From my Facebook Physics-Astronomy feed

The Alien Civilization Evolutionary Canard

The Fall 1978, No. 1 issue of UFO Update! (pictured) has a “editorial” by Stanton Friedman, with his quote, “I can safely say that the laughter curtain” has gradually risen, and that most people are ready to listen to the scientific data.. [Page 4]

But skipping that nonsense, written before his Roswell/Marcel inculcation, I found a superficial piece by Michael A.G. Michaud, We Are Not Alone, [Page 22 ff.] Here, Michaud persists in telling readers:

“Since 1945 nations have conducted hundreds of nuclear tests above ground, producing distinctive electromagnetic pulses which can be detected far away. Since the 1950s, our radar and television stations have been sending out powerful signals that could be picked up many light years from earth by radio telescopes.” [Page 59]

He also writes that the radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico is sending out “powerful radio signal(s) toward a distant cluster of stars” with “concentric wave fronts [from such] electromagnetic energy which could only be produced by a technical civilization [ours].” [ibid]

Thus, “alien civilizations that may exist … may soon find out [that we are here] because of our technological activity.” [ibid]

I’ve dealt with such conjectural silliness many times here.

But what galls me more, in Michaud’s piece, is his speculation about evolution, writing this:

“We must remember that not all evolutions to intelligence would occur at the same time … Humanoid [sic] creatures emerged on this planet only a few million years ago – yesterday in terms of geological or cosmological time … Other intelligent beings may have evolved long before us; we may be newcomers to the galaxy. Millions, even billions of years ago, some of the universe’s most advanced evolutionary products may have leaped outward from their home systems to other suns [like ours] … perhaps a ship or two surveyed that undistinguished, average star we call the sun, or even landed on an obscure planet we call the earth. [ibid]

(I like his references to our sun and Earth as “undistinguished” and “obscure.”)

Evolution, as delineated by Darwin, is unique to the many vicissitudes of Earth, the many aspects that allow evolution to begin and work on this planet. Those “aspects” would have to be identical, or nearly so, for an alien world to follow the evolutionary path that occurred here, causing the rise of the flora and fauna (and especially sentient life) as we know it.

It’s would be highly improbable that another species of life would emerge and progress along similar lines that humans have, including the creation of technological manifestations such as radio, television, radio telescopes, and nuclear bombs.

It’s foolish, unscientific thinking for UFO buffs and even scientists, who often resort to evolutionary processes when theorizing about alien life on other planets.

This is the illogic, the ignorance, the madness that makes me intellectually bilious.

I hope you see my point.

RR