In his email, Nick informed me of a new nonfiction book entitled The Eerie Silence by physicist/cosmologist Paul Davies. The U.S. edition, from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is subtitled Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence. But even more interesting, considering our own forthcoming anthology, is the subtitle of the UK edition (the specific edition that Nick mentioned), from Allen Lane Publishers: Are We Alone in the Universe?So I did a bit of searching, and found an article entitled "SETI at 50" on Failure Magazine that features a Paul Davies interview, in support of the publication of his new book. Since its inception, SETI has searched beyond Earth for radio signals, all to no avail. So Paul Davies -- director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, co-director of the Cosmology Initiative (both at Arizona State University), and chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup -- is suggesting that we attempt other means of detection and communication. Here's Davies' own words, from the interview:
...It's too soon to say it's a waste of time to carry on with traditional SETI. I think it's a great thing, but maybe after 50 years the public might be thinking, "Can we try something else?" And I think we should. We should think much more expansively about what a signature of intelligence might be. Forget messages, all we really want to know is: Is anyone out there? Their presence could be betrayed in a large number of ways....
...ET might use biological organisms as a means of sending information. Genomes are packed full of information. If you could get a message into a cell somehow it would just replicate and replicate. If you could do that in a way that doesn't compromise the biological functionality of the host then you've got something that could endure for millions and millions of years. So rather than sending radio messages, I would be in favor of, for example, dispatching viruses -- retroviruses -- that would insert DNA into any DNA-based organisms.... So why don't we search as many genomes as we can get our hands on, not just human -- just to see. It's a crazy idea, but then all of SETI is slightly crazy. I believe we should do what we can do easily and cheaply even if the chances of success are exceedingly small....
...If [SETI scientists] succeed, it will probably be the most momentous scientific discovery in history. So to allocate some small fraction of the world's resources to addressing such a very deep question is certainly justified. And even if SETI fails, it's very healthy that we address issues like: What is nature? What is humanity? What is our destiny? What do we mean by life? What do we mean by intelligence? What is our place in the universe? These are all good things to think about, even if we never pick up a signal.
