I can see what he's saying but I don't really buy that argument totally.

We share 90% of our DNA with all life because at the end of it all we all emerged from the same spark of life millions of years ago. We share DNA with almost all living things.

After that, let's think about it, Neil's arguement essentially levels all humans to the same level i.e. I can be as smart as Stephen Hawking. I believe that the difference between the average human being and Stephen Hawking is far larger then the difference between the average human and the chimpanzee. Out of our 6 billion people we have a small pool of highly educated and inquisitive people like Neil, Hawking and so on.

Furthermore, the more I read into the subject of INTELLIGENT alien life, the more I think it's fairly rare in our universe. There is alien life out there for sure, if life can arise near volcanic plumes then life is out there perhaps in the probable oceans of Europa.

A reading of our past and development as a species show how depended we were on some factors beyond the probable. We have had extinction events but not catastrophic enough to kill all life. We have a satellite that induces currents and what I believe contributed to life occurring. I recommend reading the Short History of Everything to further explore this topic.

^You say:

I believe that the difference between the average human being and Stephen Hawking is far larger then the difference between the average human and the chimpanzee.

I must not have expressed myself clearly. But what I meant was that I believe that there is far greater difference between the geniuses of our society and the average Joe. I have always believed in the bell curve distribution of human intelligence.

I know what Neil meant though but I guess we agree that we don't know anything essentially at this time. I still think there is little intelligent life out there. If it does exist we will probably not have contact for several hundred thousand years due to the vast interstellar distances involved and lack of any real scientific theory for faster then light travel.

^ do you know about the flynn effect? the average joe of today would have been considered a genius a while ago, just as a genius today would be considered mentally retarded far enough into the future. i think neil's just leaning too heavily on dna here.

Everybody has their own opinion but, I think you guys (^) are missing Mr. Tyson's use of the word "IMAGINE".

He smokes pot. You know he does.

>> ^berticus:
^ do you know about the flynn effect? the average joe of today would have been considered a genius a while ago, just as a genius today would be considered mentally retarded far enough into the future. i think neil's just leaning too heavily on dna here.


Well, education and the figuring out of science is more available and has spread intellect around but are we smarter than the past? On a purely intellectual argument, sure. On a grander scheme? Heck no.

Have you seen how some nations function? Tribes in Africa perhaps? The Ugandan Minister who says gays eat poo-poo? Is he a genuis compared to others in the past?
Would Americans who could never survive a week in the outdoors be considered genius to those in the past who could---IF something catastrophic were to occur... It is debatable, because we would die in droves as opposed to our retarded cousins... And yet we know these skills are vital.

We know fat kills, yet we stuff our faces with double big mac quarter pounders with infinte cheese on top of milk shake cream pies. We know smoking kills, and we still do it. Soooooo, does knowing this and still doing it make us dumber than those in the past who did not know while they did it? Of course we are dumber for it than those in the past...

At any rate, this man is brillant here in this speech and probably dead on. DNA contains our very nature and cages/makes us who we are and what we are capable of doing. DNA is 100% of everything if it is not there or currupted. It means humans cannot fly, humans cannot breathe water, humans cannot live for 500 years.

When we postively modify DNA, we can evolve.

perhaps chimps are more intelligent than humans?

What if C-A-T spelled dog?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I think he's right. More than likely, any species that has developed the technology to come and visit would more than likely not consider us sentient.

I also think that humanity has the potential to be the seed for another species that could be that extra 1%. Eugenics, GM or computer augmentation - bring it on I say.

>> ^dag:

I think he's right. More than likely, any species that has developed the technology to come and visit would more than likely not consider us sentient.
I also think that humanity has the potential to be the seed for another species that could be that extra 1%. Eugenics, GM or computer augmentation - bring it on I say.


I like the below term.

"Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like germinal choice technology become more available and more powerful."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprogenetics

Mr Tyson... If our DNA is 1% different from chimps, why are they 10 times stronger than us?

2 mindteaseers:
1. The human brain is twice the size of a chimp, which should make the difference in intelligence 50%? (or 100% from the chimps' POV)
(hope I'm not doing too much Glenn Beck math here..)

2. According to the wikipage "Chimpanzee genome project":
"Figures published in Nature on September 1, 2005, in an article produced by the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, show that 24% of the chimpanzee genome does not align with the human genome. There are 3% further alignment gaps, 1.23% SNP differences, and 2.7% copy number variations totaling at least 30% differences between chimpanzee and Homo sapiens genomes"

And the project is still ongoing, and apparently they still don't know what all the genes do, if anything, in the human genomes (source: pseudorandom wikipedia pages)

I have an idea...let's evolve that 1% intelligence. I have a plan to do so. Let's stop idolizing looks and athletic abilities and start admiring intelligence.

