1 Introduction: Past Studies and General Principles

The question of the societal impact of extraterrestrial life has received increasing attention in the last two decades, since John Billingham, the head of NASA’s SETI program at the time, convened a series of workshops on “The Cultural Aspects of SETI” (CASETI) on the eve of the inauguration of NASA SETI observations in 1992 (Billingham et al. 1999). During the formulation and initiation of the first Astrobiology Roadmap in 1998 (Des Marais et al. 2008), calls were made for the study of cultural impacts of astrobiology (Dick 2000b), and in 1999 NASA Ames Research Center organized a workshop on the societal implications of astrobiology (Harrison and Connell 2001). Other organizations, including the John Templeton Foundation and the Foundation For the Future, organized meetings on the subject at about the same time (Dick 2000c; Harrison and Dick 2000; Tough 2000). Interest has increased in the last decade, notably with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) series of workshops sponsored by its program on Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (Bertka 2010); several meetings at the Royal Society of London (Dominik and Zarnecki 2011); and a series of sessions at the American Anthropological Association (Vakoch 2009).

While most of the attention has focused on the impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, the AAAS volume also addresses the quite different scenario of the impact of discovery of microbial life. Most recently Race et al. (2012) has taken the lead in marshalling the astrobiology, social sciences and humanities communities to address these issues in the context of the latest Astrobiology Roadmap, with the support of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. Individual efforts have also concentrated on different aspects of the problem (White 1990; Almar 1995; Davies 1995; Randolph, Race, and McKay 1997; Achenbach 1999; Vakoch 2000; Harrison et al. 2000; Michaud 2007; Arnould 2008; Denning 2009), including a comparison to the impact of other scientific endeavors such as biotechnology (Race 2007).

The results of these studies have been to demonstrate the serious impact that the discovery of extraterrestrial life could have on society, especially in the case of extraterrestrial intelligence. The report on the workshops of the Cultural Aspects of SETI, the first high-level conference on the subject, makes this clear from a variety of perspectives, including history, the social sciences, theology, policy, and education. It provides numerous recommendations for studying possible impacts, some of which have been elaborated in subsequent studies, but most of which remain to be examined in detail. As with subsequent studies, it emphasizes that the discovery of extraterrestrial life will be scenario-dependent. For example, any serious study of the impact of a discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence must categorize the types of contact. A general matrix of scenarios as terrestrial or extraterrestrial, direct or remote, is given in Table 12.1, together with examples from science fiction. Even a brief consideration of the societal implications of SETI demonstrates that the subject is complex, involving matrices embedded within matrices. Nevertheless, these complexities may be approached systematically in discrete parts. A similar kind of matrix, with different parameters, would apply to the discovery of microbial life.

Table 12.1 Modes of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence (and some representative science fiction scenarios)
Full size table

In this chapter we focus first on the relevance of history to the societal impact of extraterrestrial life. We then address other possible approaches, including the social sciences, and especially anthropology. We end by summarizing what has emerged as one of the hottest topics in the field: the debate over the theological implications of extraterrestrial life. In doing so we insist on three bedrock principles: (1) we cannot predict the future; (2) society is not monolithic, implying many impacts depending on the religious, cultural and worldview aspects of each society; (3) the impact of any discovery of extraterrestrial life is scenario-dependent. The impact of the discovery of fossil or living microbial life will presumably be different from the impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, and the latter will be different again if we receive a message, different yet again if we decipher a message, and very, very different depending on what the message says. Direct contact is another matter altogether.

We also distinguish the impact of the idea of extraterrestrial life from the impact of its actual discovery. Some argue that since the majority of the population (at least in the West) already believes life exists beyond Earth, we have already seen the impact. I think not. Others argue that even when the discovery is made the impact will not be very great. That may be true in an immediate sense, as the Copernican worldview had little immediate impact. But in the long run, just as Copernicus changed everything, so, I believe, will the actual discovery of extraterrestrial life. And we should remember that communications are much more rapid than in the 16th century, not only allowing for the quick spread of reliable information, but also rumors, as the internet era has amply demonstrated.

As a final introductory caution we note the often changing and confusing uses of the terms “society” and “culture.” Anthropologist Clifford Geertz defined culture as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embedded in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (Geertz 1973, 289). According to Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson—famed for his work on sociobiology—each society creates culture and is created by it (Wilson 1998). One need not read too much literature in the social sciences to realize that the idea of “culture” is a moving target, evolving with time and in space (Denning 2009, 65). A recent book on the key concepts in social and cultural anthropology put it this way: “Throughout the modernist period, a concept of society has underpinned the construction of all social theory, whatever its hue or denomination. If the concept of culture has played the role of queen to all analytic categories of the human sciences, the notion of society has been king. It is the master trope of high modern social thought” (Rapport and Overing 2000, 333). It is, the authors emphasized, a treacherous friend, a necessary term, but a term to be used at one’s risk. In the interdisciplinary field of astrobiology, it is not surprising that the terms have been used interchangeably, and for practical purposes we do not distinguish them here.

2 The Relevance of History

The first thing that must be said about the societal impact of extraterrestrial life is that we cannot predict the future. As Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis says in his book The Landscape of History, as historians “we pride ourselves on not trying to predict the future, as our colleagues in economics, sociology, and political science attempt to do. We resist letting contemporary concerns influence us—the term ‘presentism,’ among historians, is no compliment. We advance bravely into the future with our eyes fixed firmly on the past: the image we present to the world is, to put it bluntly, that of a rear end” (Gaddis 2002, 2).

How, then can history be relevant to the future, in particular, how can history be relevant to the societal impact of extraterrestrial life? That is the primary question of this section. In this section we distinguish four ways in which history may be illuminate this enterprise: (1) documenting past impact, (2) investigating the validity and role of analogues, (3) utilizing past impact studies in science and technology, (4) analyzing the structure and patterns of discovery and placing the discovery of life beyond Earth in the context of exploration. Many of these involve, in one way or another, the use of analogy or meta-analogy. Therefore a primary focus of this section will be the question of how valid analogy is as an analytical tool. In any case, history arguably may be seen as a long-running set of natural experiments. The importance of history is that it provides real data potentially applicable to our problem; the question—as in politics and other areas of human endeavor—is how to use this data, or at least how to avoid mis-using it.

2.1 Past Impact

History can document what impact astrobiology has already had on society. And here I use “astrobiology” in its broadest sense to mean the very idea of that extraterrestrial life might exist. This is a clearly defined historical problem amenable to standard historical methods, as long as we keep in mind the second principle stated above, namely, that “society” is not monolithic and that impacts will likely vary across society. If anything is clear from the histories of the extraterrestrial life debate (Dick 1982, 1996, 1998; Crowe 1986; Guthke 1983), it is that a broad swath of Western society has been “captured by aliens” in the felicitous title of Washington Post writer Joel Achenbach (1999). From the popular culture of UFOs, alien science fiction literature and film, to philosophy, religion, and the scientific and scholarly study of microbes and extraterrestrial intelligence, what has happened in the past is open to historical scrutiny, and possible lessons learned—with all the cautions enunciated earlier in this volume (Dick 2013b).

