Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication
natural and social scientists. The three recommendations produced by the history group (which included historians John Heilbron, Steven Dick, Karl Guthke, Jill Conway, and Ken Kenniston; anthropologist Ben Finney; and SETI scientist Kent Cullers) are relevant here: 1. It is important that NASA study appropriate analogies drawn from earlier human experience, while emphasizing that they are rough guides for thinking about SETI and not precise predictors of the future. 2. Study should be concentrated on analogies based on the transmission of ideas within and between cultures in preference to analogies based on physical encounters. 3. NASA’s educational programs should place SETI within the historical context of humankind’s effort to comprehend its place in the universe and to understand the nature and possibility of other intelligent life.23 The second recommendation, in particular, posed a challenge to the conventional thinking that radio contact with ETI would be analogous to physical culture contacts on Earth, an idea elaborated at a bioastronomy conference in 1993, the year following the conference.24 A few individuals have tackled SETI from the social science perspective. In After Contact: The Human Response to Extraterrestrial Life, psychologist Albert Harrison led the way, showing how fields such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology can be used as an aid to thinking about implications of contact, an approach that may be generalized to astrobiology. In particular he advocates an approach called Living Systems Theory, in which what we know about organisms, societies, and supranational systems on Earth can be used to discuss the outer-space analogues of aliens, alien civilizations, and the galactic club. While he does not himself tackle the anthropological aspects, Harrison recognizes their potential role.25 Canadian futurist Allen Tough has undertaken research on the impact of “high-information” contact with extraterrestrials and has encouraged such
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