
Group of scientists suggest that octopuses might actually be aliens - prostoalex
http://bgr.com/2018/05/17/octopus-aliens-cephalopods-research-study
======
agar
As much as I love the concept, I can only imagine what a professional with
expertise in cephalopods and their DNA would think while reading this article.

If you've ever read a popular press story in your area of expertise, you
immediately see how many things writers oversimplify to the point of
absurdity, or just get plain wrong.

I'm guessing the authors of that journal article, were they to read this news
story, would simultaneously hyperventilate and strain their necks from the
excessive sighing and head shaking.

~~~
eco
> If you've ever read a popular press story in your area of expertise, you
> immediately see how many things writers oversimplify to the point of
> absurdity, or just get plain wrong.

I could have sworn there was a named Effect/Rule given to an extension of this
but my googling is coming up short. It was about how you'll read a mainstream
article about something you know a great deal about and see how much the
journalists got wrong but don't keep that in mind when reading about things
outside your expertise. I believe I read about it in the comments here on HN.
Does anyone know what it was?

~~~
bajames
Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-
Mann_amnesia_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect)

------
faizshah
"[The authors] present a fantastic overview of the various hypotheses about
the evolution of life on our planet and the contribution of extraterrestrial
elements. The review includes many references, several different opinions and
ranges all the way to the up-todate literature...The authors take, however,
one more step. Their view differs from common scientific concepts and
available evidence, claiming that the origin of viruses, microbes and even
animals all the way to tardigradus - originate from space."

"There are several explanations why the Cambrian explosion occurred...but the
notion that viruses from extraterrestrial space are the main drivers - is
uniquely presented here in this article. The authors believe this and use
strong expressions, describing it as evidence-based, yet without any of the
necessary evidence. As an excuse they point out to other previous
unconventional ideas during history of science which turned out to be true
later - this is the argument the authors use. They even find their idea
“plausible” - but it is hard to follow their thinking in this respect. So this
article is useful, calling for attention, and it is worth thinking about - yet
the main statement about viruses, microbes and even animals which came to us
from space, cannot be taken seriously."

Commentary to: Cause of Cambrian explosion - Terrestrial or cosmic? Steele,
E.J. et al.

Karin Molling, Max Planck Institute Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S007961071...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610718300804?via%3Dihub)

~~~
Nomentatus
They don't cite "any evidence?" C'mon man, they cite quite a bit of evidence.
No-one can read the article and truthfully say this. Size of DNA,
sophistication of adaptation, differential body symettry, off the top of my
head. Is that weak evidence? Well then by the same token, it's evidence.

This seems to be one of the many, many times when contemporary scientists say
"there is no evidence of X" when what they mean is that there is no
_incontrovertible_ evidence (the other name for which, of course, is "proof.")

But proof and evidence are manifestly not the same thing and conflating them
to confuse one's opponents does nobody any favors.

Evidence that is not defeasible remains evidence. Luckily so - because post-
Popper, we know that all scientific evidence is defeasible and proof never
actually arrives.

------
natecavanaugh
This strangely reminds me of a Wired article[0] from 2013 where it quotes a
scientist in this way: "If you want to study an alien intelligence, Godfrey-
Smith says, 'octopuses are the closest thing we have.'"

Though it doesn't make the claim that it's of alien origin, nor do I subscribe
to the theory necessarily. There's just too much question-begging in the
theories that life is somehow of extraterrestrial origin (where did that life
come from?).

I think of just how genetically plastic dogs are within their own species,
that it's not hard for me to imagine life developing into all sorts of
directions without having to resort to the seed hypothesis.

Then again, me trying to speak with any kind of authority on evolution or DNA
is akin to a dog discussing quantum physics, so my opinion only goes so far ;)

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2013/10/how-the-freaky-octopus-can-
hel...](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/how-the-freaky-octopus-can-help-us-
understand-the-human-brain/)

~~~
AlexCoventry
> question-begging in the theories that life is somehow of extraterrestrial
> origin (where did that life come from?).

