The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence |  | Author: Paul Davies
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Category: Book
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 44526
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 241
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Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0547133243
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.839
EAN: 9780547133249
ASIN: 0547133243
Publication Date: April 13, 2010
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Product Description
Are we alone in the universe? This is surely one of the biggest questions of human existence, yet it remains frustratingly unanswered. In this provocative book, one of the world's leading scientists explains why the search for intelligent life beyond Earth should be expanded, and how it can be done. Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). After a half-century of scanning the skies, however, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence--eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. Could it be, wonders physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, that we've been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way? Davies has been closely involved with SETI for three decades, and chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we're suddenly confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. He believes the search so far has fallen into an anthropocentric trap--assuming that an alien species will look, think, and behave much like us. In this mind-expanding book he refocuses the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if it does. The Eerie Silence provides a penetrating assessment of the evidence, past and present, and an exciting new road map for the future.
A Q&A with Paul Davies, Author of The Eerie Silence
 Q: Why is the search for aliens so popular right now? A: SETI is 50 years old this year. It was in 1960 that the astronomer Frank Drake (to whom I dedicate the book) took up the challenge and started sweeping the skies with a radio telescope in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Whether the anniversary is the trigger, or whether it is simply that the study of extraterrestrial life is an idea whose time has come, the last few months have witnessed a surge of media and scientific interest, in astrobiology in general, and SETI in particular. For example, I am involved in at least five separate television series on ET. I have also attended SETI meetings in The Vatican, at Britain's premier scientific academy, The Royal Society, and at more than one major NASA congress. Gone are the days when scientists pooh-poohed the whole idea. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, so that many scientists and commentators are overly credulous about the prospect for intelligent aliens. Statements like "the galaxy is teeming with life, and intelligent life must surely have arisen somewhere" routinely trip off the tongue of many a scientific spokesman, without the slightest hard scientific evidence in favor of it. I hope they are right, but there are important issues that get glossed over--issues that I engage in the book. I have written both a celebration and a critique of SETI. The title gives away the principal result: so far, so bad. Not a whisper of an alien message has been received (although there are some intriguing mystery signals). But the word "eerie" is a teaser, because I for one don't accept no as an answer. Nor do the SETI folk at the sharp end of the research--the astronomers who patiently sit at the controls of the radio telescopes with the champagne waiting on ice. They argue that they have searched only a tiny fraction of target stars so far, and they look forward to a spanking new system called the Allen Telescope Array that will greatly expand their reach. Nevertheless, traditional radio SETI is a needle-in-a-haystack search with no guarantee that a needle even exists. Q: What's wrong with existing SETI? A: A fundamental flaw lies at the core of most existing SETI strategies. Carl Sagan popularized the appealing idea that an altruistic alien community might be obligingly beaming radio messages at us, perhaps carefully crafted to give mankind a welcome technological and sociological fillip. But that scenario will no longer wash. Even SETI optimists concede that a radio-savvy civilization within a few hundred light years is extremely unlikely (and systematic searches have spotted nothing). Suppose there is an alien community 1,000 light years away. That is still in our galactic neighborhood--the Milky Way is some 100,000 light years across. The aliens belonging to this putative community cannot know of our existence--they cannot know that Earth has radio technology and the means to detect their signals. The reason concerns the finite speed of light. At 1,000 light years away, the aliens see Earth today as it was 1,000 years ago. Because nothing can go faster than light (it is a basic law of physics), there is no way they can know about the industrial revolution and terrestrial radio telescopes. So why would they have started beaming messages to us 1,000 years ago, when their view of Earth at that time would have been the year A.D. 10? They might detect signs of agriculture and large scale building (such as the pyramids), and they may of course surmise that some millennium soon humans would develop radio technology. But it would make no sense for them to start transmitting powerful and expensive radio messages at us until they know we are on the air. When will that be? In about 900 years time, when our first feeble radio transmissions, leaking into space at the speed of light, finally reach them. I do not oppose traditional SETI. The astronomers are doing a great job, and they have refined their techniques splendidly. The Allen Telescope Array currently under construction will help a lot. They have my full