Philosophical Vegan Forum

War of the Worlds is one of my favorite works of science fiction. I first saw the story in the form of some cartoon when I was a child, it was a spoof of the story but it caught my attention none the less. I read the book shortly afterwards and started a life long love of science fiction and H. G. Wells. I have seen it in several movies, shows, cartoons, and comics. One of my favorite versions of the story is a rock/opera style done using a Jeff Wayne's musical version and 65Daysofstatic's album, The Fall of Math. It's not the full version of the story, but I still love it quite a bit. I have recently watched an animated movie called War of the Worlds: Goliath. It's a pretty cool continuation of the story and if you're a fan of the story I suggest looking it up.

Throughout my life I have heard one criticism for the story that annoys me to no end. "The martians can master interplanetary space travel, but they can't master purell?"
There are several reasons I feel this question is stupid.
-The atmospheres of Earth and Mars are different, so it's unlikely that martians would have a way to prepare for germs and bacteria on Earth.
-Even if they had visited years before, they still wouldn't have the right protection as things like the common cold and the flu are constantly changing.
-If the martians don't have germs on their planet then it's unlikely they even have the concept and you can't really prepare for something if you don't know about it. That's like have no concept of lava and making something that is resistant to its heat.

So I'm curious about what everyone thinks about the story and its ending and to the same extent your opinion, if any, on the work of H. G. Wells.

Unless for some reason they're closely related to us, it's implausible that Earth bacteria or Viruses would affect an extraterrestrial. Just as we evolve to be immune to them, they have to evolve to affect us, eat us, and dodge our immune systems.

An alien virus would have no effect, since it wouldn't be able to use our cells to reproduce. DNA would be too different, if they're even DNA based.

An alien bacterium would have little initial ability to thrive in our biochemistry, and would likely be quickly identified as an intruder and destroyed by our immune system (which functions by oxidizing things to death -- not something you can evolve resistance to).
It would have to synthesize almost everything it needs to live, which is more metabolically expensive, and might have substantial difficulty liberating some elements from the chemical compounds that sequester them.
Likely, it would simply be unable to grow at all due to lack of Iron (not that there's not Iron present, but it wouldn't necessarily be able to get to it).
Quite probably, many of the enzymes and substances in our bodies would interfere with the bacterium, like accidental antibiotics. Bacterium have to evolve resistance to environments, otherwise they are very susceptible.

It would take at least weeks before bacteria could affect the invaders, if ever.

-If the martians don't have germs on their planet then it's unlikely they even have the concept and you can't really prepare for something if you don't know about it. That's like have no concept of lava and making something that is resistant to its heat.

It's not realistic for there to be a planet without germs. Anywhere biological life can thrive in any way, there would be microorganisms and viruses.
If through technology they had eliminated disease on their planet, it's an ongoing thing; not just one and done.
They would have intimate knowledge of bacteria, viruses, and the evolution thereof.

brimstoneSalad wrote:It's not realistic for there to be a planet without germs. Anywhere biological life can thrive in any way, there would be microorganisms and viruses.
If through technology they had eliminated disease on their planet, it's an ongoing thing; not just one and done.
They would have intimate knowledge of bacteria, viruses, and the evolution thereof.

I agree that scenario is not very realistic and I always forget the removal of bacteria with technology point. I really like the points you make, I'm going to share your response with a friend and see what he says. Thanks for the thought provoking response.

Also I had meant to say that is a good argument. I've never really thought about the issue of difference in biology effecting the performance of the germs/bacteria. It was nice to see an intelligent and thought out response.