“BECAUSE WE ARE ALONE…” ARGUMENTS FOR HUMANS AS THE UNIVERSE’S ONLY INTELLIGENT LIFE FORM FROM ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS TO TODAY’S SCIENTISTS by Joseph Clayton Packer B.A., University of Mary Washington, 2005 M.A., Wake Forest University, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2012i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Joseph Clayton Packer It was defended on October 31, 2011 and approved by Philip E. Smith, Associate Professor, Department of English Barbara Warnick, Professor, Department of Communication Brent Malin, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Dissertation Advisor: Ronald J. Zboray, Professor, Department of Communication ii Copyright © by Joseph Clayton Packer 2012 iii “BECAUSE WE ARE ALONE…” ARGUMENTS FOR HUMANS AS THE UNIVERSE’S ONLY INTELLIGENT LIFE FORM FROM ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS TO TODAY’S SCIENTISTS Joseph Clayton Packer, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2012 Does alien life exist? This perennial question has driven some of humanity’s oldest scientific debates, going back to the ancient Greeks. My work investigates the way individuals have rhetorically deployed speculations about the impossibility of extraterrestrial life to advance other values and beliefs. Specifically, my research traces the unity-of-the-world cosmology or “unity,” for short, meaning the belief that humans are the only intelligent life form in the universe, in contrast to the “plurality-of worlds” one, or “plurality,” which holds open the possibility of multiple intelligent life forms. The unity rhetorical cosmology connects the absence of alien life with the idea of human value and transcendental, absolute ethics. Because “we” are alone, “we” are special, the thinking goes. My dissertation traces the way cosmology serves as an argument in religious, political, and philosophical debates. Specifically, it examines the way that individuals have used claims of the absence of alien life to justify moral absolutism, teleology, and anthropocentrism, from Plato to the present day. The dissertation examines major historical figures as case studies including: Plato, Aquinas, William Whewell, and Alfred Russel Wallace. I draw on Kenneth Burke, Roland Barthes, and rhetoric-of-science- iv literature (as well as many other sources) in order to unveil the hidden rhetorical meaning of a cosmology. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... VI PREFACE ........................................................................................................................ IX 1.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 1.1 LIMITATIONS ................................................................................................ 7 1.2 METHODOLOGY AND CHAPTER OUTLINE ...................................... 10 1.3 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 17 1.4 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 30 2.0 PLATO’S RHETORICAL COSMOLOGY: THE UNITY OF THE WORLD AS FOUNDATIONAL MYTH ...................................................................................... 33 2.1 STATE OF COSMOLOGY AND PLATO’S EARLY DIALOGUES ...... 39 2.2 MYTH AND RHETORIC IN PLATO’S DIALOGUES ........................... 46 2.3 SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS, AND EMPIRICAL ARGUMENT IN PLATO’S DIALOGUES ........................................................................................ 55 2.4 PLATO’S RECONCILIATION WITH COSMOLOGY .......................... 56 2.5 PLATO’S COSMOLOGY: MYTH OR SCIENCE? ................................. 68 2.6 PLATO’S RHETORICAL COSMOLOGY ................................................ 74 2.7 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................. 80 vi 3.0 THE DOMINANCE OF THE UNITY COSMOLOGY: UNITY FROM PLATO TO GALILEO .................................................................................................. 82 3.1 ARISTOTLE .................................................................................................. 85 3.2 EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND COSMOLOGY ....................................... 88 3.3 AQUINAS ....................................................................................................... 93 3.4 AQUINAS’ LEGACY ................................................................................. 102 3.5 THE COPERNICAN SYSTEM ................................................................. 107 3.6 GALILEO AND HIS TELESCOPE .......................................................... 112 3.7 THE SHIFT TO PLURALISM .................................................................. 118 3.8 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 126 4.0 WILLIAM WHEWELL AND ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE: UNITY COSMOLOGY IN THE MODERN ERA .................................................................. 128 4.1 WILLIAM WHEWELL ............................................................................. 132 4.2 THE VESTIGES OF CREATION ............................................................. 143 4.3 PLURALITY OF WORLDS AND THE UTILITY DEBATE ................ 150 4.4 PLURALITY OF WORLDS: TIMAEUS .................................................. 156 4.5 THE RESPONSE ......................................................................................... 166 4.6 A. R. WALLACE: BRIDGE TO THE 20TH CENTURY ......................... 172 4.7 SOCIAL DARWINISM .............................................................................. 175 4.8 WALLACE’S SCIENTIFIC EVOLUTION ............................................. 180 4.9 PUBLIC BATTLE ....................................................................................... 189 4.10 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 192 5.0 TIPLER AND BARROW .................................................................................... 194 vii 5.1 THE STATE OF THE DEBATE ............................................................... 197 5.2 TIPLER’S RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ................................................... 201 5.3 THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE .............................................................. 206 5.4 THE SCIENTIFIC FRAME ....................................................................... 210 5.5 THE UNITY RHETORIC .......................................................................... 214 5.6 ABSENT ALIENS ....................................................................................... 222 5.7 RECEPTION ............................................................................................... 226 5.8 EXPLAINING THE SUCCESS ................................................................. 232 5.9 PUBLIC RECEPTION ............................................................................... 236 5.10 TIPLER’S LATER WORK ...................................................................... 242 5.11 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................... 248 6.0 CONCLUSION: MAN AS THE MEASURE VS. THE UNITY OF THE WORLD ......................................................................................................................... 250 6.1 THE RHETORICAL PROBLEM OF UNITY ......................................... 252 6.2 THE DANGERS OF UNITY ...................................................................... 253 6.3 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 255 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 256 viii PREFACE I have many individuals to thank for helping me bring this project to fruition. I am thankful to have come in to the Communication Department at the University of Pittsburgh with such an amazing cohort: Tom Dunn, David Landes, Brita Anderson, Josh Beaty, Candi Carter Olson, John Jasso, and Heather Liebling. The nickname “demon cohort” seems to best encapuslate the experience. Along with my cohort, the graduate student community helped create an amazing atmosphere. During my time as a Pitt I attended a mock funeral, held a poetry reading outside the Cathedral, paraded around a cardboard cutout of Josh Beaty, and went sky diving. On occasion we grad student even got some work done and I would like to thank Brita Anderson, John Rief, and Michael Vicaro for editing parts of the dissertation for me. I began my dissertation project at Wake Forest and I would like to thank Ananda Mitra, Allan Louden, Mary Dalton, and Michael Hyde for beginning me on the project that ultimately took the form of this dissertation. At the University of Pittsburgh I owe a debt to many scholars outside of my committee, who I would like to thank. John Poulakos helped brainstorm with me about my chapter on classical Greece. John Lyne offered sage advice on my use of rhetoric of science literature. Paul Scade (despite being out of the country and working at a different university) read several drafts of my chapter on Plato and offered a crucial philosophical ix perspective. Finally, I owe a great debt of