Excerpt from space.com
By by Elizabeth Howell
In 1938, Orson Welles narrated a radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds”
as a series of simulated radio bulletins of what was happening in real
time as Martians arrived on our home planet. The broadcast is widely remembered for creating public panic, although to what extent is hotly debated today.
Still, the incident serves as an illustration of what could happen when the first life beyond Earth
is discovered. While scientists might be excited by the prospect,
introducing the public, politicians and interest groups to the idea
could take some time.
How extraterrestrial life
would change our world view is a research interest of Steven Dick, who
just completed a term as the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress
Chair of Astrobiology. The chair is jointly sponsored by the NASA
Astrobiology Program and the John W. Kluge Center, at the Library of
Congress.
Dick is a former astronomer and historian at the United States Naval
Observatory, a past chief historian for NASA, and has published several
books concerning the discovery of life beyond Earth. To Dick, even the
discovery of microbes would be a profound shift for science.
“If we found microbes, it would have an effect on science, especially
biology, by universalizing biology,” he said. “We only have one case of
biology on Earth. It’s all related. It’s all DNA-based. If we found an
independent example on Mars or Europa, we have a chance of forming a universal biology.”
Dick points out that even the possibilities of extraterrestrial fossils
could change our viewpoints, such as the ongoing discussion of
ALH84001, a Martian meteorite found in Antarctica that erupted into
public consciousness in 1996 after a Science article
said structures inside of it could be linked to biological activity.
The conclusion, which is still debated today, led to congressional
hearings.
“I’ve done a book about discovery in astronomy, and it’s an extended
process,” Dick pointed out. “It’s not like you point your telescope and
say, ‘Oh, I made a discovery.’ It’s always an extended process: You have
to detect something, you have to interpret it, and it takes a long time
to understand it. As for extraterrestrial life, the Mars rock showed it could take an extended period of years to understand it.”
Mayan decipherments
In his year at the Library of Congress, Dick spent time searching for
historical examples (as well as historical analogies) of how humanity
might deal with first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. History shows that contact with new cultures can go in vastly different directions.
Hernan Cortes’ treatment of the Aztecs is often cited as an example of
how wrong first contact can go. But there were other efforts that were a
little more mutually beneficial, although the outcomes were never
perfect. Fur traders in Canada in the 1800s worked closely with Native
Americans, for example, and the Chinese treasure fleet of the 15th
Century successfully brought its home culture far beyond its borders, perhaps even to East Africa.
Even when both sides were trying hard to make communication work, there were barriers, noted Dick.
“The Jesuits had contact with Native Americans,” he pointed out.
“Certain concepts were difficult, like when they tried to get across the
ideas of the soul and immortality.”
Indirect contact by way of radio communications through the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), also illustrates the challenges of
transmitting information across cultures. There is historical
precedence for this, such as when Greek knowledge passed west through
Arab translators in the 12th Century. This shows that it is possible for
ideas to be revived, even from dead cultures, he said.
It’s also quite possible that the language we receive across these
indirect communications would be foreign to us. Even though mathematics
is often cited as a universal language, Dick said there are actually two
schools of thought. One theory is that there is, indeed, one kind of
mathematics that is based on a Platonic idea, and the other theory is
that mathematics is a construction of the culture that you are in.
“There will be a decipherment process. It might be more like the Mayan decipherments,” Dick said.
The ethics of contact
As Dick came to a greater understanding about the potential c
impact of extraterrestrial intelligence, he invited other scholars to
present their findings along with him. Dick chaired a two-day
NASA/Library of Congress Astrobiology Symposium called “Preparing for
Discovery,” which was intended to address the impact of finding any kind
of life beyond Earth, whether microbial or some kind of intelligent, multicellular life form.
The symposium participants discussed how to move beyond human-centered
views of defining life, how to understand the philosophical and
theological problems a discovery would bring, and how to help the public
understand the implications of a discovery.
“There is also the question of what I call astro-ethics,” Dick said.
“How do you treat alien life? How do you treat it differently, ranging
from microbes to intelligence?
So we had a philosopher at our symposium talking about the moral status
of non-human organisms, talking in relation to animals on Earth and
what their status is in relation to us.”
Dick plans to collect the lectures in a book for publication next year,
but he also spent his time at the library gathering materials for a
second book about how discovering life beyond Earth will revolutionize
our thinking.
“It’s very farsighted for NASA to fund a position like this,” Dick
added. “They have all their programs in astrobiology, they fund the
scientists, but here they fund somebody to think about what the
implications might be. It’s a good idea to do this, to foresee what
might happen before it occurs.”
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/Yj1QalFxxdM/how-would-world-change-if-we-found.html
How Would the World Change If We Found Alien Life?
No comments:
Post a Comment