"Preternatural Pentadactyly in the Age of Planetary
Probes: Can We Explore
Mars Without Astronauts?"
Among the many questions raised in the aftermath of recent
frustrated
attempts to land an unmanned vehicle on the surface of
Mars, perhaps the
most obvious is whether having an astronaut aboard might
have changed the
outcome. Setting aside the whole list of present logistic
impediments to
sending a human on a roundtrip expedition to Mars, it
is worth asking what
the physiologically vulnerable human knows, and could
do on such a mission,
that a mechanically robust and maximally computerized
surrogate would not
know or could not do. Ironically, the answer may be found
in understanding
how, beginning nearly five million years ago, minor alterations
in the
anatomy of the hominid hand set the stage for the evolution
of a form of
intelligence whose most distinctive trait may be its
anticipation of the
unforeseeable.
Commercial: copies of The Hand are available in the GEWA bookstore