Full Chapter Science Culture and The Search For Life On Other Worlds 1St Edition John W Traphagan PDF
Full Chapter Science Culture and The Search For Life On Other Worlds 1St Edition John W Traphagan PDF
Full Chapter Science Culture and The Search For Life On Other Worlds 1St Edition John W Traphagan PDF
https://textbookfull.com/product/life-span-development-john-w-
santrock/
https://textbookfull.com/product/life-span-development-
seventeenth-edition-john-w-santrock/
https://textbookfull.com/product/goldilocks-and-the-water-bears-
the-search-for-life-in-the-universe-preston/
https://textbookfull.com/product/studies-on-ottoman-science-and-
culture-1st-edition-ekmeleddin-ihsanoglu/
The Sumerian World Routledge Worlds 1st Edition
Harriet E. W. Crawford
https://textbookfull.com/product/the-sumerian-world-routledge-
worlds-1st-edition-harriet-e-w-crawford/
https://textbookfull.com/product/a-topical-approach-to-life-span-
development-john-w-santrock/
https://textbookfull.com/product/an-other-kingdom-departing-the-
consumer-culture-1st-edition-block/
https://textbookfull.com/product/uncle-tom-s-cabin-on-the-
american-stage-and-screen-1st-edition-john-w-frick-auth/
https://textbookfull.com/product/temple-of-the-grail-the-search-
for-the-world-s-greatest-relic-john-matthews/
John W. Traphagan
Science, Culture
and the Search
for Life on
Other Worlds
Science, Culture and the Search for Life
on Other Worlds
John W. Traphagan
Science, Culture
and the Search for Life
on Other Worlds
John W. Traphagan
Department of Religious Studies
Univ of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
When one writes a book, there are many people who deserve thanks for their
willingness to read chapters, discuss ideas, provide editorial assistance, or give
ongoing support—and I’m always afraid I’ll forget someone. Even if you are
not mentioned here, please know that I’m deeply grateful to all who have
provided ideas that contributed to the writing of this book. The person I must
thank first and foremost is my father, Willis Traphagan, who gave me the idea
to write this book while we were chatting on the phone one day and who has
always been a source of deep and intelligent discussion.
My colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of
Texas also deserve my thanks and appreciation for the wonderfully collegial
environment they create on a daily basis and their patient tolerance for an
odd anthropologist with interests in aliens who sits in among them. Finally, of
course, I must thank my wife Tomoko, son Julian, and daughter Sarah, who
are always a source of strength and love.
vii
Contents
ix
x Contents
References 147
Index 155
1
Science and SETI
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
—Albert Einstein
In October of 2015, news broke of a strange star about 1400 light years
from Earth known by the unromantic name KIC 8462852. A small storm
in the media brewed as a result of a paper written by the astronomers, led by
Yale postdoctoral fellow Tabetha Boyajian, who identified the strange star’s
behavior. The odd thing about KIC 8462852 is that over the course of weeks
or months it temporarily dims by as much as 80 % of its usual brightness.
Predictably, the news media dubbed KIC 8462852 the most mysterious star
in our galaxy, as though we actually knew enough about the galaxy to pick
one star as most mysterious. The problem with KIC 846285 is that it does
not act in a way that can be comfortably explained through known natural phe-
nomena. The astronomers who discovered the peculiar star’s behavior came up
with a few possible explanations, and landed on one fairly unsatisfying idea
that the dimming is due to cometary debris orbiting the star and periodically
obstructing a significant portion of the star’s light.
Part of the reason KIC 8462852 became so newsworthy was because it
emerged that Penn State astronomer Joshua Wright would soon publish a
paper suggesting another, much sexier, explanation. Perhaps, the occasional
dimming of KIC 8462852 might be caused by “megastructures” or giant
engineering projects that aliens had undertaken around the star. The megas-
tructures could be enormous habitats or massive collectors for vast amounts of
solar energy known as Dyson swarms. In other words, the strange case of KIC
I will get nothing but blank looks. Cernan, of course, was the last man to step
foot on the moon, but few remember that.
