Xenophobia – a discussion on the evolution of sentient species in the universe

Abstract: The fear of an invasion from an advanced alien civilization is increasingly prevalent in human society. The current paper is a discussion on the motivations for this irrational fear considered to stem from the deficient vantage point from which the subject is analyzed by the human mind. It will be shown that contrary to popular culture, species in the universe must follow an inevitable course towards an absolute peaceful society and that such attitude must be true across the universe without exception, which leads into the argumentation of an as of yet poorly explored explanation for the Fermi paradox called the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis. Furthermore, the discussion explores the convergence of the definition of “kin” towards compatibility between behavior and attitude rather than physiological compatibility which is argued to be transitory. The universal convergence of behavior towards peacefulness and that of kin towards behavior, give rise to a universal super-species and as such concepts like racial interest, invasion or xenophobia completely loose their significance.

1 ∘ Introduction

There has always been a balance in our society between curiosity towards strange new things and the fear of what they might bring. It shouldn’t be surprising. Every species on Earth, without exception, survived because of a natural instinct to doubt what is unknown and this includes us, humans, too. We live in a wild world: the dangers of natural phenomena, landscape, predators, diseases, chemicals are all around us and failure to recognize them may have a disastrous outcome.

But humans are special creatures. Besides natural instincts which we inherited from our ancient predecessors, we have what we like to call imagination. While alone in the wild, a touch of paranoia, might mean the difference between life and death, in the safety of the modern society, where imminent danger is not a real concern any more, this imagination runs amok, making up all kinds of possible dangers, no matter how unlikely they may be.

2 ∘ Xenophobia

In a world connected as ours, with an incredible amount of knowledge about pretty much everything that surrounds us, much more than necessary for survival alone, our fears are pushed out and accumulate on the fringes of knowledge, at the sites where unanswered questions still exist. This tendency did not start today. Structured societies like villages, castles, cities, have eliminated immediate danger a long time ago and ever since, irrational phobias took its place. Diseases were brought about by witches and demonic creatures that supposedly existed just beyond what we could see. When ships started to roam the oceans there were mermaids and giant squids that lurked in the farthest corners and kidnapped sailors or entire ships. So strong was the fear of the unknown that it often escalated into mass hysteria and drove people to do unthinkable things. Senseless practices, like burning women at the stake or killing the dead, again, by driving sticks through their chests were routine actions in those times.

With time, horizons expanded but fears remained, they were just moved to different areas. The mermaids of today are apocalyptic visions brought on by rogue planets, gamma ray bursts, pole inversions, black holes, economic collapses, nuclear holocausts, worldwide pandemics, and many, many others, all of them rooted in our limitations in understanding.

An interesting pattern can be observed in all those phobias that existed throughout history, including those of today. The biggest most terrifying ones are usually associated with some intelligent entities: gods, demons, titans, witches and today, aliens. A possible reason why these harbingers of doom are so feared is because they are agents of free will. Having superior power and not having to obey the rules, they have the ability deliver unexpected events, usually bad in nature. True enough, in spite of all the knowledge, powerful, intelligent villains still exist in our collective culture and on occasion, not even the most brilliant of minds can escape the haunting prospect of some super power bringing about the end of the human civilization (Discovery Channel, 2012).

We may no longer be spooked by witches and mermaids but our fear of aliens, entities from other planets, is proportionally higher. Massive amounts of people report sightings or abductions without any proof for the existence of such things, not to mention conspiracy theories involving different species of alien civilization that live among us, set on world domination and the extinction or enslavement of the human race. The sheer preoccupation with the subject and the magnitude that it takes, affecting pretty much all areas of our lives from the everyday to politics, art, military and even the scientific circles stands proof of how deep this fear really is.

Xenophobia, the fear of the strange, intangible unknown, is probably unique to our species on planet Earth since it has not one but at least two roots, one of which, imagination, we think is unique to us. But this, imagination, is inevitably taking inspiration from past and present events, carefully selecting the worst, most shocking of them in order to compile ever more horrific possible outcomes, but without too many basis to support it other than circumstantial evidence and examples form this past.

2.1 ∘ Invasion?

The irrationality of the explanations that stand behind this phobia is undoubtedly stemming from the context rift that we don’t take into consideration when we apply our past and present behavior, living conditions and mindset to a, by definition, much more advanced civilization.

Of course this is a natural process. Fear is a deep instinct, designed to trigger immediate action rather than a deep philosophical analyses of the imminent situation. This is why it is important to spend some time and rationally think about these things that spawn so much fear with a clear head and a touch of open-mindedness.

2.2 ∘ Natural resource Motivation

Our entire world revolves around the land we think we own, the resources that we extract from it, the production of food and energy, our little skirmishes and the economy that stands behind all this. Naturally, in our imagination, an invasion of an extraterrestrial civilization could only target these things, but how likely is that? Applying simple common sense to some information based on science will quickly lead us to the conclusion that it is not very likely.

Compared to outer space, our planet, is a very poor and expensive pool of natural resources. First of all, it is quite large, having considerable gravitational attraction and making it energy intensive to carry goods into space, especially when higher quality goods can already be found in space in enormous quantities. Many asteroids are made of pure metal, whereas metal on a chemically active planet like Earth is locked in various compounds and needs extra technological processes to be extracted. In fact so much of these metals are out there that a single large asteroid contains as much of it as we have extracted from Earth throughout our existence. Gold, platinum (Lewis, 1997), radioactive material, the strongest diamonds, are all so plentiful in space that it would revolutionize our entire industry if we could only mine our nearest cosmic backyard. Not to mention, there are materials in space like Helium-3, that are extremely rare on Earth. Coming down to Earth for minerals is simply not worth it.

There is also the fact that we are quite close to our star. Once descended into its gravitational well a cargo ship must spend an enormous amount of energy to escape it, so why would they even come close when the Kuiper belt and the Oort Cloud are full of leftover elements from the formation of the sun, including water too (the mainstream scientific consensus is that water on earth was brought by comets). There is simply no reason to come near Earth with this motivation alone.

In fact it is logical to conclude that their close cosmic region will contain just as much leftover material and if they completely exhaust that and do have the technological capability to travel thousands of light years to acquire them they would probably go closer to the center of the galaxy where cosmic bodies are packed much tighter so that resources would be more accessible with less travel. Earth is 75 thousand Ly away from the galactic center and the density of stars in its vicinity is 0.2 stars per cubic parsec. By comparison near the center of the galaxy the density is 10 million stars per cubic parsec (Ryden, 2003).

2.3 ∘ The “Us” Motivation

In a recently made science show, “Alien Invasion”, by National Geographic Channel, the producers eloquently observed the faultiness of the “natural resources” motivation so they proposed another long standing fear which involves us, humans, and other living things on the planet. After all, they reasoned, if life is rare but resources plentiful, it is only reasonable to conclude that aliens would come here to harvest life itself, in the form of biomass.

