Have We Overestimated the Probability of Alien Life in the Univers?

Once I grasped the sheer number of stars and galaxies in the universe, it seemed almost inevitable that life must be common. It was easy to imagine that the “little green men” of science fiction—or perhaps something larger and more menacing—might inhabit planets orbiting countless stars. Looking up at the night sky felt like looking at a vast collection of potential civilisations we might one day communicate with.

It’s an appealing idea. But is it realistic?

How likely is it that alien life exists on planets orbiting the stars we can see with the naked eye?

My partner, an optimistic soul, dismisses my doubts. To her, it’s simply a numbers game. The Milky Way alone contains roughly 400 billion stars, so it seems unlikely that our Sun and its planets are anything special.

I understand that argument. Statistically, it feels improbable that we are unique. But that intuition may be misleading. If very specific conditions are required for life to begin, for it to persist, and for it to evolve into complex, intelligent forms capable of building technological civilisations, then rarity—not abundance—may be the more realistic conclusion.

It is extraordinarily difficult for simple life to evolve into complex organisms such as animals. It is even rarer for those organisms to develop behaviours that extend beyond survival—beyond eating and reproducing—towards intelligence, culture, and technology. And it is harder still for a species like Homo sapiens to progress from hunter-gatherers to builders of machines capable of exploring or communicating across the stars. Our own history makes this clear: it took nearly 300,000 years for our species to reach that point.

Why emphasise how difficult these steps are?

Because Earth’s history demonstrates just how long and improbable they appear to be.

The Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago as a molten, hostile world, battered by collisions during the chaotic early solar system. A massive impact—likely with a Mars-sized body—created the Moon and left the young Earth a seething, molten sphere. It took millions of years to cool.

Nearly a billion years later, life emerged. Not animals, but simple single-celled organisms—algae, slime-like colonies, and microscopic cells drifting in the oceans.

For roughly two to two-and-a-half billion years, life on Earth remained single-celled. Then, in what appears to have been a singular event, complexity arose. One cell engulfed another and, instead of digesting it, formed a symbiotic relationship. This partnership—an evolutionary breakthrough—gave rise to more complex cells. It happened, as far as we can tell, only once.

From that point, evolution continued its slow work. Yet it was not until about 500 million years ago—four billion years after Earth formed—that plants first colonised land. Animals followed tens of millions of years later.

And humans? We arrived astonishingly late: roughly 4.4 billion years after the planet formed. We are newcomers on an ancient world.

Even then, technological civilisation is a very recent development. The first crude steam engine appeared in 1712, improved later by James Watt. Radio communication dates back only about 130 years, to experiments by Guglielmo Marconi—a blink of an eye compared to Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history.

All this suggests that the path from chemistry to intelligent, technological life is not straightforward. It is long, fragile, and contingent on many unlikely steps.

Even on Earth, only one species out of millions has developed advanced technology.

And Earth itself may be unusually well-suited for life. It orbits a stable, long-lived star. Of the eight planets in our solar system, only one supports life today. The others are either scorched or frozen, barren worlds.

Habitability requires more than just a comfortable “Goldilocks” temperature. A planet must retain a dense atmosphere to keep water liquid—and that atmosphere must be protected.

Here lies a crucial factor: a strong magnetic field.

Stars emit radiation and charged particles capable of stripping away planetary atmospheres. Even our relatively calm Sun has done this to both Mercury and Mars. Mercury has no atmosphere at all, and Mars retains only a thin remnant of what was once a much thicker one.

Mars likely had liquid water for up to a billion years or more. We can see evidence in its river valleys, deltas, and sedimentary rocks. But as the planet cooled, its internal dynamo shut down, its magnetic field weakened, and its atmosphere was gradually stripped away. Without sufficient pressure, liquid water could no longer exist on its surface.

If this can happen in our own solar system, it raises a sobering point: many planets may begin with favourable conditions, only to lose them.

Worse still, our Sun is relatively gentle. A large proportion of stars in the galaxy—particularly red dwarfs—are far more volatile, producing intense flares capable of stripping atmospheres from nearby planets with ease.

Taken together, these factors suggest that while stars and planets may be abundant, the conditions required for life—and especially intelligent, technological life—are exceptionally demanding.

For all the vastness of the cosmos, we may not be surrounded by thriving civilisations. Instead, life may be rare, fragile, and fleeting.

On this remarkable planet, only one species has crossed the threshold into technology—and even we spent almost our entire existence using simple tools, struggling to survive.

Perhaps the universe is full of worlds.

But worlds like ours may be few.

Discussion About The Existence of God On An Internet Forum

20 hours ago, D8veh said:

Hmmm! That's an interesting definition. It works well for natural life on our planet, but it has flaws. A simulation on a computer can meet that definition. What does requires energy mean - consumes energy, requires the existence of energy or what? What if some alien life could exist by trading entropy for energy? It comes back to we don't know what we don't know. In another dimension there could be something that exists on mana, or some type of field we don't have in the world we experience. When you're dreaming, are the beings you interact with alive?

God definitely exists. That's why we have a word for it. The question should be: What is god?

I think about when I play computer games. To the characters under my control or within the simulation, I would be their god. Their existence depends on me. I can control their environment, fortune, safety and health.

If you look back in your life, at some point, the world came into existence. Before that, there was nothing. How did you create it? "God definitely exists. That's why we have a word for it. " 

 We have words for many things which do not exist. Fairies, Goblins, Devils.

People have a capability to imagine things. Especially in times before we had other means to explain our world.

Our forebears invented myths to explain the bewildering circumstances they faced, life, death, the end of personal existence.

Homo Sapiens big brain did not always bring solutions; it also brought intellectual troubles that other creatures do not have.

Voltaire, the French philosopher made up a famous quote in the 1760s -

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

It is my opinion, that Voltaire hit the nail very firmly on the head.

As a youngster, I was brought up in a household where religion was never far away. I was a convinced believer until about the age of seventeen. By twenty, I came to the view that the personal God - the shadowy, wise and benign, human analogue, supposedly watching everything we do,and judging us, was a mythological construction. This came about mainly because I was starting to understand the scale of the universe.

At that time, I only knew about our own galaxy, but the scale of it, just blew me away. I realised the idea of some eternal, benign individual, existing in another dimension, and occasionally intervening in our own, was impossible wishful thinking.

