ass-u-me

"We should assume there isn't intelligent life out there."

It's this kind of grammatically incorrect, arrogant, self-centred, narrow-minded thinking that fuels my contempt for the entire scientific house of cards the white-coated stiffs have built.

Has this guy never seen a single episode of Star Trek?

"We see no evidence based on evolution on Earth for a tendency to develop human-like intelligence."

I should hope not if this idiot represents the most intelligent of our species. He seems to be presuming that "intelligence" is limited to the small amount of space found between human ears. He seems to be suggesting that if it hasn't "evolved" two legs, two arms and a rock-melon-like brain, it can't be intelligent. Or at least it can't be intelligent like us.

How many times did Kirk and the team, while cruising the cosmos, come across some incredibly clever being that resembled a big sparkly dust cloud? And it talked, and calculated and everything! Or what about Q and The Continuum? While they could take human form, they didn't really look like us. And they were omnisciently clever. Even cleverer than Pickard. And that's saying something.

And then there are the aliens from War of the Worlds? They weren't particularly clever when it came to fighting off the bugs, but they were wicked smart at building machines and weapons. And although we didn't really get a good look at them, I don't think they were human-like.

It astounds me that these science boffins can't think outside the square to a scenario involving intelligence in a non-human form, like a sparkly cloud or a handsome but overly-sarcastic omnipotent shape-shifter. And who says only an earth-like planet revolving round a sun-like star can sustain life and intelligence?

Of course, I didn't hear the lecture, and given that the media in this country are as brainless as most of the scientists, the report could be wrong, or at least incomplete. But I've heard a number of times some kooky biochemist suggesting that intelligent life cannot possibly exist somewhere else in the Universe because the conditions required to facilitate evolution are not evident.

Duh.