Remember folks...these are the
same people who tell you that "Global Warming" is "real".
Science saves us again: Octopuses are really aliens who crash landed on Earth
A perfect example of how the Right perverts everything they comment on. Compare Bleck's review to a more scholarly review and you can see why the Right's opinion on anything cannot be trusted.
From Bleck's link:
"So, to recap: a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, an alien race of octopuses packed their sperm-bank samples in some meteors and shot them toward Earth. Lucky for us, they landed in the water. Otherwise, we might be octopus pets."
Then the poster takes the Right-wing bullshit further by labeling the scientists as "progressive" global warmers.
A controversial study has a new spin on the otherworldliness of the octopus
The paper, published in the March issue of the the journal
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, is controversial, obviously, and the vast majority of scientists would disagree. But the paper is still worthy of discussion—for one, as a thought exercise, because outlandish ideas are often initially rejected. And in provoking us with seemingly bizarre theories, it forces us to acknowledge that there are aspects of life on Earth for which classic evolutionary theory as yet has no explanation.
The octopus, for example, is traditionally considered to come from the nautiloid, having evolved about 500 million years ago. But that relationship doesn’t explain how these odd cephalopods got all their awesome characteristics or why
octopuses are so very different, genetically speaking, from their alleged nautiloid ancestors. The paper states:
The
genetic divergence of Octopus from its ancestral coleoid sub-class is very great … Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch color and shape are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the evolutionary scene.
The transformative genes leading from the consensus ancestral nautilus to the common cuttlefish to squid to the common octopus can’t be found in any pre-existing life form, the authors say.
So far, so good. But then the paper gets highly speculative. The researchers continue, “It is plausible then to suggest they [octopuses] seem to be borrowed from a far distant ‘future’ in terms of terrestrial evolution, or more realistically from the cosmos at large.”
To make matters even more strange, the paper posits that octopuses could have arrived on Earth in “an already coherent group of functioning genes within (say) cryopreserved and matrix protected fertilized octopus eggs.” And these eggs might have “arrived in icy bolides several hundred million years ago.” The authors admit, though, that “such an extraterrestrial origin…of course, runs counter to the prevailing dominant paradigm.”
Indeed, few in the scientific community would agree that octopuses come from outer space. But the paper is not just about the provenance of cephalopods. Its proposal that octopuses could be extraterrestrials is just a small part of a much more extensive discussion of a theory called “panspermia,” which has its roots in the
ideas of ancient Greece.
The word “panspermia” translates to “seeds everywhere.” The idea is that the seeds of life are
everywhere in the universe, including space, and life on Earth may originate from “seeds” of some kind in space. In this paper, the authors argue that the “seeds,” or alien life forms invading Earth, come in multiple forms, including “space-resistant and space-hardy” viruses and bacteria. It supports this argument by pointing to organic matter found in comets, as well as various medical studies on the inexplicably intelligent self-replicating abilities and super-strength of viruses. The paper reviews 60 years of experiments and observations from a range of scientific fields to support its unusual conclusions.
snip/
The researchers acknowledge that some forms of life originated on Earth. But they still say that other, perhaps earlier, forms originated elsewhere, like outer space. In other words, they argue that the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive, and, taken together, they would help fill in some gaps in the current scientific understanding that the classic evolutionary theory cannot.
