The human epiphany

With all the debate and hair-pulling about religion, I figured I would throw this out there for the intellectuals amongst us. What do you suppose the ramifications are if we were to discover that we, as humans, aren't from Earth? Yeah, I'm running with the 'life here began out there' concept thrown out there by Battlestar Galactica.

Let's say that we discover with some scientific accuracy that we didn't originate on this planet. We have yet to find the 'missing link' between higher primates and humans, so it -is- a plausable explaination. We can't find one because there ISN'T one - we came here from somewhere else. We are the descendants of those who came to this world and intermingled with the higher primate population. For whatever reason - humanity chose to basically hit the technological 'reset' button and here we are.

This is not a knock against religion or whatever like that - I am speaking from a purely technical standpoint.

It's entirely plausible that the seeds of terrestrial life, and much of Earth's water, originated from comets. I think that idea's been around a lot longer than Battlestar Galactica. So has the idea of alien intelligence influencing humanity, which for this human goes back to 1968 when Moonwatcher got probed by the Monolith.

It's clear from our physiology and Earth's chemistry that we evolved here. Even if we were once Martians - wasn't that a Twilight Zone episode? - we've adapted to this planet now.

I question the assumption of a missing link. There isn't one, but not because this used to be the planet of the apes before we arrived. We are apes - less hairy, and some more evolved than others, but still primates.

If you go back far enough, we all originated from the "Big Bang". If I remember correctly, it was loud.

There are a couple of well known aspects you need to keep in mind with such a conjecture.
1-Trace Neanderthal genes have been found in Europeans, so any "seeding" had to be well before any civilization started.
2-Our biology is deeply interwound with all the plants and animals already existing. For example, we need vitamin C from plants that have a long history. We need the right portions of CO2 in the atmosphere, the exact right bacteria in our gut, etc. etc. So either we came from a place so much like earth it is indistinguishable from earth, or some REALLY sophisticated engineering had to take place.
3-Our DNA contains huge stretches of inactive, but historic genes. Enough is known that regardless of where we originated, it's clear that we were a work in progress for millions of years.
4-A whole lot of fossils and ancient DNA were planted to match what we know about the evolution of our mitochondrial and nuclear DNA biology. That matches all the all the other animals on the planet.

Bottom line-It was not just humans that would have been transfered, it's that most of the plant and animal lifeforms would have been part of the transplant, eons & eons ago. So we actually have a lot of "proof" to the contrary that it occurred after mankind evolved.

As a fun note. More human "missing links" have been found than know "existing links" for chimpanzees. "Lucy", recently announced "Ardi", the Flores Island "Hobbits", a new DNA huminoid find in Siberia, etc., etc. (See wiki if interested.) 100 years ago the fossil gap for human evolution was large enough to claim discontinuity. Now the gaps are mightly small. Small enough to make the "missing link" claim rather bare.


Meanwhile, no chimpanzee fossils have been found. This is because they live in places where fossils are extremely unlikely to form. So chimpazees really do have a missing link to earlier primates, not us.

You're even older than I thought. And your ears must be very unusual to pick up those wavelengths.

duh...

Which tells us that we did not suddenly appear fully formed, but evolved along with our planet's biosphere. We can't exist without it, though it remains to be seen whether it can live without us. We're the only species capable of detecting and destroying a killer asteroid, though chances are we'll be otherwise occupied at the time. Thoughts of recreating Earth's incredible complexity and interdependence and migrating to another planet are just fantasies.

watching nova tonite, turns out dogs, dolphins and squid are smarter than we are.

i would think religious people would just say GOD "sent" them on the spaceships

i don't know how. i don't lick my balls, get processed in a can, or shoot black ink out of my wiener.

you don't lick your ball? how do you get the grass and mud off of them?

Hey, an interesting, intelligent discussion lasted nearly a whole page. :glare:

ya, there should be a sign up site for intelligent people.

i use the ball washer at the golf course. :eyebrows:

i can't wait to get to the next tee to wash my balls.

There used to be one here. Now, not so much.

they've moved on to the tdi forum.

I'm thinking either texting, watching a sport on TV, or updating Facebook. *sigh*

(not me - the bulk of our species. Talk about giving evolution a chance to weed us out, huh?)

If you were able to lick your balls would you ever leave the house?