Historians can study the public reaction when scientists or the public thought we had found life, or that it had found us, ranging from the Moon Hoax of 1835 (Crowe 1986; Goodman 2008) to the Lowellian canals of Mars in the late 19th century (Crowe 1986; Dick 1996), the famous Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast of “the War of the Worlds” (Cantril 1940) and the reaction to the claim in 1996 that nanofossils had been found in the Mars rock ALH 84001. For those who think astrobiology will have no impact, these case studies indicate otherwise; even when the subject was Martian nanofossils, let alone intelligent extraterrestrials, the media was full of speculation, theologians were commenting on the impact to religion, and (in the case of the Martian fossils) scientists were at odds over the scientific veracity of the claims. These are all likely to be elements of the reaction to any such discovery in the future.

In addition to such case studies, historians can, and already have to some extent, documented the 500 year-old theological discussion over the impact of extraterrestrial life on religion and philosophy, as we shall see below (Peters 1995; Dick 1996, 2000c; Crowe 1997; Vakoch 2000; Peters 2009; Bertka 2010; Peters 2011), with some concluding that Abrahamic religions with a godhead might be more affected by contact with extraterrestrials than Eastern religions. Surely, at the very least, scholars today should be aware of historical discussions of the societal impact of extraterrestrial life, not only for theology but also for other aspects of culture. In a broader sense the history of the extraterrestrial life debate provides context for the modern problem, as history at its best always does for any problem. Those ignorant of history may not necessarily be condemned to repeat it, but they will be far less enlightened than those who are aware of history.

2.2 The Validity and Role of Analogues

This leads to my second point: the validity and role of analogues. As already shown in Chaps. 3 and 4 in the first section of this volume, analogues have been used throughout history, both inside and outside the extraterrestrial life debate (Sullivan 2013; Ross 2013). History offers the opportunity to study analogues in a variety of forms. For those skeptical of analogues, or who consider them a fuzzy form of reasoning, two pioneering studies by philosophers should ease the mind. Almost 50 years ago the philosopher of science Mary Hesse penned her classic Models and Analogies in Science (Hesse 1966). Here she argued that models and analogies are integral to scientific practice and advancement, and she distinguished positive analogies, negative analogies, and neutral analogies. She pointed to exemplars of analogy in science ranging from the German organic chemist Friedrich Kekulé’s dream of a snake with its tail in its mouth that (by Kekulé’s own account) helped him arrive at the structure of benzene, to wave models for sound and light, and the use of billiard balls in random motion as a model for the behavior of gases. She pointed out that, while no account of the snake appears in textbooks of organic chemistry, models have been essential to the logic of scientific theories. Her book is largely a debate about just how essential analogies and models are to science, and she comes down strongly on the side of their overwhelming importance.

The more recent study is philosopher Paul Bartha’s volume By Parallel Reasoning: The Construction and Evaluation of Analogical Arguments. Bartha points out that analogy is a hot topic in artificial intelligence research, psychology and cognitive science, and he lays out a widely accepted process of analogical thinking as follows (Bartha 2010):

  1. (a)

    Retrieval or access of a relevant “source” analogue

  2. (b)

    Mapping that sets up systematic correspondences between the elements of the source and “target” analogues

  3. (c)

    Analogical inference or transfer of information from source to target

  4. (d)

    Learning of new categories or schemas in the aftermath of analogical reasoning.

This process, I would suggest, could and should be applied to the problem of the impact of astrobiology. Certainly astrobiologists dealing with the microbiological parts of the subject make heavy use of analogy in the most general sense: since we have no extraterrestrial microbes, we use terrestrial microbes as analogues. As anthropologist Stefan Helmreich has emphasized “The shift in attention from alien intelligence to alien nature has suggested a novel methodological strategy to those who would scout for extraterrestrial life. Astrobiologists treat unusual environments on Earth, such as methane seeps and hydrothermal vents, as models for extraterrestrial ecologies. Framing these environments as surrogates for alternative worlds has made marine microbes like hyperthermophiles attractive understudies—what scientists call analogs—for aliens” (Helmreich 2009, 255). While Helmreich is incorrect about this being “a novel methodological strategy,” arguably astrobiology would not exist without this most general use of analogy. Put another way, withdrawal of analogy as a form of argument would be an existential threat to the survival of astrobiology as a discipline.

In addition to microbes themselves, astrobiologists employ geographic conditions as analogues to other planetary conditions: to use the language of Bartha, Lake Vostok in the Antarctic is deployed as the source analogue to the target analogues Europa and Ganymede, and the Atacama desert is the source analogue to the target analogue Mars, to name only two specific cases (for others see Pyle 2012, 271 ff). Analogues may also be two-dimensional, combining both microbes and conditions: biogeochemists have recently used observations of microbial mats in sinkholes in Lake Huron (which thrive and persist today under low oxygen concentrations) as models for the low-oxygen early Earth, prior to the Great Oxidation Event 2.4 billion years ago, as well as for the pre-Cambrian, when oxygen concentration was still relatively low (Biddanda, Nold, Dick, et al., 2012). That is an example of analogy working in the backward direction—a current condition (the source analogue) is used to illuminate the past (target). Analogues can also work in the forward direction: climate scientists use past climate change records to predict, controversially to be sure, what may happen in the future. Without analogical reasoning much of science would come to a standstill.

History offers the opportunity to study analogues to the societal impact of astrobiology in a variety of forms that apply to different scenarios. Analogues have most often been applied to contact scenarios with extraterrestrial intelligence (Table 12.1), but some of them, as well as others, may also be used for the discovery of microbial life. Examples of general analogues include: (a) the impact of new worldviews such as the Copernican and Darwinian, as applied to the discovery of both microbial and intelligent life; (b) historical culture contacts on Earth, and unforeseen consequences such as the so-called “Columbian exchange,” applied to both microbial and intelligent life scenarios; (c) the transmission of new ideas among cultures, as applied to information deciphered from a SETI signal; (d) cases where extraterrestrial life has been briefly considered a plausible scientific hypothesis, as in the discovery of pulsars, also apply to the intelligent life scenario.

A look at two of these general cases will suffice to illustrate the promise and perils of analogy: information derived from a SETI signal (case c) and the impact of new worldviews (case a), which might follow such a signal, but which could also apply to the discovery of microbial life. Assuming that a SETI signal is deciphered and significant information is transmitted, the flow if information between terrestrial civilizations across time finds a tantalizing analogue in the transmission of Greek and Arabic knowledge by way of the Arabs to the Latin West in the 12th and 13th centuries (Dick 1995). This is an example of what historian Arnold Toynbee, in his massive Study of History, called “encounters between civilizations in time” (Toynbee 1957, 241–260). “First a trickle and eventually a flood,” one historian of science wrote about this endeavor, “the new material radically altered the intellectual life of the West” (Lindberg 1992, 215). Western Europe, which had been struggling to keep the intellectual flame from being extinguished, now had to assimilate a torrent of new ideas (Grant 1971; Lindberg 1978, 1992). While we do not fancy our civilization analogous to the Middle Ages, the torrent of new ideas would be analogous to a significant flow of information from an extraterrestrial civilization to one probably less knowledgeable but eager to learn. The army of translators involved in the recovery of lost learning in the Middle Ages may find its analogy in the legions of scientists, cryptographers, linguists and others sure to participate in any attempt to decipher an extraterrestrial signal. The result of the newly recovered knowledge is a matter of record. Thomas Aquinas and other scholars, often with agendas of their own, attempted to reconcile the new Greek and Arabic knowledge with Christianity, and with current knowledge—such as it was. The result was the European Renaissance, which spread gradually through the continent. While one cannot guarantee a global terrestrial renaissance based on extraterrestrial knowledge (it might have an opposite and depressing effect), one can project with some certainty that personal and institutional agendas would play a role in deciphering and spreading the information.