backing. But their methodology is well adapted to searching for narrow-band (sharp frequency) continuous signals. They stick to this because they have built up a lot of expertise in that area and that is what their financial backers are paying them to do. Their systems are less well adapted, however, to what I regard as the more promising approach to radio SETI, which is to look for beacons, for example, towards the center of the galaxy, where the oldest and wealthiest civilizations are likely to be located. The problem about detecting a beacon is that it would show up as just "something that went bleep in the night," and may not recur for months or even years. You'd have to stare at the same patch of sky for a very long time. SETI is not geared to that kind of observation and is not funded to do it. But the huge advantage of beacons as opposed to directed narrow-band signals is that the beacon-builders need have no knowledge of our existence. A beacon is made for general consumption, and serves only as a beckoning signal; it is not a message deliberately aimed at us. So the chances of finding a beacon are much higher. Q: How can we do better? A: My book advocates a massive expansion in SETI, not by doing more of the same (though that is good too) but by shifting the focus toward the search for general signatures of intelligence. All technology leaves a footprint; for example, human technology is producing global warming. Alien technology might leave a bigger footprint, with telltale signs. However, these signs might be very subtle and require our best scientific analysis to detect. Discovery in science favors the prepared mind, so this book is a wake-up call to all scientists to start thinking about how a signature of alien technology might impact on their field of research. I'm also hinting that a signature of alien technology might already lurk in an unexplored database in fields as diverse as astrophysics, geology and microbiology. One thing I decided to do in the book was to tackle the thorny issue of alien visitation--what the physicist Enrico Fermi alluded to in his famous "Where is everybody?" quip six decades ago. However--and this is crucial--I want to draw a big distinction between stories of ET visiting Earth in historical times, abducting people, re-engineering humans, being drawn on cave walls and so on, and what I regard as legitimate speculation, namely, that some time in its four billion plus year history, the solar system may have been visited or passed through by an expedition or colonization wave. It need not have been alien beings in the flesh, but their robotic surrogates. Anyway, the point is that the time scale is vast--they could have come at any time in 4.5 billion years! Let's be optimistic and suppose it happened a mere 100 million years ago. Would we know? Would any traces of alien technology survive for 100 million years? Not the plastic cups and rocket parts, I think. It turns out that there are some possibilities, though. Nuclear waste is one, genomic detritus is another. We could look for these things. It wouldn’t cost much, and who knows what we might find? Q: Are there any new scientific ideas unveiled in this book? A: Yes! SETI is predicated on the belief that life arises quickly and easily on earthlike planets, an idea sometimes called the cosmic imperative (after Christian de Duve, the biologist who coined the term). Astronomers think there are billions of earthlike planets in our galaxy alone, so if the cosmic imperative is correct, there is a good chance of finding intelligent aliens out there. But how do we know the likelihood that life will arise quickly and easily? Suppose life is a freak phenomenon, the outcome of an incredibly unlikely chemical fluke, unique in the observable universe? Then we will indeed be alone. That view was the prevailing opinion when SETI began 50 years ago, and is still widely held by biologists. One way to test the all-important cosmic imperative idea is to look for a second sample of life on Earth. If life does form readily in earthlike conditions then perhaps its started many times right here on our home planet. Amazingly, nobody has thought to look until recently. I've been developing a research theme at Arizona State University evocatively called the shadow biosphere. That's not my term--it was introduced by Shelly Copley and Carol Cleland at the University of Colorado. Basically, we are devising strategies to find life on Earth, but not as we know it. Looking for a radically different form of life is restricted to microbes, and it consists of making guesses for how life might be done differently, and then looking to see whether it's out there in the environment. We have a lot of ideas, and I'm happy to say that some of them are being funded. If we find that there are two forms of life on Earth (more would be better), then we can be pretty certain that life will pop up on most earthlike planets around the universe. It would be too much of a stretch for it to have formed more than once on one earthlike planet but never on all the others. Q: Do you dismiss all the UFO stories? A: I am not casually dismissive of the UFO stories. Most reports are not made by crackpots or liars, but by people who have had a genuinely puzzling or frightening experience. I have studied the subject very closely over many years. My conclusion is that although the experiences are real enough (in the minds of the witnesses at least), they have nothing to do with alien intelligence. There is no reason that aliens should be visiting Earth now, as opposed to at any other time over the last few billion years, and none of the stories I hear about today differ much from those I personally investigated 40 years ago. Ufology is stuck in a rut too! Q: What is the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup? A: It was set up by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and I am the current chair. It consists of about 20 journalists and