Neil DeGrasse Tyson: ET and DNA

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

i'm going with the idea that, if people are abducted and know that they are being abducted, that ETs would have contingency plans for most possible scenarios (like people trying to take artifacts from the ship).

OK. What about all the implants, scars, repeated inseminations and terminated pregnancies? Is that all kept secret? The problem with Tyson is he doesn't know enough about the ridiculous claims made by the "top" abduction researchers. If he did, he would have a field day and an even better comedy routine.

oh and this is what caused the trouble lol

originally posted by: MojaveBurning
To the OP, I'm a fan of this guy, I wanted to thank you for posting and comment so that I can come back later and watch the video.


a reply to: Arbitrageur
I haven't watched the video you posted yet (but I will), but I did want to reply to your comment about how aliens would be interested in communicating with us because we are interested in communicating with other species. In my opinion, your idea is ethnocentric, making the assumption that aliens would be anything like humans. I don't believe that is the best approach to considering what alien life might be like, it almost seems egotistic to assume aliens would be like humans.

Also, I guess I should post the disclaimer that I'm not even sure I believe in aliens. I just enjoy discussions!

I'm not arguing your premise; just being picky about your wording:

Rather than using the word "ethnocentric", wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the word "anthropocentric"?

"Ethnocentric" suggests one human race as opposed to another human race, on our planet.
"Anthropocentric", however, describes 'human beings as the central element of the universe', therefore discounting any other 'intelligent' forms of life in the universe....which is what I believe you meant to infer.

In fact I couldn't agree with you more and sometimes wonder if ETs are not already heeeeeeeeeeeere! In the form of Praying Mantises, Dolphins, Jellyfish or even Ants!

originally posted by: grey580
There are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe.
100 octillion stars.

To think we are the only ones around.....

What do you mean by 'around'. Do you mean "around here'"?

If there is one other sentient race at the 'other end' of the universe, consider us 'star 1' and they are on a planet around star 10e29, for all practical, fantastical, statistical sense we are the only ones 'around'. What number crosses the threshold of '2 in 10e29', to 'a universe teeming with life', I don't know, but even 10e09 is pretty sparse and effectively 'none'.

If you had a 196 million BBs and spread them out all over the world, spaced evenly, and found one, you'd never find any others. That's one BB per square mile. Kinda gives a sense of scale.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

Back to the OP video, I usually agree with Tyson, but I think his argument about aliens not being interested in communicating with us is a little over the top. I think we are very interested in trying to communicate with other life forms like chimps, dogs, cats, dolphins, whales, etc. Researchers study whale songs trying to figure out their meaning, and the TV show Sea Quest shows one sci-fi view of a computerized translator converting dolphin language to English, which tells me somebody thought conversing with dolphins would be an interesting thing to do.

So yes some aliens might be many times smarter than us but I wouldn't presume that means they aren't interested in communicating with us. It might be as interesting for them to figure out what we are saying as it is for them to try to figure out what their toddler is saying, using Tyson's alien toddler example.

Not to mention if ET is traveling our galaxy or the universe, the act alone shows the curiosity and desire of a species wanting to study life outside of their own. That, or ET looking for a planet to overtake and inhabit.

I think another poorly thought out statement is Michio Kaku's:
"Imagine walking down a country road, and meeting an ant hill. Do we go down to the ants and say, 'I bring you trinkets. I bring you beads. I give you nuclear energy and biotechnology. Take me to your leader?' Or we have the urge to step on a few of them??"

Along with your point of a natural curiosity, if ants were outwardly attempting to communicate with a species other than their own (as humans have actively been doing for years with ET) there's no way a higher species wouldn't be curious.

originally posted by: Scdfa

When it comes to the subject of UFOs and especially alien contact, Neil 'Disgrace' Tyson is a fool. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's just part of the institutionalized cover-up, but when he speaks in this clip about stealing something from an alien ship, it calls his intelligence into question.

I won't bother to point out how absurd his proposal is, for an abductee to steal something from an alien ship, you did a great job of that already. But such a suggestion is so utterly ridiculous that I do tend to think he's being disingenuous.

Either way, I think it would be fair to say that Mike Tyson understands UFOs and aliens better than Neil Degrasse Tyson.

