Honestly, there are probably several nonn-human species on earth ready to reach technological (or at least philisophical or other mental) equivelence to humans.
Dolphins, chimps, gorillas, crows, octopii, and likely numerous others I'm forgetting. They're all noted for having language, society, and the ability to use and manipulate tools. (Although dolphins don't have the appendages to make good use of tools but humans are attempting to decipher their language to set up communication with them. Seriously. This is a thing that is happening.)
Gorillas and chimps have also been taught sign-language, so the capability is there and has been known for some time.
So what this means for intelligent life in the universe is that intelligent technological societies *might* be more common among life-dwelling planets than we realize even if those species aren't necessarily building massive cities and space programs and klingon birds of prey.
But good gods, if there aren't any green or three-breasted alien women, there's going to be hell to pay. (Luckily, genetic engineering can easily fix that. GET TO WORK, SCIENCE!)
Dolphins, chimps, gorillas, crows, octopii, and likely numerous others I'm forgetting. They're all noted for having language, society, and the ability to use and manipulate tools. (Although dolphins don't have the appendages to make good use of tools but humans are attempting to decipher their language to set up communication with them. Seriously. This is a thing that is happening.)
Gorillas and chimps have also been taught sign-language, so the capability is there and has been known for some time.
So what this means for intelligent life in the universe is that intelligent technological societies *might* be more common among life-dwelling planets than we realize even if those species aren't necessarily building massive cities and space programs and klingon birds of prey.
But good gods, if there aren't any green or three-breasted alien women, there's going to be hell to pay. (Luckily, genetic engineering can easily fix that. GET TO WORK, SCIENCE!)
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
