Albert ('"Al") Harrison (1940–2015), was a professor emeritus of psychology at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

whose research focused on how the discovery of

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...

would impact human society. Harrison argued that it would be “foolish and negligent” to fail to anticipate nativist and extremist reactions by humanity against extraterrestrial life in the formulation of post-detection policies and plans.Albert A. Harrison, “Rethinking our Place in the Universe: Exploring the Societal Implications of NASA’s Astrobiology Program,” Space Times, January–February 2002, 4–9, 6. Harrison also thought and wrote on the

potential cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact The cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion, politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial civilization. This concept is ...

, arguing that a highly advanced civilization might teach humanity such things as a physical theory of everything, how to use

zero-point energy Zero-point energy (ZPE) is the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system may have. Unlike in classical mechanics, quantum systems constantly Quantum fluctuation, fluctuate in their lowest energy state as described by the Heisen ...

, or how to travel

faster than light Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrison, Albert University of California, Davis faculty 20th-century American psychologists 1940 births 2015 deaths