Our present technological development, which is nowhere near that of what one would assume a space faring civilization would have, allows us to artificially produce biomass in great quantities. The energy needed to travel between stars would simply be astronomically larger than producing any kind of biomass, be that for food, or for any other reason. All bacteria need is raw nutrients and light and would potentially reproduce indefinitely at a very high rate and very efficiently. The conversion of energy and nutrients to body mass is much higher in bacteria than any other complex organism which needs to spend energy for other process as well.

Harvesting us, is simply not a plausible solution, no matter how special this would make us feel.

2.4 ∘ Motivation of a new home

If natural resources or biomass are not an issue, then perhaps the prospect of a new home for a dying current one would be enough motivation for an alien race to invade Earth. Star systems inevitably die and if life supporting planets are rare it is plausible that some race would reach Earth with such a motive.

However, when we think of this we imagine these aliens coming on their last breath and with the immediate need to settle down, which would compel them to engage in battle with an existing intelligent civilization for their homeland. This, however is an extremely risky move for a civilization that finds itself on the brink of extinction, where the loss of any individual puts the survivability of the species at risk.

It is much more reasonable to assume, that even if they are running away from a doomed planet, they would have a solid escape strategy where they scout ahead for uninhabited planets, or planets without intelligent civilizations, which would not endanger their existence during their settling process.

Even if they would somehow end up here, under some wicked circumstance like, insufficient fuel, or failing to notice our existence, it is much more reasonable to suppose that they would have resources at their disposal and technology that allows them to cannibalize their equipment and settle down on a nearby planet or a moon and engage in some sort of relationship with the human civilization. The technology that keeps a large population safe in the interstellar space for long periods of time should be adequate to provide a stable, self sustaining environment for that.

But even if settling on our planet would be imminent, it is still much more reasonable to conclude that they may try to bargain a treaty rather then engage us in open battle. Battle is simply a solution that they could not afford, no matter how technologically advanced they may be. A war like this could bring on massive casualties to both parties, in relative terms. On one side there would be a technologically superior species but with a hard limit in population number and on the other side would be a technologically inferior species, but which has the advantage of home land and an enormous superiority in number. The risk of loosing some of their individuals, the risk of not being able to achieve complete extinction of the local population and be faced with a guerrilla war, the risk of damaging the planet in the process are simply too great to even consider war. They would be in a really good position to negotiate and they would know it. They could trade technology for a place on Earth and humans would be happy and smart to accept it. Peace is simply infinitely more profitable than war for both parties.

2.5 ∘ Are they out there anyway?

The answer to this question is generally accepted to be unknown. In space, things are so far away that current technology is simply not adequate for directly spotting anything out there that is smaller than a star (Chauvin, 2004), so science has to rely a lot on extrapolation and estimation. Partial data based on observations combined with statistical analysis, hint very strongly towards a yes. Scientists seem to agree, with various degrees of conviction, that life does exist out there, some even consider it to be abundant (Steiger, White, 1986) (Filkin, Hawking, 1998).

Science, does not combine well with coincidences and exceptions and the biggest one of these exceptions is planet Earth and the living proof of the existence of an intelligent species in an unimportant corner of the universe (Peacock, 1998). This alone is enough to require the existence of some laws of nature, responsible with the formation of intelligent life, although no such theory exist yet. Nature made life on Earth, so it must have a process for it, fluke is just not a scientifically sound motivation. No less important are circumstantial evidences and coincidences that nature abundantly shows us, known collectively as the anthropic principle, which states that the entire universe seems finely tuned for humans to exist and observe it (Barrow, Tipler, 1988).

One such intriguing coincidence is that Carbon ( C ), the building block of life on Earth, is not only capable of forming complex molecular chains, but readily do it wherever possible. Space missions found amino acids, the building blocks of proteins and life itself in meteorites (GLAVIN, 2009) and comet debris. Life seems to want to form, and while scientist have not yet found the process of inception, all research seem to point to this, including the fact that on Earth, life formed almost as soon as conditions were acceptable for it to do so. Around 4.1 billion years ago the crust solidified and so oceans were able to form. The formation of the earliest life is put as early as 3.8 billion years ago, only 300 million years after the world transformed from a molten ball of rock into a cooler, but still very hot rocky planet. Life however might have even formed earlier but the evidence does not exist, because no rocks have been found that are older than 3.8 billion years (Bjornerud, 2006) (Woese, 1999). The recycling mechanism erased all evidence of it, if it ever existed. Still, 300 million years is a very short period of time for something as complex as life to develop out of nothing.

Combined with the staggering number of stars in the visible universe and the age of the universe itself, the non existence of life is statistically not plausible. Given the approximate age of 12 billion years with first galaxies formed roughly 11 billion years ago, if life took only 300 million years to form on Earth and some four billion years to develop into intelligent life, the implications are staggering. There may be civilizations out there that don’t celebrate the turn of the year 2013 but rather that of the year 7 billion.

2.6 ∘ The Fermi Paradox

For the sake of the argument, let’s just consider the most plausible of the answers: that alien civilizations do exist, some are intelligent and some others are sufficiently intelligent to roam the universe. But if so, where is everybody?

The question known as the Fermi Paradox was formulated by the famous physicist Enrico Fermi and later analyzed by Michael H. Hart and it’s based on the probability of the existence of colonizing alien civilization. Given the age of the universe, it has been calculated, that even if one starts out with a single colonizing civilization, by today, the universe should be filled with them, yet we observe none.

There are many possible explanations proposed by scientists, that would explain the silence we observe in the universe, to name just a few (Webb, 2002):

• no other civilizations have arisen: Earth is unique, a freak of nature. Intelligent life is so unlikely to form that we are truly alone. The principles that contradict this model are the ones discussed in 2.5
• natural disasters destroy intelligence: in this scenario natural disasters like mega quakes, asteroids, gamma ray bursts or other similar extinction level events are frequent enough to be able to destroy developing intelligent civilizations before they reach space travel capability
• intelligent life eventually destroys itself: the doomsday argument states that all civilizations inevitably destroy or regress themselves shortly before developing interstellar travel, and as such they are incapable to spread dying out eventually together with their star.
• intelligent life is prone to destroy others: advanced alien civilization would eliminate competition and as such only civilizations that do not advertise their presence survive.

The Zoo hypothesis (Ball, 1973), considered among the most plausible ones, states that advanced civilizations maintain a certain level of isolation around less developed species in order to allow them to develop on their own for various reasons.

The main anti argument for the zoo hypothesis is that it only takes one civilization to disrespect the rule and the entire system can fall. The larger the number of civilizations out there, the likelier it is that one or some of them will break the rule. A possible escape from this conundrum might be the influence of a particular distinguished civilization, the first civilization, which might have a head start of millions or even billions of years. The technological advancements of such species would allow it to be influential enough to impose its view and rules on all other species emerging later in the history of the universe.