Even assuming a message was not deciphered, and perhaps even in the case that microbial life was discovered constituting a “second Genesis,” a change in worldview would likely gradually take place. Such changes might be analogous to changes in cosmological worldview, exemplified in the Copernican worldview originated in the 16th century, or the “galactocentric” worldview of the 20th century, in which our solar system was demonstrated to be at the periphery of our Milky Way Galaxy, itself only one of billions of galaxies. The gradual acceptance of the Copernican theory, followed by its triggering of the Scientific Revolution and indeed its impact in all areas of human thought, has now been studied extensively (Kuhn 1957; Blumenberg 1987; Stimson 1972; Westman 1975, 2011). The Copernican theory eventually gave birth to a new physics, caused wrenching controversy in theology, and made the Earth a planet and the planets potential Earths. Gradually, and more broadly, it changed the way humans viewed themselves and their place in the universe. The galactocentric revolution, on the other hand, was more silent in nature. Astronomers celebrated the discovery, the press routinely reported it, and the general population went about its business as usual despite humanity’s slide from the center to the edge of the Galaxy (Bok 1974; Berenzden et al. 1976; Smith 1982). The long-term implications of both discoveries, however, continue to reverberate today in the form of the anthropocentric versus the de-centered worldviews (Danielson 2001, 2013).

Yet another relevant change in worldview was the Darwinian revolution, still very much with us as a controversy, especially among a minority segment of the American public. Like the Darwinian theory, the interpretation of an extraterrestrial signal is likely to be ambiguous and debatable, and the diverse reaction to such a signal may therefore be comparable. The details of that revolution are well known, thanks to the “Darwin industry” of scholars who have studied it. From the early general historical treatments of Darwinism to recent historical, philosophical and scientific analyses, the Darwin industry itself provides a model of scholarship likely to be precipitated by a discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. The debates over Darwinism raged over Europe and the Western world, and eventually over the entire world. Studies have shown how Darwin’s theory had distinctive impacts over the short term (Vorzimmer 1970) and the long term (Bowler 1989), and among scientists (Hull 1973), theologians and other segments of the population. The title of one of the studies, Science , Ideology and World View (Greene 1981) is likely to express succinctly the general tenor of the debate in the aftermath of the discovery of extraterrestrial life. The construction of worldviews and their influence on our thinking is a deep philosophical problem (Vidal 2007, 2012) that can likely be applied to this issue.

Analogues are also possible from fields outside history; one of the immediate analogues suggested for first contact was the meeting of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Ian Tattersall has argued that we are not justified in using modern humans as ethnographic analogues to make sense of Neanderthals: “When we look at homo neanderthalensis,” he observed “we are looking at a creature possessed of another sensibility entirely” (Tatersall 1995, 153). As Paul K. Wason observed, “Altogether, we might well expect any encounter between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons to have been a difficult and ineffective affair, fraught with misunderstanding” (Wason 2011, 44). While they may be right in terms of ethnographic analogues, as an analogue for physical first contact their description seems likely to be quite accurate—if only we had any data for the actual meeting of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens! Poorly understood or misused source analogues do not inspire confidence in illuminating target analogues.

Many other authors have written on the importance of analogy in both general and specific thinking; cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, for example, argues that analogy is the core of cognition: “One should not think of analogy-making as a special variety of reasoning (as in the dull and uninspiring phrase ‘analogical reasoning and problem-solving,’ a long-standing cliché in the cognitive-science world), for that is to do analogy a terrible disservice. After all, reasoning and problem-solving have (at least I dearly hope!) been at long last recognized as lying far indeed from the core of human thought. If analogy were merely a special variety of something that in itself lies way out on the peripheries, then it would be but an itty-bitty blip in the broad blue sky of cognition. To me, however, analogy is anything but a bitty blip—rather, it’s the very blue that fills the whole sky of cognition—analogy is everything, or very nearly so, in my view” (Hofstadter 2001, 499).

Analogies have been extensively analyzed as arguments and applied in other disciplines. A specific study 50 years ago, The Railroad and the Space Program: An Exploration in Historical Analogy, concluded that analogy is not predictive, but can be suggestive of the topology of the future (Mazlish 1965). Analogies abound not only in science (the Bohr atom and the solar system), but also in history, as in Cullen Murphy’s volume Are We Rome? (Murphy 2007), which by its very title indicates the inherent difficulties. Nevertheless, as Gaddis says “It’s here, I think, that science, history, and art have something in common: they all depend on metaphor, on the recognition of patterns, on the realization that something is ‘like’ something else” (Gaddis 2002, 2).

These ruminations indicate that the systematic application of analogy to the problem of the societal impact of extraterrestrial life is a field that may hold much promise. At the same time serious precautions are in order. First, analogical reasoning can be misleading. Examples are attempts to show that religion is analogous to science, or to spaceflight (Harrison 2007), or to SETI (Basalla 2006; Harrison 2007, 95 ff), or to Eastern mysticism and quantum mechanics (Capra 1975; Stenger 2011, 258). The often-heard analogy of the Book of Genesis compared to the details of the Big Bang theory has been thoroughly debunked (Stenger 2011, 122). These are often what I would call “polemical analogies,” and the goal of analogical argument should not be to polemicize but to illuminate. Secondly, as Denning (2013) warns in this volume, it is easy to get carried away with analogy, descending to a level of detail unlikely to be useful and maybe even irrelevant, if not downright harmful. We conclude analogy must not be so general as to be meaningless, nor so specific as to be misleading. The middle “Goldilocks” ground is where analogies may serve as useful guideposts. On the one hand it does little good to argue that science and religion are both searching for our place in the universe, when one addresses the natural world and the other invokes the supernatural—differences so great as to swamp any comparison whatsoever. On the other hand it is hopelessly naïve to expect that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence will change our worldview in ways precisely mirroring past revolutions in thought, leading us to reiterate our first principle above: under no circumstances will analogy predict the future.

In the end the skeptic may be left with a nagging doubt: just because analogy has proven useful in some areas of science and scholarship, how do we know if it is useful or valid in our particular problem of the societal impact of extraterrestrials? This is a meta-analogical problem, also discussed in considerable detail by philosophers (Bartha 2012). And again their results are encouraging for this particular endeavor.

2.3 The Utility of Past Impact Studies in Science and Technology

Substantial studies have been undertaken on the societal impact of other scientific endeavors such as the Human Genome Project, biotechnology, spaceflight, and cosmic evolution. Such studies should prove useful for the current problem, avoiding the reinvention of the wheel. The Human Genome Project literature notes that “The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted 3–5 % of their annual Human Genome Project (HGP) budgets toward studying the ethical, legal, and social issues (ELSI) surrounding availability of genetic information. This represents the world’s largest bioethics program, which has become a model for ELSI programs around the world” (Human Genome Project 2012). Among the societal concerns embraced for study were (1) conceptual and philosophical implications regarding human responsibility, free will versus genetic determinism, and concepts of health and disease; (2) fairness in the use of genetic information; (3) privacy and confidentiality of genetic information; (4) psychological impact and stigmatization due to an individual’s genetic differences; and (5) commercialization of products, including property rights and accessibility of data and materials. Huge amounts of money were spent analyzing these subjects. Surely a great deal may be learned from these studies and their approaches.

