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The flawed frontier
Letters– The flawed frontier From Mary Midgley Won’t your readers on Alpha Centauri giggle at the title you gave your special “Conquest of Space” issue (8 September)? As they will know, the idea of humans colonising space, as opposed to just exploring it, has turned out to be a pipe dream. It was a hangover from the colonial age, essentially from the notion of the American West as a refuge where people who had messed up their lives could always get a second chance. But consider the practicalities. On colonising Mars, for instance, Richard Gott remarked that it “could start with just eight people… if couples had four children on average, the colony could double in size every 30 years” (p 54). Has Gott tried bringing up 16 children in a space station? Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
we must make every effort to preserve. This is a point of view verging on the religious. Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, UK From Gene Roghair In his proposal for the infection of other planets by human life, Richard Gott ignores the potential impact on native life forms adapted to those planets. He also ignores our connection with all of life on Earth. If Earth-based life has some unique value in the universe – an admittedly questionable position – we could potentially colonise many nearby star systems with micro-organisms of one kind or another at far less
Space bias
Why boldly go? From Ben Craven Richard Gott says that the future survival of the human race is a “compelling” reason for colonising other planets, but doesn’t even try to justify the assertion (8 September, p 51). Why is the continued existence of humans into the far future anything other than a neutral proposition? Barring time travel, it can’t affect anyone alive right now. If the human race dies out, there’ll be nobody around to worry about it. Granted, should natural disaster, war or disease eliminate the human race on Earth, the people involved will have a very unpleasant time of it, but knowing there’s a human population on Mars won’t make them feel any better. No other creature operates such a species-based team spirit. Gott mentions the Copernican principle – that the Earth is not special – but appears to regard the human race as being special and as having some innate worth that 22 | NewScientist | 29 September 2007
to find ourselves at a “nonspecial” position (8 September, p 51). In doing so, however, Gott implicitly assumes a linear time line. What if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct and every moment, while consistent with one definite past, branches into all possible futures, in each of which the human race has a different lifespan? All spatio-temporal positions might then be considered “nonspecial” and nothing could be deduced from our current position about the lifespan of the version of the human race that we would experience if we could live long enough to see the end of it. Southampton, UK
social and environmental cost than a small human colony on Mars. Who knows, some of those extremophiles might evolve into life forms as interesting as, or more interesting than, us. Nevada City, California, US From Denis Watkins Do I think humanity has a place in space? Absolutely, but not before we have finished trashing this planet. There are still expanses of the Antarctic and the Amazonian rainforest yet to be exploited. Crymych, Pembrokeshire, UK
From David Holdsworth Surely your “50 years in space” special should have been titled “50 years of the US in space” (8 September). I could find barely a mention of Yuri Gagarin, of the Soviet Luna probes, nor of the Russian Proton rockets and Soyuz capsules that kept the International Space Station going when the US shuttles were grounded. I also recall that the ISS started from work on the Russian Mir space station. I accept that New Scientist is an international magazine and thus includes lots of American material, but it should be evenhanded and not US-dominated – which for the most part it is. So why did the Soviet era in space get so little coverage? Even the piece on Sputnik was about its effect on the US. Settle, North Yorkshire, UK
What are gods good for? In a typical universe… From John Eastmond Richard Gott bases his estimate of the lifespan of the human race on his version of the Copernican principle: that we should expect
From Gordon Drennan Is God good, you ask (1 September, p 32). I suggest that it is those who believe in “evil” who are the problem. There are those who believe that everything that contradicts their beliefs must be
the work of a malevolent force, so they have a responsibility to wage war on it: homosexuals; abortionists; unbelievers or, worse, believers in other and therefore false gods and prophets; communists; terrorists… In the eyes of many “true believers”, crusading against these groups is doing good – even if the godless don’t want to go along with it. Especially if they don’t. Judicial systems and foreign policies that focus on punishing and crushing, rather than understanding causes and minimising harm, do not work. However, officials in countries that – because they have many believers in “evil” – possess such systems are unable to see this. They are convinced that they are doing good. Burton, South Australia From Frank Siegrist I imagine the first “gods” were personified “team spirits” of groups of hunter-gatherers. These needed to be personified (and perhaps represented by a symbolic object) for the purpose of various ceremonies. Team spirits are not necessarily supernatural beings. We know what we mean by “team spirit”, even if it doesn’t have a truly tangible existence – in management classes you can learn all about building one! Lausanne, Switzerland
