PSETI Seminar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence in Light of Terrestrial Colonialism

David Shorter
December 1, 2022
Shorter will discuss how the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life remains mostly grounded in a hierarchical and progressivist worldview that has fueled colonialism throughout history. Shorter’s recent work has demonstrated how previous earthly explorations produced a covering over rather than a discovery of others. For Shorter, these histories must be considered by those working in SETI-related fields. To truly represent an endeavor on behalf of “humanity,” much more needs to be done to include others in the process of determining what counts as life, what counts as intelligence, and engagement with Indigenous Studies scholarship to reach a genuine frontier, a metaparadigm shift beyond object-orientated scientific methods, a key component of what the Shorter calls “settler science.”