(3 of 3)
As a natural historian at heart, however, I confess my strong preference for the second path of exploration: a search for possible natural occurrences elsewhere. This Columbian path has served us so well before, and nature's products do tend to outshine our own poor workmanship by manifesting things undreamed of in all our philosophy. So let us seek nature's own replicate--on Mars or a few other potential places in our solar system, if we really luck out (and are willing to content ourselves with simple things at bacterial grade and unfit for mutual conversation); or elsewhere, despite daunting distances (beyond any possibility for two-way conversation during human lifetimes) but promising--in the most exciting and improbable long shot in all human history--a potential insight soaring well beyond our meager powers of imagination.
Stephen Jay Gould is a professor at Harvard and New York University and author of numerous books, including Rocks of Ages