So there I wuz, reading about a possible alien message we got in 1977 and haven't answered yet. I can understand that. I do it with emails all the time -- I want to think about what I want to say in reply so I don't look too dumb and there it sits in my queue until if I ever do actually answer it the sender's forgotten all about it and possibly about me.I think it's great that we're finally going to answer. But one of the links included in the article led to "7 Huge Misconceptions About Aliens." This was enough of an exercise in reasoning based upon not much at all to set my teeth on edge. Since the site pushes a book called "Life's Little Mysteries" I'm guessing the rest of the mysteries they're addressing are just as wobbly.
The first of the "misconceptions" is that they'll "come in peace," in which they quote Stephen Hawking's opinion that the outcome of aliens arriving would be "much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America." Possibly that's so, but why would they want to invade us or enslave us or whatever? Think of the logistics that would be involved in mounting an invasion force: ship sizes, amounts of supplies, numbers of gnixels required to prevent snurb... It's probably much more likely they'll arrive out of curiosity, wanting to see what's on the other side of their own solar system. Why did we launch Pioneer or Voyager? Certainly not to conquer Ganymede, even if it was inhabited.
Next they say it's likely that "They didn't put us here," to whit, that there's no planet Nibiru that seeded the earth with life. I'm guessing Life's Little Mysteries is correct on that one. Occam's Razor suggests that since the evidence says we evolved here it's likely we did: no interstellar spores, no Arisians, no Gods from Outer Space. That means different evolutionary strains.
The idea of different evolutionary strains leads Life's Little Mysteries to the illogical conclusion that "They're immune to Earth's bacteria." I'm not sure one idea follows from the other. It seems to me that if you're going to get bitten by a bacterium it wouldn't take much of it to cause an alien's entire immune system (always assuming the alien has a system) to go plumb Oskarspiel. The bacterium would be chock full of DNA and Izzglk the Galactic Overlord would be full of EMB or something. He'd turn into a gigantic pus ball as the alien equivalent of white cells swarmed or he'd explode or maybe just peg out quietly with an overdose of the wrong kind of protein, kind of like a dose of snake venom. (Poul Anderson used that one in The Man Who Matters. I kind of identify with Nicolas van Rijn. Except for his bank account.) Nothing happening would probably be the least likely option.Along the same lines, "Life's Little Mysteries" is of the opinion that "They won't eat us." Probably they won't if they're not immune to earth's bacteria. They'll be dead. If they're protoplasmic it would still be iffy -- depends on what kind of protoplasm, doesn't it? There are lots of things that have evolved right here that are inedible even though they're protoplasmic. And if they've got copper-tinged blood they certainly won't like us, assuming they've got blood rather than sap or ichor or something we haven't thought about yet. Who knows? Maybe they're solid all the way through. But it's just as likely they'll find us just tasty with a bit of horseradish.
It's entirely likely that "They won't mate with us," given the above. Science fiction used to be overrun with aliens who were human except for their antennae or pink hair or whatever, presumably to include their pee-pees. Then the aliens became green with bug eyes or lizards or Admiral Akbar of the Calimari. Every once in awhile a writer (think Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) would come up with aliens who weren't even bilaterally symmetrical. There were even horny robots. It's pretty hard to imagine having sex with something that isn't bilaterally symmetrical, though there are some people who don't insist on their partners being bipedal. I think we can all draw the line where the mating process is similar to earthworms or carp or something. The next jump of illogicality is that "They won't come in 'person'." The idea here is that the alien supercivilization will send robots to do its exploring instead. "[A]ny race of beings would be expected to advance in a similar fashion to humans, gradually becoming more and more efficient through the invention of machinery." But we've just admitted that they may not be bilaterally symmetrical and that they might mate like earthworms, so why should they do anything similarly to humans? They may become more efficient in spurts, rather than gradually becoming more and more, or they might become more efficient and then less efficient. Or they might very reasonably distinguish between 'efficient' and 'effective.' Or they might be logical (Live Long and Prosper!) and thus sufficiently similar to humans that they use the machines as tools to eliminate where they don't want to bother going in person, saving the good stuff for themselves.
Finally "Life's Little Mysteries" gets around to admitting that "They might not exist." They could have put that one first and saved themselves a lot of typing. But just given the number of stars in our galaxy it's virtually certain that life does exist and probably lots of it. The law of averages turns into the law of certainty when you hit numbers with lots of zeroes to base 10. Or even to base 2. The problem isn't with the aliens' existence, but with getting to them -- given the limitation of the speed of light they might as well not exist. But until we do get there we won't know, will we?
Unless they answer our reply to their email.