| Personal background |
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Lee Hester (Thurman Lee Hester Jr.) is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, born and raised in Oklahoma. He is active in the Indian community of central Oklahoma and has served as a Chairman of the Board and Cultural Committee Chairman of the OK Choctaw Tribal Alliance. In the national Indian community, he has served on the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on American Indians in Philosophy, as a member of the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas and is in his third term on the national caucus of the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. In addition to his work in the Indian community, he was one of the founding board members of the Oklahoma Association for Health Care Ethics.
A philosophy Ph.D., Lee has taught Indigenous Philosophy and Native American Law and Policy at universities in Canada and the United States. While in Canada, he collaborated with Dennis McPherson to create Ayaangwaamizin: The International Journal of Indigenous Philosophy which they continue to co-edit. His academic publications include the book Political Principles and Indian Sovereignty and articles on Indian epistemology, language and environmental ethics. He has been interested in the environment from his earliest youth when he won a Presidential Award of Excellence for Environmental Protection Services from President Nixon.
Dr. Hester currently holds the position of Director of American Indian Studies at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma and is also the Director of the Howard Meredith Indian Humanities Center.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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The search for extraterrestrial intelligence carries both the ultimate in possibilities and the ultimate in responsibilities.
Thoughout human history "discoverors" have turned their discoveries into empires, whether of commerce, knowledge or lands. Oftentimes these empires have been built on the backs of indigenous peoples.
If we discover extraterrestrial intelligences, will we exploit them? Will we conquer them for their "own good" as the Americans did to the Indians?
I started the Indigenous Peoples SETI group to help ensure that E.T.'s planets remain theirs. |
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