I just watched an online video featuring astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I kind of equate Neil as sort of the “Carl Sagan” in this new era of future generations. He is incredibly intelligent and also has the ability to show and explain the intricacies of the Universe in ways that are palatable to the average person – like me…
In this recent online video, he claimed we as humans only see and understand a staggering 4% of the working energy and matter of the Universe. That means we do not know what is driving the other 96% of the Universe. WOW…
4% of the Universe? And yet he muses, we consider ourselves an intelligent species. What defines intelligence? Neil makes it clear humans define this term “Intelligence”. He asks, would an advanced alien species think of the human race as intelligent?
He notes that Chimpanzees have very similar DNA to humans. In fact, it may surprise some right-wing Christians that chimp DNA differs by 1% to that of humans. That one 1% difference is a lot though. Humans can create poetry, build telescopes and space stations. A chimp can poke a stick into a termite hole to flesh out a tasty treat. Still, there is only a 1 % difference in DNA evolution between chimps and humans – amazing…
But imagine an alien species whose DNA is say 1% more advanced than that of humans. One could surmise that there would be huge differences based on our similarity with chimps? Would an alien race consider us as primal and unintelligent as chimps? It makes you wonder.
It also makes you wonder about our place in this vast Cosmos. It makes you wonder about religion, war and our place on Earth in relation to something so vast and undiscovered as the Universe. It makes me want to take a deep breath and simply revel in the immensity of it all; making no claims about genesis or dogma – just reverence; that I am apart of this amazing system of order that is the Cosmos.
John C. Bader
www.responsiveuniverse.com
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