Xenology


Xenology is the scientific study of extraterrestrial life. Derived from the Greek xenos, which as a substantive has the meaning "stranger, wanderer, refugee" and as an adjective "foreign, alien, strange, unusual."

Uses

In science fiction

It is used to denote a hypothetical science whose object of study would be extraterrestrial societies developed by alien lifeforms. In science fiction criticism and studies the term has been advocated by writers such as David Brin as an analogue of ethnology. By extension the term may also refer to the fictional creation of "alternative humankinds".
Instances in which Xenology was referred to in a work of Science Fiction include the Brothers Strugatsky's 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. In section three of which one of the character's, a Nobel laureate by the name of Valentine Pillman, explains Xenology as "an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. At its core is a flawed assumption—that an alien race would be psychologically human."

In cultural studies

The term xenology was employed by German Indologist Wilhelm Halbfass in his Indien und Europa, Perspektiven ihrer geistigen Begegnung to denote the study of the ethnocentric views held by societies with regard to different classes of foreigner, in other words the positive or negative ways in which a given culture defines those outside or alien to it. Xenology is thus the study of the various modalities whereby self and otherness are defined "within a historically complex collision of cultures".

In science

As yet, no extraterrestrial life has been identified. Robert A. Freitas Jr. self-published a book on the subject, Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization. Freitas argued for the primacy of the term in the context of extraterrestrial life in a 1983 letter to the journal Nature.