These are physical accounts with physical beings that apparently are as fallible as humans. That's evident by the claimed crashes of these craft. How is it unreasonable to request physical evidence when it's claimed to happen many multiple times? I've pointed this out before, Travis Walton said he picked up an object during his abduction as a weapon to protect himself. There's the opportunity.
Requiring no physical evidence works great for people steeped in a belief. It doesn't work for people searching for definitive evidence of something that's claimed to be physically happening for decades.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: ZetaRediculian

apparently, someone is violating the "prime directive" hehe
or, something else is up. whats your theory?

First, I do think people experience things that are unusual. Are they purely hallucinations? I don't know but one thing that is clear is that there is nothing physical going on. By physical, I mean objective reality. Is there something like "interdimensional" going on? I have no clue what that means or how that is even defined. But I guess there could be some non physical entities abducting peoples souls or something. The rest is purely made up by abduction researchers.

The point being, with the amount of physical handling and apparent breeding going on, it would be pretty near impossible to not have some kind of physical evidence. This would be especially true since they have been crashing their abduction vehicles for 70 years now. So they are capable of making mistakes despite their safeguards. And they have absolutely no regard for the prime directive since there seems to be no shortage of people that know about them. None of it really adds up.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8


I've pointed this out before, Travis Walton said he picked up an object during his abduction as a weapon to protect himself. There's the opportunity.
Requiring no physical evidence works great for people steeped in a belief. It doesn't work for people searching for definitive evidence of something that's claimed to be physically happening for decades.

Travis was incapacitated, rendered unconscious and when he came back to his senses, he was naked miles away from where he was abducted. So while there may be an opportunity to grab something, it's certainly not guaranteed an abductee will make it back with said evidence.

originally posted by: undo

originally posted by: TrueMessiah

originally posted by: Scdfa


Either way, I think it would be fair to say that Mike Tyson understands UFOs and aliens better than Neil Degrasse Tyson.

LOL...How about the way the audience is just applauding and laughing with (not at) this foolishness? Reminds me of how a greedy pastor pushes false doctrine and the congregation just rides along with it in acceptance.

i know how to weed out the stuff i think is pertinent. for example, i don't toss out everything an atheist says just because i don't agree with some things, atheists say. same idea.

I weed out stuff too. That's why I directed Arbitrageur to the 6:30 mark of the video in his post. That's what I'm tossing out.

a reply to: TrueMessiah

i agree that abductions don't sound as if they give you much time to swipe stuff from the shelf, however, the idea of an advanced species having to take sperm and eggs is kinda silly, mostly because those things are made up of the same things your cells are made of and all it would really take is a few chromosomes. i suppose it would be quicker, but if their tech was that advanced, it wouldn't take any measurable amount of time to rearrange the chromosomes to make the same things. in short, something's wrong somewhere, i just can't figure out where.

originally posted by: TrueMessiah

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8


I've pointed this out before, Travis Walton said he picked up an object during his abduction as a weapon to protect himself. There's the opportunity.
Requiring no physical evidence works great for people steeped in a belief. It doesn't work for people searching for definitive evidence of something that's claimed to be physically happening for decades.

Travis was incapacitated, rendered unconscious and when he came back to his senses, he was naked miles away from where he was abducted. So while there may be an opportunity to grab something, it's certainly not guaranteed an abductee will make it back with said evidence.

Interviewer: What happened when you called your brother-in-law to come pick you up from the side of the road, in the phone booth?

Travis: Well, the movie said I was found naked in a ditch near a telephone booth but I was fully clothed when the ETs dropped me off."

He claimed to grab a physical object from a table. That's the opportunity to stick something in your pocket. The entire "event" wasn't spent unconscious.
Too many convenient excuses made by believers why there's no physical evidence.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8

originally posted by: TrueMessiah

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8


I've pointed this out before, Travis Walton said he picked up an object during his abduction as a weapon to protect himself. There's the opportunity.
Requiring no physical evidence works great for people steeped in a belief. It doesn't work for people searching for definitive evidence of something that's claimed to be physically happening for decades.

Travis was incapacitated, rendered unconscious and when he came back to his senses, he was naked miles away from where he was abducted. So while there may be an opportunity to grab something, it's certainly not guaranteed an abductee will make it back with said evidence.

Interviewer: What happened when you called your brother-in-law to come pick you up from the side of the road, in the phone booth?

Travis: Well, the movie said I was found naked in a ditch near a telephone booth but I was fully clothed when the ETs dropped me off."

