Blog Post - Literature Review #5

 Visual:

Citation:

Howell, E. (2015, January 29). How would the world change if we found extraterrestrial life? Retrieved March 10, 2021, from https://phys.org/news/2015-01-world-extraterrestrial-life.html

Summary:

The article generally illustrates few points about how would humankind react to the state when we successfully make contact with an alien civilization, referring to the history of different countries of ambassadors or adventures first explored into another nation. As a reference of the history, there would be barriers at the communication stage; one would be the civilization differences; one would be the difference of mathematics on language, and the last would be the ethics and moral standards between aliens and humankind, and this is would be the extreme challenge for human beings. 

Author:

Elizabeth Howell is a contributing writer who is one of the few Canadian journalists to report regularly on space exploration. She is the author or co-author of several books on space exploration. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota in Space Studies, and an M.Sc. from the same department. She also holds a bachelor of journalism degree from Carleton University in Canada, where she began her space-writing career in 2004. Besides writing, Elizabeth teaches communications at the university and community college level, and for government training schools.

Key Term:

Indirect contact: contacting extraterrestrial intelligence by using equipment like radio, or electronic telescope. 

Astro-ethics: the different moral standards and ethics of ways or methods to communicate or to contact with the non-human culture intelligence. 

Three Quotes:

"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 universal biology."

"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."

"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."

Value:

This article gave me a concept of what kinds of technical developments and civilizational construction our human kinds needed to prepare before contacting another intelligence from space. Even though some of the statements presented in the article are established on account of human trading and invasion history, these are the only resources and references that our humans could utilize to conjecture possible actions and thoughts on other intelligent civilizations.