Less sweeping (and less well funded) studies have been undertaken in other areas. NASA has funded several of these, including on the societal impact of spaceflight (Dick and Launius 2007) and cosmic evolution (Dick and Lupisella 2009). Even closer to astrobiology’s core interests are planetary protection protocols, which are certainly studies of potential impact (Race 2007). In addition to these studies, which are relevant both for methodology and substance, “Biology and Society” program exist at several universities, and their approaches might well be applied to the present problem. We should be under no illusion that millions of dollars are going to be spent on the implications of extraterrestrial life—not, that is, until it is discovered, in which case the floodgates may open as they did with the Human Genome Project, now in the form of a practical problem rather than a theoretical one.

2.4 Extraterrestrial Life in the Context of Discovery and Exploration

The discovery of life beyond Earth would be one of the signal events in the history of science. History can help illuminate the nature of discovery, and one of the primary conclusions of historians of science working in this area is that discovery is an extended process, consisting of detection, interpretation and understanding, each with its own technological, conceptual and social roles (Kuhn 1962a, b; Caneva 2005; Dick 2013a). This extended process of discovery (Fig. 12.1) can take place over periods ranging from days to centuries. The discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether microbial or intelligent, is likely to follow a similar pattern. This “natural history” of discovery will help us understand possible scenarios.

Fig. 12.1
figure 1

Studies have shown that discovery in science is an extended process. For example, the discovery of any new class of astronomical object, whether in the realm of the planets, stars or galaxies, consists of detection, interpretation and understanding. Pre-discovery and post-discovery phases help to delimit discovery, and classification is common in both phases, based on phenomena in the first case, and on a real understanding of “the thing itself” in post-discovery, as illustrated here for stellar classification. The discovery of extraterrestrial microbial or intelligent life will likely follow a similar extended pattern. From Dick (2013a)

Full size image

Consider the discovery of microbial life: as we have seen with the Viking experiments (Dick 2013b), detection was only the first stage, followed by interpretation, which is still ongoing almost 40 years later, particularly with the Phoenix spacecraft discovery of perchlorates on Mars. We are likely a long way from understanding. Consider again the discovery of a signal from extraterrestrial intelligence. This is likely to entail the detection of an unusual narrow-band signal, followed by a more-or-less extended period of interpretation before understanding gels, perhaps many years later. Even then, and especially in the case of a signal with information content that can be deciphered, an even more extended period of study is likely to follow. As Philip Morrison has emphasized, the complex signal arriving at our radio telescope “is the object of intense socially required study for a long period of time. I regard it as a much more like the enterprise of history of science than like the enterprise of reading an ordinary message… The data rate will for a long time exceed our ability to interpret it.” He went on to say that “the recognition of the signal is the great event, but the interpretation of the signal will be a social task comparable to that of a very large discipline, or branch of learning…We could imagine the signal to have great impact—but slowly and soberly mediated” (Morrison 1973, 336–337). In this process, decipherments of past languages on Earth is likely to play a role, again by way of analogy.

Finally astrobiology pioneers like Morrison and Baruch Blumberg like to place astrobiology in the context of exploration. As Morrison said, “unlike most of science, this topic extends beyond the test of a well-framed hypothesis; here we try to test an entire view of the world, incomplete and vulnerable in a thousand ways. That has a proud name in the history of thought as well; it is called exploration. We are joined in the early ingenuous stages of a daring exploration, become real only during recent years. It is a voyage whose end we do not know, like that of science itself” (Morrison 1995 211). Similarly, Blumberg (2003) specifically compared astrobiology to the Lewis and Clark expeditions in the American tradition. This comparison should be analyzed in more detail, with an eye toward its usefulness in understanding the societal impact of astrobiology.

In summary, history can be useful in multiple ways in analyzing the societal impact of astrobiology. History grounds this study in what otherwise might be pure speculation. As problematic as analogy based on terrestrial history may be, like astrobiology science it gives substance to studies of the societal impact of what would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science, while at the same time adding to terrestrial history an element never before present—the possibility of extraterrestrial minds. Whether or not they exist, the possibility of such minds raises discussion of terrestrial issues in history, philosophy religion and the social sciences to a new level of generality, providing a perspective, and expanded conceptual spaces, otherwise lacking.

3 The Relevance of the Social Sciences

Aside from history, many other approaches may be taken to the problem of the impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial life. In particular, it would seem that the broader social sciences have the potential to illuminate a subject whose central concerns are, at least in the extraterrestrial intelligence mode, societies and cultural evolution, even if the setting happens to be extraterrestrial (Harrison et al. 2000). Even in the microbial life aspects of astrobiology, social scientists have specialized training that can provide insights into how humans react to particular ideas or events. Yet the social sciences have played little role in SETI and exobiology, even its broadened form represented by astrobiology. This undoubtedly reflects a variety of factors, including what C. P. Snow termed the “two cultures” phenomenon—the segregation of the natural and social sciences—as well as he increasing specialization already well developed in the early 1960s combined with the fact that there was no shortage of problems on Earth for social scientists to tackle. Thus, while the 1961 Green Bank conference on interstellar communication included astronomers, physicists, a biochemist, an engineer, and even a specialist on dolphin communication, no one represented the social sciences or humanities.

The social sciences are admittedly very broad, encompassing disciplines ranging from anthropology and archaeology to economics and political science, as well as sociology and psychology. Sometimes history is even included in the social sciences (as by the U. S. National Research Council), but more often it is considered as part of the humanities, as by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States. In any case there is a large amount of overlap between the humanities and the social sciences. For our purposes here we focus on anthropology and sociology as exemplars of the potential role of the social sciences in the problem of societal impacts of extraterrestrial life. They suffice to illustrate how the problem leaves a wide scope for interdisciplinary research. They also highlight the second principle stated in the introduction to this chapter, namely, that “society is not monolithic, implying many impacts depending on the religious, cultural and worldview aspects of each society.” Certainly this is one of the main lessons of anthropology, with its studies of the many cultures throughout terrestrial history. Finally, increasingly our knowledge of the cosmos may affect culture, including the social sciences (Dick and Lupisella 2009; Lupisella 2009).

3.1 Anthropology

Anthropologists can contribute to the problem of the societal impact of extraterrestrial life not only through their expertise in culture contact, cultural diffusion, and the evolution of technological civilization (Denning 2009, 2011b), but also in a more general way through their understanding of the impact of novel critical ideas and events on cultures. In this volume both Lowrie (2013) and Weigel and Coe (2013) make this point. Whether microbial or intelligent, the discovery of extraterrestrial life is certainly such an idea, with the event of actual discovery likely impacting very differently from the impact of possible discovery as it now stands.

Already in the early 1960s two roles had been identified for anthropology in the context of SETI: the study of human evolution models as analogies to extraterrestrial contact, and the study of the impact of such contact. In the first case two authors, one an anthropologist the other a mathematician, suggested an “analogy between prehistoric contact and exchange, and hypothesized extraterrestrial contact and exchange” (Ascher and Ascher 1963, 307). In the second case, a NASA-commissioned study published in 1961 warned that substantial contact could be seriously destablilizing: “Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior” (Committee on Science and Astronautics 1961, 215–216). Both studies are early exemplars of the problems and the promise of analogical thinking in the field.

