Religion is a primitive philosophy. Especially religions of revelation such as christianity or islam in which someone claims that he/she got the message from God out of blue and leads human race to genocide or suicide bomber. I hope someday soon the Truth of science and advanced philosophy will set free primitive christians and moslems from self-indulgent hypnosis of going to heaven. We the humans need to evolve philosophically to outgrow primitive religions that harm our children and our precious Earth. Evolution requires hard work to raise the level of talent of the participants.

I think that itelligent life is real I mean think of it this way.If you beleive in God it is said that he create the universe right?So way did he create the rest of the universe? Becasue he put other different kinds of life out there not just us? So what was the point of the rest of the uuniverse? It was to let other organisms to live and explore just like we do and also to get smarter so if anybody dose not beleive is live beyond our planet please e-mail me i would be happy to prove u wrong!! e-mail: NightMagick45@aol.com

Mr. Shostak>>

Thank you for presenting this BLOG...I just found it...like a needle in the 'Haystack', shall we say...LOL

But seriously, I applaud the countless efforts (and years) by you and your contemporaries
to determine if humans are alone or in the present company of others!

It is a trying event to locate those who may or may not be there when you wish to recieve an invitation to the ball. It is frustrating to find out your best friend is there and you are not.
It's a matter of exposure and countless manouvers that count.

One has to be recognized!

I know I have made some ambiguous statements, but the reality of it all is that someone IS out there, do we dare to interfere with their reality for our own appropriateness?

Don't get me wrong on this, but perhaps there is another way of identification and verification.

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The reason I've rejected religion is that it straight out says *I* am evil because of something I can't control(The bible states africans are evil.)

Also the idea of a "heaven" for all christians is idiodic, what about the South American tribal man who's already lived a life of suffering, he has to go to hell just because he didn't believe in the right god? Gandi has to go to hell for not being a christian? That's ridiculous.

Almost every problem in the world stems from fundemental christians saying they deserve something, Slavery, the Crusades, the Holocaust, the list goes on.

Evolution has as much scientific precidence as Gravity does. So if you can callously discount Evolution with religious "proof", you might as well just float off into space.

Religious rants aside. Out of the species we've seen on "Extraterrestrial" Which do you think would be the most likely to evolve into complex, intelligent beings with technology(Let's assume our alien buddies were on the level of the dinosaurs)

We already did. Those without history repeat it?

There ARE plenty of contradictions and innaccuracies in the bible which have been well documented and you can find out for yourself if you wish.

The part you mentioned in order to prove it's truth isn't exactly a good example. Jesus Christ could have quite easily been either a conman, mentally ill or a very good magician. Or he could've been quite ordinary and his achievements greatly exaggerated over the generations.

Evolution: Well I'm no expert but I suggest that you read up thouroughly on it if you are not convinced. But if you have done so then fair enough on your opinion. But for what I know about it, it seems there is plenty of proof that life evolved over billions of years. I don't always understand christians opposition to evolution because it doesn't exactly disprove a creator.

A book written by men that were under the inspiration of God. A book that is continually proven to be true with discovery after discovery. There are no inaccuracies in the bible.

For the heck of it, why don't you check out Isaiah 53. It was written 1400 years before the birth of Christ. It's date was proven upon the discovery of the dead sea scrolls. Read it and tell me who it speaks of.

The gospels were written within 60-70 years after Christ's birth. They were written at a time where people knew of him and his ministry. Where if anything was written inaccurately, there were people still alive who could of discredited them if they were false.

Nothing in the bible has ever been proven false. You can't say that about evolution. An individual species can evolve but it will always be of that species. There hasn't been one shred of evidence to show a species evolving into a new species. Billions of years...please, if I put a handful of coins on a rock will it evolve into a timex watch 60 billion years later?

Kerry, firstly, thanks for the laugh. I always enjoy rants from fundamental christians.

The bible is full to the brim of innaccuracies and contradictions are downright oppresive teaching. It was written by a series of human writers, not 'God', which explains it's flaws.

For your information, when we die, we are dust. Believers don't go to a heavenly place, and non-believers don't go to a firey hell.

If you want to place all your beliefs into a book written thousands of years ago then that's up to you. But most people these days (certainly outside bible belt america) prefer to make a little more progress to understanding life and the universe.

Nothing in the bible has ever been proven inaccurate. Creation screams of a creator. I wasn't ranting, if you choose to reject Christ, you have the free will to do so but you will spend an eternity in regret. To put it mildly.

