It could be that some might have survived for 180 days, but it's quite a leap -- 10 days survival to 180 day (minimum) survival.
You might be interested in where Tardigrades fit into the classifications:
You'll remember that there were a lot of fairly weird looking species in the Cambrian: either cooked up here, or brought here by the panspermatic delivery service.
I have a hard-time believing in technologically advanced aliens for some reason. Seems to me much like believing in ghosts - it's certainly possible, just very unlikely. I mean what could they understand that allows them to have such technology? How could they travel faster than light, when the speed of light is an absolute limit in the Universe? Etc.
But I do think it's almost inevitable that there are forms of life elsewhere.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yeah, but we have no reason to think we are alone or unique in the sense that there are no other intelligent creatures out there, or that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Universe.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Our territory, obviously. If aliens exist, then either they are spiritual creatures (aware of spiritual realms), or not. They may just be intelligent, without having a spiritual nature. If that's the case, then they wouldn't have any religion. Or they may be spiritual creatures, in which case they would have their own religions. The Bible represents Creation story in-so-far as it concerns man. It is only reasonable that different creatures would have a different role to play in Creation than man, and thus may even have different moralities. These creatures may be polygamous for example.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, He would have to. But that jurisdiction may not resemble our own religion in many regards - though it would, in at least SOME regards, have to resemble it.
What is all this bullshit about Dr. Who's phone booth. Now that's pseudoscience.
This thread has had more critical thinking than about 95% of the others. I haven't enjoyed one this much in a while. On the other hand, many threads are full of boneheaded ideas put forward by knuckleheads. I thought it was only sheep who could predict the results of sporting events.
Where have you gone Gary Larsen, the nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
If you had said "This is the biggest goddamn bunch of dogshit I've ever heard of," I wouldn't have minded and I wouldn't have written my response the way I did. A month ago, if you had questioned the validity of the subject and questioned whether or not it should be on this forum, I wouldn't have minded and I wouldn't have written my response the way I did. But, as I wrote, and which was my point, when a moderator questions whether a thread belongs on the thread, that carries a potential threat. I thought it was important I tell you what I thought of it. Others have agreed with me.