He claimed to grab a physical object from a table. That's the opportunity to stick something in your pocket. The entire "event" wasn't spent unconscious.
Too many convenient excuses made by believers why there's no physical evidence.

The only thing you may be right about is that he was clothed, but.... he was unconscious upon his return. He had a mask placed over his face that put him to sleep. In this state, whatever you may have attempted to bring back can easily be removed without you knowing. Most likely, precautions would be taken to ensure that. Other than an implant, you're not coming back with anything. I'll happily concede if you find a case where something other than a implant was brought back.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: TrueMessiah

i agree that abductions don't sound as if they give you much time to swipe stuff from the shelf, however, the idea of an advanced species having to take sperm and eggs is kinda silly, mostly because those things are made up of the same things your cells are made of and all it would really take is a few chromosomes. i suppose it would be quicker, but if their tech was that advanced, it wouldn't take any measurable amount of time to rearrange the chromosomes to make the same things. in short, something's wrong somewhere, i just can't figure out where.

Been a while since I read about that but I remember something about the hybrids not being up to par and dying after a short period with the initial way they were doing it. It also has something to do with being able to have a soul attach correctly to these hybrids. If not done correctly it wont stick.

originally posted by: Ectoplasm8
I think another poorly thought out statement is Michio Kaku's:
"Imagine walking down a country road, and meeting an ant hill. Do we go down to the ants and say, 'I bring you trinkets. I bring you beads. I give you nuclear energy and biotechnology. Take me to your leader?' Or we have the urge to step on a few of them??"

Along with your point of a natural curiosity, if ants were outwardly attempting to communicate with a species other than their own (as humans have actively been doing for years with ET) there's no way a higher species wouldn't be curious.

Yes we are curious about ants, but look at what we do those poor little creatures to satisfy our curiosity:

What happens when you pour 1200F molten aluminum into an anthill?

For anybody who can't watch the video, if you guessed that the title implies it can't be good for the ants, you would be right. Of course humans have performed terrible experiments on their own species, so the fact we would do even worse to ants shouldn't be too surprising.

So while I think we might be curious to communicate with ants also, we do have so little regard for them as a life form that I don't hear anybody from the SPCA (society for prevention of cruelty to ants? ) complaining about mass ant murder as shown in that video.

We exterminate more advanced life forms like mice and rats usually without a second thought, and they are probably very much like our ancestors who survived the meteorite impact that killed the dinosaurs. So I do share Stephen Hawking's concerns about the possibility that encounters with aliens might turn out to be very unpleasant for us.

love Neil!!

originally posted by: TrueMessiah

originally posted by: Scdfa


Either way, I think it would be fair to say that Mike Tyson understands UFOs and aliens better than Neil Degrasse Tyson.

LOL...How about the way the audience is just applauding and laughing with (not at) this foolishness? Reminds me of how a greedy pastor pushes false doctrine and the congregation just rides along with it in acceptance.

I agree, there is a touch of mob mentality in the way he handles this, and in the reaction he gets.

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: Scdfa

i think his point is (or at least it's my theory for the next day or so), that he's not going to believe it, till it happens to him and even then, he may not believe it.

I think you're absolutely right, undo.

originally posted by: Scdfa
You insist someone SHOW you an alien? And how exactly would that work? I'd love to hear how you would expect that scenario to happen, please enlighten us. I'm sure top people are working on that for you right now. Top people!

The scenario is this. Somebody claims that there are absolutely aliens that really exist and that aren't just a product of wishful thinking or wishful statistics. Okay. I haven't heard of any, but apparently they must be referring to some specific aliens they've had some kind of personal encounter with that proved it to them. So if they've had this encounter, then it must be at least possible to interact with them in some way. I would just like to have that same encounter if they can arrange it. If they can't, you can see why I might be skeptical. I can claim Jesus Christ is my roommate, too. You believe it, right? I don't have to show you.

But I'll even make it easier. I don't even have to see the aliens. Just show me one tiny bit of independently verifiable proof of them, and I'll be satisfied. Just a tiny little thing that a neutral third party would say is proof positive.

How much easier can I make it?

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

i'm going with the idea that, if people are abducted and know that they are being abducted, that ETs would have contingency plans for most possible scenarios (like people trying to take artifacts from the ship).

Exactly, undo, you hit the nail on the head.

Strange how Tyson couldn't arrive at that conclusion too.

And from what I've seen, there are no ashtrays on alien ships, nothing in the way of artifacts, either.