Science and Tech

A new center studies the answer to life beyond Earth

Allen radio telescope

Allen radio telescope – FLICKR

Nov. 2 () –

A new international center in the University of St Andrews it will coordinate the global expertise to prepare humanity for the finding of life beyond Earth and how we should respond.

While we may never learn about the existence of life beyond Earth, or even another intelligent civilization, there is a chance that it will be detected sooner rather than later. But are we prepared?

The new SETI Post-Detection Huborganized by the Center for Exoplanet Science and the Center for Global Law and Governance at the University of St Andrews, will act as a focal point for an international effort that will bring together diverse expertise in both the sciences and the humanities to establish impact assessments. , protocols, procedures and treaties designed to enable a responsible response.

Dr John Elliott, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews School of Computer Science and Coordinator of the Centre, said it’s a statement: “Science fiction is replete with explorations of the impact on human society following the discovery and even encounters with life or intelligence elsewhere.

“But we need to go beyond thinking about the impact on humanity. We need to coordinate our expertise not only to assess the evidence but also to consider the human societal response, as our understanding advances and what we know and what we know is communicated.” We do not know. And the time to do it is now.

“Scanning signals of supposed extraterrestrial origin for language structures and attaching meaning is an elaborate and time-consuming process during which our knowledge will advance in many steps. as we learn ‘Alien’“.

The SETI Post-Detection Hub aims to bridge a substantial policy gap and will also consider responsible science communication in the age of social media.

Little attention has been paid to the topic, a rare exception being the Royal Society which held a scientific discussion meeting on “The Detection of Extraterrestrial Life and the Consequences for Science and Society” in 2010, after which the then Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Mazlan Othman, had to debunk the emerging news that she had been appointed “alien ambassador”.

There are now procedures and entities in place with the United Nations to deal with the threat posed by asteroid impacts on Earth, but there is nothing similar to pick up a non-terrestrial radio signal.

Currently, the only agreed ‘contact’ protocols in existence are those developed by the SETI community itself in 1989, which were last reviewed in 2010. Focusing entirely on general scientific conduct, they are unenforceable aspirations and are not useful for managing the practice, the entire search process, handling of candidate evidence, confirmation of detections, post-detection analysis and interpretation, and potential response.

According to its promoters, the SETI Post-Detection Hub for the first time provides a permanent ‘home’ to coordinate the development of a fully comprehensive frameworkbringing together interested members of the SETI and broader academic communities, as well as policy experts to work on topics ranging from message decryption and data analysis to the development of regulatory protocols, space laws, and social impact strategies.

Dr. Elliott said, “Will we ever get an ET message? We don’t know. We also don’t know when this will happen. But we do know that we can’t afford to be ill-prepared, scientifically, socially, and politically rudderless, for a event that could become a reality tomorrow and that we cannot afford to mishandle.

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