Paper
24 June 1996 First contact: Copernican moment or nine days' wonder?
Charles T. Rubin
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The vast uncertainties of SETI require caution in discussing the impact of discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. Despite the awareness of some SETI scientists that such scenarios can easily reflect wishful thinking, popular discussions of the topic are flawed by failure to present speculations regarding impact that are consistent with basic assumptions that make SETI plausible in the first place. A more self-conscious attempt to deal directly with the ethical issues raised by the impact question would aid in creating more rigorous efforts.
© (1996) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Charles T. Rubin "First contact: Copernican moment or nine days' wonder?", Proc. SPIE 2704, The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) in the Optical Spectrum II, (24 June 1996); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.243432
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KEYWORDS
Astatine

Astronomy

Lead

Signal processing

Stars

Climatology

Mirrors

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