Literature Review #1

 Visual:




Summary: 


Citation:

Michaud, Michael. Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials. Springer, 2010.

Author: 

Michael A.G. Michaud, in his career, once served as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Science and Technology, Director of the State Department's Office of Advanced Technology, and Minister-Counselor for Environment, etc. He also is a member of the Astrobiology/SETI Board, Diplomacy Board, Economics Board, and Space Settlement Board. He once played a major role in the negotiation of a new space cooperation agreement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Also, Michaud was one of the initiators of U.S.-Soviet anti-satellite arms control negotiations and served on the U.S. delegation. 

Key Terms: 

L (longevity): the average lifetime of communicating civilizations, and can be determined by the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. 


Quotes: 

“Searching for other life in the universe is not an unnecessary luxury,” Drake maintained, “but an essential component of forging a better life for Humankind." (200)

"Finding other intelligent beings more advanced than we are would challenge our self-image as the chosen people of an anthropocentric God. 'If God only realizes Himself within an evolutionary progress,” declared Bishop Barnes, “then elsewhere He has reached a splendor and fullness of existence to which Earth’s evolutionary advance can add nothing.' " (225)

"Barrow worried that leapfrogging the normal scientific and cultural progression might sap our motivation, keep fundamental discoveries forever out of reach, and put us in the dangerous position of manipulating things that we do not understand." (230)

"The scientific revolution on our own planet was not a uniform phenomenon, geographer David Livingstone reminded us, but a complex historical process shaped by geographic conditions. Local knowledge circulated and, by doing so, became universal. What made knowledge universal was standardization, which amounted to the triumph of certain local practices over others. That process took centuries." (274)


Value:

The book will help me to explore various angles of contact with the alien civilization. It provides perspectives from the public, that might be in a state of fear and worry on those outsiders, and also controversial perspectives that the visit might be the hope to human civilization, an opportunity to open the door to an advanced civilization. Not only public perspectives but Michaud also established logical explanations and assumptions from SETI and scientists, in the meantime, to discuss the consequences of contacts and the future of our humankind. 

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