Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T13:13:30.270Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The challenging history of other Earths

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2023

Christopher M. Graney Open the ORCID record for Christopher M. Graney [Opens in a new window]
Christopher M. Graney*
Affiliation:
Specola Vaticana, Castel Gandolfo, Italy
*
Email: c.graney@vaticanobservatory.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of recent historical research regarding scientifically-informed challenges to the idea that the stars are other suns orbited by other inhabited earths – an idea that came to be known as ‘the Plurality of Worlds’. Johannes Kepler in the 17th century, Jacques Cassini in the 18th and William Whewell in the 19th each argued against ‘pluralism’ based on what in their respective times was solid science. Nevertheless, pluralism remained popular despite these and other scientific challenges. This history will be of interest to the astronomical community so that it is better positioned to avoid difficulties should the historical trajectory of pluralism continue, especially as it persists in the popular imagination.

Keywords

Extraterrestrial intelligenceplurality of worldsSETI
Type
Review Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , December 2023 , pp. 729 - 738
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Applebaum, W (2012) Venus Seen on the Sun: The First Observation of a Transit of Venus by Jeremiah Horrocks. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004221949CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ayala, L (2012) On the Plurality of Worlds: Images of a New Cosmos. Available at https://cstms.berkeley.edu/current-events/on-the-plurality-of-worlds-images-of-a-new-cosmos/.Google Scholar
Ayala, L (2015) Cosmology after Copernicus: decentralisation of the Sun and the plurality of worlds in French engravings. In Neuber, W, Zittel, C & Rahn, T (eds), The Making of Copernicus: Early Modern Transformations of a Scientist and his Science. Leiden: Brill, pp. 201–226.Google Scholar
Charalampous, C (2019) ‘One common matter’ in Descartes’ physics: the Cartesian concepts of matter quantities, weight and gravity. Annals of Science 76, 324–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clerke, AM (1908) A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century. London: Adam and Charles Black.Google Scholar
Clery, D (2020) Listen up: flush with money and a hard-won respectability, alien hunters are deploying new telescopes and tactics. Science 369, 1288–1291. Available at https://www.science.org/content/article/how-big-money-powering-massive-hunt-alien-intelligence.10.1126/science.369.6509.1288CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowe, MJ (1986) The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750–1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds From Kant to Lowell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crowe, MJ (2008) The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, Antiquity to 1915; A Source Book. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Crowe, MJ (2016) William Whewell, the plurality of worlds, and the modern Solar System. Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 51, 431–449.10.1111/zygo.12265CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deichmann, U (2012) Origin of life. The role of experiments, basic beliefs, and social authorities in the controversies about the spontaneous generation of life and the subsequent debates about synthesizing life in the laboratory. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 34, 341–359.Google ScholarPubMed
Doel, RE (1996) Solar System Astronomy in America: Communities, Patronage, and Interdisciplinary Science, 1920–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Editors (2018) The funding frontier. Nature Astronomy 2, 101.10.1038/s41550-018-0392-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farley, J (1972) The spontaneous generation controversy (1859–1880): British and German reactions to the problem of abiogenesis. Journal of the History of Biology 5, 285–319.10.1007/BF00346661CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fontenelle, BLBD (1715) A Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds, Translated, etc. London: Bettesworth.Google Scholar
Graney, CM (2015) Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science Against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.10.2307/j.ctvpj7g68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graney, CM (2019) The starry universe of Johannes Kepler. Journal for the History of Astronomy 50, 155–173.10.1177/0021828619847535CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graney, CM (2021a) Galileo between Jesuits: the fault is in the stars. Catholic Historical Review 107, 191–226.10.1353/cat.2021.0011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graney, CM (2021b) The starry universe of Jacques Cassini: century-old echoes of Kepler. Journal for the History of Astronomy 52, 147–167.10.1177/00218286211007954CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graney, CM and Grayson, TP (2011) On the telescopic disks of stars: a review and analysis of stellar observations from the early seventeenth through the middle nineteenth centuries. Annals of Science 68, 351–375.10.1080/00033790.2010.507472CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, J (1754) STARS, fixed; DISTANCE of the fixed stars. In: Urania, or a Compleat View of the Heavens Containing the Ancient and Modern Astronomy in Form of a Dictionary. London: T. Gardner, no page numbers.Google Scholar
Ivanov, VD, Beamín, JC, Cáceres, C and Minniti, D (2020) A qualitative classification of extraterrestrial civilizations. Astronomy & Astrophysics 639, A94.10.1051/0004-6361/202037597CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kepler, J (1965 [1610]) Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp.Google Scholar
Kepler, J (2021) De Stella Nova (Chapter 16). In Boner PJ (ed.), Kepler's New Star (1604): Context and Controversy. Leiden: Brill, pp. 48–59.Google Scholar
Koyré, A (1957) From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Lane, N (2015) The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Loeb, A (2021) Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Mason, SF (1962) A History of the Sciences. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sagan, C and Shklovskiĭ, IS (1966) Intelligent Life in the Universe. San Francisco: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
Scheiner, C and Locher, JG (2017 [1614]) Disquistion 34/35, ‘Solar quivering’/’Corrolaries’. In Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo (Graney CM, trans.). Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 78–83.Google Scholar
Sheikh, SZ, Smith, S, Price, DC, DeBoer, D, Lacki, BC, Czech, DJ, Croft, S, Gajjar, V, Isaacson, H, Lebofsky, M, MacMahon, DHE, Ng, C, Perez, KI, Siemion, APV, Webb, CI, Zic, A, Drew, J and Worden, SP (2021) Analysis of the breakthrough listen signal of interest blc1 with a technosignature verification framework. Nature Astronomy 5, 1153–1162.10.1038/s41550-021-01508-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Topsell, E (1658). The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents. London: E. Cotes.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van der Horst, PW (1993/94) Two notes on Hellenistic Lore in early Rabbinic literature. Jewish Studies Quarterly 1, 252–262.Google Scholar
Van Helden, A (1985). Measuring the Universe: Cosmic Dimensions From Aristarchus to Halley. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Whewell, W (1853) Of the Plurality of Worlds: An Essay. London: J. W. Parker and Son.Google Scholar
Wright, J and Gelino, D (2018). Nasa and the Search for Technosignatures: A Report from the NASA Technosignatures Workshop. Available at https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/technosignatures2018/agenda/Technosignature-Report.pdf.Google Scholar
Wright, JT, Cartier, KMS, Zhao, M, Jontof-Hutter, D and Ford, EB (2016) The Ĝ search for extraterrestrial civilizations with large energy supplies. IV. The signatures and information content of transiting megastructures. The Astrophysical Journal 816, 17.Google Scholar