[JAS]

Some people just like to harness outrage for the sake of attention.

 

[JAS]

Outrage at privileged, elite, white people is in fashion. What's next? Science is elitist because all the famous scientists are white men?

I am just waiting for ridiculous claims of elitism to become elitist . . . maybe we are already there.

 

[JAS]

Apparently there was already a CNN headline: "Is math racist?"

Whenever the subject of the possibility of life on other planets comes up, usually right around the time that funding for various projects is due, we get a round of silly statements like "suggesting that life as we know it may only exist on this planet is arrogant" and things of that sort. It may be true or false, but it certainly isn't arrogant.

I basically agree with the late Stephen Hawking that we had better hope that there isn't life on other planets, or at least not life capable of coming here. It likely won't be friendly little ETs.

 

[JAS]

Personally, I think that the universe is most interesting when there is sentient life to appreciate it. I hope that the existence of sentient life is not dependent on us, because we are messing it up terribly, and will probably cause our own extinction at some point (and maybe some point not too far off). I actually have no idea whether or not there is life in some meaningful form anywhere else in the universe, and neither does anyone else. I do get tired of what seems to be an obvious ploy to stoke public interest for the sake of diverting public money. How many times do we have to be told before we figure out the trick that "this is absolute proof of biological life" only to find that there is some mistake, and that, in the end, no biological life is presented. (We are also probably never going to sent out a colony of humans to live on any other planet, at least not without being totally dependent on this one sending supplies. Even if we find someplace that might allow us to have a self-supporting colony, reaching it is probably prohibitive.)

 

[JAS]

. . . The thing that puzzles me is that we have never found any convincing evidence of life on other stars by detecting electro-magnetic radiation with signs of intelligent use. We spew out loads of the stuff, but we don't see any coming back. The universe has so many stars in it that I can't imagine we are unique, but why is there no evidence? Strange.

Two answers might be that it is a very big place to search, and we don't really know what we are looking for.

 

[JAS]

Yeah. I think we have a tendency to think that other "intelligent" life would generate patterns of electro-magnetic radiation that we would recognise as the result of the activity of a life form. Quite likely any such life might be so different from us that we wouldn't recognise the radiation as providing any such evidence.

One key sign of intelligent life would probably be that they did not create online forums where just anyone could post whatever thoughts happened to pop into their heads (assuming that they have heads).

 

[JAS]

Face it, we're alone folks.

And in terms of intelligent life, even we don't necessarily qualify.

 

[JAS]

Nah, it's just a call for diversity, not a flip to non-European music. No one is seriously suggesting replacing Beethoven with Francis Johnson, just a call to include him.

That might actually be tricky since so little outside of a few piano scores seem to exist. (But there are Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, with several large works for orchestra.)

 

[JAS]

I will add Florence Price to my previous list, as they happened to play one of her symphonies on the radio last night as I was coming home. It was certainly not the equal of Beethoven, but pleasant. It was a bit repetitive, but there were touches of Dvorak, and it was sufficiently enjoyable that I will seek out a CD. (I gather than only three of her four symphonies have been recorded at the moment.)