I witnessed the first moon landing, and the subsequent Apollo moon
missions. My students have only limited awareness about even Armstrong’s
historic step—arguably one of the most significant moments in human
history—and little or no idea about what happened after that step. Think
about this for a moment. There will never be another time in human history
when we step on a celestial object other than Earth for the first time. We’ve
done that; it cannot be repeated. Contact with ETI is the same sort of thing.
It will happen for the first time only once and then never again. It should be
one of the most significant points in our history. And, yet, it may well go the
way of the moon landings with their 15 min of fame followed by allocation to
the dusty hard drives of history.
If contact happens, scientists like me will be excited and remain that way
as we try to analyze the data received and ruminate on their importance for
humanity. But we should recognize that for a very large part of humanity,
the existence of ETI is basically irrelevant—most people’s time and energies
on Earth are not occupied with contemplating alien civilizations but with
managing survival in an environment where resources are scarce and very
unequally distributed. According to the World Bank, roughly 1.25 billion
inhabitants of Earth live in crushing poverty, surviving on less than $1.25 a
day. About 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day, and approximately
80 % of the planet’s population lives on less than $10 per day. Although it’s
difficult to accurately quantify the extent of suffering in our world, the fact
remains that most of Earth’s population lives in conditions ranging from
moderate to extreme poverty.
This might not seem like an important issue for a book about research into
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but it’s necessary to realize how eco-
nomic and social factors shape the pursuit of questions related to this topic
or any topic of a scientific, sociological, or philosophical nature. The ability
and desire to explore the cosmos with radio telescopes and to devote a lifetime
searching for an elusive signal from a hoped-for civilization on another world
arises in a socioeconomic and cultural milieu that both generates a distribution
of resources necessary for this type of science to function and contains cultural
values that encourage the belief that this is both interesting and important as
an activity. Keep in mind that there is nothing inherently important or interesting
about contacting an extraterrestrial civilization; it’s interesting only because we live
in a culture that values the idea of contact with alien intelligence.
For the majority of humans, including many in the societies that have
spawned space travel and radio astronomy, the quest for contact with ETI has
6 Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds
little relevance to the reality of procuring the basic goods needed just to get
through each day. In other words, the conditions that allowed for the science
of SETI to develop and continue are not shared by the majority of humans
on Earth and are, in fact, a specific product of industrial and postindustrial
societies that provide the economics of scientific discovery and generate a
cultural context in which the questions associated with SETI are valued and
important to many members of the societies in which SETI research is pur-
sued by intellectual elites. Again, I want to emphasize that I’m not arguing
that SETI research is unimportant. I think it’s very important, but it must be
understood within the cultural context in which it arose and the values of that
culture, as well as being situated in a world where discovery of intelligence
elsewhere may not be particularly meaningful for many right here.
Science does not purvey absolute truth; science is a mechanism. It’s a way of trying
to improve your knowledge of nature. It’s a system for testing your thoughts
against the universe and seeing whether they match.
that moves forward in curious fits and starts of ignorance. I think most
scientists, whether working in natural or social science disciplines, if pressed
to tell someone what they do on a daily basis would agree with this notion
that science is always open to change and constantly reminds us how thor-
oughly we don’t understand our world.
Perhaps what most accurately identifies the scientific approach is an accep-
tance of the idea that our understanding of the universe is always suscep-
tible to revision and that whatever conclusions we draw tend to highlight our
broader ignorance more than they provide answers to anything. Science is not
a profession actually focused on getting answers but is about coming up with
the right questions to ask about our world. In this sense, science is an activ-
ity that emphasizes the value of seeking understanding through the process
of asking well thought-out questions, but it is inherently suspicious of the
answers we get to any questions we might ask. This is applicable to both the
natural and social sciences.
