Friendly Aliens: I voted that they'd be "Aggressive" towards us, not so much because they would consider themselves aggressive, but because
we would. Consider the biologist studying Elephants (or any other animal for that matter) in the wild. The biologist means them no harm, but the Elephants don't know this, and will run/charge/attack in an attempt to end contact. And lets face it, a lot of the 'good' things biologists do include shooting, trapping, drugging, radio collaring, banding, blood sampling, other liquids/solids sampled, etc. Now a race that can travel to Earth from another location is going to be a little more advanced in all areas than we are. They'll likely make Vulcans look like school children
Drake Equation: In My
Not Nearly Humble Enough Opinion (IMNNHO?
) the Drake Equation is only slightly less "black box" than the original statement by Azmov that there'd be life every thousand stars (I believe he said you needed the correct star type... 1/10, the presence of water... 1/10, and something else... 1/10). Now Azmov was shooting from the hip in the interview but the stuff you see in the press (like Discover, Sci. American, even Science and Nature) is just about that simple still!
I'll look through a few books at home and blather more tomorrow...
Cheers
[ August 13, 2002, 01:45: Message edited by: jimbob ]