Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?

by Ben Zuckerman (Editor), Michael H. Hart (Editor)

Is it possible that extraterrestrial life forms exist within our Galaxy, the Milky Way? This book offers a critical analysis by leading experts in a range of sciences, of the plausibility that other intelligent lifeforms do exist. Exploration of the Solar System, and observations with telescopes that probe deep space, have come up empty handed in searches for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Many experts in the fields of astronomy, biology, chemistry and physics are now arguing that the evidence points to the conclusion that technological civilisations are rare. After ten billion years, and among hundreds of billions of stars, we may well possess the most advanced brains in the Milky Way Galaxy. This second edition contains many new and updated aspects of extraterrestrial research, especially the biological viewpoint of the question.

Genres: Science

252 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 1995

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is a shout-out to my old UCLA Prof. Ben Zuckerman, who had the vision and the balls to question the reigning orthodoxy on the existence of extraterrestrial life put forth by Carl Sagan and SETI. The title of course refers to Fermi's Paradox: If the universe is teeming with extraterrestrial life, Enrico Fermi asked rhetorically, then where are they? Dr. Ben, Astronomist, answers that they aren't there at all. He embraces the Rare Earth thesis. The conditions that allowed for life to arise on earth were unique, never mind intelligent life with a technical capacity, that the chances of finding them anywhere else in the universe are next to none. Prof. Ben once told me, "I'll be playing harp with the angels before we ever encounter ETs".

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The classical and largely skeptical SETI volume, revised

They aren't here, that's for sure—are is it? Nothing is sure in this wide-ranging collection of essays. Opinion seems fairly evenly divided: about half say we are probably alone in the galaxy, and the other half say we probably have intelligent neighbors. Clear to me is that extraterrestrial life is very, very likely, since life itself is probably—as several of the writers in this volume assert—an emergent property of matter and energy. "Intelligent" or communicating extraterrestrial life is another matter. The guess here is that it is much less common.

Jared Diamond, who writes one of the essays, makes the point that intelligence, as we define it, has evolved here on earth only once, and so the argument from convergent evolution, sometimes advanced to support there being intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy, is not convincing. Diamond gives the example of the woodpecker that did not evolve in Australia, nor did any other bird converge sufficiently to assume the woodpecker's niche there.

The damnable thing about the arguments both for and against intelligent extraterrestrial life is they are all based on assumptions: if your assumptions differ, your conclusions almost certainly will.

Another problem is defining "intelligent" life, or even life itself, for that matter. One of the writers defines life in terms of matter that goes through a Darwinian evolution, which I guess is the way life is defined these days: seems strangely narrow, but maybe not. The amazing truth about intelligent life is we may be looking right at it and not recognize it!

This is an excellent (although uneven) book that I read at varying degrees of attention: some of it is highly technical, and some is popular. It's a revision of the 1982 edition. The title refers to the quote from Fermi, whose famous opinion about extraterrestrial intelligent life was summed up in the skeptical phrase: "Where are they?" What he meant was, if they existed they'd be here by now. This book addresses that argument, mostly in agreement with Fermi. One authority estimates that humanoid-like beings would have explored the entire galaxy in 60 million years. My question (and the question of others) is WHY would they? Further I suspect that ETI may not share our psychology, and have no desire to explore at all. Or may have no need to explore, or may have explored so long ago there is no trace...etc. One author comes close to the old idea that the stars themselves are "alive" by postulating life forms that live within the stars as "plasmobes." He even sees possible life on neutron stars.

My bottom line belief is that intelligent life evolves into something that we can't recognize as being alive (and, paradoxically, maybe it isn't). It may be that life is just a primitive step on the way to Becoming; that our consciousness is just a trick of the evolutionary mechanism, and that it is information itself that is alive, and that "real" "intelligence" in the universe is something beyond our kin and beyond our ability to comprehend in the slightest, just as our day-to-day concerns are beyond the comprehension of a bacterium.
Anyway, this is a classic in the literature and shouldn’t be missed.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 1 out of 5]

90% of this book is astrophysics equations which may as well be Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Thus it took just a few days to go through it.
A collection of lectures from a "Where Ae They" conference which I'm glad I didn't attend>
The lecture about interstellar travel requirements was very good and I think I learned a few things.
Anyway unless you need help falling asleep you can pass on this.

[Dan Zarfati · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, this book is the compendium of the skeptic thinking on UFOs and ETs at large at its best or at its worst. This book is a collection of essays, some of them rather interesting, but almost all of them with the whole Mainstream science views and ideology, very unfriendly towards hypothesis and free-thinking, the whole content points towards limitations and impossibilities and tries to put the reader "inside the box".
Many of the positions adopted by the writers are arrogant and unscientific, if any scientist wants to speak about UFOs it is required to have at least some knowledge of the literature, but this is not the case, we only perceive a complete dismissal of the data presented, even this data been already significantly high and collected by reputable people and studies by scientists (such as GEPAN) has pointed towards the artificiality of the phenomena.
The book is more scientific when it does explain the mainstream paradigm for life in the universe, still, the book rarely takes into consideration the panspermia point of view or the colonization point of view, and keeps banging on the mantra that our science is the ultimate answer to the secrets of the universe, ironically many of their positions look absolutely ossified today, and quasi obsolete. It is astonishing not to conceive that other civilizations may have a form of travel that is more efficient than ours, and also not take into consideration that ET may use stealth and disinformation in dealing with us, because they are not altruistic and look at themselves first, why wouldn't them?

[Boštjan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a razor-sharp anthology tackling the Fermi Paradox head-on with rigorous and no-nonsense science.
Many prominent scientists in the field of SETI are featured, such as dr.Frank Drake, dr.Jill Tarter.
The book dissects many angles on why we haven't heard let alone met aliens yet, discussing stellar evolution and all other aspects of the famous Drake Equation.

The book is for those who are genuinely interested in science and not for UFO fans.
So, this is the "catnip" for anyone who enjoyed dr.Sagan's Cosmos and wanted to dive into the field of SETI. It can be a humbling experience to read this book.