The zoo hypothesis has a slightly misleading connotations in which the advanced species would keep the less developed ones confined for entertainment. It is also less restrictive in terms of escapees from under confinement (zoo) conditions because zoo animals are mostly benign in nature. Granted, some animals can be dangerous to a few individuals on the outside in case they break loose, but their action is still highly localized and as such there is little emphasis on containment. It will be shown in the following that due to the enormous implications of a containment breach, the rules that govern the maintaining of the isolation status are in fact much, much stricter and as such a more correct term would be “quarantine hypothesis” (Soter, 2005)

3 ∘ The evolution of Peace

The trend in human development seems to strongly indicate that, as a species, we are becoming more and more peaceful as we mature. Not only are we not executing the loosing teams at the end of the European Football Championship, like the Mayans did in their version of football (Alegría, 1951), but also in many countries we find it difficult to execute even our worst criminals. It is true, that the Mesoamerican football game had a religious aspect and the loosing team was sacrificed to the Gods, nevertheless the point is that in spite of their advanced civilization (compared to others in the same age) they found it acceptable to kill their kin. Our respect of life increased extremely compared to those days.

As we continue to develop, our knowledge expands and our capability to understand ourselves within the surrounding context broadens. We seem to understand more and more the implications of our actions and we are becoming wiser. If we extrapolate this many generations into the future it is not unreasonable to conclude that our selfish little world will one day give way to a modern, enlightened one which will be in balance with ourselves, with nature and all its other inhabitants.

Coincidence or not, nature imposes excellent barriers in the path of development which seem to favor this trend of pacification and this is likely to be universally true for any civilization, the discussion of which requires a few basic concepts from system dynamics.

3.1 ∘ Feedback loops

Dynamical systems are systems that are in motion, in continuous change and are analyzed as such. They usually describe time dependent processes of nature some as simple as the evolution of a clocks pendulum others as complex as the weather, the economy or processes in the human body. Usually more complex dynamical systems contain feedback loops, processes where the outcome is reintroduced into the system and as such, it influences it’s inner workings. As a consequence, a future outcome will depend not only on the inner workings of the system but also on the present outcome. This future outcome is in turn fed back into the system, and so on, the system evolves, not only churns out results. There are two kinds of feedback types that exist in system, named positive and negative based on the way they influence future outcome (Zeigler, Kim, 2000).

Positive feedback, amplifies whatever the system’s outcome is and, if left alone, it tends to spiral out of control. An exemplification of the process can be seen within the realm of global warming. Heat melts the snow exposing darker soil, which soaks up sunlight more efficiently and as such the temperature of the system will increase even more, hence the positive feedback. Increased temperature will melt snow even more efficiently, exposing even more dark surface and so on (Deser, 2000). A similar runaway process transformed Venus, a presumably habitable planet in the past, into a hellish steam cooker like environment where all the oceans boiled away eventually and got trapped in the atmosphere (Weart, 2011).

The same process can act in the opposite direction but it would still be considered a positive feedback, because it too, adds to the current outcome, whatever that may be. Low temperature would facilitate formation of snow, which is inefficient at absorbing sunlight. Temperatures would drop further, facilitating formation of even more snow. As the process continues, the entire planet could eventually be covered in snow. A runaway process that contributed to the phenomenon called Snowball Earth (Kirschvink, 1992).

Negative feedback loops, as opposed to positive feedback, have a self regulating or dampening effect. To exemplify in the same context of global warming, the increase in temperature will facilitate evaporation of water from the oceans creating clouds that cover an ever bigger portion of the Earth, from above. The clouds reflect sunlight back into space and as such, they no longer heat the ground and temperatures will drop. The more clouds form, the more sunlight is reflected away and the more intensive the cooling, dampening effect, is. If temperatures drop again, there is less evaporation, less clouds and sunlight can reach the ground again; the dampening effect diminishes. The process has the exact opposite effect compared to a runaway system: the larger the output, the stronger the dampening is.

A complex system is likely to have many such loops based one various parameters. A healthy dynamical system, when things stay stable across time, is in fact a very sensitive balance between the two kinds of feedback loops. Too much dampening and insufficient amplification the system halts, it freezes itself. With too little dampening and too much amplification it spirals out of control and there may be no way back (just like in case of Venus).

This equilibrium state, also called steady state, is the state where minor perturbations can be corrected by the feedback mechanisms in place, keeping the system unchanged over time.

When major perturbations happen or in the initial phase when processes start (there is no feedback at this point), the system finds itself in a transitional state, a state which can be characterized by disproportional feedbacks and major state fluctuations that can last for as long as the system enters some sort of stable state, like the steady state (a system may have various stable states, or none at all). Transitory states are potentially very dangerous, because certain feedback mechanism can overtake the system and they can send it out of control.

3.2 ∘ Transitional State of Societies

As almost every aspect of our lives, our development as a species is governed by similar feedback mechanisms. Everything that we do, everything that we know, every experience, affects us and in turn influences our future actions. The stability of our civilization depends greatly on understanding the system we are part of and the processes at work that control our existence. It is an extremely complex process with countless feedback mechanisms and loops, nevertheless the ten thousand foot view is the same as that of much simpler creatures.

Aquatic dead zones, are anoxic events caused by extreme algal population booms, which uncontrollably consume all the nutrients followed by the massive death of the entire population (Schindler, Vallentyne, 2008). Bacteria that consume the dead algae also consume all the oxygen in the water which in turn kills every life that is dependent on it. It’s an example of extreme local disturbance in the balance of life which at the moment can be corrected by global buffers, but should this happen in a fish tank, it could result in the extinction for these algae.

Algae can’t help it. Their existence is a system which is in steady state with the larger ecological ecosystem of the Earth. This state is controlled (maintained in equilibrium) by processes that formed during billions of years and function extremely well under normal condition. One of such processes is the reproductive cycle of the algae, which keeps the population stable within the context of a relatively stable influx of nutrients and an entire trophic chain that feed on the algae. The population boom is a consequence of an imbalance, a change in the system they live in, triggered by an excess nutrient wave, which causes their feedback mechanisms (reproductive cycle) to over correct, spiraling catastrophically out of control.

Humans, are sentient creatures and this sentienthood, is a mechanism in their development and existence just as reproduction is part of that of the algae. It is a vastly more advanced mechanism which can factor in many, many more parameters besides the simple balance between availability of food and population loss to predators. Yet in spite of the fact that both, feedback signals and the means to process it exist, we often produce faulty outputs. Algal blooms, and many other such local imbalances are caused by us, humans, and this makes us a factor of disturbance in the greater system which for the moment is Earth.

