In a “Battle of the Bobs,” Adam Keiper and the Ethics and Public Policy Center hosted a debate between Bob Park and Bob Zubrin. I didn’t think that we’d hear much in the way of new perspectives or new arguments from either of them, and I was largely right, as one can see from the transcript. Clark Lindsey thinks that Dr. Zubrin had the upper hand (see February 7th entry), and I agree. Dr. Park remains firmly in the “science uber alles” camp, which is an unuseful position to take when trying to determine what the nation’s space policy should be. Dr. Zubrin made several good points:

Here’s one that I’ve made before:

I wonder what Dr. Park would have said if he had lived about 50,000 years ago in Kenya, along with the rest of the human race, which lived in Kenya at that time, and received a proposal from someone who thought maybe humans should colonize Europe or Asia. “Those places are impossible to live there. It?s much too cold.” The — you know, if they had robotic probes, “our robotic probes show you could not survive a single winter night in Europe.”

Well, people were able to colonize Europe by technology: clothing, houses, fire. That?s why people can live where I live right now, Colorado, which no one could survive a single winter night in without such technology.

It is on the basis of our technological ingenuity that humans have left our native, our natural habitat, the Kenyan Rift Valley, and transformed ourselves into a global species with whatever, 150 nations, 100 languages, hundreds of literary traditions, traditions of heroic deeds to inspire the future, technological contributions, ideas on human social organization.

On Park’s irrational robophilia:

You mentioned Lewis and Clark. Okay, here we are, 200 years after Lewis and Clark. There is not a robot on this planet that you can send to the grocery store and pick up a bag of unbruised apples, let alone perform the Lewis and Clark expedition. So, if they can?t do a trip to the grocery store, how?s it going to explore a planet?

Now, I?m not putting down the robots. I think that it is excellent to do robotic missions. But, I completely contest the notion as fantastical that a robot explorer on the surface of a planet can duplicate what a human explorer can do.

And along the same lines, I loved this zinger at the end:

ADAM KEIPER: The man who believes in sending robots to space, you can get his book via machines at Amazon.com for $15. Fifteen dollars, Voodoo Science, Amazon.com. So, that?s great.

DR. ZUBRIN: Or just send a robot down to the bookstore to get it for you.