What we can say about science is that scientists of any stripe generally
agree on three main points: (1) good science begins with good questions,
and (2) all answers to questions we ask are contingent; therefore (3) our
descriptions of the world developed through scientific inquiry are inherently
uncertain. When an experimental scientist arrives at a result, we can verify
that result by running the experiment again to see if that result can be repli-
cated. This does not mean that the scientist has arrived at a permanent and
final understanding of that aspect of the world. Rather, it’s true in the sense
that, following our current understanding, the result appears to accurately
represent a particular aspect of nature; should a better way of representing
that aspect of nature arise, then either (A) the initial result will be invalidated
or (B) the scope of that result will be limited. But not all science works in
quite this way. The replication of an experiment or conditions of observation
does not work very well with observational sciences, such as anthropology or
field biology, in which the conditions are constantly changing. Thus, there
is a basic assumption that if another scientist studies the same context at
some point in the future, the initial observations will likely be revised due to
changing conditions. In other words, the “answers” arrived at through obser-
vation are inherently contingent and limited, just like the “answers” arrived
at through experimentation, although the reasons behind that contingent
quality of results are somewhat different.
Scientists may work under the general assumption that a particular theoreti-
cal framework within which they are operating is accurate, but they remain,
or should remain, generally open, under certain conditions related to the
overall paradigmatic structure of what philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn
8 Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds
the gaps in the fossil record are not gaps at all, but are accurate representations
of the tempo of evolutionary change, which rather than happening smoothly
occurs in fits and starts. The basic point of the theory developed by Eldredge
and Gould, known as punctuated equilibrium, is that very long periods of
relative stasis in the morphology of species are punctuated by brief periods in
which rapid changes develop and significant speciation occurs. Eldredge and
Gould argued that unlike what Darwinists have assumed the history of evolu-
tion is not a story of gradual unfolding, but one of “homeostatic equilibria”
that occasionally gets disturbed by rapid speciation events.
The nature of this debate is usually misunderstood by religious types who
are either suspicious of or want to challenge the accuracy of evolution as a
way of describing the history of life on Earth. These individuals often make
the mistake of arguing that one of the “flaws” of evolutionary theory is the
“contradiction” between gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. This idea,
like many among fundamentalist Christians (and others), betrays a lack of
understanding of science and of how theorizing works, rather than a “flaw”
within evolutionary theory. Scientists who work in the area of evolution
(and most other scientists as well) have no dispute about the basic Darwinian
insight that biological change occurs through the process of natural selec-
tion—both gradualists and those in favor of punctuated equilibrium agree on
this. The disagreement is about how the process of natural selection operates
10 Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds
over time—and scientists agree that the time span is not in thousands, but in
billions of years.
In fact, the evidence for natural selection is overwhelming and can be seen
in many observed processes in nature, such as changes in the distribution of
black and white peppered moths during and following the industrial revolu-
tion in Manchester, England, in which moths colored gray with black speckles
that were the dominant form of the species were replaced by moths that were
largely black (Fig. 1.1). This appears to have been related to pollution in the
form of sulfur dioxide emissions from local coal plants that killed lichen on
trees or landed on trees with gray bark. As the environment changed due to
the pollution, the gray moths increasingly stood out against the darker back-
ground of the tree bark on which they lit, making it much easier for birds to see
and eat them. By contrast, the black moths became camouflaged against the
darker background of the blackened trees, making it more difficult for birds to
see them. As the birds ate the moths that they could now see and missed the
black moths that blended into the sooty bark, the genes of the gray moths were
reduced in the population and those of the black moths expanded, because
the black moths had opportunities to reproduce denied to the gray moths as a
result of being eaten by birds before they could have sex. Following England’s
clean air legislation and subsequent reduction in air pollution, the distribution
of gray peppered moths in the population increased. This is exactly the pro-
cess that Darwin describes in his discussion of natural selection and represents
solid empirical evidence that what Darwin observed and described about how
nature works is accurate. Creationists like Ken Ham are simply wrong about
the age of the Earth and how our planet’s biodiversity came into being through
the process of natural selection that Darwin described.