In spite of the fact that the system (Earth) is stable around us, through our processes, we are capable of destabilizing it. Regretfully, we know that we are causing these disturbances, we know why and we have the potential to prevent it, yet the pressure to act on what we observe is not strong enough for us to do so. Our sensor is not sensitive enough for the signal we receive. For us to act on it, a stronger feedback is needed meaning larger fluctuations in the output, which can be dangerous because they are more likely to send the system onto a runaway path. Whether our feedback is advanced enough to react before something like that happens, remains to be seen. To speak in algal terms, this would be similar to an insufficiently developed reproductive cycle, a cycle capable to throw algae population off balance in spite of steady system conditions.

In terms of systems analyses, our processes are in some sort of transitional state. It is not at the moment adequate for the system in which we exist and since our mental processes, our thinking, our culture is the vastly predominant process, that is exactly what needs fine tuning.

In contrast, a truly perfected set of processes would allow a system to bounce back to steady state even if thrown off balance by an external factor, or better yet, it would be able to participate in re-stabilizing the system in which it resides. We can imagine a strain of algae, which would decide to stockpile excess resources when faced with it. It would not only re-stabilize the ocean and thus save less sophisticated algae from mas death, it could potentially release the nutrients when there is a shortage saving both, their own population and the less sophisticated ones. This is the level that humans should aim for.

Given enough time, and larger fluctuations in the nutrient flux such algae could potentially develop, because it would be beneficial to the species in the long term. The population would no longer be driven into large fluctuations depending on the nutrients, but rather maintain constant population in spite of fluctuating resources. But just the same, it could very well go extinct in one of these large enough resource fluctuations. It is really a game of chance to a certain degree and adaptiveness of the species. The faster it can adapt to ever greater fluctuations, the lower the chances of going extinct on the next big one.

3.2.1 ∘ Aggression Factor

Humans are inherently aggressive creatures. It is probably a heritage from our predatory lineage combined with various degrees of territoriality, a common feature to almost all creatures on Earth (Estes, 1992), in some cases even plants (Chon, 2003). Nutrients are an essential part of the existence of any life and nature will favor those that can defend it from both foreign species but occasionally also from their own. The higher we go up on the food chain the less abundant the food, the more predominant territoriality becomes. It is likely that all civilizations, regardless of where they develop, will present similar characteristics of territoriality and will have some degree of innate aggression in their character.

When used against other members of the same species, aggression, may be a double edged sword that can pose great danger to the species itself. Little aggression with low degrees of violence will fend of competition and favor the stronger, the fitter individuals. Increased aggression and violence on the other hand can lead to injury or death of the fit individuals, potentially endangering the entire population. In nature, aggressive species almost exclusively developed a system of low violence, moderated aggression, insuring that individuals within a species don’t fight to the death but rather more like a showoff. Serious aggression is kept for real threats.

3.3 ∘ Steady state of Societies

If we factor in higher cognitive processes like intelligence, capability of processing abstract concepts, planning, emotions, strangely enough, there is room for sidestepping from this general rule.

A bear is incapable of assessing the danger to its species associated with the killing of one individual. It cannot comprehend that killing one out of one million will not impact negatively the bear population, so if the killing of even one individual becomes a generally accepted behavior, the population will quickly become extinct. The fact that they survived stands evidence to the fact that in the bear society, or roughly in any society where such impact assessments cannot be made, killing must be prohibited or strictly controlled by some mechanism that can switch it on and off, for example population density.

This is clearly not the case when intelligence is factored in. Humans can assess that the killing of one individual out of a million will have little or no impact on the population stability and the higher the intelligence and knowledge the better it can assessed what the acceptable number is before it starts impacting survivability of the species as a whole.

Natural selection, however, favors pacification of these species as well. Rationalization for killing an individual is a mental process and mental processes are based on the same feedback mechanism as mentioned above. Learning is based on repetition and constant positive and negative reinforcements. If finding reason for killing the first individual is hard, it will become ever easier for the following ones through a process called habituation (Thompson, 2009). A species who finds it acceptable to kill it’s own kind, will impose looser cultural and legal barriers against such practices. The step from killing one, two or ten members of one’s own species can gradually degenerate into genocide, as seen in the past within our society. Such a civilization will be more likely to engage in worldwide massacre that can lead to annihilation or regression of the species.

For example let us consider the social rule that the killing of one individual justifies the killing of two other individuals (not necessarily by the same individual or in the same area). It is a positive feedback loop that amplifies an aspect of the system, in this case the acceptance of the killing of individuals. Iterating the process for an initial population of 7 billion individuals it can be observer that first there is one death, followed by other two deaths, then four, eight, sixteen and so on. After only 33 iterations the entire population of 7 billion ends up dead.

If the species finds somewhere during the iteration process a stopping clause (a negative feedback), perhaps something that says that the death of over a million individuals must halt the killing and is lucky enough not to self annihilate, it will get another shot towards a peaceful development but if not, the cycle is likely to repeat. The more the cycle repeats, the greater the chances for total annihilation. Time is not on the side of such society.

By contrast, a peaceful society, which renounces aggressive behavior and the killing of its own kind will collectively work to impose both cultural and legal barriers for preventing such things from happening. The same positive feedback which in the previous case may spiral out of control and end in self extinction is likely to spiral out of control in the opposite direction, where the society is incapable of killing anything, not even individuals of other species. The likenesses that such a species will engage in activities that result in the annihilation of their own species diminishes considerably.

The iteration of this systems over a sufficiently long period of time, will result in aggressive societies either auto annihilating or becoming peaceful. The longer the period of time over which the iteration takes place, the more likely self destruction is and as a consequence the more peaceful the society needs to be in order to survive.

There really is a single steady state for any civilization, with relation to themselves, and that means peace. Any other state is either a transitional state or in the best case an oscillatory state (with persistent and regular ups and downs across time). The only remaining alternative is extinction.

3.3.1 ∘ Natural Disasters

The population count can be influenced by many factors, not just aggression. Natural disasters are one of the biggest ones. Over long periods of time, on any planet, species will experience natural disasters from very mild to potentially apocalyptic: famine, diseases, climatic, geological activities, cosmic events, etc. The likelihood for advanced lifeforms to develop, especially intelligent life, is inversely proportional with the frequency of major natural disasters. It is reasonable to conclude that any planet that may develop intelligent life, experiences rare to very rare extinction level calamities. Smaller ones may even be beneficial, because they force evolution, nevertheless they do impact population count negatively.

As such, the longer the population stays in transitional state, or the more frequent their population collapse due to aggression, the more likely it is that it will coincide with a natural disaster and collectively trigger extinction.

3.3.2 ∘ Physical Limitations

Lifeforms have inherently a lot of physical limitations. Although our imagination readily explores beings with superpower, capable of defying the laws of nature it is much more reasonable to assume that effects of life, unaided by some technical factor, are physically confined in nature, geographically, temporally or both. Creatures are either confined to a small geographic region and as such cannot have large scale effect, or can overcome this confinement and have large scale effect, but this can only happen over a long period of time. In some sense, nature blocks virulence.

