Steven Dick , a famed uranologist and historian , has completed a one - twelvemonth abidance at the Library of Congress , search his next Good Book , How the Discovery of Life Will transubstantiate Our Thinking . In an exclusive consultation posted on the Library ’s blog , he discusses such provocative egress as organic evolution on a cosmic plate .
[ figure : NASA ]
Theentire interviewis deserving read in full , but here are some highlights :
Could the discovery of something as tiny as a bug have a seismic burden ?
When we imagine we found fossils in a Mars rock-and-roll in 1996 , it had huge effect . So imagine the discovery of living bacterium .
As part of my research this past class I ’ve looked into the nature of discovery . Discovery is an extended process , which consists of sensing , rendition , and understanding . If and when we happen upon life beyond Earth , it ’s going to be an extended appendage . By studying the history of past discoveries , we can gain sixth sense into how future discoveries may unfold . It ’s the same pattern each metre : detection , follow by a long period of interpretation until , in the end , we understand what it is . It ’ll take a period of years to live what we really ascertain .
Would the change in our thinking unfold over a similar extended period ?
Absolutely . The shock will take place over a tenacious period of time . I ’ve used the analogy of finish tangency , wonderfully documented here at the Library of Congress , to help in this regard . It ’s not a direct doctrine of analogy , of course , but there are stack of interesting insights reveal when you examine what Europeans think the Native Americans would be like , and frailty versa .
There are insidious lessons : problems in communication , how different brains or minds perceive experience based on powerfully held ethnical beliefs and norms . This analogy more pertains to the likely discovery of levelheaded animation . I consider we ’re much too sanguine about our power to communicate with any possible healthy life beyond Earth .
Suppose we discover bacteria at the bottom of a lake on Titan . How do we fit that into our understanding of evolution and natural selection ? How do we incorporate cosmic evolution into our scientific way of mentation ?
Everything in the universe is evolve , and has been since the Big Bang 13.8 billion days ago . Biological evolution is one local example of cosmic evolution . We know the population is evolving physically ; we live specie evolve biologically ; and we know culture develop .
If the universe is biologic and culture develop , then you get into the concept of post - biologicals . perchance biological life-time is just a passing phase in the universe , and what we ’re looking for out there is quite unlike from biological sprightliness ?
But to your interrogation , I see no reason why phylogenesis by natural selection would not be straight elsewhere in the universe . If we find bacterium in a hydrocarbon lake on Titan , a moon of Saturn , I believe it would have evolved under natural selection , which means it will have evolved under the conditions of its natural habitat . We ’re search for a general biology and we ’re looking for principles , and I believe the phone number one universal biological principle throughout the creation would be natural selection .
study the relaxation of the consultation at theLibrary of Congress .
AstrobiologyBiologyEvolutionScienceSpace
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