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Discussion 2: The nineteenth century

Page history last edited by Spencer Whiting 15 years, 5 months ago

In the nineteenth century the extraterrestrial life debate gained a lot of popularity. There was an enormous number of books and articles written from both sides of the debate that helped to fuel its popularity. Specific examples of this include Thomas Chalmers and the famous Moon Hoax.  Chalmers brought the debate into the forefront of religious thought by using plurality as a major point in many of his sermons in the Evangelic Movement. The Moon Hoax grabbed people's attention, and caused them to keep on imagining even after it was revealed to be a misunderstanding.

 

In the second half of the 19th century, new technology and the subsequent new data and findings destroyed a lot of the optimism of the first half of the century and earlier. Because of this the argument about plurality had an increased sophistication, even though the essence of the argument was still the same as it had been earlier.

 

     There were many changes in science that also caused many changes in the way people argued the issue. Geology showed us that the earth was much older than we thought, which caused the "waste of space" argument to be refuted by the "waste of time" argument of Whewell. If there had been so much time in the universe where we didn't exist, it wasn't too much to say that there didn't need something to occupy every single place. Astrophysics showed us that the stars are made of the same elements as the earth, which helps the pro-pluralists by showing that the earth is not special in this regard. Astrophysics also shows us that many of the nebula that were assumed groups of stars were actually cloudy patches.  Wallace argued that the solar system was the center of the Milky Way, therefore one of the most stable systems, with systems getting more unstable at the edges. This made the earth special again; an argument for anti-plurality.

 

Evolutionary ideas: The many steps required for production of animals/plants, etc. on the Earth are too complex to be replicated again. Also, man does not fit in with natural selection according to Wallace. So intelligent life would not occur on other planets in that fashion.

 

      Wallace's argument was based of of the The Anthropic Principle which stated that the universe is "made" in such a way that it is designed for intelligent life. This includes the atmospheric pressure, distance from sun, as well as all of Wallace's conditions for intelligent life. Considering these conditions, and the idea that they must exist in a certain way for life to be sustained, everything in our universe worked in such a way just to support life. It would be extremely unlikely that another system could produce such conditions such as ours. Wallace even mentions that if such conditions did occur on another planet, intellegent life didn't necessarily have to develop. Even with the possibility of having planets our there that could support life doesn't make them exist.

 

     There were many similarities and differences between Whewell and Wallace.  The first and biggest similarity is that they were both anti-pluraists in a time where a majority of people believed in pluralism. Both have arguments that used science. Wallace used evolution to argue against pluralism, specifically he believed that it was not possible to recreate life as it is on Earth because there are too many variations. Whewell used geology to argue that Earth was much older than we previously thought and humans did not appear until very recently, if there was such a waste of time then why couldn't there be a huge waste of space and us be alone in the universe.  Whewell uses "rhetoric" and more philopshical arguments such as inverting natural theological, and asking why the Earth cannot be special. Despite their scientific arguments, both have religious motivations but Whewell was much more explicit. They also had many differences in their beliefs and thoughts on why plurality is not possible.  Whewell believed in an infinite universe; whereas Wallace believed in a finite universe.

 

Impact of W/W: gave pluralist arguments a "reality check." More to consider than the simple analogies of past arguments. Search is now focussed on Mars, because of what astronomy tells us of the condition of the other planets. Move debate from speculative thought to arguments based on what the sciences tell us about the universe. Whewell argues; that religion isn't a good form of argument for or against.

 

Religion: Religion was a major motivator that influenced viewpoints, although it became less prevalent in arguments as time went on. Early in the century, it was very commonly seen, but its total influence dropped dramatically closer to the mid-point and even more so at the end of the century, due in part to Wallace and Whewell.

 

Thomas Paine: Christianity and plurality are simply incompatible because God can't send Jesus to die on each infinite world, constantly dying. It would lead to absurdity. In order to maintain any sense of credibility, religion had had to be "consistent with the ever-existing world of God that we behold in his works", or in other words, what we have come to know about the world through science.

 

Possible arguments:

1) denying pluralism and stating that life exists only on Earth;

2) saying that Christ redeemed the universe at the same moment with His sacrifice;

3) that Christ redeems everyone by going from world to world;

4) that sin only occurs on Earth and that we are the only group of people that needs to be redeemed;

5) or lastly that it is an insoluble problem that we do not and will not know the answer to.

 

Theology has a diminished role by 1903, as possibilites of extraterrestrial life in our solar system diminish people are forced to look at the astonomical and biological evidence relating to the debate.

Solar system is removed of ets, except for Mars, by 1900.

Plurality no longer taken for granted, Evolution of worlds in the solar system as well as the galaxy, means that life is always present at any time, but we don't know where (Proctor" universe).

 

Progress? Since there still was no evidence to prove or disprove plurality, there was then no progress in the question of plurality. However, new information and knowledge began to change the question, to alter the perspective. Progress is defined as getting closer to an answer, so eliminating most of the solar system can be considered progress. But, there is still a very, very large number stars left.  Depending on your definition of "progress," it is possible that progress will never actually be achieved.

 

Scientific? If science must be potentially falsifiable to be considered purely scientific, then no, the debate still was not a scientific question. Science is used to get to the answer. Therefore, the debate was not a scientific question, but rather one more philosophical, more speculative question. Science can be used to get at part of the answer, if they examine potential planets for life-supporting capabilities or rule that out, or if scientists can find other ways to prove that it is highly unlikely or possible via scientific methods like astrophysics or astronomy. So, an answer could be reached if we can examine every possible planet, either directly or through some system of scientific observation. But since that is so highly unlikely or plausible, a scientific answer to this question can only prove the existence of life, not disprove it.

 

 

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