The whole construction is almost designed to explain away the fact that there is no evidence at all for such a belief. God is supposed to be invisible, omnipotent, all good, an everlasting force. Nothing can touch him - and yet.... Nobody sees him, he is all good, but allows monstrous evil and pain.

'Ah - but it is mankind that brings the pain,' say adherents....

Then why does he not intervene and stop them?

'Ah - he has given his creation 'free will'. He can not intervene.'

But he is omnipotent. Why not?

We live in a universe with countless billions of galaxies. It is probably infinitely huge, each galaxy containing billions of stars.

Our Sun, is just one star - our planet just a speck of dust, with a sliver of an atmosphere, and a smear of ocean water.

This image taken with the deep field camera on the Webb space telescope, shows a field of view about the same as if you were looking through the bore of a narrow drinking straw. Imagine how many such pictures you would need to take to cover the whole of the space around the Earth! These smudges are not individual stars. There are only two stars from our galaxy in the image. You can spot them because they have diffraction spike artefacts on them. The smudges are galaxies, each of them containing hundreds of billions of stars - and this view is the view through a straw.

This is creation.

This is why I do not believe in a personal God.

We are an upright, smart primate with a brain that seeks closure. We want to know answers to big questions and we answer them with our best guesses. God and eternal life, are just two guessed answers to the questions:

'How did we get here?' and 'Where are we going?'

My answer to these - and like all human theories, it is just my best guess, is that we got here because of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology, and the answer to the second question, is that we return to the dust that we are fashioned out of.

That dust was created in earlier generations of stars than our own, through the process of atomic fusion, in which hydrogen is sequentially fused into heavier elements as stars age and begin to collapse, ultimately being blown into space by super nova explosions when massive stars come to the end of their lives. Ultimately, through gravity, that dust and gas collects into new stars, and into planets.

All the atoms in your body and mine, have passed through stars of earlier generations than we now see.

The dust of the planet passed atoms and molecules of oxygen, hydrogen, calcium and phosphorus into plants. We ate the plants, and we ate the animals that ate the plants, and this is how we grow from a three kilogram, new-born infant, into the 75 or 100 kilogram male, homo sapiens.

I say this is a guess, but it is more than that really, because it is based on empirical fact.

Empiricism - a paradigm which demands that belief is based on actual observation, measurement and testing, is probably the most powerful tool our species ever made. It is the foundation of science, and is what propelled us from the poverty, drudgery, unabated sickness, and misery of the pre-modern world.

The progress of our society over the last three hundred - perhaps four hundred years is entirely due to empiricism.

Look at the idea of God with an empiricist hat on, and you will not get far in finding him.

Trump's bullying is damaging America and destroying alliances

 Trump is said to be very focused on his 'legacy'  - what history will make of him.....

I don't think it is going to work out well for him.

Already his impulsive actions are having a very detrimental effect. I won't call them policies, because the term 'policy',  implies that policies have been at least partially worked out and thought through, whereas in the Trump Administration, he has an ADHD / Autistic outburst of impulsive madness, and his henchman run around and try to explain what he meant, or outright lie to justify the idiot explosions of stupidity.

Government is not reality TV.

His team seem more and more like the people surrounding other dictatorial leaders - they are hand picked for total obedience and venality; in this case with no moral compass at all, and no intellectual background or experience, except in grasping money, and pleasing the boss. Any who present a different view than his are soon weeded out. Just look at John Bolton, and then, like him, they soon end up with a tame Justice Department persecution on their hands. The entire administration is about on the level as far as ethics and decency is concerned of Hitler's, or Pol Pot's, or Joseph Stalin's. I could have added others like Chairman Mao, but you already get the picture, and it is fair to say that Trump is nothing new in the history of terrible rulers and tyrants.

He has alienated the entire planet. Although I suppose I should say he has less alienated Putin, who is no doubt quite pleased at being offered a large chunk of neighbouring Ukraine's territory on a plate, of course, for no concessions. It is no surprise that Trump admires Putin. He has said he does, and he has similar tendencies as far as despotic decision making, gangsterism, and seizing the territory of neighbours is concerned.

The use of crazy tariff impositions and the making of unreasonable demands of friends and allies has had, and will have very serious implications for American relationships with countries which have always been its friends.

Take Canada for a start. It would have been hard to find a closer friend to America than Canada. They had sound two way trade relationship - similarly aligned economies - short on subsidies and dumping, and with comparable wage rates - so trade was mutually beneficial. But Trump's appalling behaviour towards his neighbour - imposing unreasonable tariffs and talking about 'taking over Canada', comes straight out of the School Bully playbook.

This has backfired on the States big time. Trade both ways is right down. The hostility of Canadians to Trump and the USA is palpable; outbound Canadian tourism to the US has collapsed, and US to Canada tourism is well down, but Canada has more than replaced its lost outbound business in goods to the USA, by cultivating China and other partners. That is NOT in America's interest. It was one of Trumps expressed policies, to weaken China. He hasn't. The Canadian trade ledger is unaffected overall. On the other hand, US whiskey exports are down by $52Bn - who knew the Canadians were so keen on Jim Beam!

BBC News article about US Canada Relations

Now, not satisfied with upturning many decades of mutually beneficial relations with Canada, Trump has declared an escalating tariff war with Europe over European leaders open expressions of surprise and disgust at threats to seize Greenland - a Danish protectorate of Denmark, whose ancestral people discovered and colonised it in the tenth century.

Trump's America First policies will result in an 'America With NO Friends' reality.

Only snivelling wretches like Starmer, will grovel at the Orange Bully's impulsive outbursts, rather then condemning them for what they are. I see other leaders coming out hard and strong. We need to tell him unmistakably,  and loudly, that we will sever relations if he does what he threatens. We need to make it clear how damaging he has been to the respect and friendship our countries have shared for so long, and we need to be absolutely up for a tariff war with full and equal retaliation if he imposes ANY  - and I mean, ANY, unjustified tariffs over our objections to his obnoxious personality and behaviour.

Is Inequality a Bad Thing? I don't think it is.

It seems on reading the well thought of press in this country or watching and listening to the media, that our society is ruined by the terrible curse of inequality.

I'm not so sure about what the problem is.

Inequality is a natural result of freedom because free societies try not to interfere with people and allow them to make money by legitimate means. Think back to the world of China that people of my age remember.