In certain cases life can overcome some of these limitations by making use of various natural phenomenons, like birds or fish, do. By efficiently using the medium which they live in, some species, were able to spread to all the corners of the Earth. Even so, there are grand barriers in nature that stand in the way and limit expansion of life. This happens for the fact that some of these barriers that need to be conquered are incompatible with life as it is at that moment. For example, while fish were free to roam around the planet in the oceans, needing little or no adaptation, terrestrial creatures were confined to continents and became geographically isolated, deep oceans being incompatible with their terrestrial lifestyle. For creatures to cross this barrier, radical adaptation was necessary which took a long, long time and as such their wide range action was temporally confined.

Given sufficient time, life has colonized every nook and crack of the world, but some physical medium, like space are so incompatible with all life that adaptations are simply out of the question. Although, panspermia, the concept that life migrated across space bodies seem plausible for certain cases, like between bodies within the same solar system, for life to cover interstellar space this way is still under heavy debate. But even if possible, it would take enormous amounts of time for life to cross such vast distance imposing heavy temporal limitations.

These magnificent physical barriers favor the transitional state to run its course. Life is simply locked in space by physical factors for enormous amounts of time, so much in fact, that it would hardly have any large scale effects on the universe on its own without the emergence of technological abilities.

3.3.3 ∘ Implications of Technology

Space may not be the final barrier (Some theories suggest that life can ultimately spread to other universes) but it is a formidable one and while adaptation may allow very simple life forms to hitch a ride, for complex life this is out of the question. Complex life will either develop intelligence and technology or will eventually die with the planet.

But technological development is a tedious incremental process that can greatly influence a species survival. On one hand, it too, requires a lot of time until it offers any possibility to overcome the biggest barriers of all, space, and on the other hand offers exotic ways for a species to self annihilate. In terms of systems analyses, it exacerbates the feedback mechanisms hastening the road towards steady state or on the contrary, extinction.

It can be reasoned that physical discoveries have a certain sequentiality with interstellar space travel being somewhere very far out in the sequence. Certain physical phenomena happen at scales that are inaccessible unless the civilization possesses a high enough technological development. For example a civilization that discovered subatomic particles probably already knows about chemistry, simply because chemistry, or at least many chemical processes, happen on humanly accessible timescales and can be observed without any need for magnification. Subatomic processes on the other hand need extremely sophisticated instruments to be unlocked, instruments that cannot be built without a certain knowledge about chemical processes. Such interdependencies inevitable create sequentiality.

Faster than light (FTL) travel, if at all possible, is likely to require extremely high density energy sources, at least mater – anti mater annihilation (Crawford, 1990), superconductivity and deep understanding of the fabric of space time. To get there, a society must walk through a long chain of discoveries which on one hand open new and more effective ways for population growth, for healthier and longer life but at the same time, ever more effective ways to kill one another should they choose to. To name just a few of them:

• Hunting tools: increase efficiency in acquiring food and so to grow population. For self aggressive species provides means to efficiently kill each other at close range. It does not require understanding of population dynamics potentially leading to local self destruction.
• Transportation (low tech): facilitates spreading of knowledge, aids trade and increases efficiency for food production allowing for even faster population growth. At the same time, it increases range allowing for reciprocal destruction on a somewhat larger scale.
• Chemistry: facilitates development of fertilizers, advanced tools, medicine, which may in turn provide means for a global population boom. Besides that, it also provides effective ways for killing large number of people in one shot by offering the possibility to create bombs. In turn the population boom opens the prospect for a population collapse and/or a possible technological regression in form of a Malthusian catastrophe or worse.
• Biology & microbiology, genetic engineering, atomic processes, nanotechnology, bioengineering, synthetic biology, etc.: facilitates understanding of life itself, increases health standards, quality of life, medical care and potentially lifespan. Energy availability becomes ever more abundant. Population can freely grow to incredible numbers but in case of a self aggressive species these technologies allow for extremely easy total and complete annihilation through atomic bombs, genetically engineered viruses, or gray goo (A hypothetical self replicating nano device that replicate out of controll consuming every resource in the process (Drexler, 1986)).

In a nutshell the better a civilization is equipped to maintain and grow population and potentially avert a natural event, the easier it becomes for them to self destruct, completely through some self inflicted global catastrophe. At atomic technology level, it is desirable that the civilization is rather pacifist in general, because the possibility of triggering global catastrophe sits in the hands of a just a few individuals from a potentially very big pool of individuals (Population boom is possible due to technologies that are expected to be discovered at this time).

If the goal is “survival”, as the chances for self annihilation grows exponentially with each iteration in the technological development, the necessity for peacefulness must increase at similar if not higher rate. At nuclear age self annihilation rests in the decision of small groups of individuals and will take several events that gradually spiral out of control offering the possibility to society to back away in the midst of it somehow. At nanotechnology / synthetic biology level, so much as a single event generated by a single individual can in itself spin out of control and deliver global doom. At this point, self aggression has to be almost non existent if the species is to survive for long periods of time because space travel is still likely to be far ahead in the technological development sequence.

This absolute peacefulness towards their own kind exercised over long periods of time is likely to reflect upon their behavior towards other species as well (3.4).

3.4 ∘ The Anomaly

If a society acquired FTL space faring technology in an artificial manner, by a fluke of nature or from a technologically superior species the consequences could be disastrous not only to them, but at a universal scale.

Such a species would not have achieved steady state and would bring their destructive behavior into other corners of space with the potential to go out of control. Suddenly, the likelihood of annihilation, which may be at a critical point, would extend from local (self, one species) to universal (everybody in the universe).

Who is to say that such a reckless species possessing nanotechnology would not be able to create an FTL capable Gray Goo which would not only eat up their own planet but the entire galaxy or even beyond. Such things MUST not happen.

To draw a scaled down parallel which is closer to our reality, let’s consider a bacteria invading host, like the human body. There are really only a few possible outcomes, ordered here based on their implications:

1. beneficial to host society: it develops a symbiotic relationship in which case mutual benefits exist and thus it is not only acceptable but maybe even desirable for the bacteria to spread to other hosts. Steady state is achieved.
2. neutral: it becomes commensalistic in which case it benefits from the host but without causing any trouble to the host.
3. bad for host, neutral for its society: it becomes parasitic/pathogenic, consuming resources at unrealistic rate and potentially destroying components of the host while doing so, making the host sick and potentially prompting an immune response. This can end in either the death of the host or that of the invader, both of which result in the extinction of the intruder species.
4. bad for host society: kills the host but becomes infectious, spreading to other hosts in order to escape extinction. In this last of the cases, an intelligent host society must mount artificial defenses to kill off the pathogen and prevent further spreading.

The parallel might sound a little bit harsh, but as a species we behave very much like a non infectious pathogen (3): multiply out of control and consume the resources of the host (Earth) so much and so fast that it does not have time to replenish them, causing damage to the system in some cases beyond repair.

