Noted physicist Stephen hawking is warning against attempts to contact aliens under the progressive rationale that encounters with a more advanced culture could turn out to as allegedly detrimental as when Europeans first came to the New World. Maybe Hawking ought to stick to physics and leave natural history to people who know something about the subject. maybe then he will finally figure out the Divine origin of the Big Bang.I am enormously skeptical there are any aliens out there, so I will give Hawking some credit for drawing the conclusion contacting aliens might be a bad idea. He would be better served rationalizing that the money and effort could probably be better on more tangible goals than some fantasy there might be life out there.
That said, I have often been baffled by the assumption that if any aliens are out there, they are a friendly bunch. What if they are not? What if they are nine foot tall lizards with city destroying weapons who comedown to Earth, kick our rear ends, and force us to mine for some ore on a rock three billion miles away all because NASA decided to say, “Hi!’ The Scientologists might be able to collaborate, but everyone other than Tom Cruiseand John Travolta would be screwed.
But seriously, who is Hawking kidding? There was nothing idyllic about the New World. They were a bunch of ignorantsavageswho had not even developed the wheel yet. They fought all the time, used slash and burn hunting techniques, and some practiced human sacrifice. They did not live I harmony with nature or each other. The concept of the noble savage is so much drivel. Western Civilization saved them from extinction.
I am still not too keen on that whole saying howdy to any alien that might be listening, however.