No one could make any money. Everything was owned and controlled by the state. People were directed to work in certain industries by state employees.

The Soviet system was pretty much the same. No one owned anything of value, unless granted special permission by the state. No one could publish or say anything, unless state sanctioned officials passed it as in the interests of the state.

This is the world of North Korea right now. Everyone is equal - all equally impoverished. There were times when Soviet State Control and Chinese State Control brought about famine and mass starvation. Millions died in pursuit of 'equality of outcome. Of course, just as in Orwell's Animal Farm, some were exempted - the Party Hierarchy. They lived much better than the rest.

In a free world - in the USA for example, people make their own living and they create enterprises.

No once stops them, unless the enterprise is clearly illegal. Making Meth for example or distributing cocaine, of defrauding people in a Ponzi Scheme. If you want to set up a business, such as building and selling electric bicycles, as long as you act within the laws regulating such products, no one will stop you and you can enjoy the profits which result. You will be taxed, but in the USA, you will be taxed lightly, by comparison to some other jurisdictions, such as the one we live in.

The fact that some people may come up with fantastic inventions and ideas, and may seek out investment to develop them, can bring vast rewards when they are successful.

In some cases, freedom allows a brilliant idea to take the market by storm. Sam Altman came up with a ground breaking business idea. He is a vast billionaire. Elon Musk too has become a massively wealth individual. Nobody stepped in and prevented them from doing what they dreamed up. They employ many people, and they pay whatever taxes the jurisdictions they operate in require.

Who uses Amazon to buy things? I had two deliveries today. Why didn't I think of starting Amazon. What was I doing when Jeff Bezos invented Amazon in 1994? What were you doing then?

So Bezos is now vastly rich because he thought of a business which allows you mostly to order goods today that will be delivered to you tomorrow. What is wrong with that? How has he harmed us?

'Ah - but they are obscenely wealthy,' cry some with nothing to offer the world but their demands for welfare spending and free money to be paid to people who don't work and never had an idea in their lives other than 'Gimmie money for nothing!!'

Why should we listen to them? What have they invented? What business did they create? What special and remarkable craft have they learned that people will pay for?

Inequality is the natural result of people being free to run their own lives and create businesses. We are FAR better off where this can happen.

What we should be far more concerned about than equality of outcome is something else - equality of opportunity. People need a fair chance to be educated and no barriers should be put in their way. Whether they waste that chance is up to them. Whether they end up poor or rich is not the issue and we certainly should not be seeking to drag down those who work hard, have ideas and make businesses work.

On the huge con of the Relative Poverty measure used by left wing think tanks, disgusting communist rags like the Guardian, and the government.

The claim that millions of children are living in poverty in the UK is a complete con.

It was used to justify increasing social security spending last week when the Chancellor Rachel Reeves removed the two child limit for sending additional money to people with large families who are on income support. This will hit the budget with an additional bill of £3Bn a year at a time when government debt is ballooning and taxes have never been higher at any time when we were not at war.

The bill will be three billion of your money sent to people who have the largest families when they can't afford to keep them. I don't suppose that many of us had children we could not afford to pay for, but 4% of the 560,000 families who will benefit have six or more children. That means that 22,000 of the families benefiting have six or more children!!!

So why do I claim the child poverty figures are a con. Simple. The figures are based on a measure that defines anyone or any family which has less than 60% of the national median income as being in relative poverty. It means that no matter how well the economy is doing, no matter how much wages rise, by definition, we will always have people defined as living in poverty, unless all wage differences are eliminated, or unless everyone else is made poorer.

The excellent economist, Evan Davies from the BBC discusses the measure here on Youtube with Sarah Montague. Well worth a watch.

If we lived in a very wealthy society in which the median income was £100,000 a year, any person who had an income of £59,999 would be defined as living in poverty, using the current relative measure. By definition, the measure always fakes poverty numbers just so left wing idiots can whinge on about poverty and inequality.

Are there poor people? Yes. We should define a basic income level at which we think the line exists between the poor and the rest of us. It should be a measure of 'absolute poverty', a defined level - not a relative measure, and we should assist people who are genuinely poor. People with mobile phones and the stuff of modern life are not poor, even though they may have less than the rest of us who go out to work and save for our old age.

Forum Discussion on Natural Selection

Jonathan Agnew said:

I think you're assuming that evolution constitutes progress. It does not. Evolution is descriptive. It describes the changes in the heritable traits of populations of living things and viruses over time. 

I think evolution does generate progress in species.

About 3.5 Bn years ago, life began as simple cells that consumed energy, and  divided. At some time about 1.7 Bn years ago, some archaic cell joined with another cell and became the first multi cellular life. It prospered. About 430 million years ago, the first creatures crawled out of the oceans and dragged themselves onto the land. About 150,000 years ago the first modern humans emerged from the previous hominid species as a distinct and new animal. I think this shows progression. It is progress.

Is progression morally superior?

Certainly not 'moral', and only superior in that species are re-shaped by random mutation and better tuned to survival - more fit for where they live. The mutations which do not increase fitness, die out.

In talking about fitness, one is talking about the survival and reproductive output of an individual, or a population in a given environment. That is all. It is not a value judgement, just a statement of fact. It works or it doesn't. The species lives and thrives, or it dies.

Jonathan Agnew said:

Given the environment in which a population finds itself constantly and abruptly change over geological time, there is no way for evolution - which lacks a mind, foresight or prophetic ability - to “plan ahead”. In what sense then can evolution be said to lead to “progress” if it has no way of “knowing” future conditions, let alone planning for them?

The history of the physical conditions and of life itself shows exactly this.

There is no disembodied mind planning changes and development. The planet changes because of physics and chemistry. There are individual species extinctions, and mass extinctions. Some forms die out, others continue, and change to suit the new conditions.

One of the earliest examples may be the extinctions of some classes of microbial life brought about by the atmospheric oxygenation about 2.4 Bn years ago. The oceans were full of menthanogens - anaerobic bacteria consuming hydrogen and co2 and producing methane like we produce co2. These were the first life forms. For them, free oxygen was deadly. It was given off by newly evolved cyanobacteria. Methanogens went from what was all of life to mostly dying out and the new aerobic strains predominated. The period is sometimes called 'The Great Oxygenation Event'. It was the first mass extinction. It was one of many.

