The 1997 film Contact is an enjoyable flick. Not much science to clutter up the narrative, and the conflict in the film between faith and science is handled intelligently and fairly.
Eleanor Ann Arroway (Ellie), played with studious intensity by Jodie Foster, is directing a Project SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life) radio telescope array when she hears the unmistakable signal of intelligence: a series of pings adding up to all the prime numbers up to 100.
Naturally, this begins the "Game of the Century" as the aliens fold a message within the message, telling humans how to build a spacecraft to the stars.
Ellie is one of the finalists to go on the one-person mission. A select committee, created to choose a worthy subject to serve as Earth's first ambassador to another world, asks Ellie what question she would ask the aliens if granted one query.
"How did you do it? How did you evolve and survive your technological adolescence without destroying yourselves?"
It's a very good question, but it presupposes that intelligent life isn't smart enough to avoid all the nationalism, the pollution, the nuclear threats, and resource depletion that we're facing today.
Would a collective intelligence even worry about such things? Perhaps some societies would develop more homogeneously on only one landmass, which would encourage unity.
Given the probability of an endless number of potential civilizations, it seems a childish question to ask. Is that really the best you can do, you selfish, self-centered human?
Me? I'd ask for directions on how to build a machine that can repel a comet or an asteroid. Chances are very good that would come in a lot handier than some mealy-mouthed, kumbaya notion of brotherhood.
David W. Falls, writing in RealClearScience, had some thoughts.
"Do you believe in anything beyond the physical universe?" Falls would ask.
It would probably not be the first question we asked, and it would not be the most urgent. But it could be one of the most revealing. Did another intelligent species develop ideas about gods, souls, an afterlife, or a deeper reality beyond what could be observed and measured? Did they create rituals, sacred traditions, or moral teachings based on something greater than itself? Or did religion never appear at all?
Every religion we know emerged on Earth. Its stories were shaped by human fears, human hopes, human social structures, and the limits of human knowledge. Even religions that claim a divine source reached us through human language and were interpreted by human minds. We have never had an independent example of intelligent beings trying to understand existence.
Skeptics often see religion as a product of human psychology. People fear death, search for explanations, detect intention in uncertain events, and want to believe that their lives have meaning. From this perspective, gods and souls arose because human beings created them, not because they discovered anything beyond the material world.
What if our belief in a god is imprinted into our genetic code, thus strengthening the case that we were created by a Supreme Being? Geneticist Dean Hamer popularized the concept in his 2004 book The God Gene: How Faith Is Hardwired into Our Genes.
The "God gene" is specifically a gene known as VMAT2 (vesicular monoamine transporter 2). VMAT2 acts as a code for a transporter protein that regulates neurotransmitters in the brain, like dopamine and serotonin. These brain chemicals affect mood, consciousness, and emotional states.
Hamer measured spirituality using a psychological scale called "self-transcendence," which assesses traits like self-forgetfulness, openness to mystical experiences, and a sense of connectedness to the universe. He found a statistical correlation between specific variations of the VMAT2 gene and higher scores on this scale.
Mainstream geneticists and neuroscientists criticize the theory, noting that Hamer’s study was never published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal or independently replicated. Other scientists criticize Hamer for oversimplifying complex traits like personality and spirituality.
Hamer admitted that calling the VMAT2 gene "The God Gene" was the publisher's choice. But the concept is intriguing. Are we genetically disposed to believe in something greater than ourselves, to be struck with awe at the mysteries of the universe?
Perhaps we should ask the aliens if they also have a built-in need to explore, to know, to understand. If so, despite their being thousands of years ahead of us technologically, we would share a common need to grasp the infinite and "touch the face of God," as the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr. so eloquently puts it.
What would you ask? I know asking for readers' opinions is probably a bad idea. Brain-dead morons would use the comment section to make terrible jokes that no one would think are funny. But for those who wish to give the question serious thought, I welcome your opinions.
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