The following decades saw sporadic SETI overtures to social science as well as sporadic overtures in the opposite direction. At a landmark international meeting on CETI (Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence), held in the Soviet Union in 1971, two anthropologists were included, as well as historian William H. McNeill of the University of Chicago (Sagan 1973). Their arguments with the natural scientists about the evolution of technological civilizations make for interesting reading, but almost by definition could not represent definitive conclusions. In the following decades at least token social science representation became quite common at gatherings where extraterrestrial intelligence was discussed, most notably at the series of workshops on SETI chaired by Philip Morrison in the mid-1970s. Part of that effort was a “workshop on cultural evolution” chaired by Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg and including anthropologist Bernard Campbell. Among the conclusions in the subsequent NASA volume was that “our new knowledge has changed the attitude of many specialists about the generality of cultural evolution from one of skepticism to a belief that it is a natural consequence of evolution under many environmental circumstances, given enough time” (Morrison et al. 1977, 49).

At about the same time the American Anthropological Association held a symposium resulting in a book entitled Cultures Beyond the Earth: The Role of Anthropology in Outer Space (Maruyama and Harkins 1975). It contained some new and sophisticated ideas, at least in outline, as well as an afterword by anthropologist Sol Tax, who noted that “Only when we have comparisons with species that are cultural in nonhuman ways –some of them maybe far more advanced than we—will we approach full understanding of the possibilities and limitations of human cultures” (203). This is similar to the point we made above, that even the possibility of such nonhuman ways opens new conceptual spaces for discussion.

In the 1980s Ben Finney, an anthropologist at the University of Hawaii, almost single-handedly took up the challenges of some of these cultural issues, including working with the SETI community (Finney and Jones 1985; Finney 1990, 2000). The “Cultural Aspects of SETI” workshops led by John Billingham, the head of the NASA SETI program, around the time of the inauguration of the NASA SETI observations in 1992, represent a coordinated effort to discuss broader social science issues (Billingham et al. 1999). Since then a few individuals have tackled SETI from the social science aspect, including Harrison (1997), Michaud (2007), and Denning (2009, 2011a, b, c), while Vakoch has led the way in bringing the issues to the attention of anthropologists at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Vakoch 2009). A recent overview of “social evolution” by Denning (2009) is particularly nuanced in discussing the problems and promise of the social sciences for SETI, while Battaglia (2009) has contributed substantially to this literature with her volume E.T. Culture : Anthropology in Outerspaces. Given these pioneering efforts, it is likely that more anthropologists will join the discussion, an outcome highly desired.

3.2 Sociology

The idea of extraterrestrial life has already had an impact on the public, as witnessed by some of the most popular films of all time, as well as by science fiction literature, the UFO debate, and public interest in the question of life on Mars. Many people seem predisposed to believe in extraterrestrial life in some form, at least 60 % in the U. S. according to polls, a rather astonishing fact given that only circumstantial evidence exists (in contrast to the case for Darwinian evolution). What is the source of the public “will to believe” in extraterrestrial life, at least in the Western world, and how does it compare to other cultures? What are the social factors that play into individual scientists’ belief in extraterrestrial life? What are the social factors that should enter into an interstellar message, and what are the possible universal factors?

These are the types of questions to which sociologists can contribute their expertise. Sociologist David Swift was in the forefront of this approach in his interviews with SETI pioneers (Swift 1990). William Sims Bainbridge has led in studying attitudes of the general public to extraterrestrials (Bainbridge 2011). And sociologists such as Donald Tarter have contributed to policy formulation for reply to extraterrestrials (Tarter 1996, 1997). Douglas Vakoch—a psychologist by training—has done more than anyone in applying social science principles to the problem of interstellar communication over the last two decades (Vakoch 1998, 1999).

More broadly a new discipline dubbed “astrosociology” has arisen in the last few years that addresses the societal impact of space exploration, including extraterrestrial life (Pass 2004, 2005, 2009, 2012). Astrosociology is defined as “the study of astrosocial phenomena, where astrosocial phenomena comprises a subset of all social, cultural, and behavioral phenomena… characterized by a relationship between human behavior and space phenomena.” As James Pass, the sociologist who coined the term in 2004, puts it, “the astrosociological perspective brings the social sciences into the space age by fostering the creation and development of a field dedicated to the study of the impact of space exploration” (Pass 2012).

The impact of astrobiology is an explicit part of this new field. As the founders of the field put it “Even without an announcement of success forthcoming in the near future, and even without consideration of the implications if such an announcement became a reality, the very attempt to seek out life in an organized manner merits the attention of astrosociologists from a number of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, and history. If this is the case, astrosociology must investigate this behavior along with the implications of long-term failure and success. The social and cultural implications of this work make it too important to ignore. In fact, it is imperative that astrosociologists participate alongside their space-community counterparts to attain comprehensive knowledge; both for its own sake and for practical application should some type of reaction prove necessary” (Pass 2012).

Other scholars have demonstrated the complex relation of space exploration to social, racial and political themes. One such study is De Witt Douglass Kilgore’s recent book Astrofuturism: Science , Race and Visions of Utopia in Space (Kilgore 2003). In this book Kilgore examines the work of Wernher von Braun, Willy Ley, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Gentry Lee, Gerard O’Neill and Ben Bova, among others in what he calls the tradition of American astrofuturism. Similar studies can be undertaken more explicitly for the theme of extraterrestrial life. Even more than anthropology, sociology remains ripe for pioneering explorations by expanding its conceptual space to extraterrestrials.

4 Impacts on Theology and Philosophy as Exemplars

In this section we switch our focus from approaches to the problem of studying the discovery of extraterrestrial life using history and the social sciences, to the substantive nature of its actual and potential impacts. As exemplars we address two disciplines: theology, one of the most discussed potential impacts, and philosophy, one of the least discussed. Together, they illustrate the profound effect our subject could have, not only on scientific endeavors, but on everyday life.

4.1 Theology

The question of the impact of extraterrestrial life on religion and theology has very deep roots, at least in the Western tradition. The problem was perceived already in the 15th century, in relation to the reconciliation of Christianity with the Aristotelian doctrine opposing a plurality of worlds. Most theologians by that time agreed that God could create other worlds. But if so, they wondered “whether Christ by dying on this earth could redeem the inhabitants of another world” (Dick 1982, 88). The standard answer was that he could, because Christ could not die again in another world. Very early in the Protestant tradition Martin Luther’s supporter, Philip Melanchthon, not only objected to such a speculative idea but also used it as an argument against the Copernican theory: “It must not be imagined that there are many worlds, because it must not be imagined that Christ died and was resurrected more often, nor must it be thought that in any other world without the knowledge of the Son of God, that men would be restored to eternal life” (Dick 1982, 88–89). For Copernicans of any religious persuasion, the problem was a thorny one that extended beyond specific religious doctrine. Kepler stated the conundrum already in the early 17th century in more general terms that might equally apply to other religions of the world: “If there are globes in the heavens similar to our earth, do we vie with them over who occupies a better portion of the universe? For if their globes are nobler, we are not the noblest of rational creatures. Then how can all things be for man’s sake. How can we be the masters of God’s handiwork?” (Dick 1996, 515).

