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SK anyone what sets humans apart from animals, and 99% will mumble some incoherent babble about our reasoning capacity.

But just how rational are we? Let’s conduct a silly thought experiment. Nasa recently reported the discovery of seven new planets. (We love “discovering” things; just ask the inhabitants of the area known as KwaZulu-Natal how, one fateful Christmas, Vasco da Gama “discovered” the land that they’d always known.) But let me not digress. Nasa reckons these planets are potentially habitable by human beings. Here’s the experiment:

Of the seven planets, the one likely to have conditions most similar to earth is Trappist-1f. Now let’s suppose there are “sentient” beings on Trappist-1f and that they send a delegation of Trappist tourists here, to skulk around, enjoy our pristine beaches and get to know us. (These