If we think objectively, with its current behavior, Homo Sapiens would pose an enormous risk to the galaxy and its potential inhabitants. Should human society become space faring tomorrow, it would progress from (3) to (4) and in case there is a consortium of intelligent species out there, they would have no other choice but to enforce quarantine (Soter, 2005): total extinction, or civilization reset to preindustrial phase, so that all knowledge of their existence would fall under the category of myth and be dismissed later on during development process (A necessary step discussed at 3.5.2).

3.4.1 ∘ The “Prime directive”

The fact that we have not been eaten by a galactic gray goo up to this point, suggests that such anomalies have not happened, ever, since the beginning of time. This points to the fact that FTL capable hostile aliensdo not exist, which can only mean that either:

1. FTL does not exist, it is physically impossible
2. intelligent aliens do not exist, at all, due to various reasons discussed earlier, or
3. there is a rule in space, akin to the Star Trek Prime Directive or the Zoo Hypothesis, which is enforced to the absolute and which prevents any alien civilization obtaining FTL before they achieve steady state (become peaceful enough not to threaten in any way the universal peace)

The Star Trek Prime Directive was centered around the FTL capability of the species. Forbidding contact and interference with species that have not yet achieved FTL. Although this criteria would overlap considerably with the steady state criteria, given the long time it takes to achieve FTL, they are not necessarily equivalent. Some species might achieve steady state long before they achieve FTL. This would make them an asset to the universal society and as such interaction may be a possibility. On the other hand, an anomaly might occur and a species might achieve FTL via some means becoming a liability. In such a case, forced regression needs to be considered as means for containment.

Due the enormous implications of containment breach there really cannot be any margin for error. This rule must be respected at any cost. The slightest error during an intervention may lead to leakage of information or worse, technology, which could serve as means for the breach or means to delay steady state by altering mental states and community attitude.

Failure to respect such rule could escalate to deliberate extinction or artificial regression of the undeveloped society. If anything like this was to happen, the responsibility for the atrocity would rest exclusively on the ones that failed to enforce the rule. Such course of action seems unacceptable even to us, a society which still has major conflicts worldwide and readily kill each other on the theater of battle.

3.4.2 ∘ The “Alone” Factor

The processes that drive our evolution, our relation with nature, with others are largely mental. We do have instincts but at this point in the evolution most of them are infused with intelligence and decisions are highly intellectual in nature. It is likely that a lot of feedback factors that will decide whether we annihilate ourselves or not will have a mental, emotional source rather than instinctive ones.

The prospect of Mutual Assured Destruction was a great motivating factors that led to nuclear nonproliferation treaties. Minimum reason is enough for one to realize that complete self destruction is not an acceptable price for winning a war. Both parties knew that the arsenal at their disposal was sufficient to compromise the only available habitable zone, Earth. With no escape strategy at hand, self destruction would have been inevitable.

But if at the time Mars had been an already terraformed and colonized planet with a flourishing population at the hands of one of the protagonists, things might worked out very differently. A handful of sufficiently irresponsible people, might have considered acceptable the loss of the entire planet, and as such most of their people left on Earth as a price for winning the war.

