Star Trek: Voyager Distant Origin

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Who thinks that the theory that they come up with on Star Trek Voyager could be true? Season: 3 Episode: 23

Episode Summary:
An alien palaeontologist discovers a common ancestral link between his people and humans. He believes that this proves that his people, the Voth, evolved on Earth and migrated to the Delta Quadrant millions of years ago, but his government is not as willing to believe his interpretation of the evidence.

Some Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Origin
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Distant_Or ... episode%29

Any Ideas, Or comments on this?

That's the one of dinosaurs being our ancient ancestors?

Well, presuming you had an offshoot of dinosaurs that were intelligent enough and capable of building some form of interstellar travel (ship, wormhole, etc.), why couldn't it be possible.

There is a theory that we are a genetically engineered race. Supposedly a combination of Martian, local hominids and the alien reptilian race that created us. It's not as far fetched as it sounds. In fact it even makes a lot of sense. Do a web search on this and David Icke.

There was a ST:TNG episode where near the end of there was an alien recording being played back stating that they had spread life to other planets, and that humans, Klingons, Romulans/Vulcans, and Cardassians were all related.

It was the season 6 episode title "The Chase".

It makes absolutely no sense as our DNA is 98% identical to chimpanzees. That doesnt leave much room for Ickian nonsense. Our Mitochondria is even closer.

For example, examine this infant gorilla.


it looks very much like a premature human.




See the noses? The shapes of the eyes? Humans are neotenic apes.

Yoo Hoo! There is not a crumb of evidence indicating intelligent life anywhere else but here. Why not wait until intelligent races are found on other planets before speculating about a common origin.

ruveyn

When you put it that way Ruveyn, I guess there is no point thinking about it now.

It's an intriguing concept but without any evidence to support any facet of the idea, I have to say that I'd rather not dwell on it beyond the Star Trek-verse (which I adore, btw). ]

As far as a gorilla and human baby looking a like I honestly don't know what to tell you -- primates of the same general class. It happens.

I loved the philosophy of this episode, but the science is inconsistent with the Trek Universe.

Some on this post have mentioned similarities between Distant Origin and TNG's The Chase. However, these two episodes are contradictory. The Chase introduced a Panspermia-style explanation for the fact that so many Milky Way intelligent races look humanoid. They were all "seeded" by the genome of an ancient parent race. This also explained their similar DNA, a necessary explanation for characters like B'Elanna Torres, a Klingon-Human hybrid.

Contradicting this, the saurians of Distant Origin find no common genetic markers between the humanoid races in the quadrant. Only with humans do they find a very distant evolutionary tie.

According to The Chase, all humanoids share a common genetic make-up - enough to intermarry in many cases. According to Distant Origin, most humanoids do not share common genetics - and those that do, necessarily evolve on the same planet.

I always like thinking about this kind of stuff. It's totally possible, although probably unlikely.

That doesn't qualify as a theory, since theories are hypotheses that have been validated through testing. It isn't even an hypothesis, since an hypothesis is a proposition that is testable.

No, it is only a proposition, just like any other fantasy or science-fiction plot.

I think it more likely that these ideas have a resonance with us because most of us have common ancestors who were physical slaves at one point or other to another social group. I do not know how much selective breeding went on but I would assume some. As the population grew and technologies advanced the slave worker-ruling group relationship become more abstract and less obvious . There hierarchy still exists, except the chains are
llifelong debt , mortgage and a whole bunch of social rules and religion. The Fnord has been the abstraction of that power into a concept of a personal diety. We will burn in hell forvever if we transgress thes rules. Its an easy-head concept for slaves . More modern notions rely on systems of social and economic exclusion and demonization for those who challenge those rules. Its powered forward through history by evolutionary forces.

I know this because I watched

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UxBjmuxh2Y&feature=related[/youtube]

"Do not bring that one, the one with the pointed ears."

is a direct subliminal refernce to aspies because we can see through it, I think

A complete lunatic may think that is true but it is entirely possiable that microbes from which we are decended, evolved elsewhere.

some evidence would have been unearthed if the hadrosaurs had developed advanced technology. In fact, they would have been able to stop the asteroid that struck the earth 65 million years ago if they were so technologically sophisticated as to leave the solar system.

In addition, evolution is more than just changing just for the hell of it. It depends on what you need where you are. Your environment dictates the path of evolution. You can't just take a hadrosaur model and use some BS technobabble to see what the hadrosaur would look like today. If that were the case, we'd be able to apply the bullshitinator to see what we'd look like 65+ million years in the future. Besides, dinosaurs were around a hell of a long time and they changed very little in the 120+ million years they were around. They didn't need to.

Star Trek - especially Voyager shouldn't be taken seriously from a scientific standpoint.

Last edited by MasterJedi on 24 Jul 2011, 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

1. Star Trek has more durability than social/cognitive science theories . They usually go in about ten year fad cycles.

2. Star Trek has arguably generated more socially useful technologies than most social/Conigitive science theories and research.-Sliding doors, mobile phines and ionic propulsion systems, not to mention that neat hypodermic used by Dr.Mcoy. Warp Drive may be possible but it has to be imagined first.

2.At a conceptual level Star Trek has generated more consumable socially useful ideology than the universities and other research groups.

3. Star Trek is not publicaly funded , it is a body of ideology expressed in easy to comprehend terms that returns a profit.Some research agencies cost over $150 million PA and most citizens don't even know what they do, or, that what they do is mostly speculative .

4. Star Trek is more interestig than most social and cognitive science literature and film. I would prefer to doa Ph.D in Star Trek than social science and would probably learn more about human nature in direct applicable terms than in another field.

Meme

I meant some writes sometimes don't bother checking the science.

Granted, Trek has made some predictions and has been consulted by JPL, NASA, The RAND Corp, Cal Tech and MIT but sometimes they just get it wrong like this episode. Just "turn your brain off and enjoy the eye candy" type of crap. One of the reasons I'm not as big a fan as I used to be.

And I can out-Trek trivia anyone, any day.