Hawking’s Warning

The Journal of Cosmology has gathered responses from the scientific community to Stephen Hawking’s warning about colonial aliens—one biologist even wrote a limerick. “Blair Csuti, a biologist at Oregon State University, defended Hawking’s trepidation, arguing that the principles of evolution would have shaped those beings just as they did life on Earth, selecting for self-preserving behavior. ‘Aliens visiting newly discovered planets, like Earth, would place their own interests above those of unsophisticated indigenous residents.'”