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http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38985425
A newly unearthed essay by Winston Churchill reveals he was open to the possibility of life on other planets.
In 1939, the year World War Two broke out, Churchill penned a popular science article in which he mused about the likelihood of extra-terrestrial life.
The 11-page typed draft, probably intended for a newspaper, was updated in the 1950s but never published.
[...] More than 50 years before the discovery of exoplanets, he considered the likelihood that other stars would host planets, concluding that a large fraction of these distant worlds "will be the right size to keep on their surface water and possibly an atmosphere of some sort". He also surmised that some would be "at the proper distance from their parent sun to maintain a suitable temperature".
Churchill also outlined what scientists now describe as the "habitable" or "Goldilocks" zone - the narrow region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life.
[...] In an apparent reference to the troubling events unfolding in Europe, Churchill wrote: "I for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilisation here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time."
Also at Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/winston-churchill-s-essay-on-alien-life-found-1.21467
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @06:59PM
Sure, Winnie was a racist old bastard.
He was a product of the late victorian era, and as such was a man of his times. However, if you read his actual writings about his experiences, you can see that he was perceptive, open to the nature of the human condition, and quite capable of putting aside prejudices when they turned out to be wrong.
Sure, he was a hard drinker, a hard smoker, and in some cases wrong about important things (such as the gold standard) but he was also a very smart cookie, with an eye for the big picture.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 16 2017, @09:17PM
Sure, Winnie was a racist old bastard.
As you state he was a product of his time so he probably was not more racist then any other randomly picked person from his age. Winnie was more likely a quite normal person for his age. If you define Winnie as a racist old bastard then pretty much everyone that has ever been alive is a racist bastard, old or not. It's ludicrous to apply your current view towards someone in the past and then slam them for not being as "enlightened" as yourself. Personally I don't have an issue with Winnie and his views but that probably just means I'm a racist middle aged bastard going on old.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17 2017, @04:14PM
Today, the word "racist" has lost most of it's meaning. Before we can understand what you mean, you need to identify yourself as a Klansman, a Black Panther, a self-loathing white, a self-loathing black, an SJW, a socialist, a conservative, or whatever. Given some kind of context, we may understand what you mean to convey with such an accusation.