Is there more to fear from life on earth than there is from extraterrestrial life?

I just watched a programme about parasites on BBC1, I know some people fear alien mind control, but it's already here on earth caused by natives to our own planet. In the programme they talked about toxoplasmosis, which I had heard about before but what I didn't know was how many people are unknowingly infected with it. Up to 1/4 of the population have been exposed in the UK and up to 8 out of 10 in France. Infact globally up to half of the population has it. Another thing that I didn't realize was that it can affect your mind making your reactions slower and making you take more risks than you would normally. You are twice as likely to have a car crash if you have it. All pretty scary stuff. Here's a bit of info on it. though not as much as was on the telly.

www.amm.co.uk...

There was also another parasite that infected sticklebacks. It controls its mind and prevents it from fearing herons allowing them selves to be eaten to assist the parasite in its life cycle.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


That was actually inside that little fish!Looks just as bad as any alien that I can imagine.
We fear aliens but there are already plenty of things here that can wipe us out.perhaps we should be more concerned with them.perhaps one day something will evolve that can truely control us like the parasite in the film " the wrath of khan."


[Edited on 3-12-2003 by pantha]

[Edited on 3-12-2003 by pantha]

sorry there was meant to be a pic. hope this works

You are not an alien right?

Yes there are many things to fear on the big blue marble but seems that humans are the most feared of all living things and rightly so I think.

Mind you, mother nature will have the last laugh on all of us but that is a slower and more sporadic effort generally.

I don't believe that all aliens are to be feared and I believe that if we just take an educated guess then half of them would be of net benefit to us and the other half would be detrimental to us. Purely unscientific of course but reasonable nonetheless.

I wonder if any aliens that come here would be carrying parasites of their own and what sort of effect that may have on us.

I guess we would have more to fear from alien life. I think this for a few reasons. Here it goes. On earth we have a whole lot to fear. Disease, war, tripping hazards, man eating bears, fire, and the list just goes on and on. Now all of these things can be lethal and harmful. Some of them are very scary.

When you bring aliens into it, the level of fear probably shouldnt change. We shouldnt be any more scared of dying by alien execution than a wolf attack. Since we dont know what aliens are, or what they are made of ect., we dont know what to expect. So there is more to fear. When I say more, I mean more things added to a list. Alien breath, phaser ray guns, abductions and anal probes, ect.

Seeing as I think that aliens arn't really aliens at all but tricky little interdimensionals masqerading as et's and having fun at our expense then no I don't think we have more to fear from them. There's plenty right here to be going on with.

i saw that program as well interesting......

Originally posted by pantha
I wonder if any aliens that come here would be carrying parasites of their own and what sort of effect that may have on us.

It all depends on how close life is in the universe to our own. If they brought parasites.....more than likely our bodies wouldnt be able to develop an immunity to them in time (on the virus sized scale). So we would all be in trouble unless the aliens helped us somehow.

Then again we dont know anything about foreign viruses. They could take much much longer to develop an attack on your system than earth viruses making them not a problem.

So its all a guessing game really......

This is an interesting topic. Human beings are very violent and greedy race. Our history is covered with war,blood,greed and we tend to be good at destroying eachother then living in peace.

Originally posted by infinite
This is an interesting topic. Human beings are very violent and greedy race. Our history is covered with war,blood,greed and we tend to be good at destroying eachother then living in peace.

You're right about what you say (us being violent). But really think about that. As compared to what? We are violent by our standards. Who says aliens are more less violent than we are?

We can't fear any extraterrestrtial threat yet as the world in general does not recognize extraterrestrial visitation. Parasites are a more real threat, but if I were you, I'd be more worried about day to day ways to die like car accidents. If there is anything that will kill all of us, its road vehicles and the people behind the wheel of them.