These provocative Keplerian questions were still alive at the end of the 19th century, when H. G. Wells quoted them as the prelude to his novel War of the Worlds. By that time Christianity had explored these implications quite substantially. Despite Scriptural objections raised during the 17th century, by the early 18th century the Anglican priest and Royal Society Fellow William Derham reflected accepted theological opinion when he incorporated extraterrestrial life into natural theology; it is in the sense of inhabited worlds reflecting the magnificence of God‘s universe that Derham wrote his book Astro-Theology. The matter did not rest there, however. Thomas Paine bluntly stated in his 1793 Age of Reason (Dick 1996, 515–516) that extraterrestrials and Christianity did not mix, and that “he who thinks that he believes in both has thought but little of either.” In a history that would repay study by those interested in theological implications of an actual discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, during the 19th century some writers rejected Christianity, others rejected plurality of worlds, and still others found ways to reconcile the two (Crowe 1986, 1997).

The 20th century thus inherited a considerable discussion of the theological implications of extraterrestrial life, mostly within the Christian tradition, inspired by the mere possibility of intelligence beyond the Earth. Although the relation between theology and plurality of worlds occasionally reached the level of sustained debate in the 18 and 19th centuries, by the mid-20th century this controversy echoed only faintly in the background as scientists began to contemplate the possibility of a search for extraterrestrial intelligence. In the 20th century Derham’s “astrotheology” assumed new meaning in light of efforts to detect signals from extraterrestrial intelligence, efforts that, if successful, would surely affect traditional theology with its emphasis on the relation between God and humankind. Rather than focusing on confirming evidence of the glory of God in the best tradition of natural theology, astrotheology in the 20th century—or cosmotheology, as some have called it—came to describe the considerable modifications to theology and religion that might develop in the wake of the discovery of intelligence in the heavens.

While most religions would undoubtedly have preferred to remain silent on the subject, the issue was pushed into the public and theological consciousness by the approach of the Space Age. As Arthur C. Clarke, one of the prophets of the new Era, remarked in his popular book The Exploration of Space, some people “are afraid that the crossing of space, and above all contact with intelligent but non-human races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith. They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination—for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets” (Clarke 1951, 191). Religion could not for long avoid such a common-sense challenge, whose force could only increase as rocketry neared reality.

In Christianity, the doctrine of Incarnation has been a central focus of discussion, and the consensus has been that a discovery of intelligence beyond the Earth would not prove fatal to the religion or its theology. In general, for Christians as well as for other religions, indigenous theologians see little problem, while those external to religion proclaim the fatal impact of extraterrestrials on Earth-bound theologies (Peters 2009, 2011, 2013).

The Catholic version of Christianity, like the Protestant, was remarkably open-minded on the subject (Vakoch 2000). Father Daniel C. Raible was typical of this open-mindedness when he wrote in the wake of Project Ozma “Yes, it would be possible for the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to become a member of more than one human race. There is nothing at all repugnant in the idea of the same Divine Person taking on the nature of many human races. Conceivably, we may learn in heaven that there have been not one incarnation of God‘s son but many” (Raible 1960, 532–535). The Church also had an eye on history; quoting a cardinal that “one Galileo case is quite enough in the history of the Church,” an editorial in one Catholic journal suggested that “today’s theologians would welcome the implications that such a discovery might open—a vision of cosmic piety and the Noosphere even beyond that of a Teilhard de Chardin” (Anonymous 1964).

The most substantial theological discussion of the subject, and the closest the Roman Catholic Church came to an official position, was given by the priest Kenneth Delano in his book Many Worlds, One God (Delano 1977). Complete with the official “nihil obstat” and “imprimatur” sanctions, the author’s position was that any person with a religious faith including “an adequate idea of the greatness of God‘s creative ability, of humanity’s humble position in the universe, and of the limitless love and care God has for all His intelligent creatures,” should not be afraid to examine the implications of intelligence in the universe (Delano 1977, xv). Delano characterized the fears of some in the religious community with regard to extraterrestrials as analogous to early Church skepticism that any humans could live in the terrestrial “antipodes” because none of Adam’s descendants could have reached the Southern Hemisphere. Reacting to an early 20th century writer who claimed that “If he [man] is not the greatest, the grandest, the most important of created things, the one to whom all else is made to contribute, then the Bible writers have misrepresented entirely man’s relation to God and the universe” Delano (1977, 9) pointed out that God was not obliged to reveal extraterrestrials in the Bible when it would have served no moral purpose.

Delano further emphasized that the Space Age requires a theology that is neither geocentric nor anthropomorphic, and it therefore follows that the Earth may not be the only planet that has seen an incarnation: “Any one or all three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity may have chosen to become incarnated on one or more of the other inhabited worlds in the universe” (Delano 1977, 115). This he considered much more likely than a theory of the “cosmic Adam,” in which the single redemptive act by Christ on Earth is applicable to the entire universe. On the other hand, humanity’s “mission” could be to spread the Gospel among the inhabited planets, while refraining from any form of religious imperialism. The Church, while spreading the story of terrestrial redemption, might also encourage fallen races to seek salvation. Although Delano made it clear that Catholic opinion was not unanimous, he certainly reinforced the prevalent idea of flexibility toward a discovery of extraterrestrials in the Church doctrines.

The same flexibility was expressed in a study of religious implications of the problem for Jewish thought, where the primary concern was of course not the Incarnation, but the uniqueness of man and his relationship to God. Cautioning that extraterrestrial intelligence was far from proven, Rabbi Norman Lamm nevertheless pointed to precedents in medieval Jewish thought, and declared that in the spirit of open-mindedness toward new knowledge, it was prudent to explore “a Jewish exotheology, an authentic Jewish view of God and man in a universe in which man is not the only intelligent resident, and perhaps inferior to many other races” (Lamm 1978, 371). Medieval Jewish philosophy already rejected the uniqueness of man, Lamm pointed out, but non-singularity of man did not mean insignificance. Shapley and others, he argued, were “profoundly mistaken” in assuming that the number of intelligent species had any relation to the significance of man, and even more so in holding that a peripheral position in the galaxy implied metaphysical marginality and irrelevance. That “geography determines metaphysics” he called a “medieval bias” that should have disappeared with the collapse of geocentrism. Judaism, therefore, “could very well accept a scientific finding that man in not the only intelligent and bio-spiritual resident in God‘s world,” as long as the insignificance of man was not an accompanying conclusion. Man could still be considered unique in “spiritual dignity,” and the existence of innumerable intelligences does not lessen God‘s attention to man.” A God who can exercise providence over one billion earthmen,” Lamm concluded, “can do so for ten billion times that number of creatures throughout the universe. He is not troubled, one ought grant, by problems in communications, engineering, or the complexities of cosmic cybernetics. God is infinite, and He has an infinite amount of love and concern to extend to each and every one of his creatures” (Lamm 1978, 364).

Internal to various religions, therefore, the consensus was that terrestrial religions would adjust to extraterrestrials, an opinion echoed in several studies of religious attitudes (Ashkenazi 1992; Peters 2009, 2011). And, as one of the studies also pointed out, if the “Adamist religions” of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—those that share a view of the creation of man that links him directly to the godhead—can survive extraterrestrials, non-Adamist religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism or Taoism should have no trouble.

