Post by elalacran on Jan 5, 2013 10:25:48 GMT -5
www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/05/100-billion-alien-planets-fill-our-galaxy/
But wait!
If the planets are alien, then they must have come from somewhere else, right? Some other galaxy!
But that's not what the writer means. The writer means 100 billion native planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Among which is an undistinguished little planet known as "earth" to the naked apes that think they dominate it.
So why stick that word "alien" in there?
Two reasons. (1) To get attention. Use the word "alien" and readers are jumping out of their chairs and reaching for serious firepower. Or calling in the Border Patrol. (2) Because those planets are "alien" to us.
I find #2 to be especialy reprehensible. Think about it. We are one planet among a hundred billion, and we define everything else and everybody else to be "alien"?
How damned self-centered we are!
We humans -- or at least the "humans" at Fox -- still live in a universe where the earth is at the center and everything else circles around. And the USA is the center of the earth. And a crtain political outlook is the center of the USA.
Which might also be inferred from Fox's political analysis.
But wait!
If the planets are alien, then they must have come from somewhere else, right? Some other galaxy!
But that's not what the writer means. The writer means 100 billion native planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Among which is an undistinguished little planet known as "earth" to the naked apes that think they dominate it.
So why stick that word "alien" in there?
Two reasons. (1) To get attention. Use the word "alien" and readers are jumping out of their chairs and reaching for serious firepower. Or calling in the Border Patrol. (2) Because those planets are "alien" to us.
I find #2 to be especialy reprehensible. Think about it. We are one planet among a hundred billion, and we define everything else and everybody else to be "alien"?
How damned self-centered we are!
We humans -- or at least the "humans" at Fox -- still live in a universe where the earth is at the center and everything else circles around. And the USA is the center of the earth. And a crtain political outlook is the center of the USA.
Which might also be inferred from Fox's political analysis.