I attended a lecture at the Catawba Science Center on Saturday evening given by Dr. Seth Shostak, the Senior Astronomer of the SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) Institute. I didn’t really know what to expect from this lecture, but Dr. Shostak was quite entertaining and informative during the entire lecture.

Dr. Shostak discussed a lot of different topics, but there was one that probably intrigued me more than anything else. When we picture an extraterrestrial in our mind’s eye, what we see is what Hollywood has trained us to see. The likelihood of any of that being accurate is insanely small. Life here on Earth has developed into what it is purely by chance. One of the points that Dr. Shostak made is that the human race as we know it may not have come into existance had it not been for the catastrophic event that pushed the dinosaurs into extinction. Life on this planet took a new course after that event. The chance of life on another planet developing into something that even resembles the human race slim to none… Just some food for thought…

1000 Faces, Photojournalism