No systematic astrotheology was developed in the 20th century in the sense that new theological principles were created, or existing ones formally modified, to embrace other moral agents in the universe. While Freeman Dyson among others have argued that the age-old mystery of God will be little changed by new knowledge of the universe, others argue that the new universe not only could, but should, lead to a new “cosmotheology” (a term first used by Immanuel Kant), or a new “cosmophilosophy.” Among the elements such a cosmotheology must take into account are (1) that humanity is in no way physically central to the universe, but located on a small planet circling a star on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy; (2) that humanity is probably not central biologically, even if our morphology may be unique; (3) that humanity is likely somewhere near the bottom, or at best midway, in the great chain of being—a likelihood that follows from the age of the universe and the youth of our species; (4) that we must be open to radically new conceptions of God grounded in cosmic evolution, including the idea of a “natural” rather than a “supernatural” God; and (5) that it must have a moral dimension, and respect for life that includes all species in the universe (Dick 2000c).

Each of these elements of cosmotheology provides vast scope for elaboration. Perhaps the most radical consequences stem from the fourth principle stating that we must be open to new conceptions of God, stemming from our advancing knowledge of cosmic evolution and the universe in general. As the God of the ancient Near East stemmed from ideas of supernaturalism, our concept of a modern God could stem from modern ideas divorced from supernaturalism. The billions of people attached to current theologies may consider this no theology at all, for a transcendent God above and beyond nature is the very definition of their theology. The supernatural God “meme,” which we should remember is an historical idea the same as any other, has been very efficient in spreading over the last few thousand years, picking up new memes such as those accepted by Christianity and other religions. Nonetheless, the idea of a “natural” God in the sense of a superior intelligence is appealing to some. A natural God need not intervene in human history, nor be the cause for religious wars such as witnessed through human history. It remains an open question whether a natural God fulfills the apparent need that many have for “the Other”. Such a “God” is different enough from tradition concepts that some may wish to call it a cosmophilosophy rather than a cosmotheology. In any case some will see it as an important part of religious naturalism. Over the next centuries or millennia, religions will likely adjust to these cosmotheological principles.

Although the mere possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence has thus generated sporadic attempts at a universal theology, systematic astrotheology, or cosmotheology, will probably be developed only when—and if—intelligence is discovered beyond the Earth. In the meantime, merely posing the problem demonstrates the anthropocentricity of our current conceptions of religion and theology, and suggests that they should be expanded beyond their parochial terrestrial bounds. Though theologians have gone some way toward addressing Clarke’s challenge, even the theological legacy of the Space Age in a broader sense is as yet unfulfilled. And as C. S. Lewis suggested in his trilogy of space novels, if extraterrestrials are actually discovered, the problem will become much more urgent.

In the end, the effect on theology and religion may be quite different from any impact on the narrow religious doctrines that have been discussed during the 20th century. It may be that in learning of alien religions, of alien ways of relating to superior beings, that the scope of terrestrial religion will be greatly expanded in ways that we cannot foresee.

4.2 Philosophy

Related to this issue of impacts is the question of how philosophy itself would change if we confirm the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. An historical approach to this question might ask how philosophers viewed the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the context of their philosophy, or conversely how a belief in extraterrestrial life has historically affected philosophy. As Crowe (1986) has shown, Immanuel Kant and many others believed in extraterrestrials and this belief was in the background of their respective philosophies.

A forward-looking approach would ask how standard philosophical problems would be affected by the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Philosophers have not been quick to address such questions, despite an early call in 1971 by Lewis White Beck to do so (Beck 1985), and sporadic efforts in that direction (Regis 1985). The problem of “objective knowledge,” for example, is one of the oldest problems of philosophy, and forms a branch of that field known “epistemology,” the nature, origin, scope, and limits of human knowledge. Hume, Kant and many other classical philosophers had much to say about the relation between the mind and external reality, as do modern philosophers. Nor is this an abstruse academic argument; the long-running “science wars” embody the question in the form of postmodernism and the social constructionism debate, one element of which claims that science, like everything else, is socially constructed, and thus there is no objective knowledge. While this seems to me very questionable in the terrestrial context, the epistemological question takes on new meaning in the context of extraterrestrial biologies and minds.

Contact with extraterrestrial intelligence would provide a major insight into the question of objective knowledge on a universal, not just a terrestrial, scale. The basic question is, “Do humans and putative extraterrestrials perceive the universe in the same way?” There are three cases in comparative terrestrial and extraterrestrial perception: (1) complete overlap, (2) partial overlap, and (3) zero overlap, graphically shown in Fig. 12.2. On one level, these sets may be taken to represent terrestrial and extraterrestrial knowledge, but more deeply they represent terrestrial and extraterrestrial ways of perceiving. Case 1, in which ETI perceives the same electromagnetic spectrum as we do, processes the information in the same way, and comes to the same conclusions, holds out hope for easy dialogue and objective agreement. Case 2, in which there may be differences to a greater or lesser degree in sensory organs and mental processes, implies some common basis for dialogue. In case 3, with no senses or mental processes in common, there may be no possibility of dialogue or objective knowledge. Vakoch has suggested a dialogue chain, in which partially overlapping mental structures may eventually enable dialogue (Billingham 2000a, b; Dick 2000a).

Fig. 12.2
figure 2

Possible scenarios in the relationship between extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and terrestrial intelligence (TI). The Venn diagrams may be taken as mental structure or modes of perceiving and thinking. In case 1 these overlap entirely, in which case dialogue may be relatively “easy.” In case 2 they may overlap only partially, yielding some common basis for dialogue. In case 3 there is no overlap at all, in which case there is no overlap at all and thus no dialogue at all. In case 4 a “dialogue chain” of partially overlapping mental structures may eventually enable dialogue

Full size image

The possibility exists that contact with extraterrestrial intelligence will result in the long-sought objective knowledge, by gleaning the common elements remaining after processing many sensory and mind systems independently evolved throughout the universe. Yet with few exceptions (Minsky 1985; Rescher 1985), no one has taken up the fundamental problem of objective knowledge in the extraterrestrial context. The problem is, however, central, for it bears on the possibility of communication, on the role of language, and on those aspects of the universe that have the possibility of verification. Knowledge must be distinguished from belief, which may have no basis in the objective world; one would not expect extraterrestrial religious belief, for example, to take the same form as on Earth, though the existence of God may be an objective question. If contact is successful, a major task over the next millennium will be to synthesize the knowledge of many worlds. The nature of this task will depend greatly on which of the three cases above turns out to be most common among galactic civilizations.

In summary, as in all astrobiological endeavors, we are only at the beginnings of a great investigation, perhaps a new field of study. At the turn of the 21st century, the societal impact of extraterrestrial life is the subject of increasing scholarship, even if a long way from coalescing with consensual conclusions. In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of astrobiology, the humanities and social sciences have a prominent role to play. Surely, just as we plan for events large and small in the everyday world, it is better to plan ahead and lay out the scenarios of what might happen in the case of such a momentous event as the discovery of life beyond Earth.

5 Overview of Part III

In this section five authors deal with anthropological aspects of extraterrestrial life, one with media reactions, and two with theological reactions. In what has become, surprisingly but understandably, a central point of contention in this volume, anthropologist/archaeologist Kathryn Denning (2013) argues that the use of historical analogies of culture contacts on Earth may be “essentially useless or perhaps worse than useless,” that predictions about contact on this basis are impossible and likely harmful, and that the humanities and social science scholars might better use their time to examine other issues at the intersection of astrobiology, SETI and society. She recognizes what is surely true—that the source analogue (contact among cultures on Earth) is often not well understood, that some authors have used this erroneous history uncritically in attempts to shed light on the target analogue (contact with extraterrestrials), and that as a first step the history of culture contacts on Earth must be better understood. But she then asks a more fundamental question: even with better history, what is the value of this activity at all? Though she points to some possibly better cases of source analogues, such as the transmission of Greek and Arabic knowledge to the Latin West via the Arabs in the 13th century (discussed above), or the decipherment of Mayan glyphs as discussed in Finney and Bentley (1998), she suggests that all such activity is likely fruitless, at least if it is elaborated in ever more subtle detail, detail that is unlikely to be mirrored between the source and target analogue.