I really dislike this paper, but they do address that. The fact that life had
to start somewhere doesn't make the question of extraterrestrial origin any
less interesting.

~~~
natecavanaugh
Sorry for the late reply, but I agree the idea is interesting, but for me it
comes off the same way intelligent design or creationism comes off, almost as
a God of the gaps type mentality. Because if life is seeded from elsewhere,
it's essentially placing it's origin into infinity, and kind of hand waving
away the need to dig further. Not that I'm saying we should philosophically
determine where we want the evidence to go, but usually the idea is based on
so much conjecture and leads to the same result practically that it just seems
like a secular way of dismissing the search based on the evidence we do have.

Granted, we have no idea what discoveries and scientific advancements are
going to come in the near to distant future, but while I think the question is
worth considering, it seems pretty weird for some scientists to accept this
conjecture, but randomly eliminate others.

To each his own I guess, but this probably is more about my own distaste for
the line of thinking (that, and the whole "we're in a simulation" hypothesis),
where it kicks the question off into a place where we'll probably never be
able to answer it. Though as far as fun discussion and speculating as
entertainment, that is where I find the ideas most enjoyable, personally :)

------
foo101
Here is what I would like to understand: If there is any truth to the theory
that Octopuses indeed evolved in outer space and were delivered to our planet
via a cosmic payload, how is it that they happened to have the same kind of
protein-based, DNA-based genetics like we have? Isn't it too much of a stretch
to imagine that an alien evolved under similar conditions with similar genetic
foundation like life evolved in our planet?

~~~
heartbreak
Earth’s abiogenesis could have started via a cosmic payload as well, which
potentially answers your question regarding the shared biochemistry.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia)

------
rukittenme
> Its large brain and sophisticated nervous system, camera-like eyes, flexible
> bodies, instantaneous camouflage via the ability to switch color and shape
> are just a few of the striking features that appear suddenly on the
> evolutionary scene

Argument from incredulity.

> The genome of the Octopus shows a staggering level of complexity with 33,000
> protein-coding genes more than is present in Homo sapiens.

Red herring.

> this “great leap forward” in complexity was due to “cryopreserved squid
> and/or octopus eggs” crashing into the ocean on comets millions of years ago

No evidence provided to support this claim. In addition, Cephalopoda is a very
well documented clade. Meaning we have fossilized evidence the octopuses
originated and developed on this planet.

> crashing into the ocean on comets millions of years ago.

Probabilistic fallacy. Interstellar objects in our solar system are rare (only
one ever documented). Comets seeded with _eggs_ have never been documented and
should be considered exceedingly rare. The number of comets that ever make
contact with Earth is very, very low.

------
Tomminn
I'm not saying this idea is wrong, but it comes with a large grain of salt.
Like everything else in the world, 90% of science is crap. If there is no
proposed falsifiability criterion, there is no science here.

~~~
Nomentatus
I share your discouragement with the present state of "science" (see the
Replication Crisis) but the trouble with your comment that it applies to
everything ever written, not this article in particular, not to mention that
Theodore Sturgeon said it first, as a still more general rule.

~~~
Tomminn
I assumed the HN crowd was familiar with the fact that "90% of everything is
crap" is someone else's idea. This was probably not a good assumption to make.

~~~
chrisallenlane
I don't know why people are giving you a hard time here. The quote is widely-
known, and I appreciated your remark about the troubling lack of
falsifiability criterion.

~~~
Nomentatus
See elsewhere here, there's no shortage of experiments to be done that could
be determinative in this case. Also, Karl Popper's rule is a great rule of
thumb, it really is; but there's an immense bibliography in philosophy of
science about whether it's a shoe that fits all circumstances.

------
JoeAltmaier
Which was it - virus-guided evolution or cryofrozen eggs? That piece is all
over the map.

And it begs the question: why is alien life DNA-based at all? Without
addressing that, its just a comedy piece.

~~~
sulam
Without trying to support the piece, the DNA question has a rich history of
being explainable via the panspermia theory.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Ok, then the point of the piece, that the Octopus is special in being 'alien',
becomes moot? Everything is 'alien'.

~~~
Nomentatus
But in this case, the leap in complexity is so obvious we can tell it's alien
(they say.)

~~~
jonny_eh
That argument sounds awfully similar to that of Intelligent Design.

I imagine that Punctuated Equilibrium is a far simpler explanation:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium)

~~~
Nomentatus
If you find a watch on a beach... was the old argument. The argument in the
paper is that the Octopi change is so fast and so immense it leaves every
known instance of PE, including human evolution, far behind along with every
other known leap forward. I'm not endorsing that view, just retailing it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm wondering if the fossil record supports the conclusion that octopuses
actually got all the claimed features at once? How does a fossil (of a soft
creature, notoriously rare to fossilize at all) indicate the presence of color
change, large eye and so on.

