Bill Nye: Are We Actually Aliens? #TuesdaysWithBill | Big Think

Bill Nye: Are We Actually Aliens?

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"How should we react to aliens?" asks Jesse from Texas. Such a question assumes we'd be able to contact aliens should we find them. Bill's not entirely sure we'll be able to. A civilization thousands of light-years away would be extremely difficult to communicate with. It might end up being impossible.

Bill then refocuses on a pretty fascinating idea: Is it possible that we're extraterrestrials? New research on Mars in the coming decade will help us find out if humans are really the descendants of Mars-based microbes that were docked off that planet and onto ours millions of years ago.

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BILL NYE, THE SCIENCE GUY:

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle's home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live." This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®" was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle's NBC affiliate. While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children's books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs." Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries" airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye" airs on PBS stations across the country. Bill's latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens." It's about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you'll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There's also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It's fun for him; he's an engineer with an energy conservation hobby. Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest organization.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Jesse Lawrence: This is Jesse from Central Texas. What are some of the reasons you think extraterrestrials will come to Earth and how should we react to them and how do you think we will react to them? And on top of that what are some of the consequences things like organized religion will have when they eventually make it here?

Bill Nye: Jesse I kind of thought that’s where you were going when you started with the aliens coming from some other world and then: "Well how do you think religions will react?" I guess it depends on the religion. The current pope is going to roll with it. He’s going to send Vatican scientists out there to take a meeting with them and they’ll speak Latin or whatever the heck.

But I know what you’re driving at. If you want to think about this Jesse, talk about extraterrestrials. You say what’s going to happen when they visit. I don’t think they’re going to visit. However, it’s very reasonable that we will in, Carl Sagan in fashion, detect a signal to it from some other star system. That’s very reasonable. I make no guarantees. It’s the Christmas light problem, the holiday light problem where the lights are blinking. Our light of being able to receive electromagnetic wave from another civilization has to be on when another blinking civilization light is on so that we can cross paths not only in space, but in time. We have to have both civilizations existing at the same time. And with the universe that’s at least 13.6 billion years old, it’s not necessarily a given thing that everybody will be — their lights will be on at the same time.

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