Stephen Hawking Receives Copley Medal

smooth wombat writes "Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, has been awarded the Royal Society's 275th Copley medal for his contribution to cosmology and theoretical physics. Other notables to receive the award, established by Stephen Gray in 1731 'For his new Electrical Experiments', include Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur and Albert Einstein. In his remarks, Professor Hawking reiterated his previous comments that man must colonize other planets. The medal presented to Professor Hawking was sent into space onboard Space Shuttle Discovery and spent some time on the International Space Station in July of this year. Hawking has expressed an interest in going into space and commented, 'My next goal is to go into space, maybe Richard Branson will help me.'"

Re:Space Colonies: A Waste of Good Planets?

[drinkypoo]

Look around. Is this something you want to see done to every planet that can be made marginally habitable?

Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: Our view of the universe is human-centric. The only reason you even notice the pollution is because it's impacting you. Is it really better if the most versatile form of life we know of becomes extinct than polluting some planets? Anyway, every planet in our solar system is lifeless on any kind of meaningful scale, esp. Mars, the best candidate for terraforming as far as we know so far.

Meanwhile, we are probably very far from the point at which we can colonize planets in other systems, and I suspect that we WILL have either learned our lesson or destroyed ourselves before we get that far. Of course, little prevents a slide back into barbarism, either.

Why?

[Apraxhren]

I always hear this lecture about colonizing to preserve the human race. They bring up the usual asteroid destroying the earth and such, but I've never heard a reason for why the it is necessary to preserve humans. Last time I checked the universe does fine without our input.

Re:Space Colonies: A Waste of Good Planets?

[trongey]

...Longer answer: Our view of the universe is human-centric. The only reason you even notice the pollution is because it's impacting you. Is it really better if the most versatile form of life we know of becomes extinct than polluting some planets?

Pollution? That was here long before humans, and will still be here long after we're gone. How about urbanization, paving, mining, deforestation, irradiation, damming, habitat destruction, species exploitation. There's a long list of bad things we do to this planet that goes way beyond pollution.
Everything we do that is vaguely beneficial to another species is either accidental, or an attempt to repair damage we've already done.
I don't see how versatility imparts any special value to a species. If so then there are plenty of other species that can lay claim to that distinction - especially some of the microscopic ones that we put a lot of resources into destroying. Humans are certainly one of the most invasive members of the macrofauna, and we've demonstrated that we can inflict damage on a much broader scale than any other species.

Anyway, every planet in our solar system is lifeless on any kind of meaningful scale,...

So you ran out and checked them all, and developed a meaningful scale for measuring life? Sounds like the wrong guy got the medal.