For people so eager to pull the trigger, isolation, the prospect of no help, no escape, can be a determining factor between a reckless decision and self control. It is not an accident that we are so preoccupied with the question “Are we alone in the universe?”. We, humans, are social creatures and when alone in a dark forest fear makes us cautious, vigilant and calculated. Having no help in sight and having to make the best of what is available, making a mistake is not an option simply because it can be fatal. The slightest assurance that there is another planet in reach or the prospect of some alien super power rushing to our aid would make us prone to enormous mistakes. As a society, we suffer from something akin to the “rich kid syndrome” (Minear, Proctor, 1989), where the child expects parents (a higher power), to fix all the troubles he might get into.

~~~

The Maya society was great society, highly developed relative to their times. Methodical, determined, resourceful, they left behind aw inspiring technologies like irrigation, structural engineering and astronomy that other people in their age wouldn’t even dream about. Unfortunately they lived in an extremely harsh natural environment. Climate was not at all friendly to them and in their limited understanding this meant angry, vengeful Gods. The anger and bitterness of their creators, their fathers so to speak, reflected greatly on their behavior turning them into an extremely self aggressive society who performed countless sacrifices: from soldiers and kings of other tribes to fathers and children of their own, no life was sacred when it came to pleasing the Gods.

It is thought that their society collapsed for the cumulation of reasons, but their self aggression was most probably part of it. At that level of bitterness and anger all they needed was bows and arrows to weaken their population sufficiently so that enemies and nature could finish the job. Had they been more peaceful, they might have survived.

4 ∘ Evolution of Perspectives

It is the year 3013 and in spite of continuous skeptic predictions Moore’s law held and computation power continued to double every 2 years till year 2100 after which it slowed down, but continued to grow. Our computation power is a million trillion times greater than what it was in year 2012, and this has caused radical changes in our society.

Our capability to simulate real time nuclear processes, weather, the human mind and even genome functionality, allowed us to solve the world’s energy crises, food crises, we restored the world to preindustrial climate conditions and even managed to recreate some of the species that went extinct during the 20 and 21 century technological rush.

It is a hypothetical world, but plausible and in our case necessary to create a different vantage point from where we can better understand an advanced civilization, particularly how they would relate to other species in the universe. We are locked up in a fish tank, a relatively small one, and ironically we are genetically so close, the entire population, that so much as language or skin color represents enormous differences. The greatest differences in fact. No wonder than when we think about something as different as an extraterrestrial, we start exhibiting xenophobic thinking.

An advanced extraterrestrial, would have a completely different definition of different. If we put ourselves into this hypothetical future, and hence closer to their views, we might realize that the way we think they think about us is rooted in misconceptions and that our phobia is completely unfunded.

To support the argument, let us consider a radical migration, one that our species will have to look at sooner or later.

4.1 ∘ Radical Migrations

Our huge society, all 7 billions of us, originate in a handful of people somewhere in Africa a long time ago (The Genographic Project). We left there, because we were forced by circumstances and had we not done so, we might be extinct today.

The same faith awaits us if we don’t manage to leave our home planet and set foot in various corners of the universe. Our home world has an open expiry date, which may be two days or 3 billion years or more but as such, as long as we are here alone, we are a species threatened by extinction. People don’t give this a lot of thought, but such an event is very bad within the context of what it means to be a living thing. If all our descendants disappear some time in the future, doesn’t really matter how long from now, it would be as if we never existed. That’s in sharp contradiction with what we are trying so hard to achieve: live a long life and ensure the existence of the next generation.

4.2 ∘ Terraformation

Whenever people think about moving to other worlds they think about planets with similar atmosphere which can either be found as such, or converted by terraforming, a process which would make the planet suitable for human physiology.

Terraforming is a concept born in science fiction, nevertheless there is a great deal of scientific interest and many studies have been done in this area. The prospect of technologies that allow us to terraform a planet could greatly increase the capabilities of human kind to one day colonize the galaxy.

Although such far reaching implications still remain the domain of science fiction, Mars, has been extensively studied with this scope as it is the closest planet to Earth which does have, at least theoretically, the potential to becoming a human colony, and a candidate for terraforming (Zubrin, McKay, Terraforming Mars).

The technological challenges required for such an undertaking are not the subject of this document but rather what people expect from terraforming, is. When people think of terraforming in general, they imagine a world similar to Earth, one in which people thrive and effortlessly travel to and from. In this perspective, people many thousands of years in the future, have the same familiar face as seen here on Earth on a daily basis. This anthropocentric image of people, societies and worlds is misleading and is partially at least responsible to for the xenophobic reaction of people towards potential aliens.

4.3 ∘ Xenomorphosis

There is only one Earth. Chances for the existence of an identical planet with regards to living conditions are close to none. Of course this doesn’t mean that there could be no other habitable planets out there. It’s just that the parameters that influence physiology and psychology, such as gravitation, atmospheric composition, solar radiation, temperature fluctuations, seasons, year cycle, day/night cycle will vary, some to greater extent than others.

Anthropological studies have shown that humans, like any other living things here on Earth, will rapidly change under environmental pressure. Adaptations like diseases resistance, heat retention, efficient heat disposal, variations in solar radiation, diet, will create within only thousands of years modifications to human physiology (Tyson, 2009).

Environmental changes that bring about these physiological modifications are really quite mild compared to those our species might face during migration to a similar but different planet.

Gravity for instance, is an extreme factor that can bring radical modifications to muscle volume, bone density, blood circulation, body shape possibly much quicker than changes in temperature or strength of sunlight. Some of these changes could be so extreme that the people that undergo them might look disproportional even unattractive to us. Mars, for instance, has only 38% of the gravity of Earth. Whether the human body can accommodate to this constraint is uncertain, but if it could, is likely to induce radical and fast changes in the following generations or even those that stay on Mars for a long period of time. Human that live for long enough on Mars are likely to loose a lot of their muscles, some of their bone density, and it is not likely that they would even be able to stand up upon return on Earth (they would weigh three times as much as on Mars). The radically lower gravity conditions affects walking, which in turn may affect leg shape or other physical characteristics within a few thousand years.

Culture would change even faster. Extreme local conditions, diet, will push people and society to adapt psychologically to better cope with them. There is no telling where these societies will go but major social restructuring is expectable.

Whether people expect it or not, the human body will xenomorph (transform into an alien shape) to adapt to these new alien conditions. Within a relatively short period of time, colonies on remote planets might be so different that even if reproductive compatibility would exist the desire to do so might not, stopping interbreeding and facilitating the rise of a new race. Self perception will change and a sense of racial and social identity will inevitable evolve. These will bring radical new perspectives on the concept of races.

Members of these new races will truly be alien to Earth Humans in many ways and the only bond that might exist at that point between the societies will hinge on the fact that both originated on Earth, from common ancestors.

Hopefully, at that point in the future, humans will be intellectually evolved enough to see this objectively and not emotionally. Hopefully these races will continue to see their societies as one, especially in the light of the fact that Earth will inevitable become uninhabitable one day and at that point in the far future, all that will be left of homo sapiens will be the many different races settled into the may different parts of the cosmos.

4.4 ∘ Xenoformation

Taking into consideration the inevitable and profound changes that are brought about to the species by migration to a different planet it does make sens to weigh the true cost of terraformation and the subsequent xenomorphosis.

Terraformation is a process that may take hundreds of years, extreme costs and efforts and, in some cases, it could even be impossible. Even if it is possible and the atmosphere can be brought close to that of Earth, people that move there will undergo extreme difficulties and hardship generations after generations. Hardship that go beyond physical work or bad weather conditions. The lack of adaptation to these local conditions could result in physical deteriorations of the body perhaps even early deaths, an extremely high price that could be paid by such colonists.

It would make a lot of sense at that point in the future to genetically prepare a complete new generation that is 100% adapted to the living conditions on the planet. As part of the hypothetical future, humans have complete control over genes and know exactly what the outcome of various genetic modifications are. With such modifications, the new generation will not have to go through the pain of adaptation. Genetic modifications are inevitable, true within many generations, so the outcome would be the same only a lot less suffering for the settlers and their descendants, and as such, acceptability of the concept might be reasonable at that time.

