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Lonely Planets
Grinspoon, though, never falls victim to the temptation to proclaim that intelligent aliens are a scientific certainty, nor does he ridicule those who come to a belief in aliens by a less-than-scientific route.
The book begins with a historical perspective, telling the old stories of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Lowell in fresh and surprising ways. This makes even these chapters recommended reading for experts as well as newcomers to astronomy. Grinspoon is not content to repeat the usual pieties about these scientific "saints." For instance, he reveals that Galileo did much to intentionally antagonize the pope in his writings about the solar system. He also discusses the more off-the-wall beliefs that many early luminaries of science have held. He explores the link between the end of the earth-centered view of the universe and the beginning of a centuries-long popular craze for the idea of planets around every sun, and intelligent beings on every planet.
The second section of the book deals with the science of suns, planets, moons, and the potential life in, on and around them. All of the popular candidates, including Mars, Europa, and Titan, are discussed in nonscientist-friendly detail. Unearthly life is a broad subject, and Grinspoon does not cover it with perfect evenness. His chapters on cosmology, the early Earth, chemical evolution, and the cambrian explosion are great stuff; but after a quality discussion of DNA, he builds up the idea that RNA most likely evolved first, with ever quite saying what RNA is or explaining its role in our cells today.
But this is a rare omission. The science in the book is sound, and the footnotes and asides consistently entertaining. No song reference or movie quote is left unquoted, always to good effect. Throughout, Grinspoon maintains an almost unheard-of humility, always careful to point out how much we simply don't know about life on Earth, let alone life elsewhere.
The third and final section of the book could never have been written by a less honest or more egotistical scientist. It may also help that he plays in a reggae band. Titled "Belief," part three begins with a discussion of the development and present state of SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, as nearly anyone with a screensaver knows. Grinspoon explores Fermi's paradox -- if they exist, why haven't they arrived on Earth, or at least said hello by radio? He doesn't duck the hard questions, and he brings us the human story of the SETI pioneers on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He acknowledges that the strong desire to believe in aliens is as something almost religious for many people, including scientists. And he gives the UFOlogists their due, taking a fascinating journey to the San Luis Valley of Colorado. If something really hasn't been adequately explained, he acknowledges that: "there are mysteries. Are we unfaithful to the church of Science if we admit that there are mysteries?" But he does point the finger at a few flimflam artists, and doesn't hide his disappointment with certain alien-visitation true believers who should probably know better.
Maybe the temptation to believe is not so hard to forgive. Where our knowledge is imperfect, our beliefs and hopes always become entwined. Grinspoon ends the book with a meditative chapter on "astrotheology," pulling together the threads of science and faith, exploring the moral implications of intelligent life elsewhere and sharing his own beliefs in the matter.
I recommend this book both for space buffs and for less "scientific," less skeptical readers on their gift lists. The book is worth reading for many reasons -- engaging writing, a friendly introduction to the science involved, eye-opening history, and a chance to learn a skilled planetologist's best guesses at what we may discover living or not living on, in or around Mars, Europa, and yes, Venus. Not since Sagan and Asimov passed away has there been a science writer with such a voice.
Will anyone hate this book? Maybe -- new agers, pot-haters, and supporters of the Bush administration could get their noses out of joint... but only if they read every footnote, and completely fail to take a joke. Most will be as entertained and informed as the rest of us.
You can purchase Lonely Planets from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Either we are truly alone in the universe. There are zero other 'intelligent' lifeforms out there. Anywhere. We are absolutely alone.
Or, there are others. If there are >0 other 'intelligent' lifeforms, then presumably there should be many others. And some of those will not be very friendly. Or even if not friendly, we might be so far below their notice as to be paved over for a new bypass, without them noticing. Does the bulldozer driver notice the anthill he just smoothed over?
You're in the planet business, which has a sample size of under a dozen. And most of those remain mysteries. It would be foolish to believe we know anything. Most conclusions have to be educated guesses. This guy seems to have a proper sense of a field that is still mostly mystery.
David Grinspoon: I agree that, given the time and energy constraints, any intelligent creatures would have to be nuts to attempt interstellar travel. But you would also have to be nuts to attempt to cross the ocean in a rowboat, and people have done that. Why do we need to go one-tenth the speed of light? What's the hurry? So what if travel times are thousands of years? From the perspective of an individual human life at this stage in our evolution, this seems like a long time. But will the galaxy never, ever, anywhere, produce a creature or cultural entity that doesn't find this span of time daunting? Even at these slow speeds, if someone decided to start spreading across the galaxy they would be able to spread across the whole Milky Way in a few hundred million years, tops, which is still short compared to the life of the galaxy.
(This was ripped straight from here for those who wish to read more.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
statistics don't dictate anything on this
all we know is intelligent life occurred once. there's no way to extrapolate from a sample group of 1
Life may be common throughout the universe. But I highly doubt there is another intelligent lifeform out there. And since the burden of proof lies with you let's see what you got.
Either intelligent life is so rare to be nearly impossible, or it's common seem to be the two default positions. Allow me to suggest a third: We have no idea how common intelligent life is Out There, as we lack ANY data whatsoever. So likelyhood is SHEER SPECULATION at this point. And getting the information to make a well-founded projection will require some significant interstellar capability on our part. . . .
Even the statement that LIFE is common has yet to be proven. . .
Have you ever calculated the actual odds of life?
No, and neither have you or anyone else. There are simply too many variables that we have no way to quantify. The simple answer is that we don't know, we have no way of knowing (now or in the reasonably near future), and any claims to the contrary are sheer speculation.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Lions do not prey on ants or cranes. Orangutans don't catch the rabbits that live in their enclosure with them at one of my local zoos. Why aren't they attacking each other? Which of those species is most "advanced"?
You don't know what you mean by that word, even as it applies to nature.
In nature, it seems that the strong always dominate the weak.
Not so. The natural world is way the heck more complex, and far more likely to result in peaceful coexistence or symbiotic relationships, than you're imagining. I notice the chickadees and nuthatches and wrens in my back yard aren't engaged in anything but a sort of indirect competition for the resources that they all need. I notice that some species of bird choose to "mob" birds of prey when it's mating season, whereas others do it all year round, and others don't at all. Which species is "stronger" than the others, please?
In this case, anyway, what you're saying amounts to a variation on social Darwinism, so let's take an example: Columbus landed in the new world, and one of the things his crew noticed immediately was that people lived much longer among the "Indians" than they did in Europe. Everyone was struck by all the elderly people around. So, which society was "more advanced"? Were the Europeans 'superior models' because they'd been exposed to diseases that American populations had never seen? (Does that make Africans superior to Europeans who never could truly colonize the malarial latitudes there?)
Life as a hierarchy of "advanced" and "less advanced" creatures is a misrepresentation of nature (and Darwinism), and applied to social interactions among intelligent beings, it's even more ridiculously oversimplified.
(In my book you'd be more justifiably nervous based on the way invasive, non-native species have devastated native populations. The equivalents of Chestnut Blight should keep you up at night, if you're really worried about aliens. Eurasian House Sparrows are much closer to the real worry - unintended and indirect consequences being far more likely than little green men with Napoleon complexes.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
If we were the size of ants our mouths would not be able to break the surface tension of water, and we would die. Hence many insects have sharp pointed mouths/beaks. If we were as big as a whale, the rate of increase in the mass of muscle vs bone would crush us. Hence whales live in the ocean where the water can support their weight.