Much nearer our own time, the woolly mammoth that had weathered ice ages in Europe and Asia, vanished as the Earth warmed into our own era. Why did this happen? Gravitational resonances caused by Jupiter and Saturn altered Earth's tilt and the plane of the planet's orbit. No plan. Just physics.

Evolution is mindless. Species suit their environment and adapt by random mutation, or they die out.

Sh|t happens. Species become tougher. They reproduce and survive, or they don't.

Coming back to my original point in this theme. Does medical intervention strengthen the species? Yes and no. On an individual basis, yes - individuals survive who would not have done. They reproduce and pass on their traits. This for the individual is a bonus.

Does it strengthen the species ability to survive in primeval circumstances? No. while we have medicine and the infrastructure to provide it, all is good. We live better healthier lives, but should the conditions of civilisation end, and they will do one day, the species will be weaker than it was before the medical revolution, because genetic traits will exist among the population that nature, red in tooth and claw, would have eliminated had it been left to do so.

Faith Versus Reason (an old post written on 2nd Nov 2002 and never published).

Half of the United States and most of the rest of the world are asking a question this morning – Did America vote in a man of faith or a dangerous fundamentalist?

We will have to wait and see, but on past form, I think it is the latter. I hope I’m wrong. Maybe Bush learned something during his disastrous exploit in Iraq – his number one idea doesn’t hold water – ‘freedom’ delivered by US marines, will not be universally welcome, especially when the price in death and mutilation is so high. If he has learned that, then maybe he will be less dangerous than we fear, though the fact that he had to have it demonstrated is instructive.

A pundit said last week that Europe doesn’t understand Bush, because it expects politicians to base their actions on science and reason. Bush, and half of America base theirs on gut instinct and religious belief. In that, they share something with their most implacable enemy, al Queda. It is the paradigm of fundamentalists everywhere – God has spoken to them. That the rest of us fear this, is not surprising, we feel we are in the thrall of madness, especially since the Middle American brand of muscular Christianity seems to have entirely missed the fact that its saviour abhorred violence. The righteous indignation of Jesus, resulted in the turning over of the money changers tables - George Bush’s, in a hundred thousand Iraqi dead.

Otzi the Ice Man - how did he die?

Below is a fictional account of Otzi's death which attempts to weave together forensic and archaeological evidence into a plausible account of what may have happened. Examination of Otzi's hair showed that he had exposure to fumes of copper smelting. So I have cast him as a skilled copper smith who made and traded in copper axes..................................... 

 The Death of Otzi the Coppersmith. 

The young man crouched in the river shallows under a fallen birch like a cornered lynx. Breath came in gasps as he struggled to hear his pursuers, but there was nothing, only the tumbling water on the rocks. After a while, he raised his head, looking and listening; nursing the wound on his arm. It had torn open again when he fell, sliding headlong from the snowy bank and into the river. Only the wind sighed in the trees, then a woodpecker rattled in the hardwood forest further down the valley. 

He crept up and scanned the ridge where he had taken to the stream to try to lose them, and then, small on the horizon, he saw one of Hornus' men gesture upstream, away from his hiding place, and wave an arm to bring the others on. His mood lifted, maybe the Schnals man had mistaken the movement of the fleeing chamois in the scrubby trees for that of a desperate outlander carrying a treasure of copper axes. 

 The rest of them arrived. He could hear their voices. There was argument but when they turned the wrong way, heading uphill following the stream, he knew he had a chance. It wouldn't take them long to discover that it was not a man that they were following, but in the gathering dark, he might yet escape. He set off down hill, crouching, and stumbling over the slippery, riverbed rocks, avoiding the patches of snow that would hold the print of moccasins, or a splash of blood. On the glaring snow of the mountain, those signs had marked him out for death, but in the water, he left no trail. Soon the banks reared up into a narrow gorge, and he had no choice but to slide elated into the river's icy embrace, and trust himself to the water, born up by the air trapped in leather garments and a calf-skin sack as he floated feet first towards the valley bottom. 

The moon was up when he left the river, half frozen, battered and bruised by rocks and branches. He staggered along the bank to the village; on familiar ground now, so that his feet seemed to know the whereabouts of rocks and holes even though his eyes saw little of them. He had lived in the valley nearly thirty summers and his kin were here, but even though he was glad he still had life, the news he carried weighed heavy on him. His sister's man Otzi, was dead on the high mountain and there would be sorrow and maybe recrimination at his coming home alone. 

The dogs were barking as he approached the fence of sharpened poles and woven willow strips. He bellowed at them to open the gate, or he'd bleed to death while they cowered inside, but they would not until they were sure of him, so he called out his own name three times before they'd unleash the fastenings. Then he was in, clutching his wounded arm as several pairs of hands secured the gate behind him and others took the bag that Otzi, Rila's man, had died for, and then she was there, his sister, pushing through the throng of their clan, her face filled with apprehension seeing him wounded, and alone. 

 'Where is he?' she said, her face twisting with apprehension. 

 He shook his head. 

 'They killed him on the mountain above the lake. They hunted us all day, and we couldn't shake them off.' 

Pain racked her features. She was old for a woman. She'd been in the world twenty-eight summers, but she was not as old as Otzi, the coppersmith. He had great standing among the people because of his skill of finding the shining, silvered rocks and crafting the red metal that he coaxed out of them with fire. His trade had made the village fat and wealthy. He had brought them cattle and goats through his crafting of axes and metal ingots, and his art had banished hunger these many winters since he came there from the south and took the dark haired girl to wife. 

Someone held up a fire brand and they saw the clotted blood that covered his garment. It was not just his own. There was Schnals men's blood, and Otzi's blood too. He was frozen, half starved and exhausted. They helped him to his sister's hut where women of his kin removed his cloak and washed his wounds, rubbing them dry with pads of moss to stop them turning bad. Rila sat by the hearth her face smeared with ashes. Her sons and the daughter were solemn; intent upon him. As their only male kin living still, it would fall to him to protect them until they could fend for themselves. They might well look upon him with respect. His attachment to them or the lack of it would keep them in the world, or cast them out of it. A crone fed him broth made of pig fat and roots seasoned with herbs and seeds. He dipped a piece of rancid dough into it and chewed to regain his strength, recovering his wits from hunger and exhaustion. 

