Is the Idea of Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life Compatible with [Conservative] Judaism & Christianity?
“Anthropological files contain many examples of societies, sure of their place in the universe, which have disintegrated when they had to associate with previously unfamiliar societies espousing different ideas and different life ways; others that survived such an experience usually did so by paying the price of changes in values and attitudes and behavior” (p. 215). “Fundamentalist (and anti-science) sects are growing apace around the world . . . for them, the discovery of other life – rather than any other space product – would be electrifying . . . If plant life or other subhuman intelligence were found on Mars or Venus, for example, there is, on the face of it, no good reason to suppose these discoveries, after the original novelty had been exploited to the fullest and worn off, would result in substantial changes in perspectives or philosophy in large parts of the American public, at least any more than, let us say, the coelacanth or the panda . . . If super intelligence is discov
