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> Doesn't that just beg the question? If life originated on some other planet and made it to Earth, why did only the DNA-based lifeform(s) make it here? Maybe
by freeflight 7y ago
> Doesn't that just beg the question? If life originated on some other planet and made it to Earth, why did only the DNA-based lifeform(s) make it here?
Maybe Earth is just a big petri-dish for a very advanced alien species trying to reconstruct their own evolutionary history?
It's something I've thought about since I've been a kid (I've been a weird kid).
The time-scales make this kinda implausible, but there's still Clarke's third law, so who knows if properly advanced technology might even allow for artificial time dilation to facilitate such an experiment in a useful way.
- elliekelly 7y ago> Maybe Earth is just a big petri-dish for a very advanced alien species trying to reconstruct their own evolutionary history? When I was in like 3rd or 4th grade we were each given a petri dish and told to swab different surfaces (bathroom door handle, water fountain spout, etc.) and then we would learn about bacteria while we watched ours grow. Well the teacher told us our petri dish would grow “it’s own little world” and I (fellow weird kid) had just seen Men In Black so I was fascinated by the idea of an entire world so tiny that it could exist on a cat’s collar. Of course I asked what would happen to our worlds after the experiment (I thought we’d get to keep them!) and when I found out it would go in the trash I refused to participate. (Weird and stubborn - my poor parents.) And I had completely forgotten about that for 20+ years until today, when you’ve got me laughing at the thought that we could be the petri dish of some clueless 4th grader of an advanced alien species.
- minkzilla 7y agoI used to joke with my friends that earth was the equivalent of a baking soda volcano at a science fair. Some alien made us and we are completely uninspiring common.