Nobody from either side of the debate about gradualism and punctuated
equilibrium would argue against the idea that the peppered moth example
shows anything other than the fact that Darwin was right about the basic pro-
cess of evolution as occurring through natural selection. What these two camps
within evolutionary biology disagree on is how to read the fossil record and, as
a result, how to interpret the tempo and flow of evolutionary change. To argue
that this represents a fundamental problem with evolutionary theory is equiva-
lent to arguing that because Newton and Einstein have different ideas about
gravitational forces, the entire notion that gravity exists is flawed. This type of
position not only betrays a lack of understanding of both science and the natu-
ral world, it’s logically untenable because it represents an example of the fallacy
known as the inverse error. Those who take this position in essence argue that
if gradualism (or punctuated equilibrium) is correct (P), then evolutionary
theory is correct (Q); because gradualism (or punctuated equilibrium) may
1 Science and SETI 11
not be correct (not P), evolutionary theory is not correct (therefore not Q).
Arguments in this form are logically invalid because they fail to give an acceptable
reason to establish the conclusion, even if the initial premise is correct.
Darwin got it right when it came to natural selection. By the late 19th
Century, his ideas had been co-opted in other areas of the academy and used
in the attempt to understand not only biological change, but also social
change. Anthropologist E. B. Tylor, like most of his social science contem-
poraries working in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, was
deeply influenced by Darwin’s ideas. Tylor and his contemporaries wrote
about “lower races” and “primitives” when discussing cultures outside of the
North Atlantic, European sphere. In using these terms, they were not only
displaying the racism common at the time, they were trying to represent cul-
tural change in terms of assumptions about evolution drawn from Darwin.
Many scholars saw cultural evolution as having identifiable stages of devel-
opment that did not occur at the same rate in all societies, but that were viewed
as having progressed farther for Europeans and their colonial legacies than
anyone else. Lewis Henry Morgan, a railroad lawyer who laid the tracks for the
development of anthropology in the US with his study of Iroquoian kinship
in the late 19th Century, believed there are three stages of cultural evolution:
(1) savagery, characterized by use of fire, the bow, and pottery, (2) barbarism,
characterized by domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalwork, and (3)
civilization, characterized by use of the alphabet and writing. What’s important
here is that Morgan links social development with technological development
and argues that the measure of the advanced state of a society should be cor-
related with its level of technological development, an idea that he expands to
include stages of cultural and moral development, as well.
I will write more about this later in the book, because it’s relevant to the
manner in which SETI researchers often think about the possible nature of
extraterrestrial intelligence. For now, what matters is that ideas associating
cultural evolution with technological progress, as well as the attempt to rank
societies on the basis of their stage of technological and social development,
were abandoned by anthropologists and other social scientists in the twentieth
century. And the belief that one type of culture—usually those found in mod-
ern state-level societies—is in some way more advanced on an evolutionary
scale than so-called primitive societies has also been abandoned.
The point to be taken away from this discussion is that social scientists
express value judgments within the context of their work as scientists—claims
that one culture is more progressed than another is a product of values related
to social change that were particularly profound in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries although they continue to have force in the early
12 Science, Culture and the Search for Life on Other Worlds
twenty-first century. When it comes to SETI, it’s equally true that claims
contact with ETI will have a profound influence on humanity and change our
understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe are value judgments.
They are not based on empirical evidence because there are no empirical data
on which to develop an analysis and interpretation at this point—we haven’t
made contact. We’ll see what happens if contact actually occurs.
Furthermore, it’s important to recognize that scientists live and work within
the context of institutional and disciplinary ideological matrices that influence
how they think about problems and approach their work. Earlier in this chapter,
I noted that Kuhn’s concept of normal science allows for a certain openness to
alternate ways of thinking that generates opportunities for the development of
new theories and new ways of describing the world. But normal science also can
restrict the ways in which scientists think and the types of questions they ask.
