Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials

By George Basalla

Book Overview

This book is a selective and fascinating history of scientific speculation about intelligent extraterrestrial life. From Plutarch to Stephen Hawking, some of the most prominent western scientists have had quite detailed perceptions and misperceptions about alien civilizations: Johannes Kepler, fresh from transforming astronomy with his work on the shape of planetary orbits, was quite sure alien engineers on the moon were excavating circular pits to provide shelter; Christiaan Huygens, the most prominent physical scientist between Galileo and Newton, dismissed Kepler's speculations, but used the laws of probability to prove that "planetarians" on other worlds are much like humans, and had developed a sense of the visual arts; Carl Sagan sees clearly that Huygens is a biological chauvinist, but doesn't see as clearly that he, Sagan, may be a cultural/technological chauvinist when he assumes aliens have highly developed technology like ours, but better.
Basalla traces the influence of one speculation on the next, showing an unbroken but twisting chain of ideas passed from one scientist to the next, and from science to popular culture. He even traces the influence of popular culture on science--Sagan always admitted how much E. R. Burroughs' Martian novels influenced his speculations about Mars. Throughout, Basalla weaves his theme that scientific belief in and search for extraterrestrial civilizations is a complex impulse, part secularized-religious, and part anthropomorphic. He questions the common modern scientific reasoning that life converges on intelligence, and intelligence converges on one science valid everywhere. He ends the book by agreeing with Stephen Hawking (usually a safe bet) that intelligence is overrated for survival in the universe, and that we are most likely alone.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195171810
• ISBN13: 9780195171815
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.0" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Big question

Skeptics? Believer? That is the question. And the question is answered in this book. Science versus Ufology. Science versu aliens. Ufology and your beliefs. All are here in this book. S. Mahdi, Cairo, Egypt

Learn why E.T. isn't going to phone us

Basalla has produced an absolutely fantastic overview of the history of speculation about life on other worlds and the scientific quest to communicate with intelligent aliens. He manages to top himself by collecting a series of devastating arguments that reveal the anthropomorphism that has always tainted, and continues to taint, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. (Aliens are trying to reach us with radio telescope technology? Really? Why, what a convenient coincidence-that's same technology we're using to try to talk to them!) In a scant 200 pages, Basalla manages to place the search for E.T. in unvarnished perspective as the quasi-theological longing it is. This book should be required reading for all SETI buffs.