Q: Where is this interview taking place?

Scene: In an artificial bubble on the surface of Ganymede(one of Jupiter's moons), an alien explorer describes his visit to Earth.

Interviewer: Can you give us a general picture of Earth and its inhabitants?

Explorer: The planet is rather pretty, with lots of natural resources. "Fertile" isn't too strong a

              word, especially when compared with most places in the local system. There are

              lots of energy sources and chemical resources as well. We think this richness is

              why the Earth's inhabitants-the "humans"-have such distorted ideas about reality.

Interviewer: You mean like the silica worms on Venus, who, because they can't see through

                  their atmosphere, have the idea that their planet is the entire universe?

Explorer: No, the humans are much worse. They can see and study the entire universe, but

             they still think they are the center of everything, that their planet is the reason the

             universe exists.

Q: Does the alien say that humans are super-beings?

Interviewer: But only the young human have these distorted ideas, right?

Explorer: No, that would be true here, but on Earth even old humans have an immature view

              of reality.

Interviewer: Don't they understand what they are?

Explorer: Not at all. They believe they are super-beings. So they think everything is temporary

              and unsatisfactory, to be someday replaced by becoming famous, knowing the

              truth, living forever, or falling in  "true love."

Interviewer: Do any of them have our concept of nature as a connected whole, of which all

                 are a part? How do their beliefs differ?

Explorer: The earthlings have it exactly backward. They think nature exists for them, designed

             to meet their needs, not that they are part of nature, as we understand it. But it is 

             much worse than that. They can't understand why nature won't meet their most

             trivial needs, and they are possessed by dissatisfaction. If they look at their planet's

             moon, it is unsatisfactory because they can't build a house on it. Reality is viewed

             only in terms of a human's immediate needs.

Q: What does the alien say science is?

Interviewer: What causes this distorted view of reality?

Explorer: Well, human have only recently acquired intellectual skills, therefore those skills are

             in a dangerous, immature form. We have seen this in other places-the Earthlings

             have Godlike thinking powers but animal personalities. They have the ability to

             destroy themselves through badly formed ideas, but no ability to control their

             passions. Their most serious proble is that they still believe in authority. They still

             believe in centralized control of individual behavior, and, yet, they have developed

             fusion weapons, as though they had any chance to control such weapons with

             their pack-animal passions?
Interviewer:Don't they have some version of science and mathematics to help them get beyond

                their animal passions?

Explorer: Most don't even know what science and mathematics are, and many of the rest think

             science can only be practiced by someone called a "scientist."

             (Depp sighs)

             That is the best evidence for their primitive state. They don't recognize scientific

             thought as the principal way to evolve from the half-animal, half-civilized state in

             which they are now living. They don't understand that science is the moral

             property of all thinking creatures.

Q: Does the alien want to help the humans?

Interviewer: Well, do they at least reallize they are in transition between the world of animals

                 and intelligent beings?

Explorer: No, in fact, they think they are intelligent beings, with no supporting evidence at all. 

             Humans study the geological record of species that have been transformed to meet

             new environmental conditions, but they don't realize they are themselves in the

             midst of such a transformation.

Interviewer: Can we help them? Can we share any part of our knowledge base with them,

                 help them toward intelligent behavior?

Explorer: No, I cannot recommend that. They would only use our tools to kill each other, and

             our ideas would either confuse or frighten them. I recommend that we stay out of

             their view, as the other advanced species have dediced to do, and let them wake up

             by themselves, in their own good time.

Interviewer: Thank you for your report. It is requested that none of our space ships approach

                 Earth, and that we don't allow ourselves to be seen by them.

Explorer: Send out this request: stay away from Earth-the Earthlings must show evidence of

             civilized behavior before we can allow them to join our community in the stars.

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