Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Hawking: Unintelligent life is likely on other planets
I was just watching the movie Alien Vs. Predator, a must see for those who haven't already watched it, when I stumbled upon this article. Recently famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking spoke at George Washington University regarding life on other planets. Hawking stated that life is likely on other planets, but it may not necessarily be intelligent. Overall, this article was very interesting as it also relayed the idea of being able to communicate throughout the galaxy.
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5 comments:
Haha, this brings up a whole NEW unit of science communication! Communication among intelligent species!
Seriously, though, I think that it would be interesting to look at figures like Stephen Hawking and what they've done for science communication. Hawking is a renowed academic, theoretical physicist and cosmologist-- who also has published bestselling science fiction novels and other popular literature. Nearly everybody's heard of Stephen Hawking for his achievements-- I think he's a boon to the distribution of science knowledge, getting people interested and eager to learn more.
In another one of my classes, a recent guest speaker also made similar claim to Hawking: life is very likely beyond our planet's realm. However, he was much less well-received than Hawking. Many of the students doubted his credibility and ridiculed his overall presentation simply on the grounds that he was speaking about such an abstract topic. What makes Hawking's claims more realible? Is it simply because of his longstanding reputation in this field? Maybe I shouldn't have transferred from GW to find out for myself...
It would seem logical that there would be extraterrestrial life, considering how small earth is in the context of the universe. I also appreciate Hawking’s sense of humor. Obviously, the man is brilliant, but he also breaks the subject matter down into non-technical language. In this case, there is no intermediary, and it is hard to distort genuine science when a leading scientist in the field of cosmology is presenting the newest research and theories. On a side note, after reading the article I “Wikipedia’d” Hawking and discovered that he never took notes as a student – so there is hope for me!
I think this issue about unintelligent life is very interesting and brings up some questions. If there is unintelligent life, then will it have no effect on us in the future? Is it something worth looking into if we already believe there are only unintelligent beings outside of earth? I believe there is unintelligent life but I also do not doubt that there is intelligent life somewhere else out there. If so, do we need to figure out a way to get to them before they can get to us?
Another interesting point raised by a previous comment, is what audiences tend to believe. If some unknown scientist had made this claim, would it have had the same effect? Probably not, and this leads to the idea that we tend to believe people based on status and popularity. Stephen Hawking is a very intelligent man, but he is just making this claim out of his own beliefs. Do people only go along with this because he has gained their trust in being an intelligent, well-known scientist? It is funny how communication from different people can cause different effects on their audiences, even if they have the same ideas. This shows how communication is erratic and can not have one correct way.
Stephen Hawking is a well reknown and respected scientist while the idea of extraterrestrial life is often ridiculed and dismissed. I wonder what considerations went into Hawking's decision to publicize this comment and whether or not it has hurt his credibility within the science community at all.
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