Xenology

Xenology is the scientific study of extraterrestrial life. Derived from the Greek xenos, which as a substantive has the meaning "stranger, wanderer, refugee" and as an adjective "foreign, alien, strange, unusual."[1]

For other uses, see Xenology (disambiguation).

Uses

In science fiction

It is used to denote a hypothetical science whose object of study would be extraterrestrial societies developed by alien lifeforms. In science fiction criticism and studies the term has been advocated by writers such as David Brin ("Xenology: The New Science of Asking 'Who's Out There?'" Analog, 26 April 1983)[2] as an analogue of (terrestrial) ethnology. By extension the term may also refer to the fictional creation of "alternative humankinds".[3]

Instances in which Xenology was referred to in a work of Science Fiction include the Brothers Strugatsky's 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. In section three of which one of the character's, a Nobel laureate by the name of Valentine Pillman, explains Xenology as "an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption—that an alien race would be psychologically human."[4]

In cultural studies

The term xenology was employed by German Indologist Wilhelm Halbfass in his Indien und Europa, Perspektiven ihrer geistigen Begegnung (India and Europe: Perspectives on Their Spiritual Encounter) (1981)[5] to denote the study of the ethnocentric views held by societies with regard to different classes of foreigner, in other words the positive or negative ways in which a given culture defines those outside or alien to it.[6] Xenology is thus the study of the various modalities whereby self and otherness are defined "within a historically complex collision of cultures".[7]

In science

As yet, no extraterrestrial life has been identified. Robert A. Freitas Jr. self-published a book on the subject, Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization (XRI, 1979). Freitas argued for the primacy of the term in the context of extraterrestrial life in a 1983 letter to the journal Nature.[8] In 2020, Freitas stated that many of the subfields proposed or discussed in the Xenology book, such as the study of the origins of life and thalassogens, had come to be included in the field of astrobiology. He suggested that xenology can be a broader field of study including more hypothetical elements, particularly in context of exoplanet discoveries and the rebirth of planetology.[9]

See also

References
  1. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, new (ninth) edition, with a supplement, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968.
  2. Brian M. Stableford, Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia, Routledge, 2006, p. 571.
  3. Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia, p. 571.
  4. Arkady Strugatsky; Boris Strugatsky (16 September 2016). Roadside Picnic. Lulu.com. pp. 92–. ISBN 978-1-365-40085-8.
  5. Wilhelm Halbfass, Indien und Europa, Perspektiven ihrer geistigen Begegnung, Schwabe Verlag, Basel and Stuttgart, 1981.
  6. Dermot Killingley, "Mlecchas, Yavanas and Heathens: Interacting Xenologies in Early Nineteenth-Century Calcutta," in Beyond Orientalism: The Work of Wilhelm Halbfass and its Impact on Indian and Cross-cultural Studies, ed. Eli Franco, Karin Preisendanz, Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2007.
  7. Harvey P. Alper, review of Indien und Europa, Perspektiven ihrer geistigen Begegnung, in Philosophy East and West, Vol. 33, No. 2 (April, 1983), pp. 189-196
  8. Freitas, Robert A. (January 1983). "Naming extraterrestrial life". Nature. 301 (5896): 106. Bibcode:1983Natur.301..106F. doi:10.1038/301106a0. ISSN 0028-0836. S2CID 4311346.
  9. Templeton, Graham. "'Xenology' by Robert Freitas: the Backstory". Inverse. Retrieved 2020-08-26.
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