Meh, at least it is a break from, "I don't know, therefore God."

Somebody been whacking themselves with the Stupid Stick.

That's Earthist!

Slaxl: Not wishing to sound discriminatory toward those fine people in Kazakhstan but here's how reading this article goes.

Blah blah, all very dubious sounding so far... Researchers Vladimir I shCherbak - ooh, so it's bollocks -  of al-Farabi Kazakh National University of Kazakhstan - yep, no need to finish reading. It's a load of bollocks.

On a second almost racist note I'd like to say that it should be illegal to have the capital letter of your surname in the middle of the name. I take grammar Nazism to whole new levels.

I got that far, then went back to check the dateline to make sure it wasn't from Monday.

Last year as part of an experiment I had my genome sequenced.  Part of the sequence are long sections known as  Noncoding DNA which are sections that do not correspond  to proteins.  My genome had a long section with only two base pairs repeating again and again.  The people I was working with decided to assign the value of zero to the first pair and one to the second pair.  They then broke these into 8 pair segments and converted the binary into hexadecimal.  Turns out the hex code translates in ASCII to "Kilroy was her."

/Have no idea who her is

People really prefer "I don't know, therefor coincidence" these days.

Oh for crap's sake, we just managed to get rid of this clown.

SlothB77: So ... we were created by aliens and a code was embedded in our DNA and that code is passed via inheritance.  So we are storage devices or messengers of this code?  That would be pretty cool.

B...E...S...U...R...E..T...O...D...R...I...N...K...Y...O...U...R...O. . .V...A...L...T...I...N...E

SlothB77: So ... we were created by aliens and a code was embedded in our DNA and that code is passed via inheritance.  So we are storage devices or messengers of this code?  That would be pretty cool.

Until we find out that the code is no more than "nike (tm)

Fano: Dragonflew: Meh, at least it is a break from, "I don't know, therefore God."

This

Sorry - I don't see any difference between "created by aliens" and "created by AN alien". I mean, come on, it's right there in the book. God made earth, he didn't come from earth. So, really, no difference. It's aliens whether it's aliens or God. That way you can use the "i'm not saying it's aliens" guy for religious threads now. You're welcome.

So, I guess epigenetics would have to be interpreted from Latin into English after the first translation?

Slaxl: So God is an alien?

If there's a God as described in the Hebrew Scripture, then yes. If there isn't, then who knows?

untaken_name: Sorry - I don't see any difference between "created by aliens" and "created by AN alien". I mean, come on, it's right there in the book. God made earth, he didn't come from earth. So, really, no difference. It's aliens whether it's aliens or God. That way you can use the "i'm not saying it's aliens" guy for religious threads now. You're welcome.

Oh, i already do. Every chance i get.

The Sumerian texts which the bible echos are even more clear about the entire thing, and make a lot more sense because of it. Less "god created us from nothing just to see how far he could push our faith" and more "Enki genetically engineered the human race as workers, because his race was lazy".

Sybarite: According to a new theory, human genetic code is embedded with a "designer label" that may be an indelible stamp of a master extraterrestrial civilisation that preceded us by many millions or billions of years.

Did they leave our planet long ago, this Elder Race who still learn and grow?

Sees what you did there:

Do you have a little alien in you...?  

Would you like some?

Fano: I still enjoy an episode of the new twilight zone where aliens land and tell the UN that humanity is a failure, and will be wiped out. The leaders beg for another chance, and come up with a plan for world peace, only for the alien ambassador laughing and saying it was because we weren't good enough at war yet.

I haven't seen that one - although I really should catch up on the new ones. I do love the old ones, though. My favorite:

J. Frank Parnell: Oh, i already do. Every chance i get.

Wait, are you a mind-reader? ALIEN!

Wow, these dumb mother farkers don't know anything about genetics.

Altair: astronomers astrologers are dabbling in biology now?

FTFY

Dragonflew: Meh, at least it is a break from, "I don't know, therefore God."

Not really.

Explanations invoking alieans are the replacement for faeries and demons and other supernatural creatures aiding/hindering mankind.

Fano: untaken_name: Fano: Dragonflew: Meh, at least it is a break from, "I don't know, therefore God."

This

Sorry - I don't see any difference between "created by aliens" and "created by AN alien". I mean, come on, it's right there in the book. God made earth, he didn't come from earth. So, really, no difference. It's aliens whether it's aliens or God. That way you can use the "i'm not saying it's aliens" guy for religious threads now. You're welcome.

It's a slight break, so a little newer.

I will say I'm annoyed by atheists who go on about the existence of aliens, and start claiming they don't visit because we are "wicked," or whatever moral failings to ascribe to humanity. It is functionally little different from religious faith, as you pointed out.

