This book addresses important current and historical topics in astrobiology and the search for life beyond Earth, including the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The first section covers the plurality of worlds debate from antiquity through the nineteenth century, while section two covers the extraterrestrial life debate from the twentieth century to the present. The final section examines the societal impact of discovering life beyond Earth, including both cultural and religious dimensions. Throughout the book, authors draw links between their own chapters and those of other contributors, emphasizing the interconnections between the various strands of the history and societal impact of the search for extraterrestrial life.
The chapters are all written by internationally recognized experts and are carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute.
This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand the meaning of astrobiology and SETI for our human society.
Author(s): Michael J. Crowe, Matthew F. Dowd (auth.), Douglas A. Vakoch (eds.)
Series: Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 376
Tags: Astrobiology; Life Sciences, general; History of Science; Cross Cultural Psychology; Religious Studies; Sociology, general
Front Matter....Pages i-xxviii
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Antiquity to 1900....Pages 3-56
Early Modern ET, Reflexive Telescopics, and Their Relevance Today....Pages 57-72
Extraterrestrial Life as the Great Analogy, Two Centuries Ago and in Modern Astrobiology....Pages 73-83
Hegel, Analogy, and Extraterrestrial Life....Pages 85-101
The Relationship Between the Origins of Life on Earth and the Possibility of Life on Other Planets: A Nineteenth-Century Perspective....Pages 103-113
Pioneering Concepts of Planetary Habitability....Pages 115-129
Front Matter....Pages 131-131
The Twentieth Century History of the Extraterrestrial Life Debate: Major Themes and Lessons Learned....Pages 133-173
The Creator of Astrobotany, Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov....Pages 175-185
Life Beyond Earth and the Evolutionary Synthesis....Pages 187-199
The First Thousand Exoplanets: Twenty Years of Excitement and Discovery....Pages 201-212
Extraterrestrial Life in the Microbial Age....Pages 213-224
Front Matter....Pages 225-225
The Societal Impact of Extraterrestrial Life: The Relevance of History and the Social Sciences....Pages 227-257
Cultural Resources and Cognitive Frames: Keys to an Anthropological Approach to Prediction....Pages 259-269
The Detection of Extraterrestrial Life: Are We Ready?....Pages 271-281
Impact of Extraterrestrial Life Discovery for Third World Societies: Anthropological and Public Health Considerations....Pages 283-299
Impossible Predictions of the Unprecedented: Analogy, History, and the Work of Prognostication....Pages 301-312
Mainstream Media and Social Media Reactions to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life....Pages 313-328
Christianity’s Response to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life: Insights from Science and Religion and the Sociology of Religion....Pages 329-340
Would the Discovery of ETI Provoke a Religious Crisis?....Pages 341-355
Back Matter....Pages 357-375
