Aliens

There has always been a single theme that has gone hand in hand with Science Fiction since the very beginning.  In ninety percent of Science Fiction, there are always aliens.  There seem to be hundreds of aliens and thousands of planets, and each movie, show, or book has their own special idea on what our galactic brothers and sisters are like.  What do they look like, what is their culture like, do they even exist?  Maybe they are giant creatures covered in fur like Chewbacca, or maybe they are short little grey creatures who have a soft spot for Reese’s Pieces, like in E.T.?  Will they be friendly towards humanity like the Vulcans from Star Trek, or will they attempt to exterminate the human species like in Independence Day?  It is impossible to say, but the real question is are they even out there?  That’s a question for the people at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI for short (Triplett). 

William Triplett explains in his article how the search for both microbiological and intelligent life forms distant to our planet is proceeding.  With the help of both SETI and NASA, we are finding out more and more about our own galaxy, and most notably about our closest neighbor, Mars.  Through looking at the natural formation of Martian rocks scientist have confirmed that there was at one time abundant water on Mars (Triplett).  With a moist planet, it is likely that at one time Mars had an atmosphere, which once might have had the possibility to sustain life depending on the alien organism.  But without knowing the exact biological needs of a certain organism it is impossible to say what kinds of planets can and cannot support life.  Perhaps there are species out there that don’t even need an atmosphere; perhaps they can live in the cold vacuum of space.   A statistic in the article points out that even if one out of every billion star systems contained intelligent life, there would still be over one hundred intelligent life forms in our galaxy alone.  So with the hope of someday experiencing first contact with an alien life form, the people at SET, NASA, and the occasional UFO fanatic, will keep their eyes to the night sky. 

What will first contact be like?  Will we find them, or will they find us?  I guess it depends on how far into the future we meet them.  In the film ‘Signs’ the little boy Morgan explains that if an alien intelligence were to come all the way to Earth in person, there can only be two explanations.  One, they are peaceful explorers who wish to increase their collective knowledge and understanding of the universe; or two, they are hostile and have come to use our planet for their own purposes.  While the first option is preferable, which do you believe to be more plausible?  There is a good line in the new science fiction action movie ‘Sky Line’ in which a news reporter is saying how if aliens made first contact with us it would be similar to when Columbus first discovered the Americas, in other words, it didn’t turn out too well for the Native Americans.  I believe that in this present time, if a hostile alien force did come to Earth, humanity would not be able to defend from a more technologically advanced force.  However, I have a feeling that an advanced alien society would not use their technology to travel across the galaxy just to pick a fight with some biped race with a dying planet. 

Triplett, W. (2004). The search for extraterrestrials. CQ Research Online, 14(9),

Retrieved from CQ Research Database.

Cloning

This is a still from "Star Wars Attack of the Clones," where an entire army of clones have been grown for combat.

Ever since we were children, our parents have always told us that everyone one of us are special and unique in our own way.  Individuality is a corner stone in the human spirit.  There is no one else, in the whole world, who is just like you.  But what happens if the individual is copied?  Can an individual be copied?  Does it cease to be an individual?  Or is there simply a second identical individual?  These are questions Science Fiction needs to answer when dealing with human cloning.  While successful human cloning is still a technology far past our present reach, there are already those for and against this issue. 

Those in favor of human cloning research tend to be those who see new scientific discoveries within this field.  They “warn that stopping human-cloning research will cut mankind off from potential advances that have not yet been imagined.”  Perhaps new cures can be found through advancements of human cloning research that can cure Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease. 

Those who oppose the idea of human cloning do so mainly on the simple basis of morality and ethics.  There is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie called “The 6^th Day” in which human cloning becomes a reality.  In the movie, the government puts a ban on all human cloning known as the ‘6^th Day Law’ because God created man on the sixth day.  While the movie is more or less just an action movie, it does beg the question, does man have the right to create life?  Even if man has the ability for human replication, who is to say that these clones would have a soul?  Perhaps God is the only one who can give man a soul?

In true Science Fiction manner, movies and novels have shown us the very worse scenarios that human clones can bring about.  Picture a mad scientist who decides to take over the world with an evil army of clone soldiers.  Far-fetched right.  But what if you replace the mad scientist with a corporation; and replace soldiers with factory workers.  Do you believe it would be unrealistic in the future for a company to clone their employee of the month a hundred times and replace every factory worker with clones who don’t need to be paid and who never complain?  Is that scenario far-fetched? 

Every experience you’ve had is your own, every decision, every mistake, every success leads us who we currently are.  And because everybody chooses differently down the road of life, the result is a billion people, with a billion individual spirits.  That what makes us individuals is what makes us human.  In my opinion if you replace the individual, then you no longer have a human being.

Cloning. (2007, June 19). Issues & Controversies On File. November 3, 2010, from

Issues & Controversies database.