Rila had waited long enough. 

'How did it happen?' she said. 

 He wiped the wooden bowl, and pushed the scrap of greasy dough into his mouth. 

 'We took the axes over the high mountain to trade them with the Schnals people as we had done many times. It was late in the day when we came to the village where Hornus is head man. They gave us food and we showed them an axe. Hornus wanted to see all that we had, but we said we had no more and asked him if he would trade for it. They were watching closely. They knew there was more, but we kept up our pretence because they were thin and mean looking. We knew they hadn't enough of anything to spare, to be able to trade for more than one. Hornus offered us five goats. It wasn't enough. The smith refused, and put it away again. They said they could spare no more of their animals; that the winter had been hard and they needed them for breeding. 

The light was fading. We'd taken far too long to get to their village and would rather have been away in the woods by night, but they brought skins and mattresses stuffed with grass and pressed us to stay with them. It wouldn't have gone well, to refuse the offer of their hospitality, so we agreed to talk more when the sun came up again; that we would sleep, and maybe agree to something later. 

 After they had left us. We waited long until the village was silent and then we tried to leave, but they had men outside watching and we had to fight our way out. 

That's how I got this wound,' he said, moving his arm. 

'Otzi was slashed in the hand and struck with a club on the back, but we killed two of them and escaped back to the high ground above the lake. It was snowing, and as morning came, they tracked us easily,  so we could not lose them. They followed like wolves, casting over the mountain, back and forth where our trail was covered by the fall, and then they'd find it again, as we watched them from higher up behind the rocks. The old man was tiring fast, and he gave me his bag to carry when his wounds and the years sapped his strength. 

Then, near the pass, in the thick of a storm, one of the Schnals men got ahead of the others, and crept close enough to strike Otzi with the bow. He came upon us like a cat, and we didn't see him until the arrow struck. Then he rose up, covered in frost and roared at me as he aimed to loose another shot. We traded arrows, each of us missing the other, until at last I put one in his throat and he fell, spraying blood, and lay thrashing on the ground as the bright stain spread. We turned away, and ran on. If one of them was near, there would be others, but Otzi had death upon him. The arrow in his back - here, beneath the shoulder, drained his life, but we still pressed on. It ended with me dragging him until he could no longer move. He lay down beside a rock and life left him. 

I rolled him over to draw out the arrow, but only the shaft came away. Snow fell thick and began to cover him as I arranged his bow and quiver on either side, and placed the axe at his head against the rock. It was all the funeral I could give him and he had what he would need in the nether world. I backed over our tracks and smoothed the snow, and then made for the ridge to lead them away from the grave.' 

They sat together solemn in the hut that night. There was an air of foreboding about how they would live without Otzi the copper-smith providing for them. He slept fitfully under a skin rug on a pile of bracken. When the sun rose again, he rose awkwardly in pain from the bed, casting off the bear skin. He pulled on his gory cape and motioned to the oldest nephew, the one who had carried wood for charcoal and helped drag baskets of the copper bearing stones down from the outcrops where he and Otzi had dug them from the earth.

 'Come with me boy,' he said. 'We will carry on your father's trade. We both have much to learn before we will be as skilled as he was.' 

The lad grinned and sprang to join him in the doorway. They would not starve if work was all it took to prosper. The sun crested the hill, warming them and raising the scent of thyme as they trod the path to the charcoal pit. They passed the pasture where the goats were already browsing, tended by children and two wolf-like dogs with lolling tongues. Like most of the clan he looked to enjoy the present if he could, for the future was an unknown land and most likely before long, a grave under rocks on the edge of the woods. 

For today, like all the other creatures in the valley, he was content to be among the living, to have his belly full of food and to see the panorama of the hills around him.

Donald Trump - re-incarnation of Mussolini?

Demagogue Donald Trump has an uncanny resemblance to bonkers Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

 I'm starting to think there's something in this 'reincarnation business after all?

Of course, Benito was more comfortable with male pattern baldness than Donald, but with that dandy hat, who needs hair?

Well, Donald does, obviously. How much does he pay is barber for the skunk he wears on windy days?

What would Trump look like without a splendid toilet brush on his head? Look no further than these dandy snaps of Benito back in the olden days.

British Prime Minister badgered to pay compensation by grandstanding Jamaican politicians

Prime Minister David Cameron was propositioned for money by his Jamaican counterpart, Portia Simpson Miller, yesterday, and told to personally apologise because in 1833, his first cousin six times removed, General Sir James Duff, was paid £4,101 for the loss of his two hundred and two slaves on a sugar estate in Jamaica. This is somehow, through disordered logic, David Cameron's fault.... Greater nonsense, I have never heard. Opportunistic hyenas among the echelons of Jamaican politicians see the chance not only to insult the UK Prime Minister and the first country to abolish slavery - the United Kingdom, but also to get their hands on UK Taxpayer's money. Of course they won't receive a penny, and neither should they. We, are not responsible for slavery in Jamaica or anywhere else. How could we be? None of us were alive at the time, and even if we had been, what chance would we have had to change anything? Even if we were inclined to agree to such compensation, where would we draw the line? Should I pursue a claim against the Italian government because my Celtic ancestors were dispossessed by Caesar's legions, or the French, because my Anglo-Saxon ancestors were enslaved and murdered by the Norman invaders, or the German's because my grandfather was maimed at the Battle of the Somme?

Jesse Norman - Arsehole.

Tosser, Jesse Alexander Norman, chair of the House of Commons, Culture Media & Sports select committee, casually slandered elite British athlete, Paula Raddcliff, champion marathon runner and all round good egg.

 

Buffoon, Norman sat like the pompous oaf he is the other day, and, using the cloak of Parliamentary Privilege, cast aspersions on Raddcliff's honesty, without evidence, and without good reason.



Raddcliff, who has always campaigned for clean sport, released a detailed statement after the slur, denying that she had ever used unfair methods to achieve her multiple successes  as a distance runner. She says that two of the three historical blood tests referred to in the stolen database, believed to lie behind the donkey, Norman's remarks, were taken under circumstances not allowed in today's testing regime, namely, immediately after races, when current knowledge has determined, the levels of haemoglobin are influenced by the stress of racing. Norman's disgusting stupidity and callous ignorance is not only confined to slandering our most admired athletes, he also seems intent on destroying the BBC.