scientists, two lawyers and a priest. Our job is to reflect on the implications for society as a whole should we suddenly obtain incontrovertible evidence that we are not alone. Obviously our deliberations are highly hypothetical. Also, we have no teeth--we are an advisory body only. Nevertheless, it makes sense to think through some of the issues ahead of time, so humanity is not caught on the hop. The sort of things we worry about is how to ensure that the scientists who make the discovery can retain control over events for long enough for its significance to be properly evaluated, how we can prevent half-baked attempts by individuals to get in on the act, or even to start transmitting self-styled messages off their own bat, which organizations should be informed and in what order. I like to tell people at those proverbial dinner parties that if ET calls on my watch, I should be among the first to know! (Photo © Dave Tevis/Tevis Photographic)
Product Description
Fifty years ago, Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). But astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. Could it be, wonders physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in the wrong way? Closely involved with SETI for three decades, Davies now chairs the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup, charged with deciding what to do if we’re confronted with evidence of alien intelligence. He believes the search so far has fallen into an anthropocentric trap—assuming an alien species will look, think, and behave like us. In this mind-expanding and provocative book, he refocuses the search, challenging existing ideas of what form an alien intelligence might take, how it might try to communicate with us, and how we should respond if it does.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
 Alone at last?? March 4, 2010
wogan (U.S.A.)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is such an excellent book that delves into explanations of what SETI is (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and the scientific philosophies and methods used to reveal the mystery of the question... is there other life in the universe?
Is it possible they would use something other than radio signals? How does SETI decide the frequency to search for and what about lasers as communication. He includes discussions on the effect that the first alien message would have on religion and the SETI Post Detection Task group and how it will deal with the first contact.
Points are made; who knows what focus technology and life will be on earth in 2090 when return messages would even be received.
If nothing else there are an abundance of quotes such as; regarding the idea that life could have arisen spontaneously "it is easier to believe that a whirlwind passing through a junkyard would assemble a 747" or "sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us".
Davies does a commendable job on simplifying for those of us that are not scientists, but he never `talks down`. He fills his chapters with fascinating points and ideas that are understandable. Questions that you might have had, if you have ever pondered life and the universe are answered in simple enough language that most anyone can comprehend.
The question is still out there...Is anybody there?; but the best summing up is that of Arthur Clarke; "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering".
Read this book to understand both sides of this query, it's an imponderable mystery that Paul Davies does a marvelous job in illuminating.
Where are they? March 18, 2010
Mike Birman (Brooklyn, New York USA)
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
More than 50 years ago the great Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi - in response to an outbreak of UFO and Flying Saucer sightings - offered a famous reply: If the Universe is teeming with alien life, where are they? The eerie silence that fills the universe is very strange if intelligent aliens are out there. We have no hard evidence that intelligent life or even life of any kind exists out among the stars. But the search continues. Over the past 15 years more than 300 extra-solar planets have been discovered, mostly giants that are the easiest to find using the most common method of discovery. But we are closing in on the holy grail of discovering an Earth-like world, perhaps with an oxygen atmosphere and substantial water vapor, indicators of possible life. Such a discovery would be a profound step, at least raising the possibility of the existence of the conditions for life, if not life itself. And the SETI program continues its radio search for alien intelligence, a method Davies thinks is woefully misguided.
Davies discusses the reasons why all current methods of searching the cosmos are unlikely to succeed. The techniques we've used are deeply anthropocentric with little likelihood of uncovering advanced societies many millennium removed from something as antiquated as radio waves. In fact he points out that following a peak output in the 70s and 80s Earth is no longer sending radio and television waves out into the cosmos, our terrestrial broadcasts that used to leak out into space having now been supplanted by cable and fiber optics. If we've outgrown radio shouldn't a society a million years more advanced than us? The answer is obvious. Along with a change in search methods Davies also recommends a change in the human psyche. There are many reasons why an alien species might find us to be the dangerous life form. If we learn that we are alone in the cosmos then that is a stunning reality. If we learn that the universe is filled with galactic civilizations then that too is a monumental discovery. In the end Davies is not sanguine about the possibility of alien intelligence or even of simple life forms. The contingencies that surround the evolution of life on Earth are just so unlikely. But the search must continue, Davies suggests, because we just don't know.
