Tomorrow’s issue of The Economist surmizes from the fresh evidence of panspermia—a century-old idea that life hitches rides from one place to another on meteorites, rather than springing independently on each planet that harbors it—that the seemingly universal two-leggedness of aliens in science fiction movies now seems a tad more convincing. What is even more fascinating, albeit less amusing, about panspermia is that it makes even more convincing the universal deviousness of most, if not all, aliens in science fiction movies.

Addendum (December 24, 2000)

Tonight I watched The Independence Day on television. God only knows what got into me to watch it this time. The first time I had a chance to see it was on an intercontinental flight, but I decided to sleep instead. The only interesting idea I have extracted from the movie is that of nomadic aliens, who kill off the inhabitants of a planet to their taste, use up all the resources they find there, and then depart in search of fresh pastures. Although the idea of panspermia is somewhat less spectacular—involving no technology whatsoever to cross the vastness of space, and involving a few strings of primitive DNA rather than nasty aliens—the ultimate result is not very different. Once life is seeded, evolution will sooner or later bring the unfortunate planet to naught, most likely by means of intelligent life forms like us. That is, no-one will be left to celebrate the Independence Day once our job is done. In the meantime, life will have been seeded elsewhere.