Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
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Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#2Which was it - virus-guided evolution or cryofrozen eggs? That piece is all over the map.
And it begs the question: why is alien life DNA-based at all? Without addressing that, its just a comedy piece.
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#3A few questions that pop into my head:
Why did land insects never rise to match the intelligence of the octopus?
If octopuses are so smart, why aren't they more social?
Why is it that the most social of animals, ants (which are considered eusocial actually), are not pressed with becoming smarter?
Why does sex cause octopuses to self-destruct?
Also, when it comes to weird theories, I have always thought that if we are in a simulation, it is most likely a simulation created by an insect intelligence. Or if we are being visited by aliens, that those aliens would in all likelihood be of an insect like nature, not some lame anal-probing grey dudes.
I claim this as vague support for my theory of alien insects[0].
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#4Which was it - virus-guided evolution or cryofrozen eggs? That piece is all over the map. And it begs the question: why is alien life DNA-based at all? Without addressing that, its just a comedy piece.
Without trying to support the piece, the DNA question has a rich history of being explainable via the panspermia theory.
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#5A few questions that pop into my head: Why did land insects never rise to match the intelligence of the octopus? If octopuses are so smart, why aren't they more social? Why is it that the most social of animals, ants (which are considered eusocial actually), are not pressed with becoming smarter? Why does sex cause octopuses to self-destruct? Also, when it comes to weird theories, I have always thought that if we are…
> If octopuses are so smart, why aren't they more social?
Because they are so smart.
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#6Which was it - virus-guided evolution or cryofrozen eggs? That piece is all over the map. And it begs the question: why is alien life DNA-based at all? Without addressing that, its just a comedy piece.
In the paper they mention both (paper was linked in the article):
> In our considered view the totality of the multifactorial data and critical analyses assembled by Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and their many colleagues leads to the bare minimum yet plausible scientific conclusion – that life was seeded here on Earth by life-bearing comets as soon as conditions on Earth allowed it to flourish (at or just before 4.1 Billion years ago); and living organisms such as space-resistant and space-hardy bacteria, viruses, more complex eukaryotic cells and organisms (e.g. Tardigrades), perhaps even fertilised ova and plant seeds, may have been continuously delivered ever since to Earth helping to drive further the progress of terrestrial biological evolution.
EDIT: Further in the paper they talk specifically about the octopus in more detail:
> Thus the possibility that cryopreserved Squid and/or Octopus eggs, arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago should not be discounted (below) as that would be a parsimonious cosmic explanation for the Octopus' sudden emergence on Earth ca. 270 million years ago.
Full disclosure: I'm a software engineer not a biologist, so the next bit is my interpretation that could be wrong:
As I get it from the paper they seem to suggest that octopi came into being either due to genes inserted into a terrestrial ancestor whereby the genes came from space. OR by the landing of extraterrestrial eggs on our planet.
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#7Complete sidebar: octopuses/squid are on my short list of "things in American diet I don't eat because they are too smart" (pigs being the other).
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#8For constructive criticism on the content of this article, there's a quartz piece -
https://qz.com/1281064/a-controversial-study-has-a-new-spin-...
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#9I wouldn't trust anything from that website. That scientific journal sounds sketchy, too
Re: Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens
#10The Simpsons weren't too far off