The other four anthropologists beg to differ, either implicitly or explicitly. While admitting the limitations of analogical argument, they believe it is still a useful, even a crucial, methodology for discussing the societal impact of discovering extraterrestrial life in the absence of other data. Ian Lowrie (2013) argues that by approaching the anthropological record of culture contact “with different epistemological premises, and shifting the focus from the material to the symbolic and cognitive dimensions of this contact, one can avoid many of the pitfalls of the analogical mode of argumentation, and provide a solid conceptual basis for the development of an adequate heuristic.” In particular, he argues that historical and contemporary events will not mirror each other (a claim no serious scholar makes), but that modes of conceptualizing novel objects and phenomena would be the most profitable approach to the problem. To put it another way, he suggests we move away from the dynamics of contact to its conceptual and symbolic dimensions.

Klara Capova (2013) argues that our current perceptions of extraterrestrial contact, largely shaped not mostly by science but by science fiction and popular culture, will affect our reaction to the actual discovery. She characterizes it as a significant part of the modern worldview, what Karl Guthke 20 years ago called “the myth of modern times,” using myth to mean that which culture holds to be part of its overarching worldview (Guthke 1990). In this she is in agreement with Denning’s view that “contact has now been rehearsed so many times in popular culture that these representations and their dissemination in new media will be influential beyond almost any other factor” (Denning 2011a, 2013). Capova furthermore emphasizes how polls indicate belief in some form of “other life,” whether microbial, humanoid or postbiological, hovers around 50 % of those populations polled. The idea about “other life,” in the vast majority of that 50 %, is not informed by science but by the tropes of popular culture, ranging from belief in UFOs to themes in alien literature and film.

M. Margaret Weigel and Kathryn Coe (2013), also embracing analogical methodology, outline strategies honed by humans over millennia in response to threatening events, and then apply the results to the impact on developing countries of the detection of life beyond Earth. Drawing on a broad social science literature as well as on their own fieldwork, they find the strategies for coping with such events in developing countries (tsunamis, floods, volcanic eruptions; culture contacts; supposed contact with supernatural or celestial beings) include stories, rituals, song and dance that are passed down through many generations. The authors comment “The use of analogies to describe comparable events and the appropriate response made it possible to preserve an important and attractive lesson, transmitting it from one generation to the next, over a great many generations. This transmission and replication allowed ancestors to protect, consciously or unconsciously, multiple generations of their descendants.” Their conclusions about the response to novel events are unusual in applying to the “traditional societies” found in developing countries, which they point out encompasses 85 % of the human population, in contrast to the developed countries usually discussed in this context. They go one step further in proposing a data-gathering program among these traditional societies, but also an education/preparedness program following the general principles of public health.

In contrast to Denning (2013), all these authors make the point, as have we in this chapter, that prediction of societal reaction to the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether microbial or intelligent, is impossible, but that analogy employing Earth history can nevertheless serve as a useful guide when appropriate precautions are taken. Denning’s title “Impossible Predictions of the Unprecedented: Analogy, History, and the Work of Prognostication,” therefore seems to set up a straw man. The analogical process is not about prediction or prognostication, but about laying out a set of scenarios. Her call for precaution is well-taken, as well as her points about how stories about “superior” cultures contacting “inferior” cultures can often be wrong. But those stories can be, and to the extent possible are being, corrected by historians, anthropologists and social scientists, and in any case, culture contacts on Earth are likely not the best analogies, since contact would likely not be physical. It is arguably better to discuss possible scenarios with the best available information and approaches than to throw up our hands and say “nobody knows.” As Denning points out, archaeology is largely an analogical enterprise; however, it is nevertheless a thriving and intellectually viable field. So too can be the study of the societal impact of discovering extraterrestrial life.

Analogy aside, other approaches exist to discussing societal impact, as exemplified in the two authors in this section who discuss religious reactions, Constance Bertka and Ted Peters. Concentrating on Christianity, which constitutes one-third of the world’s religious communities, Bertka (2013) emphasizes the difficulties of generalizing about the Christian response to the discovery of life beyond Earth. She writes that “The variety in Christianity worldwide, both at the denominational level as well as at the level of individual experience, and the variety of options for relating science and religion, will combine to insure that integrating what SETI or astrobiology learns about the universe into Christian worldviews will at minimum be a long and convoluted process with more than one likely outcome.” Moreover, she points out that academic conclusions on this subject among both astrobiologists and theologians are likely to differ from public responses. She points to a comprehensive study showing that over the last century the distribution of Christianity has dramatically shifted from the Global North (North America, Europe, Australia, Japan and New Zealand) to the Global South (Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia–Pacific, and Latin America). In the Global North, she points out, there is a well-developed typology for the relationship between science and religion, including conflict, independence, dialogue, and integration (Barbour 1997). This raises the question of whether there is any correlation between a person’s idea of the relation between science and religion, and their response to extraterrestrial life, since a person who believes that science and religion are two non-overlapping areas could well have a different opinion than those who believe, for example, that science and religion are in conflict. In the case of the Global South, the more basic question of the responses of Christians to the idea of life beyond Earth remains uncharted territory, since that entire area is underrepresented in astrobiologial discourse.

Peters (2013) takes a broader view and deploys a different methodology, drawing on responses to his “ETI Religious Crisis Survey” that encompassed Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Jews, Mormons, Buddhists and those who self-identify as non-religious. He finds that in all cases those outside religious traditions believe the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence will precipitate a religious crisis, even the extinction of religion, while those who affirm religious belief think extraterrestrials can be incorporated into their world view. As Berka points, out, however, the questions of Peters’ survey are sufficiently general so as to give no indication of “whether or not the respondents have considered the implications of discovery for the doctrines of their religious traditions in any depth, or if at the conclusion of that exercise they are confident that they can successfully ‘integrate’ the implications of ETI into their existing religious tradition.” If they believe science and religion are independent endeavors addressing non-overlapping matters, no reflection on implications for specific doctrines is required. Moreover, as is well-known, a notoriously shortcoming of polls is that the wording of the questions matters greatly. Had the respondents been asked whether they believe in a planet-hopping Jesus, which is at the core of the matter for Christians in the form of the doctrines of Redemption and Incarnation, the results would likely have been significantly different.

Finally, in this section Morris Jones (2013) makes the valid point that the distribution of the news of the discovery of extraterrestrial life will affect public reactions and behavior. Focusing on media and communications behavior, he emphasizes the important role of the new social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as opposed to the mainstream media, not only in disseminating the news of discovery, but also in shaping the message and amplifying errors and distortions. Covering a wide variety of issues ranging from the changing media environment to crisis management, Jones concludes that the preparation of an appropriate media strategy is likely essential to the dissemination of accurate reporting in the event of the discovery of extraterrestrial life. This is surely a burning issue for those who hold out hope that the societal impact of such an Earth-shattering discovery may in some sense be controlled.