I finished this fine book feeling strangely unnerved. What if we ARE alone? Highly evolved primates with brains we don't use frequently enough. And what if the emergence of life on a single small planet truly was - and Davies uses the "M" word - miraculous. A result of a series of random contingencies that couldn't be repeated in the lifetime of our universe. Here we sit on a frail planet: stuck with no way off waiting for the comet/asteroid with our name on it so that we can go the way of the dinosaur. The only life in the universe flickering like a candle.
This is a superb book that brings us up-to-date in an easy and relaxed manner. There are few scientific difficulties to grapple with and the book is designed for the general reader. The issues involved are the most profound for the human species. If you are at all interested in the topic this is a splendid introduction.
SETI and Science - Words and Revelations July 1, 2010
Tyler Kokjohn (Phoenix, AZ United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1IL7VNONR82KL A book conveying far more than one message.
SETI and beyond March 18, 2010
Jessica Weissman (Silver Spring, MD USA)
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
In The Eerie Silence, Paul Davies considers both the arguments for and against the existence of life on other planets, and how the SETI project might be improved to do a better job of looking for it.
In a nutshell, either the existence of life on Earth is so extremely unlikely that there are no other minds in the universe to contact, or the existence of life on Earth is the result of conditions repeated many times throughout the universe. In the first case, we're wasting our time trying to contact others, but in the second case, why haven't they contacted us?
Davies does an excellent job of thinking through both alternatives, framing the discussion in terms very accessible to lay readers. He discusses estimates of how many planets there might be that could support life as we know it (and briefly considers other possible bases for life such as silicon). He discusses many reasons why, if life has arisen many times, alien intelligences have not contacted us. A very interesting discussion, bringing up points I had not heard before such as that life on Earth may have arisen later in the viability window of the planet than in other places, meaning that those civilizations might have come and gone before we were there to be found. And he debunks the idea that old I Love Lucy shows are traveling through the universe betraying our presence to aliens.
Even more interestingly, Davies talks about what the existence of extraterrestrial life might mean to us. Should we be scared? Should we expect to be conquered, or to be given technological gifts, or to be ignored as juvenile irrelevancies?
And what about religions? Will the uniqueness of the Incarnation be challenged? Will we discover that an equivalent to Jesus's life on earth and death on earth happened on many planets? What if the extraterrestrials never experienced the equivalent of the Fall? Davies manages to raise this question without blasphemy, which is a virtue in itself.
Davies also discusses why the standard SETI search and those plaques sent out with Voyager may not put us in contact with actual aliens. Their perceptions may be different, they may not create signals in a form we can detect, and so on. All good points, carefully explained.
Finally, Davies gives us his verdict. In fact, touchingly, he gives us several verdicts. Paul Davies the scientist, Paul Davies the journalist, and Paul Davies the individual person all get to weigh in. While some might find this to be more dithering than decision, I thought it was just right.
So, should you read this book? If you have any interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or if you enjoy a good discussion of the implications of ideas, or if you want to learn more about recent research in geology, astronomy, and related disciplines, certainly. It's a good read, with complex interesting ideas expressed clearly.
Heavy, but still held my interest May 11, 2010
Ashley L. Sheppard (Philadelphia, PA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Eerie Silence looks like a small book, but it's not light reading. It is packed with information and extensive in the topics it explores. Despite this, it was entertaining throughout. The ideas it covered were very interesting. Some parts I was familiar with, but others were new to me, so I did learn some things.
I thought the book was well written; it is hard for a book like this to hold the reader's interest, but this book doesn't have that problem. I've been interested in the universe, life, extraterrestrials, etc. for some time, so it's not surprising that I really enjoyed the book. However, I would recommend this to almost anyone because I think that the subjects discussed have broad appeal. A few of the chapters even sparked some really engaging discussions with my friends.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 28
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