If human society would be opened to such radical approaches in this future, colonization capabilities would be greatly broadened. Future humans no longer need to be so selective about the planet they pick, because they simply create the necessary modifications out of the box. This does not mean that any planet is a possible destination but there would be many more possible solutions and in some cases even terraformation can be skipped. In this process, it is not the planet that is changed to be suitable to the body, it is the body that is changed to suit local conditions, hence the hypothetical term xenoformation (transforming the body to suit alien conditions).

The possibility of this latter solution would be infinitely more ethical in case primitive life already existed on the destination planet. The newcomers, could simply settle in, without any modifications to the environment and follow the strict non-invasive environmentally conscious conduit as on Earth, at that point in the future.

Under these circumstances, how would these people be different from homo sapiens and what would their relationship be? Following the same logic as above, they would end up being a different race, probably in some case even a different species, depending on how radical the changes need to be, but it is reasonable to assume that societies would keep in touch and would continue to consider themselves as one, regardless of the physiological differences, just as in the previous case.

4.5 ∘ Hybridization

But how much change is change? What does change mean, and why would it matter that descendants are no longer genetically compatible as long as they are coming from the same origin, just underwent different modifications. Would these modifications be reason for conflict? Racial hate? Xenophobia?

Every Homo Sapiens, who choses to stay on Earth will cease to exist at some point in the future, together will all their descendants who chose to do the same thing. However, there will be a Homo Xenosapiens who will carry on, all or part of the knowledge and culture that their ancestors on Earth accumulated and perhaps will even continue to honor their heritage by reaching ever higher realms of knowledge and understanding. They will be the only descendants, no matter how different they may be.

But just to take this line of thought to its extreme, let us explore the possibility where the target planet is so different that xenoformation is no longer an option. Possibly, the human physiology will require such extreme modifications that changes are not feasible. Let’s further suppose that the planet has non intelligent life on it and that the ethical consequences have been discussed and decided upon by the humans of that time who agreed that it would be beneficial to select one species and infuse it with human traits. As direct gene transfer would be impossible due to the enormous differences, these highly evolved humans would analyze the genetic makeup (or whatever the blueprint may be) of the selected specimen and work out the modifications necessary to give the species human capabilities, not necessarily exact external appearance but rather the same physical and metal capabilities as humans have.

Of course being human is a lot more than dexterity and intelligence. It is also passion, curiosity, open mindedness, discipline, compassion, empathy, selflessness, the desire to do the right thing, ethical conduit, desire to evolve, to be better and many more that describe what ideally would mean to be human. Some of them are not necessarily genetic but rather cultural, nevertheless if humans would manage to infuse those creatures part genetically part through education with these traits, how different would they be from humans?

Although, genetically couldn’t be farther away (fish on Earth would be genetically closer) they would still be an extension of human society. Could our two species species be as one in spite of these radical physiological differences? Continuing the line of thinking from the previous chapters the answer should be “yes”, they would have human origin, achieved not necessarily by reproduction and natural evolution but by some sort of synthetic evolution. This synthetic evolution may seem far fetched even unacceptable as evolution by today’s standards, but a few hundred years in the future may become the norm. Genetically modified crops could be followed by genetically modified farm stock, genetic screening for humans in the beginning, then genetic enhancements, reaching gradually to synthetically created species that are no less acceptable than today are thornless blackberry bushes.

4.6 ∘ Alien?

If all these physiological differences don’t matter when humans are responsible, at least partially, for the formation of a species, then why would they matter if they are not directly responsible? What if a totally different species found those values on it’s own. Would these values alone be sufficient to create a bond between two species?

Societies that have been space faring for tens of thousands of years or more are likely to realize that on universal scale, shape, make or origin is unimportant. In the dynamics of a species all these elements are transitory lasting only fractions of a species lifetime. The only criteria that remains is behavior, and if true, a newly rising species will most probably be judged according to this.

If we project ourselves just a few inventions into the future, with technologies that are already on their way in human society we can imagine that the values we hold dear today disappear entirely. Natural resources, energy, food, diseases, even death may be a things of the past. The vast majority of human art and literature picture a future world with trade and commerce with advanced aliens. Commerce, however, implies that a shortage exists, a need that can be filled in by a party but for societies in steady state having energy and resources bordering the infinity, with technologies that can auto replicate to create anything, what is there to trade? All an advanced alien might need from an other advanced alien are enlightening opinions, good conversations and perhaps a laugh.

As species diverge in the universe under the relentless force of evolution driven by the inevitable changes between environmental conditions, criteria for differentiation must converge towards an emphasis on behavior and attitude. Being an act of free will, it is the only thing that can stay independent of the forces of nature and as such remain constant, something on which, lasting relations can be build.

Conclusion

If the only constant in the universe is behavior and if the behavior of species inevitably converge towards peacefulness the only possible outcome is a single universal super-species the DNA of which is not made of chemicals but rather thought patterns. As opposed to Darwinian evolution, once species develop intelligence, they don’t diverge but rather converge towards this gigantic species regardless where they originate from. As such, it would be unreasonable to think that an alien species would invade and exterminate human kind for they would be destroying an emergent branch of this super-species, their own species so to speak. This would be as unreasonable as us killing our teenagers for having reckless, impulsive and immature behavior.

References

Alegría, Ricardo E. 1951, The Ball Game Played by the Aborigines of the Antilles, Society for American Archaeology, pp.

Ball, John A, The Zoo Hypothesis, 1973, (http://www.haystack.mit.edu/hay/staff/jball/etiy.pdf)

Barrow, John D.; Tipler, Frank J. 1988, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford University Press, pp.

Bernard P. Zeigler, Herbert Praehofer, Tag Gon Kim 2000, Theory of Modeling and Simulation: Integrating Discrete Event and Continuous Complex Dynamic Systems, Academic Press, pp.

Bjornerud, Marcia 2006, Readind the Rocks: the autobiography of the Earth, Basic Books, pp.

Brad Steiger, John White 1986, Other Worlds, Other Universes, Health Research Books, pp.

Carl Woese; J Peter Gogarten, When did eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei and other internal organelles) first evolve? What do we know about how they evolved from earlier life-forms?, 1999, Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-did-eukaryotic-cells&page=2)

Chauvin, G.; Lagrange, A.-M.; Dumas, C.; Zuckerman, B.; Mouillet, D.; Song, I.; Beuzit, J.-L.; Lowrance, P., A giant planet candidate near a young brown dwarf. Direct VLT/NACO observations using IR wavefront sensing, 2004, Astronomy & Astrophysics, 425, 2, pp. 29-32

Chon, Su; Nelson, Cj; Coutts, Jh 2003, Physiological assessment and path coefficient analysis to improve evaluation of alfalfa autotoxicity, Journal of Chemical Ecology, pp.

Crawford, 1990: Crawford, I.A, ‘Interstellar Travel: A Review for Astronomers’, 1990, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society

Daniel, P. GLAVIN; Andrew D. AUBREY; Michael P. CALLAHAN; Jason P. DWORKIN; Jamie E. ELSILA; Eric T. PARKER; Jeffrey L. BADA; Peter JENNISKENS; Muawia H. SHADDAD, Extraterrestrial Amino Acids in the Almahata Sitta Meteorite, 2009, Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 45, 10-11, pp. 1695-1709

David W. Schindler; John R. Vallentyne 2008, The Algal Bowl: Overfertilization of the World’s Freshwaters and Estuaries, University of Alberta Press, pp.

Deser, Clara; Walsh John E.; Timplin, Michael S., Arctic Sea Ice Variability in the Context of Recent Atmospheric Circulation Trends, 2000, American Meteorological Society, 13, 3, pp. 617–633

Filkin, David; Hawking, Stephen W. 1998, Stephen Hawking’s universe: the cosmos explained, Basic Books, pp.

John S. Lewis 1997, Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets, Basic Books, pp.

Joseph L. Kirschvink, Eric J. Gaidos, L. Elizabeth Bertani, Nicholas J. Beukes, Jens Gutzmer, Linda N. Maepa, Rachel E. Steinberger, Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth: Extreme climatic and geochemical global change and its biological consequences, 2000, The National Academy of Sciences, 97, 4, pp. 1400–1405

K. Eric Drexler 1986, Engines of Creation, Doubleday, pp.

National Geographic, The Genographic Project, , (https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/?fs=www5.nationalgeographic.com)

Peter Tyson, Are We Still Evolving?, 2009, NOVA (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-we-still-evolving.html)

Ralph E. Minear, William Proctor 1989, Kids Who Have Too Much, Thomas Nelson Inc., pp. 192

Richard Despard Estes 1992, The Behavior Guide to African Mammals: Including Hoofed Mammals, Carnivores, Primates, University of California Press, pp.

Richard F Thompson, Habituation: A History, 2009, Elsevier, 92, 2, pp.

Robert M. Zubrin, Christopher P. McKay, Technological Requirements for Terraforming Mars, , (http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/zubrin.htm)

Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming, 2011, American Institute of Physics (http://www.aip.org/history/climate/pdf/venus.pdf)

Stephen Webb 2002, If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi’s Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life, Springer, pp.

Steven Soter, SETI and the Cosmic Quarantine Hypothesis, 2005, Astrobiology Magazine (http://www.astrobio.net/index.php?option=com_retrospection&task=detail&id=1745)

J. A. Peacock 1998, Cosmological Physics, Cambridge University Press, pp. 66