Or is it a DNA argument. Then I'm back to why DNA at all unless everything is
alien. In which case, why the article. Its like "there's this one alien guy in
Idaho..." instead of "There's other intelligent life in the universe!!!"

~~~
Nomentatus
Good point, re soft bodies fossilizing more rarely - because what may have
happened is the squids just didn't show up in the fossil record for a very
long time, nor the proto-squids. Ocean acidification at various periods (say
due to CO2 variations at different periods, which were large) would be a
factor.

I'm not saying the 33 scientists weren't well aware of these considerations,
though.

------
Abishek_Muthian
For constructive criticism on the content of this article, there's a quartz
piece -

[https://qz.com/1281064/a-controversial-study-has-a-new-
spin-...](https://qz.com/1281064/a-controversial-study-has-a-new-spin-on-the-
otherworldliness-of-the-octopus/)

~~~
Nomentatus
Not even criticism - it doesn't mention what the scientists take to be their
evidence, much less discuss any of that. It then misunderstands the mention of
"future" \- the point actually being made was that the alien octopi were so
much more complex because they'd had far longer to evolve, not that someone
owned a time-machine. I don't have a position on the question, but this
article was mostly a waste of time.

------
anotheryou
"The Hawaiʻian creation myth relates that the present cosmos is only the last
of a series, having arisen in stages from the wreck of the previous universe.
In this account, the octopus is the lone survivor of the previous, alien
universe."

(
[https://archive.org/details/oceanicmytholog02dixogoog](https://archive.org/details/oceanicmytholog02dixogoog)
)

------
2_listerine_pls
The Simpsons weren't too far off

------
tmearnest
I find this notion to be completely ridiculous. There's some things that are
common to all life. The genetic code for instance. There are of course
different dialects [1], but they're all fairly similar, and all code for the
same set of amino acids. Cephalopods use the same means of storing genetic
information, DNA with the bases G, C, A, and T. They have the same machinery
to translate the genetic code into proteins, ribosomes. Ribosomal structure is
highly conserved among all life. The idea that all of these molecular
machinery developed in parallel on a different planet with the exact same
genetic code, means of storing genetic information, and means of converting
genetic information in protein is beyond absurd.

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Utils/wprintgc.cgi](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Utils/wprintgc.cgi)

~~~
Nomentatus
Which is why it wasn't asserted. See Panspermia.

------
Nomentatus
Orbital decay means planets were more distant from the sun in the past. As
well, solar luminosity was lower. It's also likely that water and has
accumulated on, say, Venus. So although not a likely harbor for life now,
perhaps Venus was the first batter up for the evolution of life.

Against this, there are definitely other heat sources, especially for large
planets, and more water (from impacts carrying water, especially) is available
at a greater distance from the sun.

------
tomhallett
Complete sidebar: octopuses/squid are on my short list of "things in American
diet I don't eat because they are too smart" (pigs being the other).

~~~
palisade
Due to the acidification of the ocean, there's an overpopulation of squid in
the seas. It would actually be beneficial if people started eating more of
them, because they're predators of other fish species that we ourselves are
already overfishing. Note: I'm not an environmentalist, it is just something I
noticed.

~~~
newsbinator
In fact, I have a modest proposal to share with you on that front.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal)

------
whataretensors
The eventual babelfish trained using unsupervised alignment may make things
like bird->human or octopus->human possible(or mycellial mass, if it turns out
to be intelligent).

I have a suspicion that in the future human-centric mono-species intelligence
and consciousness assumptions will be tested, and the outcome may be similar
to discovering other galaxies in terms of the impact on humanity's collective
psyche.

~~~
lioeters
At first I was confused by "babelfish trained using unsupervised alignment",
but realized after re-reading your comment several times, that it's about
translation/communication (with other species!) based on machine-learning.
Dolphins and maybe whales..

I like the thought of humanity discovering other forms of consciousness, whole
dimensions we never expected or imagined.