It takes more faith to believe in MACRO evolution than in God. Micro evolution is a fact but it only occurs within a species. Species to species is impossible.

Have you read the bible?

Please proove that god exists in a form other than archaic stories, then I will believe you. The Bible is as much a work of fiction as this show, atleast this show was remotely practical.

Anyway, religious ranting is stupid, especially towards a science program. God is a fairy tale, science is truth.

I still think the Stinnger Fans would eventually need to evolve some mechanisms for self defence and better movement IE a brain to control their bodies better. On Aurillia, the Gulphogs would probably win out and become the intelligent creatures, but they have nothing to manipulate objects with, So would it be possible for the Mudpods to become intelligent as well? They have 3 pairs of limbs and could eventually evolve into larger beings with large brains(Didn't us humans evolve from 4 legged rodent-like mammals?)

Watched the show and thought what a horrid type of world would exist where God was not. Well, first of all, no world could exist without God, of course. But in your imaginary world, where you thought up what, four, five species, the absence of love was what got me.

Thank the Lord for all He has done for you and me on this earth. He has given you the intelligence to dream, if only He had given you the heart to believe. The evidence is towards no other life in the universe but our planet's. God did it all for us, every creature, plant and mineral, all for our benefit.

I about fell out of my chair at the mention of 'seven' evolutions of the eye but then remembered Nat'l Geographic is the retraction king.

If only you had geared this program through the eyes of God, what majesty could you have imagined? Would it have come close to what heaven must be like?

Watched the show. Enjoyed it. My first introduction to 'convergent evolution'. Makes sense, for things like stereoscopic vision, hearing and so forth. I was glad that there was plenty of 'divergence' shown, too, like the 3-eyed stalker and the UV sensor. Nature's unique solutions to unique problems.

The only problem I had with the show has to do with the repetition and slow pace of the show. IMHO, could have had less repetition of the script and more new information on how the design of the creatures were determined (and even a few more added).

Thanks for a great program.

The Blue Moon predation scenario is silly. Any stalker could obviously overtake and nibble on any defenseless sky-whale whenever it pleased. Why all the pointless tactical maneuvering? Imagine a pair of fighter jets having to sneak up on an unarmed blimp, then mark it for future identification (as if it mattered). Someone should have reviewed that segment for plot logic.

It's certainly very fasinating to speculate on other life forms that for sure! Shows like star trek cemented that :) But what I don't get is that if evolution is true we SHOULD be finding all kinds of creatures adapted to planets even in our solor system. For instance hydrogen thriving creatures on Neptune. The evolutionary model might have SOME credence if we did find life on another planet but think about it. If we don't, it's a preposterous and uncredible theory.

Que Dios te oiga

The program just went off, now I'm even MORE interested in extraterestrial biology, what classes in school should I take to learn more about this?

I wonder if extra terrestrial intelligence would be hostile towards us, especially Gulphog-decended beings(imagine those babies enslaving humanity!) Since the Stinger fans have hearts and can move, is it possible that they can also evolve complex nervous systems? I want a pet Mudpod. :)

I hope you continue this blog. It is fascinating to hear these items from a real scientist, as I am just a dreamer of these things.

Question on the spectrometry of terrestrial-sized planets. In addition to doing things like absorption spectometry for things like methane, will there be any sort of checks for emission spectra of mercury or sodium owing to nighttime illumination by intelligent critters?

Speaking of which, does the visible SETI thing have any sort of meaningful traction right now?

Josh -

I guess you could do Nitrogen or Silicon, but since Carbon is so darned good at doing what it does, it would probably (in most cases) smack down the competition. The other question comes from the discovery of carbon-based amino-acid compounds in nebulae - that will (for the next 10 or 30 billion years) sort of cinch things for carbon in most cases.

Great science fiction!

It seems certain that once we explore most planets and moons in our solar system the governments around the world will start investing in projects like SETI. Is it not a matter of time? Perhaps SETI is ahead of it's time. But I sure can't wait till the Allen telescope array is up and running. At least if it finds nothing it is a process of elimination.

I've been reading this blog eversense I heard of the program that will be premiering today

I want to know if you could possibly go into the hypothetical life compounds, like Ammonia Based life and Silicon based life. Also, Is the possibility that life on earth is the decendant of life on another world still discussed?