^ I'd rather have some hot piece of ass now, than a great-great-great-great-greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson that invents immortality 500+ years after I'm dead..

>> ^bovan:

Mr Tyson... If our DNA is 1% different from chimps, why are they 10 times stronger than us?
2 mindteaseers:
1. The human brain is twice the size of a chimp, which should make the difference in intelligence 50%? (or 100% from the chimps' POV)
(hope I'm not doing too much Glenn Beck math here..)
2. According to the wikipage "Chimpanzee genome project":
"Figures published in Nature on September 1, 2005, in an article produced by the Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, show that 24% of the chimpanzee genome does not align with the human genome. There are 3% further alignment gaps, 1.23% SNP differences, and 2.7% copy number variations totaling at least 30% differences between chimpanzee and Homo sapiens genomes"
And the project is still ongoing, and apparently they still don't know what all the genes do, if anything, in the human genomes (source: pseudorandom wikipedia pages)


The usage of that 1% statistic always seems a little funny to me.

It's like marveling at how altering only 1% of someone's nervous system between their skull and back means they can no longer move their body. "But his nervous system is 99% the same ... Amazing!"

I think the 1% figure is something of an irrelevant measurement... the measurement we care about (can he move his body or not) clearly is on a different order of magnitude (not a 1% difference).

>> ^bovan:

^ I'd rather have some hot piece of ass now, than a great-great-great-great-greatgreat-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson that invents immortality 500+ years after I'm dead..


Ok, but growing replacement organs for yourself and curing your surprise-cancer 30 years from now might come more in handy than you think

Lie is to recline. Lay is to put or place, and the verb is always followed by an object.

I have thought for a long time that our planet/species is too primitive/barbaric to be accepted by the ranking members of the universe. I should write a book about it.

I agree with most here. His premise is shaky, if not faulty completely. DNA is often described as computer code for living beings. DNA is simply a solution to a problem... the problem is: replication of the species. Specifically, replication of more DNA.

DNA is not a measure of intelligence or a total measure of potential. After all, I'm fairly certain alien life wouldn't have DNA at all. But even if they used DNA as a means of reproduction and ordering of life, they still have the same basic problem to solve. They would have evolved on a planet.. primarily evolving to survive long enough to create copies of itself... I daresay this wouldn't give any sort of instinctive insights to cosmic mysteries, no matter how advanced they were.

Educational techniques, and the mean average intelligence would be much higher than us (assuming they have interstellar travel and we do not) but I don't believe it would be terribly anthropocentric to believe that with equal time to advance our own educational techniques and mean average intelligence we could be on par of any advanced intelligence.

To believe otherwise would be to go against the pursuit of science, art, and literature as hopeless tasks whose limits will someday be reached... meaning there will come a point someday in the future where we cannot learn more, we cannot create more, and there is nothing left in the realm of the knowable.

Perhaps this is an incredibly naive statement of faith... but I have a firm belief that there will never be a time when the human race cannot solve another problem. I honestly believe our potential is limitless.

@Lolthien: "I honestly believe our potential is limitless."

Right, that seems like a rare sentiment, but how could our potential not be limitless?

Our potential is only limited by our biology, which is only limited by science + time.

(In the long run, or a blink of the eye on the scale of cosmic time, science can re-shape our biology to any form.)

So apparently you don't know about the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect describes the increase of the average relative IQ as new generations come along.

It's also apparent that you don't know about IQ since you're talking about education. IQ reflects an ability to learn, process information and recognize patterns. A genius (IQ=150+) that hasn't been educated at all will still be pretty ignorant. That some jerk thinks gays eat shit, drink goat blood, drain your life force, or compulsively count grains of rice says little to nothing about his IQ and only that his education is total shit.

A 100 IQ is always the average; the tests are normalized every few years to insure it; but someone who scores 100 on a test 50 years ago is not on equal ground with someone who scores 100 today. You can't debate that; it's observed fact.

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

>> ^berticus:
^ do you know about the flynn effect? the average joe of today would have been considered a genius a while ago, just as a genius today would be considered mentally retarded far enough into the future. i think neil's just leaning too heavily on dna here.

Well, education and the figuring out of science is more available and has spread intellect around but are we smarter than the past? On a purely intellectual argument, sure. On a grander scheme? Heck no.
Have you seen how some nations function? Tribes in Africa perhaps? The Ugandan Minister who says gays eat poo-poo? Is he a genuis compared to others in the past?
Would Americans who could never survive a week in the outdoors be considered genius to those in the past who could---IF something catastrophic were to occur... It is debatable, because we would die in droves as opposed to our retarded cousins... And yet we know these skills are vital.
We know fat kills, yet we stuff our faces with double big mac quarter pounders with infinte cheese on top of milk shake cream pies. We know smoking kills, and we still do it. Soooooo, does knowing this and still doing it make us dumber than those in the past who did not know while they did it? Of course we are dumber for it than those in the past...

http://videosift.com/video/Richard-Dawkins-TED-The-Strangeness-of-Science-22-min

[redacted]

OK, just my opinion, but I still don't think any of you is getting what he is really saying in the end.

