Guy claims "Humans are not from Earth"

It seems that we keep discovering more and more exoplanets each year.

One of these days, humanity may even find the planet we originally came from.

At least that's what Dr. Ellis Silver claims. In the ecologist's aptly titled book, Humans Are Not From Earth, Silver points to what he sees as being illogical developments in human evolution that suggest we are not from around here. Let's start out with sunburns.

Yes, according to Silver, sunburns are a sign that our race hails from elsewhere. Where, he basically wonders, is the logic in living on a planet where you can't be exposed to the sun for too long? Personally I think it might have much more to do with the fact that many humans migrated out of Africa and lost our protective pigment against UV rays, but let's try to stay with Silver a bit longer on this. Another sign of our extraterrestrial origins is the fact that so many people suffer with back pain. This is due, he postulates, to the fact that humans likely emerged on a planet with lower gravity. What's more, the fact that childbirth causes so much pain is evidence to Dr. Silver that we're not from around here. The fact that a baby's head is so large and difficult to get through the birth canal is downright illogical in his theory.

He has a point, but I just seem to think that anything of any real size trying to get through that tiny opening is going to cause some degree of pain. Am I right, ladies? Plus, I don't see how this quirk of human anatomy translates to "aliens."

Anyway, when does Dr. Silver think we were first dropped off here? Well the linked article says perhaps as recently as 10,000 years ago, but I didn't find a justification for that figure other than Silver saying that the afflictions he cites are "modern conditions." Think this all sounds kooky to you? It gets better. All of these maladies we suffer may be due to the fact that Earth was intended to be a prison planet. Silver points to humanity's violent nature and seeming inability to get along with one another. This suggest that we might be the cosmic equivalent of Australia, at least in terms of origins. Our species might actually be kids in a time-out.

A really big time out.

"Mankind is supposedly the most highly developed species on the planet, yet is surprisingly unsuited and ill-equipped for Earth's environment: harmed by sunlight, a strong dislike for naturally occurring foods, ridiculously high rates of chronic disease, and more," he told Yahoo.

So in other words, we were put here to suffer. Guess that would explain a great many things. In terms of exobiology, that might even explain why people claim to see bipedal aliens when all statistical probability should be against it. There are still versions of and variations upon ourselves out there in space. This might make for a good book or short story. But I digress...

Your natural tendency (and who am I kidding, mine as well) might be to see Dr. Silver as quite the mythomane. I am going to argue that he is correct...from a certain point of view. This is where I insert the quote, "a great many of the truths we cling to depend upon our point of view."

Humans do come from space. Every element in our body, everything that goes into what makes us physically who we are, has its origin in the core of stars. We came from out there.

Just probably not in the way that Silver asserts.




Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets