The 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Comet (or “Rosetta’s Comet”) has been found to have organic elements on board. That’s quite a discovery, but how much bigger would it have been if the Mars Rover had found a little clump of algae?

There’s an entire industry around extraterrestrial life. One can just imagine with what care and reverential fear the world’s scientists would handle (or even discuss) some Petri dish of alien amoebas. How many billions of dollars would go to the protection, preservation, and cultivation of that life?

Meanwhile, it’s springtime, and you know what that means: hormones. And we all know hormones lead people to make dumb choices.

Nobody seems to care so much about destroying human life in the womb, even though it behooves us far more to protect our own kind than to grovel over some alien fungus. Space-grass won’t take care of you when you’re old. It will never look you in the eye and tell you it loves you. And no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to teach it how to ride a bike. The list goes on.

BUT, BUT… ALIENS!

Yes, aliens. But yes, humans, too. Shouldn’t we be our first priority? Shouldn’t we figure out how to flourish on our own before trying to flourish as an inter-galactic community?

The drive to search for space-buddies isn’t as strong as the drive for human intimacy. And no matter how many remakes there are of War of the Worlds, the prospect of having a child is more threatening. So we cheat the system.

Pfft. Puny humans.

Although this is less ridiculous than the fact that the destruction of the eggs of endangered turtles carries a higher penalty than the destruction of your own child. At least aliens are cool… No offense to the hawksbill turtle.

One last question… If there really is intelligent extraterrestrial life, and they know anything about our planet, why exactly would they want to have anything to do with us?

 

Main image: Haley’s comet in 1910