It's not really pseudo-science, but it might be junk science. In the sense of predicting the behavior of alien lifeforms, I'd say it's a valid quasi-science.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Well, for long-distance space travel in our current (biological) shape,
those challenges would always be partly determined by our evolutionary legacy
(regardless of how much 'nurture' you add to 'nature').

So we pretty much know, or can imagine, most of those challenges:
- anxiety due to extreme isolation
- boredom, claustrophobia...
- purposelessness (if you know your generation will not even see the destination)
- and not to mention love dramas, power struggles, generational conflicts, etc. (all enhanced by the confinement stress)

I would expect any long-distance space-faring civilization
to have transcended their evolutionary legacy
- or else expect a bunch of psychopaths after generations of confinement to their ship

Assuming they started out being like us, they'd be different on arrival, sure. But boredom and porposelessness would be easily handled by having them experiment during the trip. They'd arrive more knowledgeable than when they left. As for not arriving until your granschildren are grandparents, well, humans have always made sacrifices for their descendants. Expecting everything to happen to you or in your lifetime is a modern Western view, many other cultures have different philosophies.

Likewise, the concept of "confinement stress". Remember, up until the Indudtrial Age the majority of people on Earth never went more than a half-day's travel from where they were born.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

You are probably thinking of a very big ship, then

Do you seriously think an alien society could become complex enough to be of interest without having the same enormous variation from biological 'norms' you see in human society?

In my view, free will almost always overrides simplistic genetic behavioural models. So pigeonholing people (or even aliens) based on their biological nature makes me uncomfortable.

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"I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive." - Carl Sagan, 1995

That free Will doesn't do much good for a Lot Of Human Behavior I witness daily.

I guess everyone has the free will to act like an idiot.

My point is that I don't know enough to rule it out.

Humans are generalists with a knack for specialization. Jacks of all trades but masters of none, so to speak. I don't think it's out of the realm of probability that there could be races that use a biological caste system. Starship Troopers and The Mote in God's Eye both examine this idea without requiring a hive-mind.

We should not forget that even if it's biological, that doesn't mean its behavior is set in stone. Cyclical and other transient or permanent biological changes in an alien might make its behavior highly variable, overwhelming the self-programmability, making it still more driven by its biology compared to humans.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Damburger, I was thinking about the post I made earlier(As well as a great many of the questionable posts I have made today ) and it occurs to me that what I said may need some clarification.

I agree that we have the ability to learn. To self access. To make choices.
I believe this is a power we have that must be exercised to its fullest potential.


Trouble is... few people actually do it.

I think about it constantly and I rarely do it. OR if I do it I don't always get it right either.

Speaking of humans only, certainly we can't talk about simplistic genetic behavioral models. However, biology does set parameters for our behavior. For example, while cultures have different views on various issues related to sex, it is part of all cultures. On the other hand, an intelligent asexual species simply wouldn't have the same concepts. For that matter, from examples on earth, most other species, if intelligent, would likely approach this subject quite differently than humans. Biological behavior influence in all species on this planet is a given, and I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect that alien species would also have biological behavior influence. That isn't the same thing as assuming there can be no learning at all, or variation of behavior ("pigeonholing").

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Neverfly, people do think. It's hip in science circles these days to be cynical about it when people choose positions that are clearly and demonstrably incorrect, but it's because they have concluded themselves into a corner. There are so many places for thinking to be flawed: incorrect data, observational bias, context, simple misunderstanding and downright irrationality. We think that education would fix this, and it does when specifically applied, but in general, education makes it worse. The only thing worse than someone who knows nothing is someone who knows a little and therefore assumes they know more. After all, most pseudo-science comes from real theoretical science that later turned out to be wrong, and some people simply didn't get the memo.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant at ya. I was just thinking about the difference between pseudo-science and quasi-science that I wrote above. Social Darwinism and biological determinism as applied to humans is considered a pseudo-science, since the stipulations don't tend to match observations. However, we can't rule it out as a physical concept in general, so it may turn out to be possible in another form of biology, which makes the general discussion a quasi-science. I think.

Anyways, I think that consciousness is the struggle between biological programming and self-programability. We're not one or the other, we're both.

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"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau

Can't think of a better way to sum it up!

Do you think a small one would survive the trip? It'd be a question of whether they'd run out of resources or genetic diversity first. Basically, a generation ship has to be a mobile civilization.


Hear, hear. Tastes great, and less filling!

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I totally and completely agree with everything you just said, so no worries about a rant

I need to keep my eye on you.

We seem to misunderstand eachother on occasion, and I know I'm no English major.
I think I occasionally misrepresent myself.