In normal science, scientific inquiry—the daily work of scientists—is largely
aimed at the articulation of observed phenomena and theoretical frameworks
that a given paradigm supplies, rather than the creation of new theories. In
other words, scientific inquiry is conducted within the context of a paradigm
that shapes and in many cases limits the range of questions that are normally
asked. A given paradigm provides a roadmap for thinking that is necessary if
scientists are going to advance knowledge, but it also tends to influence and in
many cases limit the types of questions that are considered normal and accept-
able, thus inhibiting the generation of new and novel theories. The primary
mechanism by which this limiting action occurs is peer review, which can place
a significant damper on the publication of novel and creative ideas that
challenge conventional practice because those who are reviewing new ideas are
often also the ones whose ideas are being challenged.
Over the past 20 years or so, it has been interesting to observe the paradigm
in astronomy shift as astrobiology has emerged as an accepted field of inquiry
and along with that discussions of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence
have moved closer to mainstream science. The Kepler space observatory has
had a lot to do with this because it has shown us that Earth is by no means
alone; there are likely billions of rocky planets with similarities to ours in the
Milky Way alone. Knowledge of the presence of planets orbiting many other
stars has made it much easier for scientists to discuss the potential for life on
other worlds and the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
This scientific paradigm has shifted quite a bit from where it was 50 years
ago, when SETI was much more of a fringe activity of questionable scientific
value. Evidence of how much the paradigm has shifted can be found in the
sometimes rather intense debates among SETI scientists and other scientists
about whether or not we should engage in Active SETI (or METI, messaging
1 Science and SETI 13
Did you read the word “truth” in that definition? In fact, as I wrote the
above list, as well as the discussion that preceded it, I made it a point to avoid
the word “truth.” My reason for this is that truth is a very complex concept
that, although we often treat it like it represents universal and unwavering
propositions or knowledge, is extremely difficult to pin down in any defini-
tive way without appeal to some type of nonrational concept such as faith,
a god, or natural law. When it comes to science, the fact is that what we are
looking at isn’t a process of finding truth. Stuart Firestein does a nice job of
explaining this in his book Ignorance: How it Drives Science. Science doesn’t
operate along the lines of the proverbial onion in which one strips away layer
after layer to get at the truth lurking deep inside. Rather, it’s like the expand-
ing ripples that emerge on the surface of a pond after one throws in a rock;
1 Science and SETI 15
the face of attacks by ignorant religious zealots, nor are there issues about
evolutionary theory as a subject to be taught in schools—scientists don’t need
to write op-ed pieces in the newspaper arguing why evolution needs to be
taught to children. Again, science exists in a cultural context that influences
how scientists engage the public, think about their work, and do research.
2
A Brief History of Imagining Life
on Other Worlds
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every
once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
—Isaac Asimov
When news about the weird behavior of KIC 8462852 broke, the Internet
quickly was buzzing with discussions of alien civilizations and blogs about
what it all might mean. METI International, an organization that supports
Active SETI or intentional messaging to possible alien civilizations, published
a few of blogs, including one where I argued that the meaningfulness of find-
ing another civilization is open to question, given how far away it’s likely to
be. Interest waned a bit when scientists decided that it was probably just a
large swarm of comets, but then in January of 2016 we learned that the comet
hypothesis didn’t work very well, so the idea of aliens again rose to the surface
with article titles like, “Remember that weird star KIC 8462852? Yeah, it’s
probably aliens,” that appeared on hotair.com (an appropriate name if there
ever was one) on 24 January 2016. Of course, no scientist worth anything at
this point would argue that it’s probably aliens, but the media always love the
idea of little green men from Alpha Centauri.
The question of life on other worlds is closely tied to how we think about
the cosmos and how we imagine the relationship between Earth, its human
civilizations, and the universe. When the Internet hums with questions about
the existence of intelligent aliens, the tune being played is about cosmology
or the attempt to explain and understand the origin, structure, evolution, and
ultimate fate of the universe. Cosmology is a very broad field of study pursued
by scientists and theologians although their approach normally differs sig-
Océanie
Nouvelle-Zélande (1.099.449 habitants, 547.974 femmes).
