WHY do scientists search the universe for other intelligent life? Historian George Basalla argues their quest is fundamentally religious, citing histories from Johannes Kepler to Carl Sagan. Most modern astronomers wouldn鈥檛 admit it in so many words, but Basalla says their hope that aliens from older and wiser worlds might save us from war, pollution and disease is based more on blind faith than on science. He also argues that their searching strategy is fatally flawed because it assumes alien communications will make sense to human technology and human minds. Basalla鈥檚 analysis is fresh, thoughtful and well worth reading, but he falls into the same trap as Sagan by defining 鈥渋ntelligence鈥� in human terms. He should have pondered science-fictional visions of the truly alien, such as those of Stanislaw Lem. Not only do we not have a clue what is out there, we don鈥檛 even know what to look for.
Civilized Life in the Universe: 杏吧原创s on intelligent extraterrestrials
Oxford University Press
