Carolina QuotesMyth, religion and now science-fiction with their tales of benevolent and malevolent extraterrestrial beings are commentaries on the human condition. I believe even responsible scientific speculation and expensive technology of space exploration in search for other life are the peculiarly modern equivalent of angeology and Utopia or of demonology and apocalypse.
Lewis White Beck Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Lewis White Beck, "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life" in Extraterrestrials Science and Alien Intelligence ( Regis Jr., Edward. Ed., 1985), Part V, p. 13
- year
- 1985
- locator
- p. 13
Cite this record
“Myth, religion and now science-fiction with their tales of b…” Lewis White Beck. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-5DDD30F99C. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/5ddd30f99c
More from Lewis White Beck
But somewhat like people who object to spending money needed in the ghettoes on exploring the moon, I think the best hope for our survival is to be based on understanding human predicaments here on earth, not expecting a saving message from super-human beings in the sky...Thinking about and even hoping to find extraterrestrial civilizations, however, sharpen our search for and appreciation of the peculiar virtues and vices of the only form of life we know.
It is not my place to tell you whether there is indefeasible ignorance of ultimate reality. I am ignorant of whether there is or is not. But you should think of these things because there are no things more important, though there are no questions more difficult or less answerable. But one's whole life may be changed if one changes his mind about these questions.
[T]he only species on earth which prides itself on its intelligence is the only one with the intelligence necessary, and possibly sufficient, to render itself extinct tomorrow.