[Randallw]

The topic in question seems to be a corollary of what the creator of B5 said when asked how fast the starfuries were.

"They move at the speed of plot"

so the ability of SGC members to handle alien tech is a result of them being as intelligent as the plot demands. Probably also related in some way to the fact that everyone they meet is human basically. I was actually surprised the one time I saw an epsiode where they participated in a space race, not withstanding it was a Voyager rip off, because there were actually aliens. It seems SG explains why everyone is human, but never explains why they all speak english, while ST doesn't explain why everyone is humanoid, apart from maybe the only epsiode of STNG I've never seen, and conveniently glosses over exactly how the universal translator works. I say this beacuse of it's apparent inability to always translate Klingon. It's like when the Klingons want to make a point they press the "Do not translate this bit" button.