A rchive Date
[ 17-01-2004 ]
Category
[ Science ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/twist.html
Leave space to the Martians
Sean Twist, For the London Free Press
2004-01-17
As a child, staying up late alone to watch George Pal's 1953 film, The War of the Worlds, I remember siding with the Martians.
I felt sorry for them. Sure, they had those indestructible spaceships, burning all and sundry with their crackling green death rays.
And they did start it, after all, with the whole 'invasion' thing. But despite that, I felt humanity deserved the beating it took.
Even then, I knew that, had the tables been turned, we would have behaved worse.
All right. Let's assume a U.S. space probe did actually land on Mars. We'll ignore the fact that it's an American election year, and good news gets presidents re-elected.
We'll ignore NASA's need for some good PR, after a horrific run of bad luck.
We'll also ignore how a Martian vista can make people forget- however briefly- the rising body counts in a nebulous Mideast war.
We will also not mention how well special effects have improved since the late '60s.
So. Another probe has landed on the Red Planet.
And once again, I find myself siding with the (so-far) theoretical Martians: We shouldn't be there.
Colour me contradicted. I adore the thought of exploring space - of seeing what's beyond, of discovering how life forms on other planets - but I don't think we as a race should be doing it. Not yet.
And here's why: If we ever do encounter alien life, we will kill it within a day.
I'm not suggesting some HALO or Aliens type scenario, with some hearty space marines firing into a pack of demonic spiders.
I'm saying that, should we stumble upon some alien, non-threatening critter (Stand down space marines!), we'll have it torn apart and dissected in minutes.
Ostensibly for science, but really for profit. To see if we can make some money out of this, to justify our expense in getting there in the first place. And, more importantly, to satisfy the government that footed the bill.
Because that's how we've ever seen new worlds: a new way to make a buck, and to blazes with whomever was living there first.
You can wrap it in whatever tarty dress you want - scientific knowledge and religious conversion being the most popular fashions - but it still boils down to this: We need stuff, and we will take it.
It's politely called colonial expansion. Or, if you want to take the more honest, Viking approach: pillaging. Now, instead of sending scouts out first, we send wheeled robots.
And yes, I know, 'twas ever so. But as we lurch away from Earth, one would hope we would have learned to respect life more than we do. Learned our manners before we went to meet the neighbours. But we haven't. And this is why I think we should stay at home.
In the long run, it's fair to say we will kill every animal on Earth, given enough time.
We put our every need - however petty - above the rights of animals. We slaughter whales in alleged Antarctic preserves, we run over squirrels so we can make that green light. We insist that they are not as "alive" or "intelligent" as us, even when tests on dolphins and whales expose that lie.
We can do whatever we want, because we're human, and quite frankly, they're not.
And now we're going out into space.
On a galactic scale, every other creature around us is family. Cousins, at the very least. Most mammals share the same nervous system design, most of us have two eyes, two ears, and so on. This comes from evolving on the same planet. But still we think we're apart.
How will we fare when we meet life forms made from another design? That don't - and probably won't - have the same binary composition? Will we suddenly be all Star Trekky and understanding when we encounter a civilization, say, made of tangible sheets of light?
Or will we simply pull the trigger? Declare them "animals" because they don't speak English, watch Seinfeld or marry the opposite sex?
Which will make it all the more easy to take what we need.
Like I said, we should stay home. At least until we learn to behave.
Sean Twist is a London freelance writer. His column appears every Saturday. Copyright © The London Free Press 2001,2002,2003 |
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