------
throw7
I too am awaiting the return of the old ones.

~~~
strictnein
I would like to avoid meeting any shoggoths.

 _Tekeli-li_ _Tekeli-li_

------
jdpigeon
I wouldn't trust anything from that website. That scientific journal sounds
sketchy, too

~~~
JdeBP
It is at least, according to Elsevier, peer reviewed.

* [https://www.elsevier.com/journals/progress-in-biophysics-and...](https://www.elsevier.com/journals/progress-in-biophysics-and-molecular-biology/0079-6107/guide-for-authors#20910)

~~~
jonny_eh
Every pseudo-scientific journal claims to be peer reviewed.

~~~
JdeBP
However, so too do the properly scientific ones, so that does not demonstrate
anything at all. The thing to look at is the editors, who they are and whether
they indeed edit the journal as claimed.

* [https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/research/uto/blundell](https://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/research/uto/blundell)

* [https://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/denis-noble](https://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/team/denis-noble)

* [http://www.herzzentrum.de/englisch/departments-sections/inst...](http://www.herzzentrum.de/englisch/departments-sections/institute-for-experimental-cardiovascular-medicine/team/peter-kohl-prof-dr.html)

~~~
jonny_eh
> so that does not demonstrate anything at all.

That's exactly my point!

------
exabrial
Before you jump to mock this, remember we should encourage well thought out
discussion that acknowledges it's shortcomings.

------
philbarr
Octopuses?

Octopi, surely?

~~~
detaro
Both are fine. (Octopi is arguably wrong, since octopus comes from Greek, not
Latin (where you'd find that style of pluralization), but is used so commonly
that it has become part of the language)

~~~
philbarr
It's interesting, though. When I was a child "octopi" was the classic
pluralization exception.

There's even the joke, "if the plural of octopus is octopi, what's the plural
of whatatwitamus?"

I have never seen "octopuses" until today.

------
yigu
A few questions that pop into my head:

Why did land insects never rise to match the intelligence of the octopus?

If octopuses are so smart, why aren't they more social?

Why is it that the most social of animals, ants (which are considered eusocial
actually), are not pressed with becoming smarter?

Why does sex cause octopuses to self-destruct?

Also, when it comes to weird theories, I have always thought that if we are in
a simulation, it is most likely a simulation created by an insect
intelligence. Or if we are being visited by aliens, that those aliens would in
all likelihood be of an insect like nature, not some lame anal-probing grey
dudes.

I claim this as vague support for my theory of alien insects[0].

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620387](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13620387)

~~~
bobwaycott
> _If octopuses are so smart, why aren 't they more social?_

Because they are so smart.

~~~
alexanderchr
”For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more
intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York,
wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the
water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed
that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”

------
TimTheTinker
Just my own perspective: as one who believes God is responsible for the
origin, complexity, and diversity of life, this article makes me chuckle. The
theory of evolution as an explanation of the _origin_ of the major taxa of
life really paints us into a corner from which it is difficult to wiggle out.

In my opinion, the panspermia/alien origin hypothesis (and its persistence as
an explanation in some respected circles) illustrates how strictly limiting
ourselves to natural explanations leaves not just a "gap" in our ability to
explain origins, but a massive gaping hole. (Also, the insistence on a
distinction between "alien" and "divine" has no rational basis.)

~~~
tree_of_item
> The theory of evolution as an explanation of the origin of the major taxa of
> life really paints us into a corner from which it is difficult to wiggle
> out.

I'm really not sure what you mean by this.

> Also, the insistence on a distinction between "alien" and "divine" has no
> rational basis

What?? You don't see a distinction between life on another planet and
supernatural phenomena...?

~~~
TimTheTinker
> I'm really not sure what you mean by this.

If you assume the major groups of life evolved from common ancestors, the
fossil record doesn't offer a lot of help to fill in the early details (i.e.
transitional types). Also, you have the problem of the origin of the first
single-cell organism.

> You don't see a distinction between life on another planet and supernatural
> phenomena...?

My point is that insisting on it being an _alien life form_ that seeded life
on earth (as opposed to the God hypothesis) is kind of begging the question.
Philosophically, what is the difference between an unknown alien life form and
God as the origin of life, other than different starting assumptions?

~~~
mbfg
>> what is the difference between an unknown alien life form and God as the
origin of life, other than different starting assumptions?

for one, we do know that there _are_ life forms.