Aisle be darned From Frances Liardet So women are better than men at finding food stalls in a market because “in the distant past” women gathered and men hunted (1 September, p 21). Such is the attraction of the “distant past” that it is used to “explain” almost any genderrelated cultural issue in terms of a favourite hypothesis with virtually no evidence. One ignored hypothesis is that women are generally better than men at locating food stalls because this is a skill women have www.newscientist.com
we must make every effort to preserve. This is a point of view verging on the religious. Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, UK From Gene Roghair In his proposal for the infection of other planets by human life, Richard Gott ignores the potential impact on native life forms adapted to those planets. He also ignores our connection with all of life on Earth. If Earth-based life has some unique value in the universe – an admittedly questionable position – we could potentially colonise many nearby star systems with micro-organisms of one kind or another at far less
Space bias
Why boldly go? From Ben Craven Richard Gott says that the future survival of the human race is a “compelling” reason for colonising other planets, but doesn’t even try to justify the assertion (8 September, p 51). Why is the continued existence of humans into the far future anything other than a neutral proposition? Barring time travel, it can’t affect anyone alive right now. If the human race dies out, there’ll be nobody around to worry about it. Granted, should natural disaster, war or disease eliminate the human race on Earth, the people involved will have a very unpleasant time of it, but knowing there’s a human population on Mars won’t make them feel any better. No other creature operates such a species-based team spirit. Gott mentions the Copernican principle – that the Earth is not special – but appears to regard the human race as being special and as having some innate worth that 22 | NewScientist | 29 September 2007
to find ourselves at a “nonspecial” position (8 September, p 51). In doing so, however, Gott implicitly assumes a linear time line. What if the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct and every moment, while consistent with one definite past, branches into all possible futures, in each of which the human race has a different lifespan? All spatio-temporal positions might then be considered “nonspecial” and nothing could be deduced from our current position about the lifespan of the version of the human race that we would experience if we could live long enough to see the end of it. Southampton, UK
social and environmental cost than a small human colony on Mars. Who knows, some of those extremophiles might evolve into life forms as interesting as, or more interesting than, us. Nevada City, California, US From Denis Watkins Do I think humanity has a place in space? Absolutely, but not before we have finished trashing this planet. There are still expanses of the Antarctic and the Amazonian rainforest yet to be exploited. Crymych, Pembrokeshire, UK
From David Holdsworth Surely your “50 years in space” special should have been titled “50 years of the US in space” (8 September). I could find barely a mention of Yuri Gagarin, of the Soviet Luna probes, nor of the Russian Proton rockets and Soyuz capsules that kept the International Space Station going when the US shuttles were grounded. I also recall that the ISS started from work on the Russian Mir space station. I accept that New Scientist is an international magazine and thus includes lots of American material, but it should be evenhanded and not US-dominated – which for the most part it is. So why did the Soviet era in space get so little coverage? Even the piece on Sputnik was about its effect on the US. Settle, North Yorkshire, UK
What are gods good for? In a typical universe… From John Eastmond Richard Gott bases his estimate of the lifespan of the human race on his version of the Copernican principle: that we should expect
From Gordon Drennan Is God good, you ask (1 September, p 32). I suggest that it is those who believe in “evil” who are the problem. There are those who believe that everything that contradicts their beliefs must be
the work of a malevolent force, so they have a responsibility to wage war on it: homosexuals; abortionists; unbelievers or, worse, believers in other and therefore false gods and prophets; communists; terrorists… In the eyes of many “true believers”, crusading against these groups is doing good – even if the godless don’t want to go along with it. Especially if they don’t. Judicial systems and foreign policies that focus on punishing and crushing, rather than understanding causes and minimising harm, do not work. However, officials in countries that – because they have many believers in “evil” – possess such systems are unable to see this. They are convinced that they are doing good. Burton, South Australia From Frank Siegrist I imagine the first “gods” were personified “team spirits” of groups of hunter-gatherers. These needed to be personified (and perhaps represented by a symbolic object) for the purpose of various ceremonies. Team spirits are not necessarily supernatural beings. We know what we mean by “team spirit”, even if it doesn’t have a truly tangible existence – in management classes you can learn all about building one! Lausanne, Switzerland
Aisle be darned From Frances Liardet So women are better than men at finding food stalls in a market because “in the distant past” women gathered and men hunted (1 September, p 21). Such is the attraction of the “distant past” that it is used to “explain” almost any genderrelated cultural issue in terms of a favourite hypothesis with virtually no evidence. One ignored hypothesis is that women are generally better than men at locating food stalls because this is a skill women have www.newscientist.com