The sight of flying saucers over Britain, so science fiction would have us believe, would see panicking mobs in the streets.But it seems we may be far more worldly than writers, or over-protective governments, have ever given us credit for. Psychologist Dr Albert Harrison argues that people have become so used to the idea of alien life that they would be ‘unfazed’ if the proof appeared before their eyes. He said things have changed dramatically since 1961, when the U.S. Congress was warned evidence of extra-terrestrials would lead to widespread panic. In North America and Europe at least, neither the discovery of an alien nor the detection of alien radio signals were now likely to lead to ‘widespread psychological disintegration and collapse’, he concluded. Advances in our technology have brought civilisation to a point where the idea of other beings travelling through space to Earth no longer seems far-fetched or frightening,’ Dr Harrison argues in a special edition of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society devoted to aliens.(Daily Mail) ....Opinion: mission accomplished then! So 'the aliens' can walk among us because we've all been conditioned for their arrival and our acceptance of them.
Monday, 10 January 2011
ET! You don't scare us: How hi-tech age has left us unfazed by idea of alien life
The sight of flying saucers over Britain, so science fiction would have us believe, would see panicking mobs in the streets.But it seems we may be far more worldly than writers, or over-protective governments, have ever given us credit for. Psychologist Dr Albert Harrison argues that people have become so used to the idea of alien life that they would be ‘unfazed’ if the proof appeared before their eyes. He said things have changed dramatically since 1961, when the U.S. Congress was warned evidence of extra-terrestrials would lead to widespread panic. In North America and Europe at least, neither the discovery of an alien nor the detection of alien radio signals were now likely to lead to ‘widespread psychological disintegration and collapse’, he concluded. Advances in our technology have brought civilisation to a point where the idea of other beings travelling through space to Earth no longer seems far-fetched or frightening,’ Dr Harrison argues in a special edition of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society devoted to aliens.(Daily Mail) ....Opinion: mission accomplished then! So 'the aliens' can walk among us because we've all been conditioned for their arrival and our acceptance of them.
