Klara Anna Capova

The Detection of Extraterrestrial Life: Are We Ready?

This chapter offers a sociocultural perspective on the scientific search for life beyond Earth. It sheds light on the ways in which alien life is imagined and theorized in order to assess the possible societal response to the detection of other life. This chapter is based on the findings of research conducted over two years in the UK, which conceptualizes the extraterrestrial life hypothesis as a significant part of the general worldview, constantly shaped by the work and discoveries of science. Based on these data, the chapter offers insights into the current Western concepts of other life as understood, perceived, and interpreted by the scientific community and popular culture. The post-detection scenarios currently discussed deal mostly with a profound cultural shock following discovery of a superior extraterrestrial civilization. In contrast, the most recent scientific quest for other life now operates with a distinctly different concept of extraterrestrial life that ushers in other possible reactions to a detection or a contact. To establish current concepts of other life then seems to be crucial for predicting the societal response to a first contact. The chapter presents an overview of multiple conceptions of other life in science and science fiction to outline the potential variety of responses. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that the societal readiness and overall acceptance of the other life hypothesis needs to be taken into account and that the actual response to the discovery of other life will be determined by the actual form or type of life detected. This chapter will present examples from science fiction and other ethnographic material collected during fieldwork to demonstrate how popular culture has adapted the other life idea and how the presupposed other life is perceived.

Astrobiology and Society in Europe

There is only, as we know it, one planet with life—our own Earth. However, current research in astrobiology searches for a second sample of a living world. Astrobiology, which concerns the origin, evolution, and future of life here on Earth and beyond, has become a rapidly expanding research field during the last two decades. European researchers are playing a leading role. Thousands of planets in other solar systems have been discovered. Knowledge about life’s evolutionary origin, and its requirements and environmental conditions have expanded considerably. It is not unlikely that one day—some say that this could happen within the next few decades—we will discover evidence of the existence of another living planet. Living or fossilized microbes could be found within our Solar System, or we could find signs of biological processes on planets in other solar systems. But even if this never happens, astrobiological research will still give us a new understanding of how life emerged on our planet, how it evolved, and what environmental conditions it needs in order to survive. In all, current and future research in astrobiology will change the view of how humans look at themselves, what it means to be a human, to be alive, to survive, where we come from, and where we are heading (Fig. 2.1). Astrobiology has clear existential implications, but beyond these, it also has concrete cultural, ethical, societal, educational, political, economic, and legal consequences. How will the general public react if we discover life on another planet? What pedagogic role can astrobiology play in elementary and higher education? To what extent should we utilise space for commercial and industrial purposes? How should this be politically managed and how should it be legally regulated? This White Paper on the societal implications of astrobiology research in Europe, which is a joint interdisciplinary effort of Working Group 5 within the COST Action TD1308 “Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth and in the Universe”, aims to gather together these challenges and implications, and in so doing lay the ground for a European Astrobiology Institute.

Technological Innovation and Commerce

Technological innovation is partly a result of high-end research. Such research is the outcome of merged efforts between scientists coming from theoretical, experimental, and engineering disciplines when they aim to answer significant open questions. Sometimes, the direct goal is the provision of new services or products, very often with a commercial value.

Science and Research

Astrobiology is one of the new multidisciplinary research fields of the 21st Century requiring collaborations across the physical sciences—astronomers, chemists, geologists, physicists—as well as people from the biosciences and, as discussed in this chapter, the humanities and social sciences. Astrobiology has a along and distinguished history in Europe though only in last decade has it develop its identity as a robust and independent field, one that will be further developed by new structures, such as the European Astrobiology Institute. This chapter looks at how astrobiology will develop in Europe and provide new career paths for next generation of researchers.

Society, Worldview and Outreach

As well as impinging upon issues of law and governance, astrobiology is also bound up with questions concerning who we are and where we come from, worldview questions of a more existential and philosophical sort. The questions that it seeks to tackle have, for centuries, been central to the humanities and to social science disciplines.