I still enjoy an episode of the new twilight zone where aliens land and tell the UN that humanity is a failure, and will be wiped out. The leaders beg for another chance, and come up with a plan for world peace, only for the alien ambassador laughing and saying it was because we weren't good enough at war yet.

I've never heard an atheist say anything about aliens not visiting earth because humans are wicked or have moral failings. I have heard them say they wouldn't bother visiting such a primitive species, which makes much more sense.

We'd have to master something more impressive than interstellar travel for them to take notice. Which I don't see happening anytime soon since we are still senselessly fighting over "holy land" and whether or not gays can marry.

SlothB77: So ... we were created by aliens and a code was embedded in our DNA and that code is passed via inheritance.  So we are storage devices or messengers of this code?  That would be pretty cool.

So you're saying we're some sort of meat-based memory stick? Great, so we're probably all containing little bits of alien porn some ancient extraterrestrial scientist was trying to hide from his wife.

/It does answer the age old question: Why are we here?
//FAP.

It's really annoying when media outlets pick up a crack pot paper published by non-specialists in a bullshiat journal as if it was solidly done science with adequate peer-review...

"We have a theory, therefore; we are going to test it."

CHARLATANS!

We're memory sticks? Let's explore that analogy. Our copying process randomly exchanges bits between two storage devices with each generation. Bits of our code randomly flip once in a while (and yes, this process is still ongoing), creating new species. Whole chunks of memory get inserted or over-written by viruses.

And after many, many millenia of all this going on, these scientists believe they're going to decode the signal from the noise?

ANY excuse to publish the phrase "panspermia" ...

Cymbal: I have heard them say they wouldn't bother visiting such a primitive species, which makes much more sense.

I've never heard them refer to us as primitive in those arguments. They usually say the distance they'd have to travel would make it extremely hard to come here, and so it's unlikely they would. As if we understand everything about that.

One of the things the religious and scientific establishments often agree on is that we're the most advanced life in the universe. Just like they used to agree that we're the center of the universe. People talking about more advanced alien species usually find themselves taking shots from both sides.

s2s2s2: "We have a theory, therefore; we are going to test it."

CHARLATANS!

It's more like: A mathematician and astrophysicist have an idea about genetics and test it poorly because they don't understand genetics OR evolution. They then publish it in a journal dedicated to the study of the solar system.

The first part of the problem is that the authors have zero expertise or advanced training in the relevant discipline. The second is that the assigned editor also has zero expertise which likely means that no one who reviewed the paper had relevant knowledge or expertise either.

Pharnygula has a summary:  http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/03/15/the-genetic-code-is-not - a-synonym-for-the-bible-code/

It's basically numerology and the Bible Code, or conspiracies around the number 21. Complete garbage from start to finish.

J. Frank Parnell: One of the things the religious and scientific establishments often agree on is that we're the most advanced life in the universe.

No, the scientific "establishment" is mum on the "advancedness" of extraterrestrial life, because we haven't found any. That's different than the fact that no extraterrestrial contact has been shown scientifically.

So maybe, just maybe, we were created to figure out some sort of fundamentalquestion by these alien scientists.

I keep reading this article over and over and it just keeps making me angrier. The words in it mean nothing, yet those farkers have funding and I don't.

Here is a word that was repeated over and over in the article, particularly in the statements by Capt. Unpronouncable and Needs-a-vowel Boy: IF.

They kept saying "if there was a pattern" and "if there was a code." It was purely speculative. Nobody was making any claims of having discovered something.

J. Frank Parnell: Cymbal: I have heard them say they wouldn't bother visiting such a primitive species, which makes much more sense.

I've never heard them refer to us as primitive in those arguments. They usually say the distance they'd have to travel would make it extremely hard to come here, and so it's unlikely they would. As if we understand everything about that.

One of the things the religious and scientific establishments often agree on is that we're the most advanced life in the universe. Just like they used to agree that we're the center of the universe. People talking about more advanced alien species usually find themselves taking shots from both sides.

Never heard of anyone from the scientific community say we are the most advanced species in the universe. Maybe one or two Christian/Religious scientists? Certainly not the scientific community as a whole!

Citation please?

SlothB77: So ... we were created by aliens and a code was embedded in our DNA and that code is passed via inheritance.  So we are storage devices or messengers of this code?  That would be pretty cool.

Maybe we are a distributed computing system. A ridiculously complex, massively parallel, non binary(what would dna be, base 16?), creation. A Beowulf-system of the stars.

Perhaps we are some advanced being's weapon and weather modeling supercomputer.

We're through the looking glass here people, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS!!