Oskar Groening - The Nazi Death Camp Bookeeper. Justice?

Should  the octogenarian German Oskar Groening be on trial for accessory to murder 300,000 Jews? He WAS there at Auschwitz. He was in the SS. He was twenty-one at the end of the war and he did keep the books tabulating the money stolen from victims. He has freely admitted being witness to brutality and murder and claims that he repeatedly asked to be transferred to other duties away from being in the bureaucracy  of an SS death camp........ How morally responsible is he?

Well, let's think about this.... He was twelve years old when the Nazis came to power in Germany and throughout his formative years he was steeped in Nazi propaganda. He was a member of the Hitler Youth and joined the SS at the age of nineteen or twenty. By 1942 he was sent to work at Auschwitz and almost immediately asked for a transfer to other duties which was refused, He asked for the transfer on witnessing the murder and abuse of inmates. His duties were entirely clerical in nature. After repeated requests to perform service elsewhere he was transferred to front line fighting duties and was eventually captured.

In his postwar life he openly criticised Holocaust Denial explaining that, 'I was there and I saw what was done,'

I wonder how many of us, brought up in liberal democracies would have stood out against the mores of the Nazi tyranny at the age of twenty-one? Remember that throughout his formative years Nazism was the creed of the nation and was propagated like a religious cult. Do any of us really think that under the same perverted tutelage we would not have joined the SS and sworn an oath to uphold the values of those who had taught us since we were able to learn what is expected of us?

None of my remarks supports the outrages and monstrous actions of those days in Europe under Nazism. Neither does Oskar Groening. On the contrary, he has spoken out against what happened and has published arguments against those who deny that the Third Reich exterminated millions. He has made no secret of having been there in doing so, on the contrary publicising his presence and saying, "I saw everything," he writes. "The gas chambers, the cremations, the selection process. One and a half million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz. I was ther<sup>e



For me, putting this man on trial serves no purpose other than self righteous revenge, We can not try the central figures of the Nazi regime, so let us try  a minor minion, propagandised and indoctrinated since he started secondary education. Time after time psychological research has demonstrated the fallibility of conscience and judgement in matters of morality when authority figures instruct obedience and reserve to themselves the role of national conscience.

Would you or I in Oscar Groning's shoes have done the same? Probably we would. To deny this is to turn one's back on reality and empirical research.

"</sup>I have seen the crematoria, I have seen the burning pits and I want you to believe me that these atrocities happened. I was there.^[5]"

Titan - A future Home for Humanity

This morning I read an article in the Daily Telegraph by Adrian Berry which contained the assertion that unlike the other solar system moons, Titan was not barren..... I wonder if Adrian has the same understanding of the term 'barren' as I do. I think not. Barren to me means devoid of abundant life, plants, the potential to grow things. I'd say that deep frozen Titan was pretty much more barren than any spot on earth. Underneath Adrian's piece were various nonsensical discussions contributed by random posters suggesting that as the sun moved towards its future red giant stage, people might be able to move there and so continue our species. When do they think this is going to be needed? It will be at least five hundred million years in the future when the sun becomes too hot for us. Need I point out that our species has only been in its current form for about fifty thousand years - a hundred thousand at a stretch and that a million years ago, our ancestors had much more in common with the apes than with ourselves. The idea that homo sapiens will exist in five million years time is almost ridiculous. If we have not wiped ourselves out through germ warfare or some other form of self created catastrophe in the next twenty thousand years, we will have been done away with by some yet unknown plague. If not, I would be most surprised. After that, evolution will have destroyed us. Our own tendency to foster far from perfect specimens will in any case degenerate our species into a far less robust version of ourselves. The idea that we can move to a horrid, hydrocarbon swamped place like frozen Titan is utterly ridiculous. I just wish some of these sci-fi fantasists would think a bit about what they are proposing. Which of these planets looks like the best bet for you?

The Guardian - Comment Is Free

Strangely, I have just been banned from commenting on the Guardian website. I have no idea why, other than that I had just penned an ironic comment following a rather bizarre article about Gwyneth Paltrow recommending that women 'steam clean their vaginas'. This grotesque recommendation, led me to remark on how many women seem to be taken in by pseudo scientific clap-trap put out by charlatan 'experts' and cynical cosmetic companies. For this, my account at the Guardian was banned from further comment. What on earth is going on there? Have I fallen victim to some super-lefty, hyper-vigilant uber-feminist moderator? What controls does the Guardian apply to the petty gods they employ as moderators? judging by the foul mouthed abuse I have received from some Guardian Commentators in good standing; abuse which still stands on the site, weeks later, they operate a rather dodgy form of Chinese style moderation - tow the Party Line or else.... Comment is free? Not at the Guardian.... Not at all.

Founder of Charlie Hebdo criticises provocation by magazine

I read in the Telegraph that Henri Roussel, an eighty year old founding member of Charlie Hebdo, criticises the murdered editor Stéphane Charbonnier for leading the magazine into last week's disaster. 'What made him feel the need to drag the team into overdoing it?' 'Charbonnier was a 'great lad' but a 'blockhead' and he 'shouldn't have done it,' he wrote in the left-wing magazine Nouvel Obs. In the piece, he tells how he wrote some time ago to Charbonier telling him, 'I really hold it against you,' presumably in connection with the provocative Mohammed cartoons, published in 2011 and 2012. Well, in the light of our focus on freedom of speech, Roussel is entitled to his view and to have it printed in a magazine, but I really disagree with him. People who come to live in modern, Europe need to understand that this is how we are; rude, irreverent, outspoken. They live in, or have come to live in Europe. We did not ask them to come here in the main, and they must accept us as we are. The difference between the victims of Charlie Hebdo's mockery who were Catholics, Jews, drug addled professional cyclists, politicians, and the Muslims, is that although they were all embarrassed, offended and even angered, none of them were moved to barbarism but the Muslims. Burning down magazine offices and murdering cartoonists is not what we class as acceptable discourse in Europe. The offended, had better learn that quickly. Events at Charlie Hebdo will prove to be a watershed. There will be no more tolerance of extremism. If you want to live in the west, even if like the murderers you were born here, you had better accept us as we are. If you don't like us; if you are scandalised by our behaviour, our clothes, the fact that our women are our equals, then move to the lands where your sensibilities will be respected. Here Mohammed is just a violent Dark Age thug who rode about the deserts of Arabia, forcing others to respect his made up revelations. Get used to that opinion, because it isn't going to change.