Forget about the DNA thing for moment. forget about the one percent.
What he is saying is that such a small amount of difference sets us so very far apart from a chimp.
And in the evolution of worlds, the smallest evolutional change can set us so far apart that we are/could be insects to an "altered" alien life form.

We keep thinking and hoping that intelligent life will reveal itself to us and we will "Oooh and Ahhh" over the significant turning point in mankind's history, (Ooo, the Vulcans have discovered our warp core travel technology and are here to communicate with us.).

But, what if the aliens, being the smallest bit evolved past or in a different direction than us are beyond our level of intelligence to the point that we are interesting to study (like ants in a jar - Ooo, look, they made a bridge) but wouldn't even consider us to be worth the time of day to communicate with or take us seriously. (when was the last time you took the time to verbally train a fly to sit still?)

So, now imagine 10 different worlds somewhere, nine of them (1-9) at the same intelligence level we are and one (#10) who actually had the intelligence to evoke space travel. The #10 aliens would not only be so far more superior than the rest of us, they would completely ignore us as intelligent life and see us as we see mold, water crystals or at best chimps. (chimps with the ability to think at the same level of their dumbest pets.

This would make us one of the nine life forms without the intelligence to move forward. Just dumb-as-a-stick, examples of goo that never made it out of the petri dish. In fact these intelligent life forms may just brush us aside to study something other than us on our planet (like the Whales - another trek reference - sorry)

I don't think DNA structure was his focus here (not even his field of study), but he was trying to shed some light on what could possibly be our relationship with intelligent life.

He dreams of this stuff, he's a dreamer at heart with an urge to follow up on it. So he imagines what intelligent life could be like and he envies the possibilities of what they could be like. It's an insatiable thirst for knowledge. that's how we move forward

- and we may never evolve to a point where we get out of our petri dish. Trying is still part of the fun.

Just noticed this comment.

Acutally, I know IQ but thanks for guessing WRONG. My wife's mother has a high IQ and learns like a pro... Yet she eats out of a bowl and goes from crack head to crack head (Litterally.) She lost all her children because of this and many other habbits. Although not all people with higher IQ's are insane like her, most do have large gaps of break down in their reasoning.

I think my point, if you bothered to read it---or maybe if you take some reading comp classes because you obviously do not have a high IQ or you have something wrong with your reading comp---was that we need to put aside the Flynn effect and IQ. We need to take the total of the human mind, not just one aspect. The total state of mind for human beings has probably remained the same over the years... Some parts, like IQ, has risen because of the focus on higher learning. Others, like restraint, has fallen...

However, I will admit I do not know about the Flynn effect just as you don't know about everything there is to ever know. Hell, we probably do not have higher IQ's anyways.

Sorry for being so snide, but you reached that point first.

>> ^xxovercastxx:
So apparently you don't know about the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect describes the increase of the average relative IQ as new generations come along.
It's also apparent that you don't know about IQ since you're talking about education. IQ reflects an ability to learn, process information and recognize patterns. A genius (IQ=150+) that hasn't been educated at all will still be pretty ignorant. That some jerk thinks gays eat shit, drink goat blood, drain your life force, or compulsively count grains of rice says little to nothing about his IQ and only that his education is total shit.
A 100 IQ is always the average; the tests are normalized every few years to insure it; but someone who scores 100 on a test 50 years ago is not on equal ground with someone who scores 100 today. You can't debate that; it's observed fact.
>> ^Lawdeedaw:
>> ^berticus:
^ do you know about the flynn effect? the average joe of today would have been considered a genius a while ago, just as a genius today would be considered mentally retarded far enough into the future. i think neil's just leaning too heavily on dna here.

Well, education and the figuring out of science is more available and has spread intellect around but are we smarter than the past? On a purely intellectual argument, sure. On a grander scheme? Heck no.
Have you seen how some nations function? Tribes in Africa perhaps? The Ugandan Minister who says gays eat poo-poo? Is he a genuis compared to others in the past?
Would Americans who could never survive a week in the outdoors be considered genius to those in the past who could---IF something catastrophic were to occur... It is debatable, because we would die in droves as opposed to our retarded cousins... And yet we know these skills are vital.
We know fat kills, yet we stuff our faces with double big mac quarter pounders with infinte cheese on top of milk shake cream pies. We know smoking kills, and we still do it. Soooooo, does knowing this and still doing it make us dumber than those in the past who did not know while they did it? Of course we are dumber for it than those in the past...

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by Grimm.