Article HERE:
By Robert White/New York Times
"About 25 years ago, a conversation between me and one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century took a weird turn.
"I was talking to William D. Hamilton, who was famous for coming up with the theory of “kin selection,” which explains patterns of altruism among close relatives in various species, including ours. This and other seminal ideas had earned Hamilton a place in the pantheon of thinkers who ushered in the modern Darwinian understanding of social behavior. Richard Dawkins, in the preface to his landmark 1976 book,“The Selfish Gene,” paid tribute to Hamilton and the three other “dominant figures” in social biology whose ideas formed the book’s foundation.
"I was interviewing Hamilton at the University of Michigan, where he was on sabbatical from Oxford. A video camera was rolling. I had been researching a book about evolutionary psychology, and I was hoping to create a documentary on the subject. The documentary never materialized, and Hamilton died in early 2000. My interview with him sat unwatched until earlier this year, when I tracked down the tape containing it.
"During the interview, I was trying to steer Hamilton toward philosophical topics, and at one point he went further than I had expected. He said, “I’m also quite open to the view that there is some kind of ultimate good which is of a religious nature — that we just have to look beyond what the evolutionary theory tells us and accept promptings of what ultimate good is, coming from some other source.” That’s an unusual thing for a great evolutionary biologist to say, but the most unusual part was still to come.
"Hamilton continued, in his British accent, “I could enlarge on that in terms of the possible existence of extraterrestrial manipulators who interfere, and so on, but I think this would be getting too far from the general topic of discussion.” Well, maybe, but this sounded at least as interesting as the general topic of discussion. I asked him if he meant that there was some kind of “transcendental purpose” that we humans are generally oblivious to.
"He answered: “Yes, yes. There’s one theory of the universe that I rather like — I accept it in an almost joking spirit — and that is that Planet Earth in our solar system is a kind of zoo for extraterrestrial beings who dwell out there somewhere. And this is the best, the most interesting experiment they could set up: to set up the evolution on Planet Earth going in such a way that it would produce these really interesting characters — humans who go around doing things — and they watch their experiment, interfering hardly at all so that almost everything we do comes out according to the laws of nature. But every now and then they see something which doesn’t look quite right — this zoo is going to kill itself off if they let you do this or that.” So, he continued, these extraterrestrials “insert a finger and just change some little thing. And maybe those are the miracles which the religious people like to so emphasize.” He reiterated: “I put it forward in an almost joking spirit. But I think it’s a kind of hypothesis that’s very, very hard to dismiss.”
"The headline almost writes itself: “World-Class Scientist Says Miracles Can Happen!” The subhead would add: “Extraterrestrials may play a role.”
REST OF ARTICLE HERE
By Robert White/New York Times
"About 25 years ago, a conversation between me and one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century took a weird turn.
"I was talking to William D. Hamilton, who was famous for coming up with the theory of “kin selection,” which explains patterns of altruism among close relatives in various species, including ours. This and other seminal ideas had earned Hamilton a place in the pantheon of thinkers who ushered in the modern Darwinian understanding of social behavior. Richard Dawkins, in the preface to his landmark 1976 book,“The Selfish Gene,” paid tribute to Hamilton and the three other “dominant figures” in social biology whose ideas formed the book’s foundation.
"I was interviewing Hamilton at the University of Michigan, where he was on sabbatical from Oxford. A video camera was rolling. I had been researching a book about evolutionary psychology, and I was hoping to create a documentary on the subject. The documentary never materialized, and Hamilton died in early 2000. My interview with him sat unwatched until earlier this year, when I tracked down the tape containing it.
"During the interview, I was trying to steer Hamilton toward philosophical topics, and at one point he went further than I had expected. He said, “I’m also quite open to the view that there is some kind of ultimate good which is of a religious nature — that we just have to look beyond what the evolutionary theory tells us and accept promptings of what ultimate good is, coming from some other source.” That’s an unusual thing for a great evolutionary biologist to say, but the most unusual part was still to come.
"Hamilton continued, in his British accent, “I could enlarge on that in terms of the possible existence of extraterrestrial manipulators who interfere, and so on, but I think this would be getting too far from the general topic of discussion.” Well, maybe, but this sounded at least as interesting as the general topic of discussion. I asked him if he meant that there was some kind of “transcendental purpose” that we humans are generally oblivious to.
"He answered: “Yes, yes. There’s one theory of the universe that I rather like — I accept it in an almost joking spirit — and that is that Planet Earth in our solar system is a kind of zoo for extraterrestrial beings who dwell out there somewhere. And this is the best, the most interesting experiment they could set up: to set up the evolution on Planet Earth going in such a way that it would produce these really interesting characters — humans who go around doing things — and they watch their experiment, interfering hardly at all so that almost everything we do comes out according to the laws of nature. But every now and then they see something which doesn’t look quite right — this zoo is going to kill itself off if they let you do this or that.” So, he continued, these extraterrestrials “insert a finger and just change some little thing. And maybe those are the miracles which the religious people like to so emphasize.” He reiterated: “I put it forward in an almost joking spirit. But I think it’s a kind of hypothesis that’s very, very hard to dismiss.”
"The headline almost writes itself: “World-Class Scientist Says Miracles Can Happen!” The subhead would add: “Extraterrestrials may play a role.”
REST OF ARTICLE HERE
I agree, though that if indigenous life can arise on this planet, it could happen on others and would need to be a consideration in any discussion regarding seeding.