Je Suis Charlie Hebdo

The disgusting slaughter carried out yesterday by followers of the prophet remind us all that we must stiffen our resolve to protect freedom of expression. We can NEVER compromise our principles in the face of the sensitivities of barbarians. For too long in the United Kingdom, we have censored ourselves in the hope that by doing so we might pacify them. Politicians passed laws to imprison those who give offence in online posts. We allowed our language to be perverted by standing quietly by as terms such as 'Islamaphobia' were thrown at anyone who had the nerve to criticise Muslims or Muslim criminals. Our police force failed to prosecute the abusers of young girls in Oldham, Oxford, and a dozen other places because Muslim gangs were involved. It would compromise 'communities' apparently. We have been cowed by deference for their sensibilities. No more. Live here. Live like we do. Je Suis Charlie Hebdo. Vous sont Charlie Hebdo. Tout le monde est Charlie Hebdo.

Nasa announces that one in two 'Suns' has Earth like planets

There is much talk about aliens in the newspapers as a result of this and debate about how long it will be before we meet them.

I have no doubt that life evolved elsewhere. Given the countless numbers of galaxies that exist, and given that each holds tens or hundreds of billions of stars, there are probably as many Earth like planets in the universe, as there are grains of sand on the average sandy beach. However - we will never get there. Inside twenty light years (next door in our galaxy) there are sixty one stars or brown dwarfs, but that distance is in round figures a hundred trillion miles. We can't travel that far, and probably never will.

We should be glad. If we did meet aliens they would have been shaped by the same universal laws of natural selection as we were, the first of which seems to be to kill and exploit creatures which compete. Remember how we treated those of our own species who were less well endowed with technology: the Native Americans, the Africans, the Australian Aborigines? More so, think how we treat other species: chickens, turkeys, fish and so on......

Do you really want to have the Aliens find us? I don't.

Free Country? Not likely.

I'm not a great fan of America right now, but one of the several things that they get right and we get badly wrong is that they don't prohibit the respectable millions doing and owning things on the basis of what a handful of criminal loons may do.

In the UK, the exact opposite prevails. We have no rights; we must be licensed to do mundane things. The reason for this, is that a tiny minority of our fellow citizens are bad or mad. This is very much the wrong way around.

Always remember that Allan Johnson wanted a law to force the ownership of a dog to be a licensed, trained, insured, micro-chipped, and government controlled activity.

Julian Assange - A threat to whom?

Governments all over the planet have been embarrassed by revelations from the diplomatic bag of US foreign policy. The egg is not just on Uncle Sam’s face - far from it. Toadying Brit politicians, whimpering like naughty puppies left out in the cold. Scheming Gulf tyrants recommending the devastation of Iran, Putin described as a Mafia Godfather. The dirt spread far and wide. But there was more. The hidden toll of Iraqi families slaughtered by accident, dismissed in bare faced lies by a military pretending only the bad guys bought it. The revelation that drone strikes kill the innocent at a ratio of 100:1. Who really suffers by these revelations? Only those who would rather the people didn’t know the truth.

It is comforting to believe that power is in the hands of just and honest men; that political systems, wisely designed with laudable ideals protect us from villains and tyrants, but revelations down the years from Watergate Tapes, the Pentagon Papers to Wikileaks have shown us they do not.

We need to know this. We need to hold politicians and military leaders to account for what they do, and above all, they need to know they can not lie to us. Assange, Ellsberg, Woodward and Bernstein lift the lid, exposing what government would prefer keep hidden.

Were their revelations treason? I doubt it. If government isn’t straight with the people, where do we stand. Probably with the people of Russia, China, Burma and North Korea.

Munir Hussain is Freed

Thank God for some common sense! Today, Munir Hussein was released from jail with a revised suspended sentence, after the violence which followed the horrible illtreatment and humiliation by violent burglars who were never prosecuted. The total arsehole Judge John Reddihough thought it appropriate that a man who lost control in the immediate aftermath and pursuit of his tormentors, should be sentenced to a term of 39 months imprisonment. Reddihough ought to be sacked tomorrow morning, and deprived of his no doubt villainously large pension.

God Help us!

It seems that Peter Mandelson may be brought back to life by necromancy from the Lords and thrust into the Commons again so that he may become Prime Minister....

Surely not? It would be like putting Old Nick in charge. In no time at all we will have horned goats in the Commons and the MPs will be ravishing virgins in the corridors of power..... Oh hang on - they already do that as well as stealing large amounts of money. Still, having Beelzebub answering Prime Minister's Questions will be a pretty awful thing.

..................

Also in the Daily Telegraph today, we have Bryonie Gordon complaining about research which shows women are at little risk from having drinks spiked with date rape drugs. She says that such research is useless since they are nevertheless frequently raped while drunk.

I disagree. Perhaps Ms Gordon, the revelation that drink spiking is almost unheard of and is a widespread myth used to excuse total loss of self control through common drunkenness, might actually encourage some to take responsibility for themselves, and to stay sober.

Only a savage would make light of rape, but girls who get so drunk as to be unable to stay in control, have voluntarily placed themselves in peril - a very stupid course of action. This needs to be made clear and not excused. Taking note of this would be of great benefit to them.

As for those accused of taking advantage of people in such situations, while 'No' always means exactly that, the states of being 'drunk' and 'sober' are more of a continuum than a clear line, so how are males to judge, unless a girl is almost comatose? Is the lady who is exuberant and lascivious after three glasses of Chardonnay 'drunk' and out of bounds, or does she become so only after four, or maybe five, or is it more? Is she only 'raped' when she reconsiders an unwise liaison next morning, even though the night before she was an active participant?

These are complicated matters of fine judgement and are in practice acted on by people often young and somewhat under the influence of alcohol themselves. Cases like this are worlds apart from the savage, wicked and ungodly acts traditionally described as rape, and it is no surprise that juries find it extremely hard to convict those accused when cases come to court.

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A medic was recently overheard reassuring a very confused girl in a hospital casualty department saying, 'Yes my dear, and which of the fifteen tequilas was it that you think was spiked?'

Immigration is a good thing.