Les femmes ont les droits politiques depuis 1895.
Le vote des femmes a eu pour effet d’augmenter l’activité politique et
d’empêcher les hommes de s’abstenir d’exercer leurs droits électoraux.
Australie (4.400.000 habitants, 2.147.790 femmes).
Depuis 1899 les femmes jouissent de leurs droits politiques.
En Australie les droits politiques exercés par les femmes ont eu une
influence considérable sur la moralité des élus. Les partis ont dû
abandonner les candidats de moralité insuffisante, pour les électrices.
Partout le bien individuel et public profite de la coopération politique de
l’homme et de la femme.
Les hommes et les femmes étant solidaires doivent en collaboration
diriger la société.
Dans les pays où les femmes votent, en effet, de quoi se plaint-on?
Est-ce des opinions contradictoires existant entre électeurs et électrices?
Non!
En même temps que l’on se loue de la moralisation politique due à
l’élément féminin, on se plaint de la trop grande communion d’idées entre
conjoints. On dit que les deux époux en votant de même ne font que se
doubler, ne font qu’augmenter l’autorité de leur parti.
Les femmes votent comme leurs maris, ou les maris comme leurs
femmes. La communauté des intérêts réalise l’entente politique. Or,
qu’est-ce qui serait actuellement plus désirable en France que l’entente
politique?
Il est d’ailleurs un nombre considérable de femmes, les célibataires et
les veuves, que l’on ne peut redouter de voir briguer la candidature en
même temps que leur mari, attendu qu’elles n’en ont point.
NOTES
Pages.
Au lecteur. I
Hubertine Auclert. 1
I.—La Réforme électorale. 93
II.—Le vote et l’éligibilité pour les femmes. 105
III.—Enquête sur la représentation des femmes
au Parlement. 123
IV.—Pétition réclamant la représentation intégrale
de la nation. 145
V.—Les réformateurs de la loi électorale. Premier
contact avec la Commission de la réforme
électorale. 158
VI.— L’annulement politique des femmes est un
obstacle au progrès. 180
VII.—La cherté de la vie est due à l’exclusion des
femmes de l’administration des affaires
publiques. 204
VIII.—Les intérêts de la France mis en péril par les
hommes. 213
IX.— La France menacée par ses multiples
cabarets. 218
X.—Psychologie féminine. 226
XI.— Le rôle des femmes et leur devoir dans la
société. 232
XII.—Les femmes sont moins en France que les
roulures de Bagne. 242
XIII.—La femme en France est moins que
l’étranger. 248
XIV.—Sentiments et systèmes. L’âge et le sexe. 261
XV.—La besogne ménagère. Travail domestique 272
rétribué.
XVI.—Les Mères doivent voter. 296
XVII. La fonction maternelle rétribuée.
— 306
XVIII. L’enfant doit-il porter le nom de la mère?
— Matriarcat. 311
XIX.—Les Mères et la dépopulation. 317
XX.—La femme en état de légitime défense. 323
XXI.—Pour les primitifs l’enfant est une valeur.
Pour les civilisés l’enfant est une charge. 327
XXII. Les mères plus mal traitées que les animaux
— reproducteurs. 330
XXIII. La société n’assure pas l’existence de sa
— perpétuatrice. 333
XXIV. Les risques de la maternité.
— 337
XXV. L’enfant source de profits pour l’homme.
— 342
XXVI. L’abandon de l’enfant.
— 346
XXVII. Rétablissons l’armoire tournante. Le tour
— discret. 352
XXVIII. Le Socialisme n’aurait pas pour résultat
— l’affranchissement de la femme. 359
XXIX. La République personnifiée par la femme.
— 365
XXX. La Patrie et les Femmes.
— 368
XXXI. Le désarmement des hommes amènera le
— désarmement des peuples. 373
XXXII. Le vote des Femmes à l’étranger.
— 387
Au lecteur
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these
works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the
United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of
this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept
and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may
not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms
of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the
Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies
of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You
may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of
derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—
you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.