Aliens Would Probably Like It If You Gave them Flowers

Alien invasion is a constant theme of Hollywood science fiction, from War of the Worlds to Independence Day. But Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, author of the new book Enlightenment Now, argues that highly developed civilizations tend toward peace and tolerance, and that advanced aliens are much more likely to be friendly. "I think it's not inconceivable that wars between countries will go the way of slave auctions and dueling, just be seen as too ridiculous for any reasonable country to engage in," Pinker says in Episode 296 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. But wouldn't alien brains be so different from ours that it would make mutual understanding impossible? On the contrary, since aliens would have been subject to the same evolutionary pressures as us, they would probably possess an appreciation of science--and maybe even beauty--similar to ours. "It's conceivable that other intelligences have a sense of beauty that is not wildly different from ours," Pinker says, "because they too might be expected to be attuned to counter-entropic forces and patterns in nature."