In the Times this morning, David Aaronovitch complained about the failure of panellists on the recent and now notorious edition of Question Time, to extol the advantages of immigration in the face of the unattractive leader of the BNP. He said:

'...there was no one to say that it (immigration) had benefited us economically and enriched us culturally. Surely, I thought, it was this unchallenged and cowardly perception of the negative nature of migration, rather than migration itself, that was a part cause of the growth in votes for the BNP.'

No - not cowardly David; just realistic.

Mr Aaronovitch must be mad if he thinks anyone, but him and a few deluded New Labourites, believe that adding another ten million immigrants to the population of this island, would be anything but a disaster for the quality of life of all concerned - especially we already over-crowded Brits. He and I and Baroness Warzai have something in common; we are all the descendants of immigrants, though mine arrived a while ago, in 1895. What I and Baroness Warzai have in common, and Aaronvitch doesn't, is that she and I believe that immigration needs to stop right now, before England becomes one huge, dystopian, high rise city.

Eating Meat is as anti-social as drink driving!

In the stupidest climate panic statement yet made, New Labour's Lord Stern of Brentford likened the supposedly anti-social habit of eating meat to drunk driving. Warning us all of the coming conflict he thinks will be engendered by global warming, he tells us all that a vegetarian diet is 'better' and uses less water.

Is there no end to the idiocy of these proselysing busy bodies? Now that Marxism and traditional religion have become unfashionable in Europe, the rudderless mob has flocked to environmentalism and instead of demanding that we stop having sex and worship Jesus' or support the dictatorship of the proletariat, they want to create another kind of global misery, in which we all embrace poverty, veganism, lack of mobility, and power our fluorescent glow worm lights with windmills. All they have underlying the hype, is a change in global average temperature of one degree. The span of this change is a hundred years. Apart from the output of magical computer models; a sort of latter day holy book, not to be questioned, that is the evidence on which the scam is built. One degree of observed change.

Science is supposed to be founded on EMPIRICISM, actual observation and measurement, not predictive computer programmes. Never since Joseph Smith told his neighbours that angels brought him some golden plates and some magic spectacles - thus founding Mormonism, has such a con been set in motion. Global Warming is an article of faith in the new religion of Environmentalism, and like other religions, it depends on prophets to spread the word. Last week Gordon Brown set off on his own prophetic mission - going about with a worried look and telling people that we had fifty days to save the world. We already know that he is a liar - why do people listen?

Is BBC Radio4 Alienating its Core Audience?

What's gone wrong with Radio4? Simple, it has slid disastrously to the left, adopting all manner of PC, feminist, and greenie causes and promotes these pretty much as unquestionably good. Now don't misunderstand, I am not against any issue being dealt with in a balanced and critical manner, but I don't want strident, polemical minority advocacy shoved into my ears throughout my waking hours. I used to love Radio4 - I've listened avidly since I was a lad in the 1960s, but I am increasingly angered - especially by that man hating hag Jenny Murray and her vile programme 'Woman's Hour'. Murray seems intent on scraping away at the wounds of women who have been illtreated and deprived by unpleasant men. I wouldn't mind that this was done occasionally, but Murray seems to want it as as a kind of daily therapy. Today she was interviewing a rather spunky lady airforce helicopter pilot awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a heroic rescue she carried out under bombardment in Iraq. This outstanding woman (worth fifty of the haridan Murray), is a very fine example of our forces personelle, but all Murray could bang on about was that she was a woman. This unsurprising fact she could not let go and she persisted in trying to get her to accept full responsibility (as a woman and on behalf of women) for the whole rescue - dimininishing in the process the contribution of the rest of her brave crew, including one supposes the male medics who got out of the helicopter under rocket and machine gun fire and spent five minutes stabilising the casualty and getting him back aboard. Flight Lietenant Goodman however, to her considerable credit, declined to follow Murray's harpy agenda, and steadfastly pointed out the fact that she was one of a team who depend on each other for their lives and that the successes they have are not the result of a single members actions. In the end, the putrid Murray had to abandon her quest to diminish men, and just congratulate her guest.

I'll be the first in line to congratulate whoever in the BBC gives the beastly Murray her p45 and dispenses with her services. It will be a great day for mankind.

American Idol - or should that be 'American Freak Show'?

As a kid with what we used to call in the 1960s, a 'handicapped' sister, I remember sitting in class open mouthed, learning that in the nineteenth century, the well off were taken on tours of mad houses for entertainment. Even worse, we were told in hushed tones, that the 'keepers', would prod the lunatic inmates with sticks, stirring them up into outbursts of 'hilarious indignation'. Yesterday though, I had the misfortune to witness the twenty-first century counterpart - the freak show, which 'American Idol' has become; less the audition of wannabe pop stars, more perhaps, the public exhibiting of people with learning difficulties for the amusement of others.

In the broadcast of the heats at Seattle, Washington, we saw Britain's Simon Cowell, scowling at one after another of bizarre individuals, accompanied by a whooping Randy Jackson, and the disingenuous Paula Abdul, who told one no hope contestant after another that they were 'Awesome'. They came, in a depressing straggle, opined about their talent, their personality, their commitment to achieving stardom, and all the while they looked like the inmates of a special needs institution. It was painful, and that was before they opened their mouths to perform, or should I say, 'to massacre' the songs they had chosen to showcase their 'talents'.

Cowell, a look of horror on his face, likened one obviously autistic individual to a 'bush baby'. The blogosphere is now referring to the unfortunate lad as, 'lemurboy', and like many of the Seattle hopefuls, he was obviously someone who ought to have been protected, rather than put up on TV for public ridicule. Should we really be projecting this cruel spectacle, and the humiliation of such people for our entertainment?

The exhibition of the inadequate, is what masquerades as 'Reality TV' these days. It ranges from the porcine Jade Goodie in Britain's 'Big Brother', to the likes of Lemurboy, and his fellow contestants; an obese fellow called Jonathon with learning difficulties in a Hawaiian shirt, and a gap toothed ginger headed man who could have been in Deliverance if only the casting department had discovered him. No doubt they will use him now when they need a mutant for some sickening horror flick.

Maybe we laugh at the unfortunate delusions of these people because seeing them make a spectacle of themselves somehow confirms that we are 'normal'.

After I turned it off, I felt ashamed that I'd watched it for as long as I did.